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Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by sprash on Friday November 29, 2019 @08:17AM (#21664159)
The initial purpose of Bitcoin according to its creator was to abolish central banks. The fact that the state uses force to collect taxes in fiat currency means that you have no chance to escape fiat, this new regulation makes sure of that. It means nothing more than Bitcoin has utterly failed in its mission.
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by stale2002 on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:04AM (#21664425)
First of all, the purpose of Bitcoin had more to do with creating a censorship resistant method of transferring money, and much less to do with central banks.

And for the purpose of sending censorship resistant transactions, it works pretty well. Bitcoin transactions are basically never censored, where as other types of transactions (such as bank, credit card, and PayPal, ect) often are censored.

Seems like it has worked out quite well.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by sprash on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:13AM (#21664485)
It is imposible to anonymously buy or sell bitcoin now. If you buy Bitcoins and send them to "censored" people you will be caught immediately and possibly punished. "Tainted" bitcoins will be traced and will be unusable in Germany.

This new law will also make sure that "censored" persons can not convert bitcoin to fiat. For them bitcoin will be worthless because they have to pay their taxes in fiat.

If this is a blueprint for what is coming in the rest of the world, bitcoin is over. It is now worth less than Gold, because Gold can not be traced.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by stale2002 on Friday November 29, 2019 @10:14AM (#21664824)
> and send them to "censored" people you will be caught immediately and possibly punished.

Nope! There are many people that are censored which have broken no laws, have not been charged with any crimes, and yet the banking system tries to block their payments anyway.

By making the transaction on the blockchain, PayPal, who whoever, can't just decide, on a whim to block your transactions arbitrarily, even though no law has been broken.

An example that comes to mind is WikiLeaks. There was a time when donations to WikiLeaks were blocked, through the credit card system, even though they were not charged with any crimes.

Yet the Bitcoin transactions succeeded, and nobody was sent to jail for donating to WikiLeaks.

Financial censorship is something that is often done even though people have broken no laws, and the act of the financial censorship itself is actually the illegal action.

This has nothing to do with people breaking laws. The most common financial censorship is done, arbitrarily, to people who have not broken any laws, have not been charged with any crime, and who will never been able to defend themselves in a court.

Stopping this kind of financial censorship, is extremely valuable.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by yohannparis on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:04AM (#21664424)
You are confusing the right to legally sell and trade cryptocurrency in Germany and the control of it. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will not be regulated by the Deutsche Bundesbank (Germany Central Bank).
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by squiggleblaz on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:10AM (#21664460)
Yes, but a person who exchanges using cryptocurrency has to pay taxes in euros to the German government, so you cannot escape. Every transaction in Germany binds you to the central bank.

This is also true of exchanging five eggs for some butter, so anyone who thought a new currency would somehow exempt them from tax laws (and the currency in which the tax is denominated) was always foolish.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by C14L on Friday November 29, 2019 @11:31AM (#21665253)
Yes. But this is only the start of the journey.

Maybe in a decade or three, it will be possible to pay taxes in a cryptocurrenty too.

For now, we should be careful and observe as the technology evolves and the impact of cryptocurrencies on markets and society increases.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by reportgunner on Friday November 29, 2019 @08:48AM (#21664322)
I think that abolish is a bit strong to say here. For sure he wanted to give us an alternative to not need a bank rather than destroying them.
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by tekproxy on Friday November 29, 2019 @10:17AM (#21664837)
It'll compete with the failed central banks first, and considering the technology is young and shit right now, it's doing pretty good in places like Venezuela.
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by green1 on Friday November 29, 2019 @08:35AM (#21664253)
Did the creator himself seriously think Bitcoin would be the end of banks?
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by yohannparis on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:05AM (#21664429)
Be careful, because banks and central banks are not the same things.
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by green1 on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:28AM (#21664567)
I'm just wondering if people who claimed to believe Bitcoin would end the banking system came up with that amongst themselves or were basing it on something "Satoshi" had said.

I had the impression Satoshi was relatively matter of fact about Bitcoin, but I haven't read much of his/her/their own words.

Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by tekproxy on Friday November 29, 2019 @10:23AM (#21664878)
Read the white paper.
Re:German parliament passes bill allowing banks to sell and ... by fixf on Friday November 29, 2019 @08:47AM (#21664312)
No, it's much more likely that BTC was a state funded vehicle for surveillance. Take that with a grain of salt, I could be totally wrong.