Oddbean

It's not anywhere near centralized enough for that argument to be valid, and the market will respond as soon as they attempt to seize miners to produce empty blocks (this is the attack vector) - fees go up until enough hashpower comes online to mine non-empty blocks.

Until there is public, determined competition between nation states for domination of the mining space its a very real threat. The US is *quite* adept at leveraging its position in even hostile jurisdictions. There is no place on earth that both 1,takes bitcoin seriously enough and 2,hates the US enough that miners can feel secure enough to bring large hash online there. And of course, one jurisdiction isn't enough. We need many. So tbh, it's stupid to dismiss that attack vector. Sure you'll probably still be able to eventually get your tx mined. But the network will NOT function as advertised.

You're describing the hash war phase. The network will not work as advertised, but only for a certain period of time until either the state or the market capitulate. Here watch this: https://youtu.be/X_xgmVLyB94?si=UhSN5Cmjzbk9Tyvs

Right. As I said, its a legitimate threat until we get to that phase. It's another front of state KYC/AML laws designed to undermine bitcoins censorship resistant properties. And they're being generally successful.

I hope there is. Regulators are quite accomplished at avoiding direct confrontation and instead gradually adjusting expectations over years. Bitcoiners normalization, and even encouragement of, KYC being case in point.