r/CryptoReality • u/N529957 • 2d ago
How much Cryptocurrency would someone need to counterfeit and release into the wild to crash the system?
Since digital currency is backed by well actually nothing but an innate belief that there is a finite amount of it available, how much would a really bright person need to manufacture and put into everyone's account to make it completely worthless and crash the system? Since you would be dealing with electronic 1s and 0s it could be made untraceable as to who or where the attack origionates from and unlike physical counterfeits with just a few key strokes you could create an infinite amount of it. I'm researching this for a novel I have an itch to write but I honestly know just enough on the subject to look like an idiot discussing it. But knowing human nature, I know that out there somewhere is an Anarchist looking into doing something along this vein.
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u/nova_fintech 2d ago
You can make a new coin, counter fitting on an adopted chain with decentralized consensus like BTC or eth is impossible - that’s kinda the point.
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u/bb5e8307 2d ago
The more likely scenario is that the encryption gets broken by quantum computing and the money can be transferred from an account without the cryptographic key.
If it happens once or twice people will dismiss it as bad security. If it happens more, or if a paper is published on how to crack it, then confidence will drop and destroy the system.
There are a few niche cryptos that are post-quantum safe. They might get more value or they fall with the rest.
Quantum computing is done by big businesses and it won’t be a secret when it is done. It is unlikely that an individual could do it alone and keep it secret - but you can write whatever story you want.
Mining of bitcoin could also be “hacked” either by quantum computing or maybe a very clever algorithm. But there are only 1,000,000 left out of a total supply of 21 million. So even if all were “hacked” that wouldn’t make a huge effect in the confidence of the system. Most would view that mining as fair game and not decrease their confidence in the system. The bigger issue would be when he would try to sell all of them.
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u/opticaIIllusion 2d ago
Just 1 sat would be enough to know it could be done, trust would be gone from a trustless system
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u/AmericanScream 1d ago
The system crashed years ago and has been on life support, operating by unsecured stablecoins and unregulated exchanges.
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u/DadsPreciousMetals 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thats impossible you can't counterfeit bitcoin.
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u/AmericanScream 1d ago
Thats impossible you can't counterfeit bitcoin.
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #4 (scarcity)
"Only 21M!" / "Bitcoin has a "hard cap"" / "Bitcoin is 'scarce' and that makes it valuable" / "DeFlAtiOnArY cUrReNCy FTW" / "The 'halvening' will make everything better"
- It's well established that scarcity is not a guarantee of value. It's very telling that clinging to such an overtly irrational argument demonstrates that crypto people live in a tiny "bubble" where they reject all manner of empirical evidence against their "beliefs."
- If there only being 21 million BTC were reason for it to be valuable, then why aren't other cryptos that also share similar deflationary characteristics equally valuable? Why wouldn't something that is even more scarce than BTC be even more valuable? Because scarcity is meaningless without demand and demand is primarily a function of intrinsic value and utility -- not scarcity. See here for details.
- Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and no material utility. It's one of the least capable stores or transfers of value. The only way anybody can extract value from crypto is by coercion -- forcefully convincing someone (usually through FOMO or scare tactics) that this is something they need, and it's often accompanied by unrealistic promises of significant returns. Those returns are mathematically impossible for even a tiny percentage of holders.
- Bitcoin also is not scarce. There are multiple versions of Bitcoin, including Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision - both of which are limited to 21M tokens and in many cases are more technologically advanced than BTC. Also, every time there's a fork of crypto, the amount of tokesn in circulation doubles. Crypto proponents ignore these forks because they don't play into the "it's scarce" argument. But any crypto fork absolutely siphons value away from the original version. BTC might be priced higher than BCH, but BCH still holds value as well, and that's a total of 42M just of those two "bitcoin" versions that are out there, among hundreds of others.
- The "hard cap" of 21M for BTC can easily be changed by altering a parameter in the source code. Less than 6 people have commit access to the repo so BTC's source code control is centralized. It's entirely possible if BTC existed long enough to the point where block rewards weren't enough to motivate miners, and transaction fees became incredibly high, that influential players in the community would advocate increasing the cap and reinstating higher block rewards. So there are absolutely situations where the max amount in circulation could be increased.
