Bitcoin Forum

A couple different views on Bitcoin have come out this week, Australia and Japan both made statements regarding the digital or cryptocurrency.

www.thedomains.com/2015/08/09/australia-says-bitcoin-is-money-japan-says-bitcoin-cant-be-owned/

It's funny how depending on the country you are, Bitcoin is a thing or another, but at the end of the day the algorithm and the way it works will still work exactly the same in Australia, Japan or Mars. Thats the beauty of Bitcoin and it shows how kinda dumb it is to try to regulate it.

Exactly, the same shade of grey is black somewhere and white somewhere else. Hopefully Australian Govt's views on Bitcoin will become prevalent in the world.

The Japanese are not very fond of Bitcoin right now, after the bad publicity generated as a result of the Mt Gox scandal. It takes just a single person (Mark Karpeles in this occasion) to destroy the hard work done by tens of thousands of people. The Japanese citizens accounted for somewhere around 15% to 20% of all the Bitcoin losses due to the Mt Gox scandal.

It doesn't matter what the governments say what bitcoin is. Bitcoin is what it is and it can't be changed, it is a decentralized cryptocurrency  in Australia, Japan , USA etc

Well... I wish the authorities would hurry up and decide so I can start using Bitcoin correctly. I would hate to do it wrong.

Yeah, those governments can say anything what they want, totally true. And it is a good news for Australian then, which its government admit bitcoin as money. For Japan, maybe thats because of Mt.Gox incident.
We can ignore what government say about bitcoin, because we will using it, no matter what they say. But their statement could affect people's mind who dont have any idea about bitcoin before, so it will make them to stay away from bitcoin.

Well most of the people will believe what their government tells them, and we can't stop that. What we can do is to educate people what bitcoin REALLY is .

It is what it is and will continue to operate in those countries that might not like it, tbere is not a whole lot they can do really to stop it.  I think in the end all countries will eventually have no choice but to accept it, the power is with the people and if the people shout loud enough and long enough they will be heard.

It certainly wouldn't hurt if most governments (especially of those countries that play a role in the global economy) ruled in favor of Bitcoin.

People who know how the world works know Japan is really a vassal state to America. Economically if they oppose Bitcoin it's cause they have been told to by their superiors.

Exactly, those regulators/Judicators  who declare what bitcoin is are told to do so from their superiors.

Bitcoin is still in its infancy as far as mainstream adoption goes. Countries & huge organisations still don't know what to do with/about it.

Give it time & as acceptance/adoption grows they won't have any choice but to bounce off each other & follow suit i.e. all begin to acknowledge bitcoin.

Japan is a vassal state of the USA (like other countries such as United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada), but the decision against Bitcoin doesn't have anything to do with the Americans. If it was so, then the Americans should have banned Bitcoins in the United States first. This particular decision was solely linked to the Mt Gox scandal.

True, those superiors could be german,french,japanese etc It doesn't matter what they are or where they come from. But something is clear, they want to  harm bitcoin with the use of regulators

If Japan says bitcoins can't be owned, do they mean japanese yens on a bank account can't be owned either?

They lack tangibility just as much. And the "dependency on a 3rd party" as the judge referred to, is even worse with yens.

The critical difference here is that the Australian comments come from the Australian senate. It is indicative of the need to change laws to reflect the reality of crypto currency. In particular in the Australian case coming to its senses regarding the GST, before Bitcoin is used a way to legally avoid the GST. The Japanese case is a Judge's interpretation of current Japanese law, Big difference.

lot of people in their heads make bitcoin to be what they'd have liked it to be, but bitcoin most certainly is centralised and changeable.

Japanese should realize that it's not the fault of Bitcoin that people lost money in that scandal, there have been a lot more scandals with fiat and they didn't blame fiat for that, Bitcoin is a currency and it will be used to do good and bad. I don't know why is it that when people lose fiat due to theft or scam they blame criminals but when they lose bitcoins for same reasons, it's the fault of Bitcoin.

Well Australia is right about one thing, Bitcoin is money, but not the current, it's the future money. And Japan I think treats bitcoin as tech rather than money so they think it can be owned only used.

