People like to point out that Cobra has been doing flip-flops recently. In his defense, he has only had a bit of occasional falling out with the maximalist crowd. In some of his tweets, he expressed a kind of desire to have healthy competition between the two communities rather than constant trolling. Yet, he loves bitcoin and its legacy too much to not be able to judge someone like Roger Ver for what that twat is.

Like everyone pointed out, Bitcoin.org is as clean and trustworthy as can be. The stuff is ONLY about bitcoin. He could have long went for a more commercial look but he hasn't. That alone speaks of his credibility. Yet, we can all agree that times are changing. Nobody knows who Cobra is. Maybe he is just another young man undergoing change of circumstances and evolving his own ideologies. Or he is an old man who wants to handover the reins. He is graceful enough to accept in that post that he wants the successor to not be as drama prone as he someone was. In my opinion, any man who has that level of self-reflection is a trustworthy person. Unlike some of the psychos out here who just can never be wrong. (People arguing with StonerStanley, this guy is Techy level convinced, no use engaging).

Even if the ownership passes on, it'll always have to be another bunch of people who run it with certain basic tenets of not compromising on Bitcoin's values. Rest depends on a lot of other dynamics.

China is ruled by a mercantile, honorless single party corporation whose single motive is profits and world domination. Most of Chinese corporations have reached this level of development with a combination of IP theft, IP espionage by Chinese nationals studying in western universities and a clear national policy to support these things by money or coercion.
Not letting the world know about a deadly virus would fit perfectly into their Sun Tzu philosophy. I call the Chinese honorless because they treat warfare not as a battle of men and national capabilities but as an art of deception. Sample this:

The deception of not letting the world know that a wild virus has circulated to their cities. Hiding its severity and contagion potential despite the fact that WHO has been engaged with them since they started becoming breeding grounds for animal-origin flus.

"Breaking the enemies resistance without fighting." Look at their mercantile corporations putting countries into debt in the name of BRI. Look at the communist ideology being propagated in the name of equality by exploiting fault-lines of western societies. They launch online attacks and start tends on twitter. They finance schools for communist thoughts in western universities.

Nobody should doubt that the Chinese are very capable and dangerous with their money power and subsequently acquired muscle power. If you look closely, you can identify subtle pushes in the social media domain that want to disparage the way democracies function. For coming years, you will be told how communism/ chinese governance is better and the answer to a just world. People flock to this thought because of grudges with their own nations. China is using the pandemic as just another opportunity to further their goal of reviving their historic greatness. The rest of the world is little more than the prize for them.

According to some analysts, the stock rallies may also be due to liquidity infusion. What i see is that the changed world will be a lot different than the one we are used to. People's perception regarding their needs and wants will also change. What is success when you cannot enjoy it with a bunch of your friends and go on a holiday. Almost all hospitality services and tourism related industries still have to go through a hard time only to bounce back very strongly once a vaccine comes out. People who will see their kin and acquaintance suffer will go through a change of mind.

Sometimes it is hard to imagine that the governments are not misusing this as an opportunity to attune people into conforming behavior. Neo-liberal governments the world over are going to use this as an opportunity to lower wages while selling off public investments in the name of "recovery" and "better growth". In the face of pandemic, vulnerability of the most powerful country compared with much better performance by China, is setting stage for another cold-war. Vaccine production will also ensure that China grabs a huge part of that market as they supply a lot of raw material for pharma companies. Recovery or no recovery, we are going to see a much less democratic world for sometime.

These people are enabled by 'experts' from this forum itself. You will find a lot of Yobit defenders from their cryptotalk forum signature campaign. Newbies realize that they cAN continue to play the game of selling tokens to each other. What is required is that nobody raise uncomfortable questions.

Yobit now have their own forum to shill newbies about random IEOs, ICOs. They already had an exchange where they can immediately list these "tokens". The liquidity and shilling content is provided by the army recruited during that Sig campaign, especially from the local subs. A lot of those yobit apologists have occasionally been DT1 too. Yobit have set themselves up pretty nicely I'd say. The sheep will continue to line-up for the culling.

