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Bitcoin Becomes Legal Payment Option In Japan, Prices Spike (investopedia.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Investopedia: A bill to amend Japan's Banking Act has finally come to fruition, recognizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender. The bill has far-reaching repercussions for the digital currency world as well as the way that cryptocurrencies can be traded and exchanged. The Banking Act was modified after a long process of debate and dialog which saw proponents of digital currencies arguing on their behalf. Now, after months of discussion, the bill has come into effect as of the beginning of April. Section 3 of the bill has been modified to including wording on virtual currency and is being called the Virtual Currency Act, according to reporting by Brave New Coin. Digital currencies like Bitcoin have finally received definition and recognition as a means of payment by the Japanese government. The Banking Act's Payment Services Act has also moved to define a digital currency as "property of value," meaning that it is usable for payment in the broader marketplace and that it may be bought or sold. At the same time, the Japanese bill distinguishes between digital currencies like Bitcoin and "electronic money." Digital currency, in this case, is not issued by a specific entity and may be used by any accepting individual, while electronic money can be linked to a specific issuer and can only be used by that issuer or persons specified by the issuer. Along with the recognition of Bitcoin and other digital currencies is the stipulation that profits from trading of those currencies may be considered as "income from business activities or miscellaneous income." This makes Bitcoin subject to various taxes, including capital gains tax.
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Dear Lameness Filter,
I am not the one that is yelling, it is the pump and dump people that make Bitcoin prices every time there is an article like this.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
FYI, "legal tender" means that people are obligated to accept it in repayment of debts. If I owe you 10 ounces of silver, and I try to give you an equal "value" of Federal Reserve Notes instead, you can't refuse to accept it and then sue me for nonpayment. The courts will consider my offer of the legally-privileged notes as a full defense against that suit.
Merely having the option to accept something doesn't make it legal tender.
See that "Preview" button?
...for fraud. This is serious folks. Bitcoin is all about hiding transactions and avoiding taxes.
You mean like cash?
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Seriously, it might be interesting to see some small nation switch to bitcoin for its money. It would allow ppl to see exactly what their gov is up to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No.
The legalization leads to regulation and documentation.
Anonymity is out the window.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Let's say bit coin becomes legit. How long before we got greedy copy cats sniffing money and start breaking in? How many forms of money will it take before money becomes worthless?
Bitcoin isn't anonymous.
And, unless I'm missing something (whoosh?)... you've got it completely backwards.
In that case, then what's the point of using Bitcoin?
1. Bitcoin cannot be inflated away.
2. For international transactions, Bitcoin transactions are way cheaper.
My company employs a graphic artist in Karachi. We pay her in bitcoin, which she then converts to PKRs for a transaction cost of less than 1%. Using a normal bank would cost 3-6%.
Cash can be regulated and tracked. Bitcoin not so much.
My mistake. I didn't realize you were from bizarro-world, where everything is backwards and the women wear goatees.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
The legislation, as far as I can tell, simply recognises it as a taxable commodity, not as legal tender.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
What if you never sell if for "cash", is there a gain (or loss)?
Say you purchase 1 bitcoin for, say $700. Later, the purchasing power "appears" to be about $1000 (or whatever).
I can see the argument for capital gains if I just sell it for the cash, but if I purchase something, it is just cheaper for me, like it is on sale.
Like if someone has foreign currency left over from a trip and they go back later when it is worth more. (Glad I didn't keep any of my ~$1.55 euros from my 2008 trip, to use on my 2015 trip when they were only ~$1.07, it's not like I could declare a long term loss...)
I am sure there are all kinds of rules about currency "trading" and ordinary tourists probably don't come under those rules... and I suspect small amounts of bitcoin will garner the same attention from taxing authorities.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Bitcoin fluctuates to much compared with real currency and is therefore not stable. $1127 to $1158 is comparison price against the dollar just in the last 24 hours and even over the last 30 days it has swept from $1280 to $935 and back up to $1158.That is to much swing
In that case, then what's the point of using Bitcoin?
The point of bitcoin (the protocol), is that it is distributed.
There's (theoretically) no central authority.
Any two endpoint can exchange currency (usually BTC) as long as they both follow the protocol.
(anonymity was never a point. And goes against the way bitcoin works as every single (full) node on the network needs a local copy of the whole ledger to be useful. So ever node gets to see every transaction ever done).
You can run a perfectly functional digital economy with yen or any other real currency.
Yeah, and how do you send those yens around ? Say you want to send me 1'000¥.
You'll need to use some system like PayPal (where we need to both have an account) and further down the line you'll need a credit card (so you'll need to also have a card at MasterCard or VISA).
