Topic: Some newb questions... (Read 1372 times)

bad idea. first read about it, and see some price change charts then decide How Much to Invest

i don't know about other countries but i read somewhere that some of them will apply taxes on bitcoin

all i can say is you can lose all your bitcoin to theft, fraud, and a lot of other things if you are not aware of how to use this system

Don't you ever, ever, ever put your life savings into bitcoin. The price is highly volatile and it is not safe for newbie speculators to dive in and take the risks. One wrong move in the crypto world, and say bye bye to your funds.

Please don't do that.
Though I believe bitcoin will be adopted by the mass and price will go up in the future, it is still uncertain and risky. It is okay if you want to invest part of your savings in bitcoin, but please don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I went all with Dogecoin back in the day... it was a big success and it got me started in the crypto world.
You have to have a clear vision and balls and most importantly lots of luck. So GL Op.

1.) I would highly advise against this. You will be risking your future on extremely risky speculation. You may loose half your value in a month. Can you afford that? Bitcoin never was designed for speculation, you can of course but you may as well but lottery tickets. This is a social experiment and we aren't even at version #1 yet.
A better stratigy is to buy some coin and start using them on the internet. Then you can see the real advantages of BTC. It is the fastest, cheapest, safest way to send money anywhere. You may also get a better deal because the price has gone up.

2.) There is no avoiding death and taxes. If you were paid by an employer in BTC you still owe income tax because you still received income. When you spend some of your coin you will also need to calculate capitol gains.
Example:
Bob is paid $100 dollars in BTC for a day of work. His tax liability for income is 30%, so after income tax he has $70. The next year he spends his BTC buying shoes. His $70 worth of coin is now worth $120 because the price has gone up. Wohoo!
However he still owes capitol gains on the appreciation in value of his coins when spending or cashing out. So, 120 - 70 = ($50 of taxable capitol gains). His CG tax could be from 0-20%. Let's say it's 10%. In that case he owes the IRS another $5 in CG tax. If his coins had depreciated he could also have claimed a loss and perhaps gotten some tax relief.

Hope this helps! 

Here are some other safe, secure alternatives:

Ledger USB Wallet:

http://www.coindesk.com/ledger-launches-usb-bitcoin-wallet-bank-grade-security/

Trezor wallet:

https://www.bitcointrezor.com/

And the tried, true, and most reliable of all (and cheapest) paper wallet:

https://www.bitaddress.org

Cool, thanks everyone for the advice!

I'll read that article when I get off work. I installed the Bitcoin.org client and the Armory client. Since this will be a savings thing I'll just be doing the offline wallets/cold storage thing.

I'd like to buy a dedicated flash drive and setup a bootable instance of Debian on it then do Armory and keep the offline wallet on a partition of that drive. Is that how most people do it?

Invest smartly, not all at once if possible.

This could be a reference
http://cointelegraph.com/news/111811/how_to_invest_in_bitcoin_without_losing_everything

1) don't convert everything, a 50% is enough

2) for tax, better to do it face to face, otherwise just pay them and be happy

funny thing is that illegal part come from IRS not us, bitcoin should be tax free

As others have said before me, I don't think it would be very wise for you to convert all of your savings to Bitcoin. If you wanna invest in Bitcoin, you'll have to set aside money that you can definitely do without if worst comes to worst. If you're investing (non-essential money) for the long term then I would suggest that you forget about your BTC after you buy it, just make sure your wallet is secured. There are apps that you can set up on your phone to notify you in case BTC value spikes, this way you always have the choice to sell for a profit if you want to.
You should read up on Bitcoin and maybe ask questions on here about stuff you don't understand, it's always good to know your investment inside out.  
Right now the simplest way to buy Bitcoin (that I could find) is through Circle.com. You can set up your account with them, link your debit/credit card, upload money and have Bitcoin in your account in less than 5 minutes. They are pretty safe and money you upload automatically gets converted to Bitcoin at market rate (+ small service fee).
I wish you all the best on your Bitcoin/cryptocurrency journey!  

If I convert all of my US Dollars savings into Bitcoin, what are the chances it will loose value?
It is more risky bet then most fiat currency.  You will have a large variance compared to USD.   Some times it can be good other times ... yes it can be bad.


What if my employer paid me in Bitcoin? Can I avoid the illegal income taxation by the IRS?

Illegal income taxation?  Not sure what you mean by that.     But if you were paid by employer you should have it on your taxes.   Not listing payment by employer is not good in eyes of IRS no matter what form of currency you get paid in.

Impossible to predict. In the short term, there is a very good chance that it will loose value. Bitcoin is very high risk.  You should not hold value in bitcoin that would be devastating to lose.


Legally?  No.  You might be able to convince your employer to break the law and not report your income to the IRS, and you might be willing to break the law yourself and not pay taxes on the income.  this would not remove the legal requirement to pay the taxes, and if the IRS figured out what was going on, both yourself and your lawyer would be prosecuted.

There's a good chance you could lose some value in the short term and no guarantees over the long term.  Dollar cost average an amount that your comfortable with and don't go overboard with it.

At this point don't put more money you can afford to lose. Start playing with small amount until you understand wtf you are doing. Take your time to understand how it works and all the risks before investing more.

I don't think it's wise to go all-in in any investment, but if you just want to compensate for dollar inflation I think it's a safe investment, although, don't go all-in...

If there's something illegal with your tax returns you should just talk to a lawyer or the proper authorities in your country.

Employers using bitcoin to avoid taxation 'gonna have a bad time', anyway paying in cash is still the best way to avoid taxation...

I'm wanting to start learning about Bitcoin. A couple years ago I was looking into mining the but special hardware was just too expensive for me.

Couple questions...

If I convert all of my US Dollars savings into Bitcoin, what are the chances it will loose value?

What if my employer paid me in Bitcoin? Can I avoid the illegal income taxation by the IRS?


I really want to dump all of my debt notes and stop trading in debt notes all together, inflation is just an inevitability of it. I also don't want to convert it to precious metals which we all see don't always go up in value or even hold their value, plus you can't pay for goods or services with it.

It just seems like there is so much to learn lol. Hell I don't even know yet how to make a Bitcoin wallet or where to go to trade my US Dollars for Bitcoins.

Thanks.