Where the homies of cycling club at when you need'em? @Foxpup

OP, You have a thing going on here. From what i understand, this is an idea of using a web of trust to verify transactions. Consensus to be arrived at by building and utilizing a web of trust. Its like an online version of a bunch of clerks maintaining the ledger in banks in old times.

I doubt its usage for settling transactions but the idea itself is worth exploring as it has potentially several applications in the times of Social media. I would follow this. I have a small but important request for you to kindly consider.

If its a "web of trust" we are looking at, please keep a condition that people who have used alt-accounts for spamming and have negative trust feedback should not be accepted. The condition for "minimum 8 posts" is pretty weak, especially considering that you have an ages old account at the forum. If this isn't a bought account, you must be aware of the mass manipulation and scamming this forum has gone through. If you are looking to start a web of trust, wouldn't it be prudent to have some sort of best practices??

Good Luck!

The answer is in your question itself. Each one of us does not wish good to people around us. We wish the best for ourselves and only those closest in our circle. We have evolved from a tribal mindset and it is our nature to distrust when people are different from us. That is a human instinct for majority of people. Only when we get to know each other and the world better, through education, do we realize that underneath we are all the same.
Compassion and empathy with every other human is a trait that mostly depends on a person's exposure to a culture of respect and open-mindedness. The kind of culture that Science (Not religion) embraces. I think we did a lot of progress on this path over the years when multiculturalism and globalization were new and honest. All that progress has been lost to a large extent thanks to the widespread wealth inequalities and backlash of xenophobia.

We cannot live in a perfect society. Things will be perfect for a while at certain parts of the world depending on level of education and multiculturalism. Then certain events take place and the cycle will start. Plus there are people who are pure evil. They will naturally tend to disrupt anything that approaches a state of innocent peacefulness.

Putting up a real image would have been much more helpful. That "representative image" doesn't tell a lot about the system you are describing. Is that how the actual power outlet will look like? Seems a bit small for use in a commercial charging station?

In near future, such a business can easily use LN and not have to worry about confirmation times.

Thanks for the detailed reply webtricks. So, in short, all kind of crypto to crypto transactions will also be taxable and those trading on platforms like WRX, CoinDCX must make sure that they keep a record of all their transactions and resulting capital gains from it.
It would be interesting to follow such a case. From what i have heard the US traders say, they seem to diligently maintain a ledger with all transactions and accordingly file their returns at the end of the year. This is a hurdle in the proliferation of crypto transaction in India and similar countries. The Indian taxmen see it with suspicion. The Govt is pretty belligerent and aggressive towards collecting its "dues". These two factors combine to ensure that despite the removal of ban, the big fish (if any) would be unwilling to use crypto in real-world transactions.

For the part about direct BTC earnings, i think this implies that it is best to show those returns as some sort of earning on the tax return and pay the INR equivalent tax on the prevalent rate. Income from other sources like freelancing work maybe.

My pleasure. Sure the forum can be useful to everyone in one way or another. Just make sure that you follow all the rules. There are people who fall into doing the wrong sort of things resulting in a lot of spam on the forum as well as scammy actions like people joining worthless bounties with Alt-accounts. It seems easy money in the short run but eventually these people get caught and lose all trust from the community. (Check my sent trust ratings for a few examples).

Instead, if people actually focus on using the forum as a honest place where you can learn, present your ideas, find someone to collaborate, offer your skills etc. then it can help you gain something. But keep in mind that it is first and foremost a place of interaction and learning. The potential income is temporary and one should not bank on it. Instead, learn and apply those things elsewhere. Good luck to you your fellas.

Brazil I heard has also been a disaster with another one of dump political heads trying to laugh off the virus and then exposing their people to all sort of problems.

Hey guys. I was looking at a post in global about how IRS in USA is making people cough up tax liabilities on their crypto gains. Following up on the comments, someone shared a link to a student on Reddit who had an "unrealized" profit of almost 800K in his coinbase account. That 800K was the "USD Value" of his portfolio on coinbase and he never really cashed out. All he did was juggle it into other Alts.
Later on he gets called by the taxman on the basis of a history of his trades on Coinbase (each of which is a taxable event) and he ends up owing almost 400K as tax while the value of his "portfolio" at present is 125K.

