Topic: rpietila Wall Observer - the Quality TA Thread ;) - page 270. (Read 907227 times)

You just got through explaining how people are idiots and don't understand anything.  Now you're saying they understand the finer points of constitutional law and taxes and penalties for not reporting.


Well how compelling is it?  You seem to be boxing yourself in - it's compelling enough that having to pay CG tax will hurt its adoption, but not compelling enough for people to either track their purchases or ignore the IRS?



The software "issue" is just you trying to argue from authority and hoping no one else sees through it.

When I have to report capital gains, do you think I record all that stuff myself?  No.  I go to turbotax.com, type in the name of my brokerage and credentials and it imports it all for me.  Software.  There's nothing fundamentally different about bitcoin that it can't be reported the same way.

Average people (who generally have a pretty simple tax return) either do something like that, or they just fudge it.  In the appropriate 1040 box, they'll just make up some bullshit number that's close enough.  Millions of people do that every year, nobody goes to jail because it's small potatoes.  The IRS might have an agenda to destroy bitcoin, but they do not give a crap about a few bucks on low income tax returns.

In between 7-11/2011, the number of non-dust addresses grew by 30%.

Even if we assume that there is such a negative feedback loop, 2011 was a proof that it was reversed and did not self-immolate.

So far we have one vicious bear market that was reversed, and 5 years of gains. My theory is that Bitcoin has a self-reinforcing positive loop which will eventually consume fiat totally, and all the bear markets are temporary. If you say otherwise, the burden of proof is on you because such an assertion is not supported by neither history nor reason.

Even if you are correct the US isn't the only country in the world.

Mining isn't producing a unique work. It is providing a repetitive service that is scripted by the network. The litmus test is that the network is the manager, not the miner. The network sets the difficulty, the protocol, etc..


Gold miner you are your boss. You make all the management decisions.

I ran some polls. Perhaps 25 - 40% of Bitcoin users are ready to give their middle finger to the government if they feel confident in doing so. Others see working with the government as the only viable future.

I don't see how Bitcoin can go mainstream without the government removing the tax issue. I don't think technology can solve it for the masses.

So I already assume that either Bitcoin will become a government fiat, or it will peak when it reaches saturation in the current speculator demographic (we are not near that).

The wildcard is some application of Bitcoin that compels the masses to use it, perhaps some social networking application. But what if that application requires some feature Bitcoin doesn't have. Or it might be offchain.

P.S. I will be actively trying to make that happen and trying to make Bitcoin fail. But I probably can't do that. I hate Bitcoin in some sense because it already has 50% of mining at one pool and controlled by ASICs and I see it as a trap for my fellow libertarians. But I also see Bitcoin as a fulcrum to leverage, so I like it too.

I never felt more strongly in my whole life about being determined to use my skills to defeat a competitor.

99.95% of that which is not currently Bitcoin's target market.

The only way Bitcoin is adopted by the masses is if it becomes a government fiat. Period.

Refute?



What about 2011?

It does not remove the tax liability, all else being equal.  It may reduce the probability of compliance.  Whether that is a good thing is hotly contested.  Your position seems clear, at least.

I can freely produce a work with a market value, and the act of production does not result in a taxable event, in every precedent case.  Selling the work produces a taxable event.  A network cannot pay you anymore than a gold mine can pay you.  You book a profit when you sell the gold you mined.  Your paint box does not pay you when you paint a picture.  When you sell the picture, a taxable event occurs.

 

I agree with you entirely and completely.  I almost never recommend for anyone to use bitcoin, unless they have a compelling use, simply because it is too hard to use.  I do recommend for everyone to buy some bitcoin, because they will want to use it one day, and by then it will be much more difficult to buy.

Until ease of use is established, it is only high value-add applications which justify using bitcoin.  Not only must the use justify the burden of learning to use it, the risk of badly learned security practices, and the cost in time and fees of establishing a channel of supply and exploiting it, but it must also justify the opportunity cost of expending bitcoin, to the degree that the use results in less exposure to the appreciation trend than would otherwise occur.


 

How do you figure? The network is paying them for their services of mining. Seems correct to me and it is the ruling I expected and predicted since long-time ago.


Agreed.


There are so many opportunities in this ecosystem and I agree that solving the tax issue with s/w automation is a very silly one to go after now.

Just make an anonymous coin and the problem is solved for now (no need to hassle with s/w and no need to pay taxes for those in our white male demographic who like to point their middle finger at Uncle Sam). And first you need to fix so many other things before the masses will use BTC as a currency.

Agreed so many lower hanging fruits. Target the current demographic, which are speculative investors who want high tech weapons versus the government and liberate commerce.

That is exactly my marketing plan in spades. And I estimate I will win $billions with that plan.

This is an interesting point.  In the long run, this IRS opinion that miners need to report income when they mine, is frankly absurd, and will definitely be reversed in a tax court, if they don't revise it before then.  But most people are rather conservative with regard to the IRS, and disinclined to fight, so this may well lead to hobby miner tax sales.  However, most miners are holding for a better price at this point, and those who have any margin to play with will not take a forced sale at a loss, which would be foolish.  Nonetheless, there will be incremental supply as a result of that issue, I agree.  It will dry up on April 15th.


Agreed.  But I see such problems as business opportunities, not for me, but perhaps for someone in whom I may invest.  Almost no one needs bitcoin now.  Some people can benefit strong from using it, but they are not typical consumers.  That needs to change in order to achieve full potential, but not in order to address the low-hanging fruit, of which there is plenty.

Yes I am disputing it because it was state law versus the Constitution. And it was a change from the long standing hands off policy on all mail order that crossed state lines. Nobody took it seriously because they know the state is impotent and there was no tracking of everything back then. Certainly the states don't have the ability to track what is happening on the internet.

