Topic: For those of you who say governments can't ban bitcoin - page 2. (Read 4582 times)

I came across this will reading about the history of currency:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Notes_Tax_Act_1910

Essentially, in 1910, the Austrian government put a 10% tax on the creation of bank notes that were not the official Austrian banknotes.

I'm wondering if any attempt has been made in Austria to apply this to bitcoin.

I truly hate repeating my self, but I will say this one more time.

NO COUNTRY WILL EVER SUCCESSFULLY BAN BITCOIN!!!!!

Black Markets will emerge - much like Silk Road but not necessarily for drugs and guns and shit.

The only thing a gov can do is TAX it, nothing else.

If they try to ban it, they will lose money from taxable goods.
It's as simple as that!

Bitcoin is a revolution and they know this.
That is why they are fighting it with stupid laws and false media FUD.

 

Reread what I said.

At the time silver was like $10 - $15 / oz, so they charged a massive markup.

That IMO is a scam. I never said they didn't honor redemptions. I said they charged a huge markup on their product and marketed it in a way to deceive stupid people.

Bullshit. Every Liberty Dollar that I've seen was redeemable on demand for a set weight of silver bullion - just as the original US Dollar was redeemable for a set weight of gold or silver.

I have one such $20 silver certificate on my desk right now. Up until the feds came in and (illegally, in my mind) confiscated all their precious metals holdings, one could go to their Shelter System Warehouse in Coeur d'Alene, ID, and exchange this $20 Silver Certificate for one ounce of .999 fine silver.

You need to look at the GLOBAL money supply which is very roughly around 75 trillion, so around 10 000 times the market cap of BTC.

governments can ban everything and your life if necessary.

The threat to capital management options posed by crypto-currencies (after they grow some more) will be pretty universally felt by all governments.  I would not be at all surprised if this is one area of cooperation between nations which are otherwise in a lukewarm state of conflict.  The best hope we (hodlers) have is that one nation sees Bitcoin as an artifact which harms and adversary disproportionately and thus partially supports it.

US Federal/state governments.

Rest of the world doesn't mean shit.

"Trust in God"
I still have a couple of paper Liberty dollars and God isn't going to help me with them.

Confirmed 

What do you mean by "governments"? Local, state, governments? China? Russia? There will never be something like a "world ban" some countries may be against it but not all.

My theory: One of the three letter agencies will be in charge of crypto and will receive funding and make sure cryptos never go away. All happy. Source:my ass

The people behind Disney Dollar probably aren't anti-Federal Reserve.

Simple.

The disney dollar is basically a multiple use gift card. Also, Disney corporation doesn't spew a bunch of anti-government crap when selling these store credits.

The liberty dollar had all kinds of anti-government propaganda on their website. It was also very scammy. They were basically selling people gold/silver bullion at a HUGE markup with deceptive marketing. IMO, good riddance. If someone tried to pay me with a liberty dollar I'd call the cops on them. Basically every "liberty dollar" would be backed by like 50 cents worth of gold. Total scam.

Even their website, had that shit where it's like "Special offer, expires in ", but every day the "expiration" date on the "special" offer moved back a day. Sold exactly the way a scam would be sold.

This is a little off topic, but I am curious as to why the Disney Dollar hasn't suffered the same fate as the Liberty Dollar.

You might be willing to do that, but the mainstream public follows banking laws for the most part.

And yes, major businesses are set up for accounting, but more complex accounting systems DO cost money to set up. And since bitcoin is, for now, officially property, it's fairly trivial for the IRS to impose a transfer tax on it. Which again, YOU might snub and send/receive bitcoin to whoever you want and ignore the tax, but a company like amazon can't do that.

Remember, you're not spending a currency, you're transferring property every time you "spend" bitcoin.

And there's plenty of precedent for taxes/fees on transferring property. Transferring (non-publicly listed) company stock often has fees/taxes associated with it. Transferring real estate has fees/taxes with it. Buying shares of a public company has regulatory fees associated with it.

By ruling bitcoin as a property, not a currency, it opens to door on all kinds of taxes on it. If someone opens up a store where you can physically buy bitcoin with cash, states could easily say that you have to pay sales tax on those purchases now.


There's definitely doors to kick in. There's datacenters with petahashes of equipment, and mining pools that control petahashes of power.

Those entities can be forced to to adhere to regulations or risk getting seized.

Exactly. If you have a door to kick in, it's useless. Same with Ripple Hullcoin etc.

I think what the OP is trying to say is that if they want, governments can make Bitcoin useless as a mainstream replacement for national currencies.

And he's got a point.  For every example of people ignoring the law there's a dozen where the law is observed.  Government decrees the speed limit and outlaws travelling faster than that.  Most people, most of the time abide by that even when they have motivation to break the law.  (people tend to download music etc because there's no visible deterrent.  Put internet police in the ISPs and most people would soon stop).

It doesn't matter much if you carry on using Bitcoin, if the wider population doesn't, then you are trading in a small corner of the wider economy.  Whether this matters really depends on where you believe Bitcoin needs to be, what its objectives are.  If its to replace conventional money, there's a definite problem.  If its to create a parallel money, it may matter to some extent (depends on other countries, people's risk assessment).  If its build an alternative for those of a certain mindset, well its already there and that cant be stopped. But its not going to change other peoples minds to fit that last scenario and it will be a small niche.

If governments out right banned bitcoin, it could set bitcoin back 10 years...
But you can't stop it... It is similar to marijuana prohibition... People
Want it too much.   That is taking nearly a century to crumble mostly without any Internet.
The Internet accelerates the spread of knowledge and information and that acceleration is accelerating.

they can have my privkey containing 10ksat, but the other privkey containing many bitcoins... i dont know who that belongs to mr IRS man

that is what most newbies think the IRS will do, the fact is that when you sell bitcoins for fiat above $600 amounts (so yes you dont have to declare a starbucks purchase of $10 worth. much like you dont declare if someone buys you a sandwich or a coffee now with FIAT, or a relative gives to some money for a special occasion) all you need to declare and log is the larger priced items. such as a TV, car, a whole weeks worth of income/lifestyle costs.

businesses are 99.9% set up for tax, whether they accept fiat or bitcoin
businesses display their prices in FIAT and they at checkout have that FIAT price converted to bitcoin. So already they know that their income from a product sale nets them X fiat, whether accepting bitcoin or fiat. its the same. so dont worry about business accounting, many businesses can do it as easily as clicking 3 buttons on a mouse.

too many people worry about small things and make their minds believe the small things are enormous. the IRS tax announcement is not a bad thing, its not going to catch anybody out or cause them big problems in the future.

i simply cant believe that people think government hates bitcoin, and that their tin foil hat theories that making bitcoin now classified as something that holds real value, is:
1. a bad thing
2. a thing that governments will use to arrest and seize assets with
3. cause a world wide ban
4. other crackpot doomsday events

people can finally now transact and know exactly where they stand when it comes to tax, the government has declared bitcoin valuable, and as long as you pay taxes nothing will happen.

so relax folks.