With the opening up of exchanges in India and WazirX. DCX etc actively encouraging people to dabble into Alts, the probability of people ending up in the same situation has increased greatly. So, if you or anybody you know is dabbling into Alts and doing the fancy "Futures and Options" trading on these exchanges, make sure you manage your crypto to set aside what you owe as tax during every trade. (It wouldn't be much but it adds up i guess).

I also want some advice from you guys regarding the earnings in BTC. Would it be considered a taxable event when an entity sends BTC to your account? It has some notional INR value, right. I don't convert my sats ever. I just let them sit. Its only been for my present campaign that i have been in one for so long. I wonder what are the implications related to tax when you are not converting it to Fiat and just receiving it. Do share if you guys have prior experience about this.

I understand what you are saying. A lot of people just juggled alt-coins on these websites hearing about the insane stories of latest "collaborations" and "Proof of X" which would revolutionize crypto. A lot of people saw those 10X gains. Many were financially too naive to realize these things. If i consider myself in that situation, I would never consider the stupid bunch of 100 NXT, 200 OMG, 500 GNT and such obscure tokens sitting on my bittrex account as worth anything today. At that time they were worth a few 1000 USD. Its scary to think that these can be taxed retrospectively on being considered as returns (which eventually evaporated, of course). I no longer use that Bittrex account but it has some fractional worth of Alt-coins from the early days. They have blocked the account asking for KYC. The stupid "three shots, one front, left, right, holding a placard, lol its insane). Its also a sign that the exchanges have become institutions in themselves with full compliance. This escalated quickly.

The safest way is to follow what vapourminer said about keeping away some 20% realized profits for taxes. Sounds sensible enough. Anybody indulging in trading, even if they are financially unware students should do this.

Rest assured that if they really think that someone owns 1000 BTC, the best cyber-minds of our great institutions would pursue you to hell and back to prove the connection. They will then either resort to asking that person to "settle" the matter by sharing the anonymous currency to whoever the officer incharge of the case will be. In case a person is unable to pay due to any honest reason, they will bring the full force of law onto the person. Thus the law.

Even contemplating such a bill is insane. The Chinese have embraced it, USA has embraced it. Yet our incompetent assholes don't disappoint and come up with such "three times the harm caused or three times the gains" ideas. Our worst fears about the BJP monster are coming true. They started with defining our identities. Now they want to dictate how you do business and how you earn money. If we continue down this path, (which i am afraid we may for at least another 6-7 years), this country will have become a terrifying place to live in. The specter of "Financial terrorism" against citizens is fast approaching. What happened with Mallya will happen to each one of the citizens trying to hustle to make a living.

Oh my god!! Read that reddit thread. The poor guy never converted anything to fiat but incurred tax liability simply because of the "Portfolio value in USD" number against his account moving to 880K on coinbase!! How isn't that insane?? From what i understand, every single trade (crypto-to-crypto) or (crypto to USD) is a taxable event on these "exchanges". And with the "exchange" providing a full record of every single one of your transactions, the taxman seem to have hit the jackpot. They are milking people against gains that actually NEVER materialized.

Why isn't there more push-back against this? I guess plenty of people in the Late 2017 pump and dump would have incurred such taxes. I understand the basic concept that every single act of "buy and sell" is something for which you owe the govt tax. That is insane for people who started investing in late 2017, saw a short boom and then had their portfolios wiped out subsequently.

Thanks for your answers @gentlemand and @squatter

As a non-US human,i just want to ask that how exactly do these people rake up such liabilities. By natural law, any tax liability can only arise from an actual gain from an investment. So how do they go from setting up and investment that is worth "1 Million in taxes" and then going back to a stage where they supposedly withdraw 19k per month from crypto account to fund themselves.
That kind of financial mismanagement sounds kindda insane. Business gone bankrupt means you get to file for bankruptcy etc.

While that liability itself is hard to understand, trying to evade it even though you can pay off the taxman is plain stupid at best and fraudulent at worst.

Dominating the world is not just a numbers games. It takes a combination of wealth, millitary coercion and a lot of Soft power emanating from ideology. Military coercion stems from technology which the Chinese have caught up to thanks to three things. Chinese govt sponsored espionage, West's gullibility and like in case of those university professors, individuals selling off souls for money.