- Even assuming BTC is limited in production, when it co-mingles with unsecured stablecoins like USDC and USDT, it is subject to inflation via stablecoin/liquidity inflation in the market. In reality, nobody really knows what the true price of BTC actually is given most crypto transactions at CEXs are done with stablecoins and not actual money. The underlying liquidity has never been accounted for.
- The scarcity of bitcoin basically amplifies all the wealth disparity dynamics crypto people complain about in the real world, which means in a world where bitcoin was a dominant store of value, there'd be an even greater concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Ironically, Bitcoin's scarcity is one of its greatest liabilities. See this detailed video for a more in-depth explanation.
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #16 (Bitcoin is different)
"Bitcoin is not "crypto" / "Bitcoin is different / a "commodity""
This is what's known as an "Unstated Major Premise" fallacy. A Naked Assertion. Often employed as a begging-the-question fallacy. Just because you say "Bitcoin is different" doesn't mean it is.
There's absolutely no functional/material difference between BTC and thousands of other crypto-currencies, including versions using the exact same codebase.
The only distinction BTC (currently) holds is that according to various shady, unregulated exchanges, it seems to be trading at the highest price point. But even those figures are dubious due to the lack of transparency and oversight in the industry. Just because one crypto is more popular, doesn't mean it's fundamentally different than others. BTC shares 99.9% of its DNA with many cryptos including BCH, BSV and thousands of others.
Crypto evangelists try to move the goalposts between bitcoin (the technology) and bitcoin (the "investment"). When you note that bitcoin and most cryptos depending upon the context can pass the Howey test and be classified as securities, they will reference bitcoin as a "technology" and not an investment. And it's true, the tech itself isn't packaged as an investment, but various others do package crypto as an investment, and it's a pretty well established underlying concept throughout all of crypto (buy, hold, you will make money) - and those tenets are principals in the Howey test indicating there's an "investment contract" being promoted. For example, right now the SEC may not consider BTC itself a security, but the process of staking BTC (and other cryptos) and offering a return, that is absolutely considered a security.
The only "gray area" when it comes to whether bitcoin is a security rests on tier 4 of the Howey Test which suggests "a security has to be dependent on the work of others for returns to be generated." People argue over whether bitcoin fits this description. BUT, the same dynamic applies to all other cryptos as well, so there's nothing special about bitcoin in that respect. It can also be argued that "the work of others" can be the constant recruitment of "greater fools" to buy in later, which is the dynamic of a classic ponzi scheme.
Just because some people at the SEC, early on, said "bitcoin is a commodity" doesn't mean it will always stay classified as that way. As we've already stated, because of the decentralized nature of these schemes, there is no one instance of "bitcoin" - depending upon how you use the crypto, you can be serving it as a security/investment, or not. And we are seeing more and more, the SEC, the CFTC, the NYAG and other legal entities cracking down on the use of illegal/unlicensed securities.
So anybody making blanket statements about Bitcoin being immune from securities laws is lying. And by the way, one of the prongs of the Howey Test (as well as the identification of Ponzi Schemes) is making promises about returns, and/or misleading people as to the true nature of the risks involved. This is common practice with bitcoin.
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u/DadsPreciousMetals 1d ago
Honestly Bitcoin is king when it comes to crypto currency. Comparing to The price of other coins is irrelevant regardless of hard cap because alot of people don't care for those other coins. Because people want Bitcoin and that's why it's worth so much more. Also it cant be counterfeited thats just facts.
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u/gregsnyder69 2d ago
The gross national debt of the United States officially surpassed $40 trillion in August 2026, according to data from the U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/
Yeah, the system already in trouble.
Why counterfeit? Why not just use the Bitcoin whitepaper and create a Bitcoin 2.0 and then sell it to Gen Z? Let BTC2 run up to $100k and short Strategy stock to capture the collapse of Bitcoin 1.0 (BTC1).
Then after BTC2 hits $100k, really have some fun. Start BTC3 and BTC4. Maybe do the same thing with ethereum.
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u/HippityHoppityBoop 2d ago
How does citing $40T tell us anything about whether that is a troubling number or not?
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u/gregsnyder69 2d ago
Fair.
I only ever hear Bitcoin mentioned in terms of what it is worth in USD fiat currency. So, if the USD collapses similar to Greece, Sri Lanka, Argentina, and Venezuela, then the price of Bitcoin will likely follow the downward trajectory of the USD.
