As soon as everybody has some bitcoins the bitcoin value increase should slow down. At that point there would be no point in hoarding bitcoin more than any other currency.
Oh yes there is. Bitcoin is deflationary, so your money isn't debased while you hold it. I don't ever intend to exchange my bitcoin for any other currency unless I'm purchasing something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
I think when bitcoin is measured in the multi-trillions, the temptation for the US government to raid american bitcoin exchanges will be too great. And they have form.
In particular, the risk-adjusted deflationary returns are already priced in to the asset’s current price, so you can’t actually make any (time-discounted) expected money just from holding on to a deflationary asset. You can, on the other hand, lose money by holding on to dollars, but only because its utility from convenience sort of counteracts the deflationary loss of future value (up to some small amount of dollars, at which point you start thinking “I should buy stocks or something instead”).
Perhaps more to the point, we live in a world where governments can stimulate investment in stocks by manipulating the interest rates of bonds and maintaining steady inflation, and yet I am to believe that if, in effect, you could collect interest with zero risk by just holding your money, it wouldn't have any effect on the economy? Just as many people would be investing as in the current situation, where if you do that you're losing money? It seems hard to justify all the rhetoric about "war on savers" if that's the case. How does the no-arbitrage principle actually explain this away?
Oh that's the crux of it alright. And why should someone take on debt for a fixed asset? Why exactly should a fixed asset increase in cost? Without debt to fuel that fixed-asset price increase, prices will again align with income, not the amount of debt people are capable of servicing. People will no longer acquire housing, leaving it empty, simply for the capital gain.
Bitcoin is the reckoning for that fixed-asset debt bubble.
> large business loan
If they have a business plan that allows them to create capital by having income greater than expenses, people will invest in their business. If they are just going to sit on assets and expect inflation to take care of it, they won't.
Even if you are unconcerned with mortgages, though, loans are the basis of most business operations; in a world where taking out loans doesn't make sense presumably we'd see a lot less economic activity and a lot more just sitting on money waiting for it to deflate. Unless you have some sort of alternate economy in mind (and I haven't met many Bitcoin guys who are planned-economy enthusiasts) switching to a deflationary model would be a complete economic disaster.
Bitcoin will eventually stabilize to an ever appreciating value asset. But what it will allow you to do is save for a house. If you have a business proposal that encourages people to pay you for a good or service, people will invest their savings in it and take on that risk. Banks will instead move back to providing capital to businesses, using savings from people that are willing to invest. Businesses will again focus on productivity increases, because that's how you get access to capital.
I also don't think it is going to be resisted quite as much as people think it will be. People still need to pay their taxes, and that is not going to stop. The main thing it is going to do is prick the bubble of consumer debt, and remove the banking middle-men from that space. That alone is a multi-trillion dollar industry, let alone the annuities that banks own and graft from, from those assets. Removing these people (i.e. banking debt suppliers) from positions of power, by strangling their access to capital, is a justification for bitcoin in its own right. Imagine a world in which banks didn't control governments.
That's the way it is supposed to work i think. It is pure genius.
I said : > It doesn't matter what they do.
They can adopt it, or not adopt it. It makes no difference whatsoever.
You should try it. It works really well. And beer is delicious.
Having another delicious beer right now on my bitcoin debit card. It has been a good day.
It tastes real enough.
My money isn't being debased while I hold it. Quite the opposite.
That's what bitcoin is; A decentralized banking account. Except you are your own bank.
Either you aren't in the US, or you don't understand how capital gains work. What you describe is exactly a taxable event (could be a loss, could be a gain).
Selling X shares of a capital asset for $Y is always taxable, no matter if you also buy X more shares, or $Y more in the same period of time. See also: wash sale [0].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_Australia
> CGT operates by having net gains treated as taxable income in the tax year an asset is sold or otherwise disposed of.
Timeline:
day 1: you buy bitcoin (or mine it and take tax as gross income), bitcoin is valued at $1k USD / bitcoin, you bought 1 bitcoin
day 10: you use the $100 in your debit card to buy many beers, bitcoin is valued at $1.1k USD / bitcoin
day 10 +15 minutes: something sells some of your bitcoin to replenish $100 in your debit card
You now have 10/11th of a bitcoin, valued at $1000 USD, plus $100 of taxable gain for which you probably need to pay the IRS like $15 or something. Or what's wrong in my timeline there?
They also went into some detail about wash sales, which is going over my head.
But yea this sounds like it would vastly complicate your tax preparation. Unless you just don't report it and cross your fingers that you don't get audited I guess?
Of course, this is now 3rd hand from a CPA, and only applies for US federal taxes.
If these cards do not exist or are not popular, I would take that as evidence that selling a capital asset is taxable, whether or not it was triggered by a card purchase.
I mined hundreds of BTC in 2011 to 2012, and sold pretty much everything as I went. If I'd saved it all, I'd have "fuck you money" right now, but at the time even $100/BTC seemed like a moonshot.
I'm not going to beat myself up over not having prescient knowledge of BTC or any other thing I could have invested in.
They can hold with their other money.
I only remember buying a single item with Bitcoins and that was because the online store had difficulty with my credit card.