Agreed. In bank accounts, you can only see those numbers printed in a screen or a sheet of paper plus a proof that you really own it, but have you really touched those "money" stated in your bank account? Yens stored on bank accounts are also intangible and also depends on a 3rd party for safekeeping, so how is yen different from bitcoin in this case?

The foundation of Bitcoin is Blockchain， which makes bitcoin become a direct and anonymous payment out of government's control. It is a distributed database driven by encryption technology.Speaking from low level, blockchain is a searchable account book.

This is a very good point, and I fully agree with you.. but in doing this, they actually invite criminals and scammers to their country. By their definition of Bitcoin, it makes it

easier for people to repeat the MtGox situation, and it will just get worst for them. They also provide Mark Karpeles with strong ammunition to not be prosecuted for his

actions. Now what is the point of that....? Do they want to hurt the reputation of Bitcoin, by creating a criminal safe haven for scammers in their country? This surely looks like

that....?

This is prove if Satoshi Nakamoto is not Japanese lol.


Maybe they not admit Bitcoin as currency because like @bryant.coleman said, they angry.

Sounds good, but dont you know that its very hard to tell what bitcoin really is for them even your family. Most people prefer to believe media or government than us, because they think those people are more trustworthy.

Australia recognized Bitcoin as money this is by itself another huge step for Bitcoin which will accelerate the adoption process and will support bitcoin to be recognized as currency in future by more and more countries.Japanese will have to accept it as currency after all.

After Mt. Gox incident, I dont think any Japanese want to risk their money in bitcoin. Its hard to get trust from them imo, and they prefer to work hardly instead of wasting their time to mind bitcoin.

Of course it matters what these governments do with bitcoin! To think they have no say is very short sighted and lacking in depth. Lets say anyone with a bitcoin wallet can now face 6 months mandatory jail sentence. Does that not change the state of bitcoin?
Understand the hate for government but the day they do not play a role in our lives is still far away.


The fact the Countries are all over the map is not a good sign to be honest. It shows that a small aspect could dictate the future and throw bitcoin into turmoil.

 :D :D :D The currency part is pretty easy to understand. Someone is offering something for sale like a bike or a month's rent, and they might give you a quote in dollars, yen and bitcoins. Bitcoin basically acts like a currency then. :-* :-* :-*

I think Japanese interpreted it more realistically that Bitcoin cannot be "owned" as a tangible object, not necessarily that it can't be "owned" by someone. It's like owning a name or birthdate. But it is very important that without a network of people using Bitcoin, it's has ZERO value.

And when the DECENTRLIZED MOVEMENT gathers steam, nobody will give a shit what any government thinks virtual currencies. Oh happy day!

Ofcourse it matters what they say. Decentralization here dont change anything. If your government say Bitcoin is this and that, you need to understand it that way. If government say that getting profit by trading bitcoin is not taxed but mining bitcoin is taxed, you just do that. pay tax of your mining profit and not pay tax of gaining profit by trading Bitcoins.

If you dont decentralization will not help you at all. Ofcourse your government cant turn Bitcoin off, but they can sue you for not paying taxes.

To me it's very troublesome that different governments see Bitcoin differently. This will definitely put certain users at advantage and disadvantage, depending on how their country sees Bitcoin and how it decides to govern it. It's definitely not the same if ones see it as a money, others as a commodity, and third see it as nothing.

This just shows how versatile Bitcoin actually is. It has many use cases.

The beauty of bitcoin is that it can exist outside of these laws and classifications of governments.

There is no law preventing the use of bitcoin at the moment.

Well, we can see here that Japan has the opposite thought of Australia.
But the important thing is, don't make this thought effect on another countries.

Yes, Currently most governments opinions on Bitcoin has come from the opinions from people funding their campaigns. Like the banks... so we know why some countries define it as

a commodity, rather than a currency.  ::) The definition of Bitcoin is not a easy thing to put in a box... Most people see it as a commodity and some see it as a currency or a

payment method. The only thing we know for sure is... We can do more than one thing with it... and that is a bonus.  ;) ... Smart contracts.

why don't they say it is both currency and assets? It has become the currency or payment processor with lowest fee and its price fluctuation has created good environment in trading where it works as an asset.

