Bitcoin Forum

Hello , my brother is a lawyer and he suggest me to cash out 50%. He says I dont have to pay tax for it now. But he is sure in the future they will ban it. (dont accept withdrawals from exchanges)
What do you guys think?

If he is sure why he isn't suggesting to withdraw 100%. Anyway noone can predict what will happen but so far noone says anything about banning bitcoins or something. Regulation will be introduced but no bans.

what country are you from, if you don't mind me asking.
here in Australia I think that government want taxes, but not sure how that will work.

Capital gains tax. It's basically just considered normal income, except you divide it by two if you've held the BTC for over a year.

So the tax on $1m will be about $250k or so.

I'm from belgium. Small pattatoland

The greater your assets the more they should be diversified to reduce risk. If Bitcoins constitute a large amount of your wealth, then sell some and buy other assets (gold, properties, stocks). That way if BTC does fall or fail then it's not so bad, you've just given up some of your upside.

And what else does his crystal ball say?

That you're bear will die in less then 200 years and chinese will rule the world

No government can ban cryptocoins... And yes, if you cash out in FIAT, you may have to pay tax depending on the laws of your country. ;)

In fairness to your brother, the immediate reaction of most people when they discover Bitcoin is that it could get banned. Spend some time reading up on it, follow the news, and once you have a clear understanding of the various factors at play, and the resilience of the system, you may change your mind.

They can't ban cryptos, and if they ban exchanges, deals will just be made in cash or in escrow on boards like this. What you do with your coins is up to you, but don't just blindly take advice or somebody else even if he is a lawyer.


haha this made me laugh for some reason.

A leader is a person who is willing to hold good ideas even when they are unpopular.

From your brief description, it sounds like you and your brother may both be followers.  Rather than actually do sufficient research, it sounds like your brother might have just read and believed a few superficial articles written by journalists who don't really understand Bitcoin.  The mainstream media usually gets it wrong.

No matter what you do, you risk looking foolish in front of your brother.  If you stay in and Bitcoin fails, he's in a perfect spot to say, "I told you so."  If you get out and Bitcoin continues to grow, you look like someone too weak to think for himself.

If your primary concern is to look good to others, you should sell.  If you miss out on becoming rich, you can always use he excuse that it seemed too risky.  Worst case scenario is that you stay poor and popular.

Or you could act like a leader, do the research, decide for yourself, and ignore what others say, including your brother, the mainstream media, and others in this forum.

People are naturally afraid of things they don't understand, but that's often where the big money lies.  The cure to fear is in-depth knowledge.  Venture capitalists get rich because they are willing to think and take a risk based of their conclusions.

It's not really a question of what kind of person you are, but rather what kind of person you choose to be.  You have the power to decide in this and every instance of your life.  Be what you want to be: a thinker, a follower, popular, risk-taking, whatever.

Also your brother must check fincen's guidelines so far as well as the recent congress hearing about bitcoin.
As a lawyer he 'll appreciate all the boring stuff  :P :P

You should sell 50% because you should do it before the other guy, and that's the whole reason.

lol As long as you're in cryptocurrencies they can't do a thing, I've been amazed lately with some of the stuff going on at how secure the coins are once they're tucked away in your wallet on the PC. It will vary from country to country what the politicians do but even if they make it illegal they'd essentially have to put a gun to your head and force you to open up the wallet in order to get at your coins, cashing out now I think would be a big mistake with hyperinflation around the corner.

People, particularly on this forum like to think that governments and banks are these big, ruthless, all powerful entities but the reality is they're usually a bunch of old white men who need the help of an assistant to operate a keyboard. They can't even get basic mathematics right and refuse to understand that when you have negative numbers ( debt ) that's a bad thing.

I have a lot of respect for Germany who, like China are clearly more ahead of the curve than many like to think because they already declared it private money, I suspect most countries with sense will pick this option instead because it nets them money in the long run and they won't waste lots of resources chasing encrypted information everywhere.

Risk vs reward. Only you know how much risk you're willing to take. If the vast majority of your net worth is in bitcoin, it's probably worth diversifying a bit. If you're just playing around with a couple of bitcoins, selling now would be no fun.

Very funny. You are right, but if the evil old white men have loyal and competent underlings to carry out their will, the people are still in trouble

If you were in this in early days, now's a great time to cash out. Nothing lasts forever man!

As long as they keep fucking up they'll have less and less people to help them, look at what happened with Snowden :D no programmer or tech expert who is competent is likely to help them these days, even if the government pays them a lot they'll probably do to security what they did to Obamacare.

So you don't suggest anyone to enter from now on right? What are you doing here then?

Not right. I never referred to "anyone". The message is directed to OP, and I mean to say if he has Bitcoins from early days he can make a decent profit now just in case there is any correction in coming days. Anyways, the decision is upto OP.
Let's accept it whether me or you, nobody is 100% sure in our heart that bitcoin will exist 50 years from now.

Sell all instead, I need to buy at lower price :)

Wish I could have said it in such minimalist way, hehe.

Who cares for 50 years from now. If bitcoin is around 6 months from now it will cost 10000$  :P

If one government bans withdrawal from an exchange, people will just move their bitcoins to another exchange and cash out there.

I don't believe a government would be dumb enough to forbid it, but if they do, there will always be a country that will allow it and the exchange will settle there and wire the funds from there.

There will always be ways to convert bitcoins to whatever other mediums of exchange exist at that moment.

For exemple, in the case of localbitcoins.com, there is no cash out of cash since the transactions happen in person or through direct bank transfers.

At this stage a ban would probably just succeed at accelerating the collapse of the fiat monetary system.

I see why revolutions don't happen. The "banksters" don't even have to do anything, your brother discourages you.

Not picking on your brother, I've seen this thought process on other political topics.  In the past I would have said elites maintain the status quo. Ask me now and I'll tell you fear and the people around you do.

Have your brother watch the two videos in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=346209.0
Ask him if he still thinks you should cash out.

Forget it man. The horse has already bolted. It is too late to close the stable door now. Maybe a few months back when there was all that uncertainty regarding Gox something like this could have been taken seriously. But it's too late now. Bitcoin is going to be MASSIVE. It has too much momentum now. There is no stopping it.

And then they will ban gold  ;)

Worst case scenario, some of us will be setting up residency in another country for a short while.

Fortunately there are a couple hundred to choose from, so finding the one friendly to Bitcoin withdrawals shouldn't be difficult.

And if you make enough money to justify the move, you'll easily be able to fly back to the USA as often as you like, get an apartment, and enjoy your Moons over my Hammy at Denny's anytime.

-Burger-

Too good! +1000

i'm sure there would be plenty of clever ways of getting your BTC out. stopping exchanges from cashing out would be a problem though.. people would use localbitcoins, but it would cause a barrier to entry and stunt growth.

Your brother is not completely wrong.

I hope you did, buy back now and take a nice profit.

From the same user in another thread:
"Sell everything you own and put it in to bitcoins and top5 altcoins"

Now , that's a troll.

Only if his brother is bad luck Brian himself :P

None says bitcoin is not risky!
You can still save your earning by selling, but we can't predict the future.

No don't listen to you're brother. I did and could have had 50 000 SEK more then i have right now.... Why did i listen to my stupid little brother in the first place?

That's why I didn't tell my brother until I was already rich...  ;D

Btw that's a very good advise. I did the same mistake recentrly with my parents and now everyday they ask me to sell. And i 'm nowhere near rich  :P

It's not terrible advice to lock in some profits by diversification. However I seriously doubt it will be banned by your government or that it would make a difference if it was. I am also skeptical about his opinion that bitcoin is somehow tax free.