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This is a great piece and i concur that these large miners pose a risk to the BTC ecosystem especially once they start flirting with the ESG stuff. Mining pools are also another target, what would be the best way to decentralize mining? Given the high cost of the mining hardware itself

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Steve, thank you for this well thought out and written article. I agree that your instincts about regulation are spot on.

The US and Western Allies intend to completely control the Bitcoin blockchain through regulation of Bitcoin mining in their jurisdiction. Regulation of the majority of the hash rate will be easy to accomplish and will, in time, give the Govt complete control of the blockchain. Regulation of Bitcoin mining can be quite simple, 'Cryptocurrencies mined in our jurisdiction may confirm transactions only from regulated exchanges.'

When a majority of the hash rate follows such regulation, the minority which prefers to be unregulated will experience increasing difficulty in getting their unregulated transactions confirmed. Also the minority of unregulated miners will become unprofitable.

This will occur during a crisis. Crypto will be blamed for much of the coming global financial crisis. Regulation will be claimed necessary to prevent further crisis. Requiring all crypto to go through regulated exchanges will be followed by rollout of CBDC as full solution to the crisis.

Bitcoin will be allowed side by side with CBDC and Govt will have complete control of both blockchains. Exchanges will ID users, Tax users, and Freeze funds as directed by government. Result will be complete financial control.

https://blog.cryptostars.is/death-of-the-real-bitcoin-coming-all-too-soon-6622ef8cbfc8

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Excellent piece! Looking forward to the piece of small distributed mines vs large centralized ones

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Your instincts about regulations are spot. I saw this happen while working as an IT consultant in Chase bank about 1998. At the time, they were collaborating with Federal committees to develop regulations for their industry. I was stunned. Why would they do such a thing? A decade later it became clear. We were left with 6 mega-banks. They could afford to comply. Smaller competitors in the market went out of business or were forced into mergers/acquisitions with the giants. Regulation crushes small business and free markets.

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