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Ask Slashdot: How Does One Freely Use Bitcoin In the Land of the Free?
New submitter devrtm writes: It appears that Bitcoin, a currency designed with anonymity in mind, can be effectively used almost anywhere in the world, except in a few countries where it is regulated, and in one country where you can only use it if you give up your privacy. That country is the United States. I have accumulated quite a few BTC from the currency's early days where block rewards were still at $50. There was a period of time where one could get a nearly anonymous debit card, or use BTC online with merchants. Nowadays, non-U.S. payment providers no longer issue debit cards to the U.S. residents and the U.S.-based merchants accepting BTC are nearly extinct. The only way to use BTC in the U.S. is to convert it to USD. Unfortunately, that conversion requires giving up your personal information to a U.S.-based BTC payment processor, and there are rumors that signing up for those services raises red flags with certain three letter acronym organizations. I have nothing to hide, but I do value my privacy. Can one freely and anonymously live off of their Bitcoin wallet in the U.S.? I am afraid the answer is no. Does anyone have an experience that proves me wrong? Please share.
If you want privacy use cash with people who don't know you.
Bitcoin is fundamentally impractical. It limps along with the support of criminals, scammers, gamblers, and fools, but it's never going anywhere significant.
There's nothing that can be done to correct the problems of Bitcoin without making it no longer Bitcoin, and thus rendering the effort pointless.
So why is it still a topic to discuss on a site that's supposed to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? It's not news to us, and it's more or less irrelevant unless you're on the wrong end of a cryptolocker.
So you want to trade your BTC for goods and services but not pay taxes on the source of the income (aka "maintain privacy")? I don't think that will fly well in the US, which is why you don't see many outlets available.
I've had no problem spending BTC. Just buy from abroad and have it imported (and as long as they call it a "promotional" item - They all do - it doesn't even cost you any more anyway).
Is it really as surprise that a scheme designed to facilitate money laundering is not allowed without a paper trail in the US?
Go to Toronto, find a BTC ATM, cash out, convert to USD, go back to US and use said USD anonymously anywhere except online (but wear a baklava if possible).
While there are many people that are willing to exchange goods and services for BitCoin; it is not a recognized currency by anyone that actually matters (ie banks and governments). Make no mistake, just about everything is priced in a government back currency (dollars, Yen, Pounds, etc) and in addition banks and governments do not accept BitCoin as a way to cover debts and obligations.
In addition BitCoin is slow, not entirely trust worthy (you can argue the fact that one farming group controls more than 50% of the computing power used to back bitcoin is a real problem), doesn't understand the basics of monetary policy (price fluctations anyone), let alone a way to implement it. These could all be contributing factors as to why large organizations are not willing to exchange goods and services for bitcoin.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
If it's good enough for Putin and his cronies, and good enough for Trump and his, then by golly it's good enough for the rest of us dweebs!
Bitcoin is a trap.
It appears that Bitcoin, a currency designed with anonymity in mind
WRONG.
Nowadays, non-U.S. payment providers no longer issue debit cards to the U.S. residents and the U.S.-based merchants accepting BTC are nearly extinct.
Is Overstock.com nearly extinct? Newegg? Plenty of online retailers accept bitcoin. Of course they immediately convert the bitcoin to USD, and tell the IRS who they bought it from so that they can make sure you pay your capital gains tax.
Your question boils down to, "How do I avoid capital gains taxes on my Bitcoin earnings?" That's problematic, as you can imagine.
My how times change. "Back in the day", anyone voicing most of the opinions here so far would be modded into oblivion...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Convert it to cash, spend cash anonymously, and stop being a nobber.
If you're a US resident you would have to pay income tax or at least declare it as an investment income regardless of how you convert it. You can go to any other country to cash out or convert it into goods, even if you could buy a car with it, you have to pay the tax man. And that's not unique to the US.
The tax man however does not necessarily need to know where the money has been or currently is (how you are investing or realizing the profit is not recorded) as long as you don't use the money.
Monetary transactions above a certain value also need to be recorded, again, not unique to the US. If you make any further investment (house or otherwise) with the money/value, the bank also wants to know where it came from for credit reasons (to make sure you didn't owe a loanshark).
In none of those instances do you need to declare the full transaction history of your investments or profits. The "problem" with Bitcoin is that it explicitly does not offer anonymity (you can't launder bitcoins) and gives you a full transaction history regardless. To request anonymity from an explicitly public ledger is ludicrous. You can only hide the owner of a bitcoin through technical means as you can attempt to hide any transaction on the Internet but it's only incidental and also detrimental to the Bitcoin system.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
BT is really a form of electricity conversion so I'm not sure it really can be considered "income".
