Bitcoin Forum

Opinions, speculation, confidence for the coming week.

Poll reset 6/20/11 17:46 EST
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MtGox had 60.000 accounts aproximately.

After the press hits on this story and a lot more people realize about the potential of BTC we must have more buying  pressure.

Wonder where the prices will go when a medium size exchange have 1.000.000 users.

All, I know is, I wish I had money in other sites to buy.

while price<15;
buy;
BTC++;
do()

Do you really think people in the wider community will invest any money in this? I was sort of thinking of investing about $1000 USD for a laugh if the price dropped under $8 USD (I can afford that and more). Just yesterday I had a talk with a day trader friend of mine, and he warned me that any profits coming from BTC would look bad from a tax perspective, and really warned me to stay out of this, but I told him I would be careful.

Now I would not touch BTCs with a bargepole.

What does "bad from a tax perspective mean"? As far as the state is concerned it's either taxable or it's not. In the former case, as long as you report it as income, what issue could they have?

Having nothing to hide, I plan to report my proceeds from selling BTC as hobby income.

You're friend's an idiot. What profit looks bad from a tax perspective? He knows this why? Because he's a day trader and therefore has the authority to state something and it means a damn thing? Sorry Mr Gman, I made a profit, here's my money. Are you mad at me? Drivel.

Plenty of people will buy this. Greed hath no friends nor gives heed to logic.

Traders (unlike your friend) will smell blood. The play I see is a sell off, dead cat bounce and then another sell off. That's when I'll buy. And then I'll hold. I don't plan on buy, sell, buy, sell. Supporters of BTC will buy this. Speculators will buy this.

BTW, were you just sorta thinking you would buy this so you came on the forum to post that? The message I typed wasn't really for you.

He was nervous that it could have negative impact with regulators for tax purposes if BTCs were declared illegal. His argument was that you don't get taxed if you profit from drugs, you go to jail ;) I didn't buy this argument, and was still willing to invest a small amount for a laugh and to see if there was anything in Bitcoins because I'm very interested in it from a professional perspective (I'm a lawyer specialising in electronic commerce).

He had a point if BTCs are illegal. I disagree as I could declare it as investment in securities, but as BTCs are not really securities and commodities either, this could leave me open to an audit. In fact, the legal status of BTCs is very blurry territory.


Only if you can trust the exchanges, and at the moment, you can't. On top of all of the other risks involved, I'mn sitting this one out. I'm still really interested in Bitcoin from a professional standpoint.


This is an open forum, people are free to reply to stuff, that how Internet forums work  ::)

I think this event will shake out many of those who are in Bitcoins for the wrong reasons. Those who don't understand why it's valuable, or how revolutionary it is. The thin-skinned will be gone, the price in terms of dollars may drop for a while. So what?

This is all part of the growing pains of this new monetary system. Creative destruction. As an exchange falls, others learn and build better alternatives. Learn from the mistakes, be careful, and march forward.

My fundamental resolve in the currency is not shaken in the least, though it was a wild day and I expect many more wild days in the future. Exciting times.

$12.50-$14.99 this week.

No $20+ option = poll fail.

Why would you even consider trading with them anymore?   ???

Let someone else make the market.

In the shortrun it will likely crash <5$ (i know bitcoin time is faster than RL time and ppl got used to >10$ as if we had that price for years, but only couple of weeks ago we were at $8 and couple of months ago we were at $2)

On the positive side, lots of fun for daytraders.

+1

Yes, im sure millions of people are just waiting to join up, especially seeing bitcoin go from near $20 to 1 cent and everyone having their account info posted online.

Who wouldnt want to be a part of that?

.......WAKE UP!

MtGox's incompetence will cripple bitcoin for the near future.  Will bitcoin recover? Who knows. 

Even someone with minimal understanding on economy and p2p technology can see the immense value in this technology.

And we have entire countries that don't have access to any exchange right now, like Brazil, Argentina, etc.

I've talked to a lot a people from there and when they see the price dropping they just wanna buy because is cheap.

You can't relate a website security breach with a flaw in the bitcoin technology.

If you are so afraid and wanna wake up and leave this risky game I can buy all your coins for 15 bucks each, what do you say?

I wasnt silly enough to buy any bitcoins.

And i wont be purchasing any.......period.

Welcome to the forum Anduril.

How ironic, a lawyer who is "afraid" of Bitcoin investing due to tax implications.
Think of it like making virtual money in Second Life: When you convert to USD, then you report the income. I do see your concern is about the legality of BTC itself.

1) If you convert from BTC > Paypal USD you are taking a huge risk the buyer will burn you.
2) If you use LR (for example), then your LR > USD transaction is taxable income, but how does the Gov ever know Bitcoins were involved?
3) If your Bitcoin investment rises in value (or at any time) you can use some to buy products and services.