Discrepancies of the law regarding bitcoin only makes it clearer. We need one unified, global bitcoin law.
I know this is impossible right now, and probably won't happen anytime soon, if ever. But it is laughable that bitcoin can be treated so differently.

no we need bitcoin to be borderless, p2p and indifferent to gov laws or it'll be just become paypal 2.0.

Its highly unlikely that btc can have a globally consistent stance. Every country leans differently in terms of monetary policy, but all will not like having no power over a currency.

Well this isn't unusual and is usually the case with many other laws not just with bitcoin. for example In some countries its legal to have sex with 14 years olds whereas its legal to marry them in some others. Bitcoin is tricky because we might all see it as a currency but govs might see it as a commodity and not a genuine legal tender because they didn't issue it.

If Bitcoin is money, and it's, so it can be owned like we own the other currencies ,so i think saying that Bitcoin can't be owned make no sense in my opinion, and in fact people own Bitcoin and make trades with Bitcoin easily in many marketplaces

It doesn't really matter what these countries think of bitcoins as long as Us(bitcoiners) solely believe in bitcoin..Bitcoin is controlled by us and decentralized that's what makes it unique..Everyone has different opinions but i would say bitcoin is everything--investment,commodity and ofcource currency  ;)

Exactly. Nothing to do what a government thinks about a bitcoin.
Some government will not bother about bitcoin until bitcoin get a attractive price. People look for government as long as we expect to convert bitcoin into fiat, but we head to a future where there is no need of converting bitcoin into fiat. Just use bitcoin as your fiat.

IIRC. Australian banks have been closing bank accounts of people and businesses that are associated with Bitcoin.

That's the common thing banks do, this time bitcoin a reason. When people do not need to their bitcoin for fiat conversion and ready to spend for life requirements, no government will stop using people from bitcoin. But, it requires some time. We need to tolerate governments till that.

Yes, but will this ever be possible when Bitcoin has so many use cases and can do many different things? To have one law and that everybody has agreed upon it? I am kind of suspicious about this.

The only way this would work if everyone would recognize all of the Bitcoin's use cases. That Bitcoin is a commodity, money, etc.

Every country have different type of laws and lawmakers. So these things are nothing unexpected.
Bitcoin is too futuristic for today's standards.

Bitcoin is not in wide use, so there is little research of bitcoin by various authorities. Gradually, with the wide adoption of bitcoin, there will be consensus about its properties by different states.  I believe bitcoin is money.

The title of this threading is quite misleading. You can still own bitcoin in Japan. But if you lose it, or stolen by somebody, you cannot claim it back.

The Japanese will change the stance in a few year's time when bitcoin becomes popular in other countries.

Japanese people are in fact trading Bitcoin quite hard now.
Just look at the BTC/JPY market volume. http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets
I live in Japan and I'm using Coincheck.

fear of the unknown.. most governments are fearing that they will not be able to control their people because money owned by the central government is best used to control its citizens. yes they should regulate the usage of bitcoins for the purpose of security but not ban its use. I rest my case.

I know that people and laws differ from place to place. But I never imagined that Bitcoin will be viewed so differently.
How one country can view BTC as money and other say that it is not money at all? These interpretations are so random to the point I don't trust any of them.

The best way to use the money owned by the central government to control its citizens is through inflation. Inflation can make people poor if these people trust the government and save the money.

But regulation is not what bitcoin needs right now. It is a growing project that is not fully developed and does not have a strong hold on everybody's idea of what it should be.
Let it mature and become equal to the rest of world's currencies then speak of regulatory laws needing to be put in place.

I cant get my head around this regulation.

That decision has been misunderstood. This was about how bankruptcy works when Bitcoins are involved. The court ruled that Bitcoins are fungible; that is, specific Bitcoins combined in a wallet lose their individuality. The question was whether people who deposited Bitcoins with Mt. Gox were entitled to get those specific Bitcoins back in the bankruptcy, if Mt. Gox still had them, or whether they were just creditors of Mt. Gox, in which case they get a proportional share of the liquidated assets.

To understand this better, consider renting a car to a company that goes bankrupt. You can get the entire car back. Now consider lending them money. You only get back a fraction of the money, in proportion to what's left.