And we want the US government, including the FBI and IRS to give it their full support.
Good luck with that
you could purchase prepaid visa cards in cash and then use them to purchase bitcoin online. Anonymized at point of sale.
But this is about bitcoin you earned. I don't have any ideas for that.
Is there an online trader that will let me buy and sell it?
Major places that I know which accept bitcoin without crazy KYC requirements:
- Newegg
- Overstock.com
- Steam
I think people matter.
If enough people use BTC as money, then it's money.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
So go on the "dark web" trade your bit-coin for drugs. Sell drugs to locals and take cash. Bingo! Really, this isn't a difficult situation at all.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Also true...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
"It appears that Bitcoin, a currency designed with anonymity in mind..."
FALSE.
Bitcoin was NEVER meant to provide anonymity. Can we please stop with this misconception?
Russia, Mainland China, Burma to name just a few.
The United States has been racing into the abyss in competition with G.B. for a number of years. The United States is in the lead, by a narrow margin.
There are some online retailers that accept bitcoin. Since there isn't a credit card involved, there is no reason why you need to give them your real name. Checkout is a breeze too, relatively speaking.
Depending on where you are, you might be able to do small cash transactions for people in your area that are looking to buy.
If you need a lot of cash quickly, there is no practical way around it - you'll need to register with an exchange, under your real name. Depending on how large, you may need to go through the KYC stuff too. Not exactly a bitcoin-specific problem. You'll run into the same thing selling gold or silver to a dealer too.
No matter what, you need to keep track and pay your taxes. Selling them for cash or buying goods or services with them is all the same. Any half-decent accountant will be able to handle this. If you got your coins from mining, tell your accountant to claim a zero basis. The value of bitcoins in the early days was negligible anyway, so you won't be overpaying your taxes by very much, and it is WAY easier than choosing a FIFO/LIFO policy, documenting it, and pulling historic price data for each purchase. If you have receipts for mining equipment, talk to your accountant about deducting them.
See that "Preview" button?
Where we're going, there are no governments.
When I looked at converting different things back into United States dollars, I saw that one option was to convert into silver, or gold (depending on your volume) receive/transport the precious metals, and then convert them into United States dollars back in the U.S. This had somewhere around a 300% mark-up on the cost of precious metals, inside the U.S. so I decided not to do this. Depending on the volume of cash you're talking about, it might be something to look into.
I am not a lawyer. This might work, and it also might be illegal from a tax / money laundering perspective. However, if I had been willing to pay the 300% mark-up, I probably would have tried this. My tax rate is around 40%, and I value being a law abiding citizen. The 260% wasn't worth it for me. If it's worth it to you, this kind of conversion might make sense - you could do the same thing with any kind of asset (probably stocks would be easiest.)
When you can pay your taxes with it, let me know. Until then it isn't money.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Cash has unique serial numbers.
Easily scanned and tracked.
Do you really think the NSA/Governments are not doing this?
And y'all just stood there and watched as it was sold clean out from under you to people who would rather you be considered an "overhead must be cut" version of livestock.
How do you use bitcoin in the land of the free?
By making it the land of the free in the first place.
Cash is getting hammered more and more, reducing the high value bills while still having inflation. If you carry too much, you get asked questions when spending and can your bills confiscate for no reason other than the amount you are carry (ready about civil forfeiture). I could see a use for digital currency. While you can argue that the creator have tons of bitcoin and is rich, the blockchain show early bitcoin never moved/used at all. In fact, the guy completely disappears from the map years ago... he could actually be dead and nobody knows... it's a possibility but definitely not certainty that he did that for money! Bitcoin transactions were not about privacy, they were about permissionless and censor resistant! Even if you live in an oppressive government, the bank cannot froze your account. Bitcoin adoption is slow, mainly because most governments ask for KYC policy and that's a bit awkward with any blockchain tech. If the web has been controlled by bureaucrats at start, we would have to register to surf, comments and make web sites. Just like the email and torrent protocol, the bitcoin protocol cannot be shut down, it's not going anyway... it's an experimental currency that, as you said, have a controlled and limited inflation. You can argue it's bad, there is hundreds of inflated currencies out there with inflation, let there be one to try if it's working without.