So for our transfer to work, there are a couple of companies (PayPal, MasterCard, etc.) that have central authority over any transaction we attempt.
They could even block us (that actually hapenned to WikiLeaks and was part of the reasons bitcoin got popular).
As opposed to the bitcoin protocol :
- you could be using anything - e.g.: local bitcoin to buy a faction of BTC for some ¥s in your local market. or e.g.: use some exchange platform (whatever has currently replaced MtGOX and BTC-e)
- I could be using some coin processor to convert them to real money (e.g.: BitPay or Coinbase) or simply store them into my local wallet (e.g.: Bitcoin Classic)
As long as the end-point we each chose follows the protocol, the transaction can happen.
There's no single central "Bitcoin Inc." that could control the transaction (massive mining pools aside) and freeze your account.
There's no single BTCcard that we all must obtain in order to do the trasaction.
And unlike PayPal, nobody can block donations to wikileaks.
The closest to this type of freedom of choice is european payment system like SEPA.
As long as your and my bank follow this system, we can send money accross accounts.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
One puzzle about the money stock of the U.S. economy concerns the amount of currency [read: cash]. In 1998 there was about $460 billion of currency outstanding. To put this number in perspective, we can divide it by 205 million, the number of adults (age sixteen and over) in the United States. This calculation implies that the average adult holds about $2,240 of currency. Most people are surprised to learn that our economy has so much currency because they carry far less than this in their wallets.
Who is holding all this currency? No one knows for sure, but there are two plausible explanations.
The first explanation is that much of the currency is being held abroad. In foreign countries without a stable monetary system, people often prefer U.S. dollars to domestic assets. It is, in fact, not unusual to see U.S. dollars being used overseas as the medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.
The second explanation is that much of the currency is being held by drug dealers, tax evaders, and other criminals. For most people in the U.S. economy, currency is not a particularly good way to hold wealth. Not only can currency be lost or stolen, but it also does not earn interest, whereas a bank deposit does. Thus, most people hold only small amounts of currency. By contrast, criminals may avoid putting their wealth in banks, because a bank deposit gives police a paper trail with which to trace their illegal activities. For criminals, currency may be the best store of value available.
So I suppose Linux distros should stop distributing over BitTorrent if they don't want to be known for piracy?
Dunning-Krugerrand is funny.
The others less so. Too bad that you had to add these offensive alternative names.
You answer that with the next sentence:
You can run a perfectly functional digital economy with yen or any other real currency.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
And it's gone...
Yes, precisely like cash. Now I know that many on /. are very much from the "nobody knowing how much Sprite I buy is more important than busting tax evaders and preventing drug trafficking" camp, but there being an equivalent means of escaping prosecution now is not an argument for introducing new means in the future. From Mankiw's "Principles of Economics":
This is a terrible argument. First, you rely on the assumption that any one authority gets to "allow" Bitcoin to exist, when none do. Bitcoin already exists, people are using it, no permission was needed, and none was asked. Second, you seem to be saying that because cash can be used illegally (in addition to the substantial legal use that cash enjoys) that we don't need another currency that might be used illegally, while ignoring the substantial legal uses and novel features that a digital currency provides.
Car analogy time: Gasoline cars can be used to mow into crowds of people, so we shouldn't allow electric cars to be licensed for street use, lest they also be used to mow into crowds of people.
See? It's a dumb argument.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
In that case, then what's the point of using Bitcoin?
Exactly.
1. Bitcoin cannot be inflated away.
How is that a good thing?
There's nothing like $HOME
If it's not anonymous, you're doing it wrong.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
1. it is worse than that, bitcoin is deflationary, far worse than inflationary.
Deflation is worse for the overall economy.
But it is better for the individual holding the currency.
> Not only can currency be lost or stolen, but it also does not earn interest, whereas a bank deposit does.
This is not 1980, with 20%+ prime rate. http://www.fedprimerate.com/wa... Banks pay very low interest rates on deposits today. To add insult to injury, you pay income tax on what little interest you do get. You're lucky if you can earn enough interest, net after taxes, to pay monthly bank fees.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Come to live a year in Argentina, then we may talk about bitcoins worth.
We shouldn't licence person operate cars to be used when autonomous cars are a viable alternative. If you want to go into silly analogies, we probably shouldn't also licence nuclear weaponry to the general populace even though they may find a creative use for it like killing vermin. Could be doing this all day, buddy.
People of Japan already receive interest on any and all yen they hold, because their currency has been deflating for the past couple of years. Needless to say, the are much better means of keeping wealth in a bank than on a checking account.