There are cases between those extremes. If you stored wheat in a grain elevator, with the wheat stored in a common silo, and they went broke, that works like lending them money. Grain is considered fungible; quantities of it are interchangeable. Bitcoin is now being treated more like wheat than like cars.

This is only meaningful in bankruptcies.

Well, as interesting as this is I don't think I'm going to be moving to Japan or Russia soon!

Australia, either!!

I think itll be a while before bicoin is got a real value attached to it.

Even today, bitcoin has some value attached to it. The price of each coin is $380. It means it is worth $380 in the market. You can also use bitcoin to buy things online or in some shops. You can buy digital goods in BitcoinTalk forum. The usage of bitcoin will spread widely and its value will increase as a result.

Each Country may have its own view on it.
But it doenst change the fact that BTC is and will be the Decentralized and Userfriendly currency no.1.
(At least until some big bad things happen (eventually)..)

Well the Australian tax office doesn't actually recognize bit coin as currency but it is considered similar to bartering.  If you are making an income from it you need to pay on it.
  https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Gen/Tax-treatment-of-crypto-currencies-in-Australia---specifically-bitcoin/

I love how Bitcoin dosen't care what regulators say..... Bitcoin marches on anyway........ ;D

When Bitcoin goes mainstream they'll come round .... hahahaha

Yes that's the bottom line and the best thing is nowadays Bitcoin is getting more and more popular it's a new revolution and bankers will be the losers if Bitcoin goes mainstream that's why they are trying to create hurdles for Bitcoin using regulatory as tools.

If you think it will be easy for bitcoin in the future to retain current unrestricted status quo. Bitcoin is rather insignificant side currency exchange market now in the best case.
In the future - if we grow bigger - situation might change as I don't believe that government will let bitcoin be unregulated the way it is now.

thank you, nice topic

Nicely put.

i think both have given the right statement about the bitcoin. i think there is not wrong to say that bitcoin is a money of course we are using is as a fiat currenc. and it is also a fact that no one can say that he invented the bitcoin therefore it is his property. it is the property of the person who earn it.

as we can saw that fiat money or currency of a state is the property of state. and one can use it and hold it with in the boundries of this state but if we want to use the currency out side of the state he has to pay tax on that. but in case of bitcoin the situation is something different. here is a currency of the world and one can use it any where in world but no one can claim that he discover it therefore it is his property.

If bitcoin gets bigger then every government is going to want to tax it. Governments live off of tax and when they decide that BTC is worth the trouble of passing regulations for, that's exactly what they'll do.

yes and both are in position to impose tax on bitcoin. if we consider it as money we have to pay income tax and if it is the property then we also have to pay tax. now its up to them that what are they going to consider it.

It's hard to believe China and Japan are neighbors. They certainly have different views about bitcoins: China is one of the major supporters of bitcoins in the world, while Japan seems... I don't know.

yes that is a fact that America is no decision against bitcoin because america has not yet banned their users from using bitcoin, i think America is also calm in this issue, i think they still no feel the need to give any statement in favour or against bitcoin.

i think it is good if a country is putting  tax on bitcoin. because it mean that the stage is going  to consider it as a legal currency and the people of that country will be free to use bitcoin to trade or invest it legally. it will be really a good progress in the world of bitcoin.

Agree.We do not need governments to define or categorised bitcoin for us.Bitcoin is and will always be what it is and it was.Nothing is going to change it

I agree with the statement of Australia, bitcoin is really money it is just another currency like other currencies of the world, and in one sense Japan is also right, bitcoin cannot be owned, and the really is clear we all are seeing that there is no one who are the owner of bitcoin even Satoshi are unable to own it. only those are the owners who hold them

Good answer but may there will be some problems or issues thats why japan says bitcoin cant not be owned.

I agree. Bitcoin is sort of universal and only our views on it differ. Just like with mathematics which was thought to be a priori true knowledge amongst many philosophers but early Husserl, for example, viewed it as based on our psychological laws, so like 2+3=5 was the same as 2pounds+3pounds=5pounds.
So, we can say bitcoin is a currency, property, ponzi scheme thing but the work of the btc itself will be absolutely the same.

the govt of my country considers Bitcoin a currency, an asset or a fraudulent internet thing, depending on what's convenient in the moment they may change their mind.