IMO, #2 has tax implications, but you are not really exposed to being caught doing anything illegal.
#3 is a barter issue(?) and you have tax liability if you are following the letter of the law, but talking about jail seems pretty extreme, IMO.

Too much typing...  :D

Maybe I should have stopped here:
Think of it like making virtual money in Second Life: When you convert to USD, then you report the income.
How is the Gov going to know BTC was involved? + they are not really even illegal (yet?)


Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening. ~Gertrude Stein

 ;D

So why are you on a bitcoin forum?

I'll be there when they open.


Why?
1) They are currently the only exchange with high volume.
2) Their "live charts" are fantastic and it's a fun, exciting short-term trading experience.
3) Most BTC are very young, this is part of the growing pains.

187th vote bump

I did not say that I was afraid of Bitcoins, I said that my friend was concerned that it might prompt an audit if a lot of money came into my accounts. I thought I might be able to hide it well enough so that would not happen. The point is moot as I will not be investing any time soon, but not because of the tax implications. Mining is on the verge of not being profitable, and at the moment it is not possible to trust the exchanges.


Number 3 is a very big IF. At the moment, I cannot see how any sane merchant will get involved. Imagine you took payment on Saturday afternoon at $17 USD as a weekly average. Today you would be in a panic.

I still think that the legality of BTC is a huge issue (http://www.technollama.co.uk/is-bitcoin-legal). If it becomes more popular, the Fed and European regulators will declare it illegal. Catch 22.

Nothing is as obvious as it seems, which obviously escaped the poster after you!

I was looking to invest in Bitcoin business ventures, it took me all of 2 days on here to realise buying and selling these things was not a good idea, i was also not happy with the security of bitcoins, as you will see from my past posts.

I had been in contact with a very well known exchange and we were discussing a payment processing deal but i decided against it in the end for several reasons based mainly on tax implications.

I had signed up for a MtGox account last week to see how it all worked and to educate myself in regards to Bitcoin but never funded it, or planned to fund it, i was always interested in servicing Bitcoin customers, not actual Bitcoin, i prefer cold hard $$$.

Obviously (there's that word again) i got the email this morning about the hack, being i signed up at MtGox, though i used an obscure username and password etc so it seems im safe at this point.

So after an exciting week in Bitcoin land i will bid you all farewell and good luck and go back to my hedge fund business dealings and other online business ventures.

This is not something i will be investing in at this time.

Nice how the votes are nearly equally distributed, at least above 10$. It seems the crowd doesn't know more than anyone else, in this case. :-)

Well, where the price will end up could be significantly affected by anyone with a lot of Bitcoins deciding to cash out, and I think no one really can say if that will happen or not, and to what extreme. The market is small enough and some people have enough Bitcoins to the point where the price can climb sky-high or drop like a rock just by one user's decision, as demonstrated in the price drop when MtGox got hacked. As Seldon so eloquently puts it, a group is predictable, but individuals are not.

True, however, this is also a large group of people waiting for a big pullback to buy. This is going to be a ripsaw.

My bet is slightly below $10 - sure there are many excited buyers, but just think about all those that were nearly convinced to sell.

I'm buying a ton if my funds clear and the price is under 14 or 15. I can't wait. It'll be like Christmas.  ;D

Already moving my $$ to position for this. The weak will be separated with the chaff. They will be absorbed and forgotten and blown away with the sands of tme.

Same thing!
Hopefully my transfer will be done by the time some weaklings decide to sell!  ;D

ha ha - you guys sound like you really wanted to sell all of your bitcoins and want the price not drop to quickly.

I suppose in the land of make believe you could deduce that from one written line. And besides dolt, I obviously want the price to drop quickly and far if I am to buy some. What boat did you just fall off? Why would I buy if I wanted to sell? I'm going to buy a few low and drive the price up to sell? How old are you, 4?

Oh - how I love this type of arguments, but yeah - OK, it actually makes me believe that you were honest :)  Take into account that I did not wrote you want to sell (or want to buy) only that you sounded as if you wanted, but maybe I am only losing time trying to explain the difference?

Right, you did not write that I wanted to sell. You wrote....


You're wasting everyone's time.

Bitcoin is fine.  The tens of thousands of clients are still happily chugging away maintaining the distributed p2p block chain.

MtGox is just another business that takes Bitcoins.  If MtGox has problems, it is of no greater significance than if the Alpaca Sock guy were to have problems.

If MtGox can't provide a liquid market between dollars and Bitcoins, then others will fill the vacuum.

A month from now, we'll all look back on this and laugh.



 

Fuckin-A. Scares the know-nots though, they'll learn however.

Well - that is quoting out of context - read again what I wrote. 

Longer down time than initially expected. More details being revealed. Poll reset.

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Tradehill is around $14 as of this post, and I think it'll stay there for a little while, then slowly climb back up, at least to the $20 mark.

Good point. Vote it up folks. Where will it be this coming Sunday.