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There are lots of ways to short fiat without becoming encumbered by other fiat.
Diversity is not a bad thing.
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"surprises" who? LOL  Me... I am not as good at guessing uncle Ben's dance as thou.  |
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$85B/mo?
I bought ahead of this, but was guessing it would be insignificant tapering... 83B or something. So upside surprise even for me. |
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Selling Bitcoin short as a short term speculation or hedge has made money and can make sense in some situations. I am talking borrowing Bitcoin for six weeks to a year or more https://www.bitbond.net/faq. There have been other examples before. The most famous of course was Trendon Shavers aka pirateat40. What broke pirateat40 in the end was not the 7% a week interest rate (this actually made sense for a period of time in the fall of 2011 when the BTC / USD exchange rate was falling by more than 7% a week) but rather the long term increase in purchasing power of Bitcoin. There are many reasons a venture can fail. We might agree he is venturesome, and bold, with this effort. I hope not also foolish, and wish him every success. |
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The trouble is that no borrower in their right mind will borrow Bitcoin
Do you imagine that no one since the advent of Bitcoin could have sold short and made money, or reasonably thought that they could? There may in fact be borrowers that do so in sound mind. Maybe you could make some fees through their use of your bitcoin. Whether it is ahead of its time or not is up to them, but I'm not even certain they are the first. https://www.coinlenders.com/feerebate |
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I suspect an early adopter is upset about the poor mining profitability and is contributing a few of his coins to help out the situation
WE THANK YOU!
Tracing the transactions back through the blockchain, it REALLY looks like a mixing service (A very broken mixing service). Eventually the operator of the mixing service is going to discover that they don't have enough funds to send to all their clients (I suppose a Ponzi/Pyramid like effect might keep it going for a while). When that happens, there are going to be some VERY unhappy people who have lost the funds that they've sent to this mixing service. If I had more time on my hands, it would be an interesting project to try and identify all the addresses owned/controlled by the service, and see what funds are coming in or going out. I was thinking exactly the same, also wishing I were less busy though at US$30K per day in losses, it could make sense to clear the day for this. But I <3 miners too. |
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25+ BTC in excessive fees in the past 7 hours.
Excessive fees in the past 7 hours associated with 1CfsAiYaVfk12dnZpZALcRSP9jjWDk26FX have come from the following 6 addresses:
13wTPZNYxdgnNDzFV48vbePTPXXHzFTKYo (fees 0.05 BTC)
1FcxZKPQHa4GHJMLCta5CUPUeZ5uMoZrop (fees 3 BTC)
1FiQi9r7HbU9hvPo7Zr6p2ar8i4vedkH4q (fees 11 BTC)
1Jzm2J6D8UgiLiy8PwwJ2kvgo4N5PGop3J (fees 6 BTC)
1KfbHRiUCSHk8poq6wPYsvBtRzj9Ah4so (fees 0.1 BTC)
1Yw6NrfcK51TZrKsGJ1vnjzSAygXTBH3C (fees 4.5 BTC)
If anyone has some free time, what is the approximate(or total) loss of the person? And perhaps he intended to send the higher amount to the receiver while the lower amount as fees. A couple hundred BTC, maybe close to 300 from the last few days. |
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NSA is also targeting GOLDSILVERBITCOIN.COM The home page includes the java widgets for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. By hosting this it tracks every visitor to your homepage, and these folks are monitored, thus all your visitors are tracked. You can include raw links, but running the java off their pages reports on your users. <div id="cnss_widget-3" class="widget widget-container widget_cnss_widget"><h3 class="widget-title">Follow Us</h3><table class="cnss-social-icon" style="width:120px" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gold-Silver-Bitcoin/128452323982335"><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361917196_facebook-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="Twitter" href=" https://twitter.com/GldSlvBtc "><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361917269_twitter-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="linkedin" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gold-silver-bitcoin/66/769/a7b"><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361918263_linkedin-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td></tr></table></div> you can use ghostery for firefox. helps a bit. Good suggestion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery not just for firefox There are lots of ways for users to protect themselves from promiscuous hosting. What would also be nice would be if there was some repercussions to those that are selling personal user data to governments without letting their users know. If some percentage of hosting sites (or at least those that claim to care about privacy) decided to stop providing the tracking information via the widgets to those companies, it might make some difference. The widgets report on you whether or not you click on them, and whether or not you are using ghostery. They load from the Facebook (et al) servers when you hit the page, providing the IP and other data of the browser, as well as any cookies you have that they can taste. The problem is that most of the hostmasters don't realize what they are doing when they include the widgets. For them it is just a shortcut to add a feature. The best fix is closer to the cause. It starts with knowing.... The concern is not just about the NSA hacking us, but also about those that are hacking the NSA and looking at what they have. They are building this big target and it would be hubris to imagine that it will stay secure forever. (It isn't secure now, according to Snowden, at minimum he hacked it) It is not such good public policy from a cost/benefit perspective. |
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its satoshi himself! noble guy.