What seems to be what the real question he is asking is, "how do I use Bitcoin in a way that bypasses my legal obligations to pay tax on the money I have earned through the rise in bitcoin price.", incidentally this is not just a US situation, most countries of the world will consider your gain in price is a taxable asset.
Buy stuff overseas anon, convert stuff into something small and valuable, resell for US $. Smuggle - you knew that word was coming - US currency in on an airplane. Which is very easy unless you have an Arabic surname or, most likely these days, look Mexican.
You're dodging income tax. I make no moral judgement - that's not true I actually sort of approve in this case - but that's the anon issue.
Bitcoin is classify as money in: - Europe (Except France) http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/up... - Japan http://asia.nikkei.com/Politic... - Mexico https://sppld.sat.gob.mx/pld/i... - Afghanistan http://www.coindesk.com/how-bi... - Czech Republic http://www.rozhlas.cz/zpravy/e... - South Africa http://www.treasury.gov.za/com... I don' have links but I heard it's also consided a currency in - Russia, Switzerland and Nigera
There are usually people in populated areas who are looking to trade BTC for FRN's. Do you have thousands to offload?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Devrtm (the original poster) can donate his/her Bitcoin to any IRS 501(c)(3) tax exempt charity(ies) that accept(s) Bitcoin, for example the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Devrtm can then enjoy a U.S. personal income tax deduction for the full, fair market value of his/her donation, with no capital gains tax owed. It may be possible to make the donation anonymously, but Devrtm must keep records of the donation in his/her personal files, to document the tax deduction in case there is a future IRS inquiry. The tax deduction will likely be worth substantially more than what Devrtm paid (if anything) to obtain the Bitcoin. If Devrtm is subject to state or local income tax then there may also be charitable deductions allowed in those tax returns.
I've had no problem spending BTC. Just buy from abroad and have it imported (and as long as they call it a "promotional" item - They all do - it doesn't even cost you any more anyway).
Right, cause that will not draw the attention of government and get you on a list either.
23rd out of 159 countries, https://www.cato.org/human-fre.... Posting anonymously because I know any criticism of USA will earn a lot of hateful responses not matter how it is stated or what references are provided.
Let me know when any of these countries will accept it for tax payments.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
You may be able to create a legal instrument such as a Trust, possibly located offshore. If you have a credit card whose bill is payed by the trust, you technically aren't earning income and pay no taxes. The source of the Trust's funds should be able to be well hidden.
If you treat Bitcoins as currency, you spend them. Thus, you're not holding on to them long enough for them to accrue value. If you treat them as an investment, you're not spending them, and there's no Bitcoin economy to make them worth anything.
That's why Bitcoin trading is pure speculation.
There are two good reasons to "invest" in a currency:
1) Utility: It's a "safe, convenient, and easy to use" currency. For most people in countries with relatively stable currencies, their country's fiat currency fits this bill. I for one keep at least a month's worth of expenses "in cash" in a bank account, knowing I will lose very little to inflation, that I have a very low risk of the money suddenly becoming temporarily inaccessible, and knowing that I can pay any domestic debt with it without having to pay a middleman to convert it.
2) Hedge: If I know I'm going to need a certain amount of Euros, Yen, or BTC six months from now but I'm not willing to accept the risk of currency flucutations, I can "lock in" the price now, either by buying a futures contract or by buying the actual Euros, Yen, or BTC.
But I agree with you, buying BCT, or for that matter, any currency that isn't known to be very stable (low inflation now and for the forseeable future) as an "investment" is pretty speculative.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Concur.
Bitcoin as a financial system is made impractical in the long term by the fact that it is limited in the total number that can be issued. After the last one is issued, the intent is for the value of them to simply go up.
A Bitcoin is the solution to a hashing problem for which the ease in calculating a solution goes up with the size of the search space. In a very large search space it's easy to generate a solution, but as the search space becomes smaller you have to spend more time hunting around for a correct solution.
As more solutions are found, the people behind bitcoin validate that 'coin and then shorten the length in bits needed for a valid solution. They have a fixed number in mind that they want to base the currency on, and as the number of solutions found approach that number, they have been shortening the length so that they will eventually have exactly the number they want, and finding new solutions will take an astronomically long time.
There's nothing preventing them from increasing the valid length of solutions and letting people find more. They have explained countless times that this is how they can have actual inflation in their currency.
Countless times of explaining this to the public, and yet people continue to repeat bullshit they've heard "somewhere on the internet" that matches their woldview.
