Recently, we have heard powerful bankers and politicians express their desire to ban Bitcoin.

The idea that the US government is going to ban Bitcoin is popular for good reason.

Bitcoin threatens an important source of government power – the power to create fake money out of thin air and force everyone to use it.

This is because Bitcoin can give monetary sovereignty to the individual and make central banks and their confetti currencies obsolete.

This is not an easy task.

This is a historic development that profoundly modifies the status quo between leaders and those led. It is comparable to the invention of gunpowder, the printing press and the Internet.

There is no doubt that the US government would like to protect its racket from an encroaching monetary competitor, the same way the Mafia does when a rival encroaches on its territory.

The $64 question is whether they will succeed.

Friedrich Hayek, the great Austrian free market economist, once said:

"I don't believe we'll have good currency again until we get the thing out of the hands of the government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of the government, all we can to do is to introduce by a roundabout and sneaky means something which they cannot stop.

Hayek is right.

By nature, governments never relinquish power peacefully. And while taking power away from them by force is out of the question, the only way to do that is to introduce, through a back door, something they can't stop.

Is Bitcoin this solution?

Many people think the answer is “no” because the government will stop it.

Can anyone stop Bitcoin?

Bitcoin has no central authority or single point of failure.

It operates on a decentralized, voluntary and rapidly expanding global network of more than 17 computers in nearly 300 countries.

Any desktop computer, laptop, Raspberry Pi – and even some cell phones – have the ability to run the entire Bitcoin software. Additionally, as technology advances, Bitcoin execution will become even more widespread.

Many of these computers are cleverly hidden by Tor, which stands for "The Onion Router." This router encrypts your internet traffic and disguises it by passing it through a series of computers around the world to obfuscate your IP address and physical location.

Regardless, with Bitcoin, there is no central location for a SWAT team to raid. There is no CEO to stop. The best governments can do is play an endless game of global whack-a-mole.

Even if the United States and Russia engaged in all-out nuclear war, destroying most of the northern hemisphere, Bitcoin would not lose a beat in the southern hemisphere.

To have any chance of stopping Bitcoin, all governments in the world would have to manage to coordinate simultaneously to shut down the entire Internet everywhere and keep it down forever.

Even in this unlikely scenario, the Bitcoin network can be communicated through radio signals and mesh networks. At the same time, small portable solar panels can power network computers when the power grid is unavailable.

In addition, a network of satellites constantly transmits the Bitcoin network to Earth.

In short, all aspects of Bitcoin are truly decentralized and robust.

Unless there is an inevitable return to the Stone Age, Bitcoin seems unstoppable.

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