Maybe... Bonus round for the miners to be sure. |
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NSA is also targeting GOLDSILVERBITCOIN.COM The home page includes the java widgets for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. By hosting this it tracks every visitor to your homepage, and these folks are monitored, thus all your visitors are tracked. You can include raw links, but running the java off their pages reports on your users. <div id="cnss_widget-3" class="widget widget-container widget_cnss_widget"><h3 class="widget-title">Follow Us</h3><table class="cnss-social-icon" style="width:120px" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gold-Silver-Bitcoin/128452323982335"><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361917196_facebook-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="Twitter" href=" https://twitter.com/GldSlvBtc "><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361917269_twitter-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td><td style="width:40px"><a target="_blank" title="linkedin" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gold-silver-bitcoin/66/769/a7b"><img src="https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/1361918263_linkedin-icon.png" border="0" width="32" height="32" /></a></td></tr></table></div> |
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I'm still browsing...
There is a rumor brewing that eBay might be doing something with Bitcoin in the near future, not that I am holding my breath...
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The Quickbooks support is the killer app here. The articles almost bury the lead.
Along with Quickbooks integration you get the whole basket of compliance regimes that every small business needs in order to feel very confidant that they are going to be able to use Bitcoin just like all their other payment methods without any new headaches.
They get GAAP, they get clear unit of account, they get tax compliance, they get a way for their accounting to accommodate it without doing any extra technical stuff.
The merchants want to focus on the things that make their business a success. Keeping their inventory fresh, providing great service, being awesome at what they do whatever that is. This provides them the opportunity to do that rather than deal with the arcane ephemera of Bitcoin issues.
Thanks! We will be promoting this very shortly. But yes, making the merchant's accountant happy with Bitcoin will make things much easier for businesses looking to accept bitcoin. I hope you don't mind some of us spreading the word ahead of that promotion... This is pretty important, and I've been asking for it for longer than you might imagine... |
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I think all of today's tax system are based on fiat money (which have a stable value over at least a year), if a volatile money like bitcoin comes out, those officials might need to charge the income tax each week, but that will break all the existing accouting and tax reporting procedures  Currencies are similar to commodities for many tax jurisdictions. There is a price in the fiat at time of acquisition and time of "sale" into fiat or conversion into another good with a specific value at a specific time. This is the "unit of account" property of money, and Bitcoin is pretty good at accounting for it with the record of the block chain. Volatility is not much of a problem for tax purposes so long as the gains and losses are accountable. No new law is needed to deal with it in most places unless they want to create exemptions to encourage its development (like Germany). I just looked a bit close in details, it is complicated If I conduct all of my business in bitcoin, at the end of fiscal year when I do the income declaration, I need to subtract cost from earnings and get the net income counted by bitcoins, for example 100 bitcoins. Then this revenue will be taxed by income tax, say 25%, then I will pay 25 bitcoins to government However, the government only accept fiat money, then I have to convert these 25 bitcoins into dollars. If I use the exchange rate at the beginning of the year, they might worth a little, but if I use the exchange rate at the end of the year, they might worth a lot. Maybe most of those income (90 coins) are generated in the first few weeks of the year. My capital (exchange rate) gain of those 90 coins will also get taxed by the government if I use the exchang rate at the end of the year. But in current accounting rules, the capital gain only are taxed when you sell the asset, if you never cash out, you never pay tax. So, if I never sell those coins, how much dollars should I pay government? You likely come out better in the short run by using the fiat currency legal tender as your unit of account, and using an accounting package for transactional GL P&L, and then taking the capital appreciation on the "inventory" retained in Bitcoin against your costs. All business do this sort of accounting, and in multicurrency businesses it is routine. If you have never run a business, it is complicated, yes. There are professionals that can help you. The great news is that now BitPay does a lot of it for you as they have a QuickBooks interface now for Bitcoin. With the record keeping in the block chain, this can become even easier in some respects (your backup is cloud sourced for free) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=295370.0;topicseen |
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I don't think that people are forced to use fiat money, it is because that so far they have no other alternative and they never realized that there could be an alternative