It's no wonder they're having trouble - they're concentrating on their project, but losing the war against propaganda.
Warning! Every US bill has a unique combination of year, mint, denomination, and serial number! Every transaction you ever make could be tracked! Oops, need to recrimp my tinfoil hat.
Doesn't matter if early adopters are hoarding millions of BTC or any cryptocurrency.
Because it's all recorded and accounted for on the public ledgers.
Everyone knows they exist and currencies have already price discovered based upon analysis of whatever they may or may not do with those hoards.
Cryptoanarchy is HARD. We don't expect most people including you to understand it right away. That's ok. Just study it. And we'll show you in time.
Here are two great charities that accept BTC payments, and I'm sure they're not the only ones: https://supporters.eff.org/don... https://www.heifer.org/gift-ca...
Do you really need reason for beer? Wingman Brewers
You don't need to pay taxes, this taxdoctrination has gotten completely out of hand. Again: you don't have to pay any taxes to anybody. The sooner the vast majority of people understands that they do not actually have to pay taxes, the better.
Also: why should anybody want to pay taxes in BTC? If BTC allows to get around taxes then all the better.
You can't handle the truth.
I mined Bitcoin for a couple months back when GPU mining was still somewhat profitable. At that time it was simple to get an Amazon gift card for whatever amount I wanted by purchasing it with Bitcoin via a third party seller, and the fee for the transaction was far less than that of any of the services trading USD for BTC.
The US dollar is backed solely by the "full faith and credit of the United States".
So was the East German Mark, the Ruble, the Greek / Cyprus, etc etc.
All of the above are intrinsically worthless.
Cryptocurrencies, in particular Bitcoin example, have value because everyone knows that
1) Anyone and everyone on the Earth can choose to own some.
2) There are a limited quantity available. Thus removed the threat printing presses that utterly destroys all fiat in time.
3) And they are as unstoppable as the internet and a handshake with your nextdoor neighbor.
4) All owners will fight to death to ensure system remains free thus preserving their stake.
Those and many other facets, which are VERY difficuly for most people, closeminded people, sheeple, to understand... give cryptocurrencies real value above printed fiat play money.
When you can pay taxes with it, Neo, we won't need to tell you, you just will.
...Says the man trying to avoid paying taxes.
Try these options: https://exchangewar.info/coinp... but if you care for your privacy, maybe it's better to use Localbitcoins (although you'll pay a bit more for it).
If you've seriously got that much, it's free money. I'd happily take a privacy and tax hit for even a fairly small amount of BTC (~USD 1,075 at today's rates).
Or yeah, if you're that bothered about privacy (or tax evasion), do as another poster said: buy drugs in bulk and sell 'em. You'll make a cash fortune.
Bitcoin is inherently flawed on so many levels. But most of all, it records its own transaction history.
If you want a currency that is inherently insecure from a privacy perspective: This is it.
There is one and only one totally secure currency from a privacy perspective and that is CASH.
And that is why governments are trying to ban it.
(And no, gold is not a usable currency in any real sense).
oh but he is asking how to turn it into cash without paying taxes or having a record he has the cash.
he probably totally ignores the fact that once he pays the tax on the investment he is free to do whatever he wants with the money without any of the agencies caring anything - UNLIKE if he just got magically a million dollars of cash and went buying expensive things which would put him on the hitlist of dea etc.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You can easily freely use bitcoins in t he land of the free. It's the dollar you apparently cannot use so freely. Just don't use it. Problem solved. You're welcome.
0x or or snor perron?!
The document from the South African treasury about virtual currencies you linked to states:
"Due to their unregulated status, virtual currencies cannot be classified as legal tender as any merchant may refuse them as a payment instrument without being in breach of the law. In addition, virtual currencies cannot be regarded as a means of payment as they are not issued on receipt of funds. The use of virtual currencies therefore depends on the other participantâ(TM)s willingness to accept them."
So, I don't think that qualifies as being "money".
Yes, about two online shops in South Africa accept payment in Bitcoin, but I don't know how they comply with FICA regulations in this case ...
Most likely, the poster's real motivation is avoiding taxes on his BTC profits. The anarchist in me understands this: taxes are the government taking your property by force. On the other hand, few people would voluntarily pay the amount that governments consume, and we don't seem to be willing to dismantle our governments, so...there we are, taxes.