Also sales taxes are not personal income taxes. They are ad valorem. The only people that get prosecuted over sales taxes are the merchants, not the consumer.

And besides that was a long time ago and the USA has morphed significantly of recent.


You built a strawman. Then you get all pompous on me.

The difference is that when the IRS talks, people dread their fucking April 15. And they don't need to add a Schedule D to that, when there is no compelling reason to. And they don't know what a Schedule D is any way.

When someone says, make sure you file your Schedule D, they will say shit I don't need no Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not 1/100 as compelling as a currency as getting their goodies from Amazon. Your strawman you see.

That is as a currency. Now as a speculation for investment, those who are up for that won't be deterred by capital gains. They want capital gains. I was talking about the impact on the masses of this tax ruling and the effect it will have on sentiment being negative for while until something turns attention back to the "to the moon" theme that is Bitcoin entire reason to exist.



Instead of ad hominem useless comment how about actually telling me why you are qualified?

I actually made software for the mainsteam (1 million of them twice) and supported them over the phone and email.

If you want to put me on ignore, just do it. What is this fucking political BS every time you disagree with my right to express my thoughts?

The software issue is you don't understand how even what seems simple to you, is not simple for the masses. That is why I asked what kind of experience you have in the industry.

Most people I personally know have heard of bitcoin (mostly because I tell them about it); only 1 or maybe 2 of them mine at all.  Perhaps they heard about it too late or are not inclined to mine.

Most people I know who have heard of bitcoin, the first thing they do is buy GPU, mine altcoins, convert to BTC then dump  

In many states, residents were required by law to track and report their Amazon purchases for tax purposes.  It did not stop people from using Amazon.  Are you really trying to dispute this?

I just gave you a counterexample where a similar burden was ostensibly placed on people and they just didn't care.  The market decided the Amazon product was compelling enough to either track their purchases or risk the consequence of not reporting them.  

If you want to tell me some crucial difference between tracking Amazon purchases and tracking bitcoin purchases, go ahead.

As for my software qualifications and your rant about going to prison for not paying a few hundred bucks in taxes:  I just took you off ignore *today*, I regret it already.  

I tried to confirm this in different resolutions, and found that in 6-hour chart it is true that as long as the bottom was not in, the high volume candles were red, and green candles had lower volume. After it turned, it was the opposite.

Until so far, we are in the red volume mode. What I have said earlier today that I give 168 hours for this to change. When the volume confirms the tide change, we are already so high that there is a risk for a short-term pullback.

In general I don't understand momentum trading, perhaps that is why. My idea is to buy low and sell high. I don't want to attack momentum traders, if they make money it's fine.


After a bottom it goes up. We've seen this like.. 7 times now in Bitcoin's history. 99.95% don't own bitcoins. Hundreds of millions have now heard about them, mostly negative. It takes 12-24 months for them to buy. The first 1% of them is the next 500% of Bitcoin adoption, the ones who lift the price to $5,000 before leaves fall from the trees. If 5 million people invest $1,000 per person, they can buy 10 million bitcoins. That absorbs all the lonely Chinese and stolen coins, like many times before. There is nothing new in Bitcoin. Everything has happened before. It is a fractal. Before I even bought, it was explained to me.


Of course this is possible and some EW theorists believe it but I give higher odds for staying above 400 and therefore making a solid quadruple bottom going back to November, with ascending lows.

I believe you are too preoccupied with USD. The feedback loop of (lower USD price -> less users -> even lower price) has never before held true with Bitcoin, and I have no reason to believe it would now. There are so many reasons for increasing adoption, which inevitably leads to increased price that it is foolish to bet against it.

Sorry so many posts, but I think you guys are highly underestimating the effect of Murphy's Law as new layers of complexity are added.

The masses are not highly motivated to sort through that.

What seems no brainer simple to you, is unfathomably complex (or just not worth figuring out) to them.

Just downloading the Bitcoin client is too complex. That is why they join if they get an email from Coinbase to click a link.

You are asking people to change all the ways they think about money:

• Money is now taxable.
• Money takes 10 minutes to an hour to spend.
• Credit cards can lose their balances.
• Credit cards have no refunds nor consumer protection.

People don't change even one thing easily, much less such a laundry list, unless there is some amazing compelling reason for them to.

People are like cows. They want to go along "mooo, mooo". They don't want new things or hassles, unless it is about Britney Spear's navel or their Xbox.

States argued that (if Amazon had a physical presence in the state) but this was disputed because it violates the interstate commerce clause and the States only got their way by getting Amazon to deduct the taxes.

We are not talking about an ambiguous issue like that. The IRS has made it very clear what the culpability is.

What kind of software have you coded and done customer support on?



You want to do something illegal when we are headed into severe totalitarianism?

Do you know the fee penalties and criminal liabilities that can be accessed for willful failure to file?

You are talking about a former time that I remember fondly in my youth.

Do you realize the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, 10 to 100 times per capita higher than Europe?

https://www.cpa2biz.com/Content/media/PRODUCER_CONTENT/Newsletters/Articles_2012/CPA/Nov/PenaltyAbatement.jsp


http://www.wallandassociates.net/irs-penalties.html



Again the point is that people will have a reason to avoid Bitcoin. It doesn't matter to what degree you think the actual threat is. It adds yet another reason to the long list of reasons why Bitcoin sucks as a currency, e.g. 10 - 60 minute transactions, no consumer protections, etc.

It is as if you guys are completely out-of-touch with the way the real world works.  

You are in your little tech nerd fantasy bubble. Come out and play amongst the common folk.