Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Is it really as surprise that a scheme designed to facilitate money laundering is not allowed without a paper trail in the US?
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.
Your question boils down to, "How do I avoid capital gains taxes on my Bitcoin earnings?" That's problematic, as you can imagine.
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. It was proposed as an in-built method to combat inflation, however what it really is is a way for the inventor to pad his own pockets by owning a significant fraction of the total number of bitcoins that can ever be produced. In a best-case scenario, this means he now owns a fraction of the world wealth (assuming the dystopian future where everyone uses bitcoins).
The fact that it is really a huge piece of social engineering is what disinclines most governments from being too terribly thrilled about its adoption. Ironically, this may be what the inventor was counting on to promote it's adoption, reasoning that the more that governments resisted it, the more that certain groups would promote it as a form of protest/defiance.
So, if you want to adopt bitcoins, by all means, be part of a piece of social engineering malware. Bitcoin transactions are not what you want for privacy anyway. If you want to maintain private money transactions, cash is always an option.
All money is made-up bullshit.
Yes, but the US dollar is backed with the US banking system, the US government, and the US military. Bitcoin is backed by the fact that the exchange you use maybe doesn't want to rip you off today.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There's so much wrong with the thinking behind your post that people have dedicated essays to it. I'll go with the overly simplified version:
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's absolutely nothing behind them except the willingness of the next idiot to buy some. They're different from Beanie Babies only in that when Bitcoin finally peters out you won't be left with something you can put on a shelf somewhere or give to a little kid.
If you could magically time markets, Bitcoin is probably one of the last things you'd try it with since it's a lot easier to trade in other financial instruments with far less risk of fraud.
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.
The Fed is NOT part of the USG. It's just a cartel of European banks. They don't answer to US taxpayers and they don't answer to congress. They are beholden only to themselves and they care only to continue their monopoly on banking where every USD automatically comes with a 6% debt that is paid back to the FED. Woodrow Wilson signed them into power, at night, in secret, on an island and then immediately and publicly regretted it and said he'd made the worst mistake that could have been made against US. Now we have our own mint and can make our own money but, every dollar we print ourselves for ourselves
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.