If it's not about taxes, then cash out. If you register with a BTC exchange and cash in your BTC then, yes, the IRS will know who you are. So what? Just pay your taxes. It's not really about privacy, because you can then turn your US$ into cash, and spend that cash as anonymously as you like.
Incidentally, parallel currencies are nothing new. As an example, there has been a parallel currency in Switzerland (WIR) since 1934. It limps along for all of the same reasons that BTC limps along: it's an additional hassle for your average business, it complicates accounting and taxes, and it is an additional (exchange-rate) risk that most businesses don't want to deal with.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This must be a new use of the word "effective" that has previously been unknown.
And for the last time,
bitcoin IS NOT DESIGNED with anonymity in mind.
It is designed for being a distributed system with no central authority (in theory at least).
And this system works by replacing any central authority with a consensus among all the nodes of the network.
Which is achieved by all (full) nodes of the network having, by design, a local copy of the whole ledger (= the blockchain).
That mean each of them can see any single transaction you did at any point of time.
(Again, by design. That's how the bitcoin protocol can reach consensus and trust without needing any central authority to act as a reference).
That means that no, you're not anonymous, I can see all the transaction you ever did inside the blockchain on my own locally run node.
At best, bitcoin protocol provides pseudonymity.
It's not Facebook require real names.
Transaction aren't officially done in the name of your real identity, they are done in the name of some base64 encoded public key.
And normal client are constantly shuffling sums around so there might be hundred of transaction between the time you received some amount of BTC and the time you spent them at an online shop where you order something to be mailed to you (and thus where some phyical world coordinates can be linked to your bitcoin identity).
That mostly prevent casual/accidental snooping.
But that's not beyond the capability of data-mining any government-level agent.
If your neighbour want to spy on you, he can't do it easily.
If any three-letter agency wants to track you, they just need to spend some of their tremendous computational power.
Your are not anonymous on the bitcoin network (at least to to governments).
And that's part of the design (it also help you trust the network without needing there to be a "Bitcoin Global Inc." to be held accountable).
Also, because the lack of central authority, nobody can prevent you to spend or receive any BTC money.
Government can see you and track you in the global ledger, but they can't prevent you.
There's no PayPal, Visa, or any other company that can block transactions.
Transaction can happen between any end-points as long as they conform to the bitcoin protocol.
(And that is one of the big motivations behind the rise of bitcoin protocol : people getting fed up of their account getting frozen for any random reason.
e.g.: see donations to WikiLeaks)
If you want (Relative) lack of control AND total anonymity, as suggest above : USE CASH.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Become a Puerto Rico inhabitant for 6+ months and pay the US tax there where the rate is far lower. Then you have the funds free and clear of tax to invest in a dividend paying stock. Or more bitcoin at a higher tax basis. Shock. A practical answer on Slashdot. :D
I recommend coinbase. It's a US company, they have their licenses in NY, etc.
Forgot to add, you can also find Bitcoin ATM's all around the US where you can use cash to buy bitcoins.
Seems like we are on a path toward no anonymity financial transactions. Cash is slowly being squeezed with some of the 1% of the 1% talking of phasing it out. Lots of talk of getting rid of big bills because of the possibility of negative interest rates, crime (which is real, the world money supply of $100 bills has gone up massively over the last 20 years and its nearly all off-shore and is sourced through banks along the internal edges of the U.S. border). I would argue keeping our ability to have private transaction - however the world seems racing towards a place where anonymity is exterminated. Nice article regarding the trouble you can get into when withdrawing large amounts of cash in the U.S.:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/29...
The legal tender law means that people in the country are FORCED and OBLIGED to accept it as a means of payment or contract value. There is no chance Bitcoin get there. We surely don't wanna people getting forced to accept Bitcoin payment. But still having it classify as a currency means you don't pay taxes when buy or sell it and can be used in a contract.
Seriously, the fact that you are on the internet means you signed away your privacy the second you started using google, any sort of email account, social network, or any account anywhere on the internet. The only privacy you will ever really have is the ability to close the blinds and turn off every camera and microphone in your house.
Your data will never be safe, you will never be truly anonymous or untraceable, and the only thing you can do about that is make a data trail that looks stupidly boring and normal. Even then your credit card may still be stolen by a compromised gas pump and your SSN may be stolen in a breach at your old college, high school, or even some government agency that already has all your information.
The war fir privacy was lost back in the AOL days.
