Topic: Bit coin is on a down hill slope (Read 5528 times)

In the hypothetical situation where bitcoin replaced most of fiat, I don't see what business would be not there anymore, except a certain part of current banking (probably replaced by similar bitcoin financial services).  Bitcoin would then simply the means of payment, like fiat is today.  However, the mining logic of bitcoin is such that there's an incentive to invest more hardware and energy in bitcoin, until there is an almost break-even between the mining seigniorage and its cost.  The mining seigniorage is the bitcoin inflation which is now about 10%.  It would hence mean that of the order of 10% of the $ 50 trillion market cap would go into mining hardware and energy consumption per year until mid 2016.  After that, it will be 5%.  That's still $ 2.5 trillion worth of hardware and energy cost.
No other pulluting business would be replaced and out of business with that (except of course that it wouldn't get any hardware and any energy anymore as all of it will be used up by bitcoin miners).

There is no particular benefit (on the pollution/business side) of using bitcoin over fiat, that would reduce in the same way the mining pollution and consumption.   Even the total banking world today is not consuming all available energy and all available hardware.

Very small uphill right now but it is downhill from the beginning of the year. Nothing to worry about since it's a temporary consolidation and set back.

Bit and coin are different words?

Well, time for OP to create another thread -  Bitcoin is on a uphill climb.

If Bitcoin was that big, there would be savings from not having the other activities and businesses that are polluting right now.

You have to compare the cost with the benefit. If the benefit is huge, the cost can be very big.

If bitcoin would become a world-wide success before block rewards are reduced significantly, it would become terrible, yes.
Grossly, the inflation rate is about the mining cost and hence close to the energy and hardware consumption for mining.

With a tiny market cap of a few billion $, even at an inflation rate of about 10%, this only represents a few hundred million $ that are wasted on mining hardware and mining energy consumption.

If bitcoin would, at this point, have taken over all of fiat, its market cap would be of the order of $50 trillion, and the expenses on mining hardware and energy would be of the order of $ 5 trillion, which is more than the current world energy and hardware production.  This would imply that about all of the world's energy and all of the world's hardware production capacity would go into producing and having run mining equipment, which would be a terrible ecological disaster.

In order to avoid that, it is to be hoped that bitcoin doesn't get a significant market cap before several block reward halvings - that is - a decade or two from now or more.

All I had to go on was publicized cases which is why I listed a range of penalties, but if you guys are serious about not paying taxes there is a LEGAL way to do it. As I mentioned before, you are only subject to Federal Taxes if you live within 20 miles of a federal office building. For this reason wealthy people typically create "tax havens" which basically means that if you buy an address in a country where there is no income tax and list that as your primary address you don't owe any federal taxes. The trick is that if you never spend any time there and have only one US address which is active that can easily dispute that which is why people typically have multiple addresses that they occupy when they do this. The only consequence of using this strategy is that you cannot legally vote in any city or state election if you don't have a primary address there and you can only use an absentee ballot for federal elections since you have no local voting place. You can, however, still fund political campaigns so if you list your primary in the middle of the ocean but really live in an American city you can still be involved, but never completely.

Here is a video talking about it: http://www.icij.org/offshore/video-tax-havens-101-high-cost-offshore

I am personally against tax havens, but I would rather see people go through legal channels to avoid taxes. At least that way it won't bring more bad press for Bitcoin.

If you are moving a rather large amount of money another strategy is to set up a corporation can help. Because shares are stock are not taxed if you get your company to legally pay no or little taxes and then you get paid by your company in the form of shares you can keep your address anywhere you like and won't have to worry about it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/leesheppard/2013/05/28/how-does-apple-avoid-taxes/

Or you can try what this lady did: https://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=10Sep05

Instead of paying taxes to the IRS, she sends the money to the programs that the IRS claims to fund and then sends a letter to the IRS about it. Of course they were quick to go after her, but since she is actually paying money to support the people in her community it was kept as quiet as possible and proved to be a bit more difficult for the IRS to handle. I am not entirely sure what the overall outcome was, but to the best of my knowledge she never went to prison over it so obviously it works if you have the time to play with the IRS in court.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are consequences in breaking the law, but there are legal ways to avoid taxes. Anyone who thinks they can get away with just not paying taxes and not having a plan is fooling themselves.



No need to be rude.

Yes I agreee with the article. If you think about it, how much polution did bitcoin mining cost the world? Excessive?

It suits me perfectly.  I'm part of the state.  I'm just honest about it.

If a cop tells you to stop jaywalking, and you pull a gun on him "in self-defence," he'll cap your ass too.  Doesn't mean you got shot for jaywalking--you got shot for pulling a gun.


Why not move to a place that suits you better?  Lazy?  Scared?  No one wants to take you?
Sulking on the interwebs isn't helping you much, is it?

I know that if I don't pay my taxes, at a certain point, violent action will be taken against me,  such as trying to get me handcuffed or so.  If at that point, I resist (for instance, using self defense with a gun myself), I will end up getting a gun pointed at me.