Military coercion also needs bodies. Chinese state propagnda does that job quite well. Media and film industry in China has also been playing its role in invoking the historic threads about the greatness of Chinese achievements (which frankly are not to be overlooked). As per Indian strategists, the morale and nationalist fervor is a manufactured one amongst the Chinese. Not a real, human spirited love of your country. I mean how much can you love a country that is run by a cabal of Single party representative, tracks and censors every single one of your actions and thoughts to make sure you fall in line. Don't forget this is a party that turned their students into red mush when they protested.

All these things ensure that the Chinese can never have the soft power of persuasion that the US has enjoyed for most of the 20th century. This corona virus fiasco, their attempts at buying off corporations in cash-strapped countries, bribing off officials to permeate policy making, Debt-diplomacy in the form of BRI. There is enough evidence to show that the Chinese juggernaut is basically an ethic-less, cold killing machine. Will the world allow itself to be browbeaten by this bully??

I still have enough faith in democracies and the human spirit to accept that. Fuck you commies.

Talk about yourself. Whose promise did you buy?? I take no promises on the price of bitcoin. The only promise i bought into is that of cutting-edge technology and permission-less decentralization. I love the idea behind it and the fact that i can bet on a novel form of money and follow the technology. If you buy it and listen to "promises", that cuz you are too dense for tech like this.

You and your serious INVESTORS may as well go fuck themselves. This is not some ICO selling you tokens. There is no Bitcoin Corporations shilling you tokens. Go buy Bcash or BSV if you want promises. Bitcoin just IS. Its for you to know about it and use it if you want to (and have the competence to). You don't want it or don't understand the technology then sell. Go buy gold if you want to. Tell Peter Schiff to stop being such a cry baby.

I have never been on that forum much. I think the constant AMA option was quite good. There could be something of that sort on bitcoin.org too so core devs can answer them at their own time. The website itself with its bent towards BCH branding seems like an abomination to me. Maybe its just my bias due to the mercantile midset of its promoter. His stupidity is always on public display with his over-the -top statements about all that he has done for bitcoin. Ironically, he used this as a justification to attack bitcoin.

People like him will by their very nature find it hard to support anything that is not giving them monetary gains. The forum may have devolved into that category due to non-usage like somebody pointed out. So, off it goes to the trash can.

Umm. I am surprised you ask that. But I'd love to explain because its one of my favorite things,,:)

Its Lord of The Rings by J.R.R.Tolkien. The inspiration behind "Game of Thrones". Much before George R.R. Martin came up with his imagination of the Seven Kingdoms, Tolkien had built a much deeper and detailed lore in Middle Earth. The concepts of Elves, Orcs, Dragons, all stem from the LOTR triology. The books were ably adopted to the big screen by Peter Jackson and the final part "Return of the King" won 11 Oscars.

How i miss the good'ol rainy days of curling up with the LOTR book and enjoying the sheer magic in Tolkien's words. The riddle of strider written for the main hero Aragorn just takes you to another world. Just google "All that is gold does not glitter".

In a democratic state where individuals liberties aren't easily subject to state control there is a constant battle of control on different levels. There is the battle between People and the Government. In a country like India or USA, an individual can go and file a petition against a government move in the highest courts of the land. There is a free media which has camps owing loyalty to different set of demographics. In two party systems like USA and UK, this can lead to severe divisions yet, the balance of power has the potential to be shifted. This keeps the politicians on their toes not too appear too dictatorial OR too weak. The constant ups and downs of politics thus serves to ensure that no matter what data-analysis and monitoring skills a govt deploys, the Individual will always have the power to bring a change.

On the other hand, in one-party dictatorships like China, there is no power struggle between people or between parties. The party is supreme and its authority over people is unquestioned. No free media means people can whimper and protest all they want but their voices will always be suppressed. When such a state has the kind of data on its citizens that China has, you are looking at a dystopia of consistent, state-controlled opinions, no outlet for dissent and an absolute choking of human's free-spirit.

The problem that we have now is that China now has the technological (stolen or bought from the west) and the financial muscle to extend this experiment to democratic state. They have already been doing it for a while but democracies are waking up to the threat. That is why, the recent marking of several Chinese organisation as diplomatic entities by US is a welcome step.