The intrinsically worthless currency drives the world economy. Bitcoin is driving up the net wealth of the early adopters and ripping off the latecomers, because it's incredibly deflationary. It also can't scale in the number of transactions per second high enough to meet a significant portion of the world's financial needs: Bitcoin protocol is capped at 10 per second, banks handle thousands per second. While the concept is novel, in practice it's just a new variation of pyramid scheme. The founder may not even have intended for that to be the result, but that's what happened. The people who bought or mined when it was $3 per BTC are millionaires preying on the late investors.
Now if someone invents a crypto-currency that's anonymous, scales to an unlimited number of concurrent transactions, and manages to neither be deflationary (which screws late adopters) or inflationary (which screws early adopters), the world will start paying attention. But for now, the only way to stabilize a currency so it neither inflates nor deflates too rapidly is having it backed by a government that can adjust the supply.
MFW I paid capital gains tax on BTC earnings BEFORE the IRS subpoenaed Coinbase's records.
If I put $100 on 28 on roulette wheel and the ball happened to land on 28, what did I lose? It just so happened that this particular gamble worked out this time. If you bought when it was $1300 (or bet on 23) you lost money. Some people won the gamble. It's still gambling, not investment.
> Newegg accepts bitcoin so I buy random items and resell them on eBay. So yeah I take a slight loss there along with fees but come on how is that not a sound plan?
When I do work, I like to make money, not lose money. If you're going to do the work resell things on eBay, a sound plan is to buy a box of 200 widgets for $200, then sell the widgets for $2.50 each. You more than double your money as you work, rather than losing money.
You think the US is the land of the free?
Thanks to 35+ years of Tinkle Down Economics, the US is an Oligarchy.
No. Bitcoin is designed around decentralization, not anonymity. Every transaction is logged forever; for anonymity, that's a nightmare. This misconception is widespread. Bitcoin is not anonymous; if privacy is important to you, you should not be using it.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
" I have accumulated quite a few BTC from the currency's early days..."
Bullshit. I don't believe you. Anybody who has used bitcoin from the early days knows enough that it isn''t anonymous.
So, you're either lying, been living under a fucking rock, or just plain ignorant.
How Does One Freely Use Bitcoin In the Land of the Free?
Not sure how Germany handles bitcoin, any Germans care to comment?
I assume you do not mean the US, since the US has not been the land of the free since January 19th[1], Rightwing Trump-Cuck rhetoric notwithstanding.
[1]www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/21/how-angela-merkel-a-conservative-became-the-leader-of-the-liberal-free-world/
The seeds of this were sewn back in 2001. Read all about it here:
https://www.dosgatosmuertos.com/single-post/2017/03/21/Bitcoin-Anonymity-and-the-PATRIOT-Act
1) Exchange them for government fiat with some dude on the street corner that you met through Craiglist.
2) Spend them to buy objects/commodities that you can just resell for government fiat.
Never associate any personal information with any cryptocurrency transaction. That means, never use any online exchange, since those are the primary target of governments who are terrified that cryprocurrencies could eventually (after mass adoption) force governments to be nice to their citizens. Cryptocurrencies can break the financial shackles the governments have placed on all productive members of society who still transact in government fiat.
There are many cryptocurrencies out there trying to deal with these scenarios. There are some that exist primarily for lightning quick transactions and others for more perfect anonymity. There is room for more than one cryptocurrency and BTC may not be the winner.
It has, though, proved the value of the blockchain and proved that it's cryptographically secure. (Quantum computing may change the equation.)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
To devrtm, in the rather unlikely event that you get past all chaff comments, is localbitcoins.com something that could help you get some cash for some of your bitcoin while you research and figure out your other options? Other options, of which there many. ;) btw I'm also bozoforpresident on reddit which might be easier for messaging than /. Final thought - to all the mooing tax cattle, off to the slaughterhouse you go...
Agreed. But the way the AC wrote, I think he or she has put their faith and support in Bitcoin.
The wikipedia definition of money[1] ("Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a particular country or socio-economic context") is basically identical to the defintion of legal tender[2] ("Legal tender is variously defined in different jurisdictions. Formally, it is anything which when offered in payment extinguishes the debt.").
The guidance document for virtual currencies by the South African treasury only refers to 'virtual currencies', never referring to them as 'money'. Virtual currencies effectively have the same (or less) standing in South Africa as (or than) external currencies (including e.g. the Zimbabwean Dollar).
So, what do bitcoin proponents claiming 'Bitcoin is classify as money' define 'money' as? Obviously something different than the rest of the population.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
...but not all flamebait is truth.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.