Of course, as I don't see the point in doing that because I will lose in the end, I pay my taxes.   Exactly in the same way as the restaurant holder pays his "protection" to the local maffia, and they don't explicitly need to point a gun at him.  He knows that he's in danger if he doesn't, so if you have some wisdom, you don't let it escalate to that point.

Do you know personally people who got a gun pointed at them by Stalin ?  Does this in any way prove that Stalin didn't use violence to obtain from others what he wanted ?

To answer your second question: I live in the European Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

You forgot endless market manipulation to suppress alternative currencies, endless wars to keep the petrodollar going, endless media manipulation to keep the sheep thinking good banker friendly thoughts, endless police state to keep the rest of the people in line, and endkess political bribing to keep the law stacked against us. All in all this system costs trillions not to mention hundreds of thousands of lives and the sacrificing of freedoms

Did I leave anything out??

Good.  Thus far we've established the following:

1.  No one held a gun to your head.
2.  You do not personally know anyone who had a gun pointed at his head for nonpayment of taxes.

Now if you can just answer the second question, we can continue.  Concentrate.  Good luck.

I never claimed people to be shot systematically nor that I know people stupid enough to have themselves shot because they refuse to comply.  Just that there is threat of physical violence, and use of violence if you don't pay your taxes.  If you try to defend yourself against that form of violence, you will, depending on the situation, face a gun sooner or later.   So your point is not an argument against mine, that you will end up suffering physical violence when you refuse to pay your taxes and defend yourself against those trying to force you to comply.

I'm pretty sure you don't personally know anybody that got shot by Stalin either.  That doesn't mean that Stalin didn't use violence to make others comply.

You're right of course, but I meant with "over-investment" and "under-consumption" as compared to the hypothetical market situation that would exist if the commodity were just produced and consumed for its consumption and eventual capital utility, but not for its speculative aspects.

The difference between milk-that-is-discovered-to-enhance-petrol and milk-that-became-money is that the first is a new consumption aspect of milk, while the second is a speculative aspect of milk.

The demand for an asset (which can be a commodity) has normally three origins:

1) consumption
2) capital (that is, it is a means of production)
3) speculation on later demand

I was setting 3) apart and my "over" was with respect to the absence of 3)

Talking about tinfoil... I made some inquiries with my sources and it turned out that NotLambchop is a general Baxter from Pentagon. You can find him in the following short videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3adw9oLBkBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6O6sM2Shok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXbCwq4ewBU

Enjoy!

You're confusing "maximum sentence" with "most common."  Maximum sentences are used in extreme cases. Al Capone got nailed for tax evasion, for instance.
Re. your tabloid link where "this guy" got 9 years for tax evasion:  Bro, he wasn't even tried yet.

TL;DR: Typical tinfoil Bitcoiner tripe.

Sorry to interject, but here in America there are very serious problems with being caught evading taxes. The first thing they do is freeze your assets which directly prevents you from accessing any sort of money anywhere (except Bitcoin of course since no central authority can be directed) and they can take it all if you are convicted (obviously they can take Bitcoin given the recent auctions though not sure how they get the keys), but it gets more serious. Recent police shootings involved people who were selling goods without paying taxes on them and I recall at least one case where a man refused to pay taxes, was held up in his survivalist compound, and the FBI used obnoxious music to try and force him out.

That is an extreme example though. More commonly the penalty for tax evasion is 5 years in prison per count, though sometimes as low as 6 months. It's very easy to get life in prison for failing to pay taxes and this guy got 9 years in prison for not paying up. European courts seem to be more lenient.

The exception is that some people don't make enough money to owe on income taxes. In that case you don't have to report anything, but should still keep records in case you are audited. Another exception is that you have to live within 20 miles of a federal office building to owe taxes and people have successfully had their tax bills challenged in these cases. Of course, even a post office is considered a federal office building. When I lived in Canada I actually had to pay taxes to BOTH the United States and Canada because I lived within 20 miles to the US Embassy in Halifax.

I really don't mind the taxes personally, but I would prefer the Fair Tax system because in that system we only would pay taxes when we spend money which would tax everyone equally. Then again, that would mean that we would have to integrate a sales tax system into Bitcoin transactions to remain legitimate and I'm not really sure how we would do that.

^You really think 10-15% of the world's wealth is destroyed every year on banking?
Care to back up your assertions with some facts?

Bitcoin's overhead costs to operate the network is nothing compared to the cost to run the current bullshit fiat system.

Current fiat system costs:

1. Thousands of locations
2. Millions of computers
3. Billions spent on electricity
4. Security (technological/human)
5. General operational employees

just to name a few....

Those costs are easily in the 100's of billions of dollars.

No comparison to bitcoin.

also... What's a "Bit coin". Is that like a bitcoin? Or is it something that is a bit like a coin?