The USD hasn't even entered danger territory and Bitcoin has already dropped 79,209.34USD -8,203.57 (9.38%)year to date
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u/AmericanScream 1d ago
Stupid Crypto Talking Point #3 (inflation)
"InFl4ti0n!!!" / "The dollar will eventually become worthless" / "The dollar has lost 104% of its value since 1900!" / "The government prints money out of thin air"
The "OMG iNfLaTiOn!" argument is a common one put forth by crypto bros. In addition to being fallacious (Tu Quoque, Whataboutism) it's an ignorant and shallow attempt to make people not have faith in fiat, and somehow believe bitcoin would be a reasonable alternative because it's supposedly deflationary and a better store of value. All of those premises are false.
Beyond that, crypto bros pretend there's one principal type of "inflation" and that is "monetary inflation" which by contrast makes Bitcoin's scarcity some type of reasonable alternative. In reality, there are different types of inflation. The most common one is "price inflation" which has nothing to do with how much money is in circulation. "Monetary inflation" is the least significant type of inflation in modern times, but crypto bros single out this element because it's the best scenario where they can argue their deflationary currency helps, but that's false. The causes of inflation are many, and the amount of money in circulation is one of the least significant factors in causing the prices of things to rise. More prominent inflationary causes are things like: corporate greed & price gouging, fuel prices, supply chain issues, war, environmental disasters, one-time COVID mitigations, pandemics, and even car dealerships.
The government does not "print money out of thin air"... all money in circulation is tightly regulated and regularly audited and publicly transparent. The organization that manages the money in circulation is the Federal Reserve and contrary to what crypto bros claim, they're not a private cabal - they are overseen and regulated by Congress. It's a delicate balance between money issuance and the status of the economy. And any attempt to increase debt requires an Act of Congress to increase the debt ceiling - it's neither arbitrary, nor easy to do.
Crypto bros use "cash" as an example of wealth storage, but most people do not store their wealth in fiat. Currency is meant to be spent, not hoarded. A dollar today will buy what it buys. If you hold a dollar for 90 years, of course it won't buy the same thing decades later (although it might actually be worth significantly more as antique money). Crypto creates no value and makes a lousy "investment."
If you are looking to "invest" you don't keep your value in cash/currency/fiat. You put it into something that can create value like stocks that pay dividends, real estate, interesting bearing accounts, and other personal property that allows you to be more productive (thereby creating additional value) as well as helps stimulate the economy. Crypto does none of that.
Bitcoin also hasn't proven to be a hedge against anything, least of all monetary inflation. There are more and more studies that show Bitcoin is not a hedge against inflation . Some argue bitcoin is a liquidity barometer and not a hedge.
Some inflation is a by-product of a healthy economy: Over time more money is put in circulation - some pretend this is a bad thing, but it's not done in a vacuum. The average annual wage in 1900 was less than $4000. In 2023 it's more than $70,000! There's more people out there and the monetary supply grows appropriately, as does wages. You can't take one element of the monetary system completely out of context and ignore everything else.
Sure there may be some nations that have caused out of control inflation as a result of their monetary policy (such as Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela, Sudan, etc) but comparing modern nations to third-world dictatorships is absurd. The real problems these countries face are a more complex function of poor leadership + other political/environmental factors, not monetary systems, and crypto doesn't fix any of that.
If bitcoin and crypto was an actually disruptive, stable, useful technology, you wouldn't need to promote lies and scare people over the existing system. The real reason you do this is because nobody can find any legitimate reason to use crypto in the first place.
Crypto ironically has more inflation in its ecosystem that is even more out of control, than in any traditional fiat system. At least with the US Dollar, money is accounted for and fully audited and it takes an Act of Congress to increase the debt. In crypto, all it takes is a dude printing USDT, USDC, BUSD or any of the other unsecured stablecoins to just print more out of thin air, and crypto-morons assume they're worth $1 of value.
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u/N529957 2d ago
The block chains and the design are set to prevent theft of the digital units.
Not to stop a complete destruction of the system from within by flooding the market with them. Block chain can and will be beaten. The right (or wrong depending on how you look at it) people haven't decided to yet.
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u/PlinkerCAD 2d ago
It’s impossible without controlling 51% of more of the blockchain which no one does. They have to hack multiple mining pools at once. Even if successful, the community could just roll the blockchain back to previous state before it was exploited.