Try paying your taxes with gold, silver or bitcoins then and see what happens. As long as people's income are in the form of fiat money, tax just mean reduced fiat money income, in fact many people don't even care about the tax since tax payments were already deducted from their salary I think you are wrong that many people don't care about taxation. Tax to me and many others is money involuntarily taken away or deducted as you say, but a better word is stolen. If you resist to pay tax, you will be forced or face heavy consequences. The argument remains, we do not have a choice to pay tax (income tax, capital gains tax, property tax, etc) because force will be used if we resist. We have to pay those various taxes in fiat currency. It logically follows that we are forced to use fiat currency. How can you disregard or wave away the simple facts? I think fiat money is not forced to be used, just a historical consensus reached among people. If majority of people feel uncomfortable using fiat money, then they will vote a government that use another type of money, but the reality is that they have no knowledge about fiat money and they take it as granted since they were born Maybe this is an issue of understanding the terms.. "Fiat", "Legal Tender" and "Money"? "Fiat" means "Forced" or "by legal decree". While we are free to agree to exchange whatever money we like, we are forced to accept "legal tender" as settlement of a debt (though we may negotiate for something else), and the government is forced to accept it as payment for taxes. This is the wickedness of "legal tender" laws. If the type of money is selected by vote and decreed by government, that is then by fiat. If they just do it and don't bother the government about it that is a different matter. If individuals negotiate or decide to use what they like by voluntary agreement or contract that may not be fiat... Bullion, Barter, Bitcoin.... all non-fiat... Though some US states (notably Utah) have decreed gold and silver to also be legal tender. |
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I think all of today's tax system are based on fiat money (which have a stable value over at least a year), if a volatile money like bitcoin comes out, those officials might need to charge the income tax each week, but that will break all the existing accouting and tax reporting procedures Currencies are similar to commodities for many tax jurisdictions. There is a price in the fiat at time of acquisition and time of "sale" into fiat or conversion into another good with a specific value at a specific time. This is the "unit of account" property of money, and Bitcoin is pretty good at accounting for it with the record of the block chain. Volatility is not much of a problem for tax purposes so long as the gains and losses are accountable. No new law is needed to deal with it in most places unless they want to create exemptions to encourage its development (like Germany). |
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Great answer, especially the example of the test case as a means to change law through the courts. I think the capital punishment scenario is probably a little far out there, so I won't address it
Consider Singapore and Silk Road? "Disneyland with the Death Penalty" Mandatory death penalty for quite a bit of what is routine on SR and Singapore is a region with much civilization. There are also many regions with much less civilization, and where execution is done extra-judicially by "police" and where laws are less defined. These are places where Bitcoin and its freedoms can create disruptive change and are not going to be well represented by dues paying Foundation members, and where courts are less useful for generating good case law. I'd agree those are a bigger challenge than the Foundation can address in the near or mid term. Still... leaders ought be visionary, and the time may come where you get called to do things that are difficult to imagine today. There are foreign policy implications for each region that may ultimately be impacting Foundation activities as a governmental liaison. It is offered for contemplation more than for comment, but comment is certainly welcome. |
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My research tended to support the fact that there was no exact definition of "engaged as a business"; however, my editor thought that someone, somewhere, must have assigned a definition, or at least a factor test, to "engaged as a business" or at least "business" generally. Your replies, at least, seem to validate my research and opinion.
Thank you for explaining the purpose of the question (cloud sourcing your research project) Well done. These are both correct. There is not an exact definition. There is a factor test. (Referred to previously as facts and circumstances) You noticed some of the factors in your last post there: - Frequency - For profit or not - Incidental or routine Other facts and circumstances for consideration: - Does the time and effort put into the activity indicate an intention to make a profit? - Does the taxpayer depend on income from the activity? - If there are losses, are they due to circumstances beyond the taxpayer’s control or did they occur in the start-up phase of the business? - Has the taxpayer changed methods of operation to improve profitability? - Does the taxpayer or his/her advisors have the knowledge needed to carry on the activity as a successful business? - Has the taxpayer made a profit in similar activities in the past? - Does the activity make a profit in some years? - Can the taxpayer expect to make a profit in the future from the appreciation of assets used in the activity? - Is the activity undertaken for commercial reasons? - Is the purpose and is there a prospect of making a profit? - Are the activities a regular and repetitive undertaking? - Is the activity planned, organised and carried on in a business-like manner? There is a huge body of case law in regards to what constitutes a business. Most of it is in the tax courts. When a business gets downgraded to a hobby, you lose some tax benefits for loss carried. (Revenue is taxed regardless of classification) I hope we get to see the result of your research posted when it is completed. |
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A few ideas...
From the Central Bank, it would be good to hear
- The policy goal of regulation. (Why regulate?)
- With Bitcoin existing along with Fiat currency, is there any damage to the capability of money supply manipulation to achieve economic goals (growth vs inflation)?
- What is the balance of risks from gaining a new payment method that reduces the friction of internet commerce and so can increase trade with the loss of centralized control over the money supply?
From the police,
- What Bitcoin crimes have they had reported?
- What does investigating Bitcoin cost them?
- If any Bitcoin crime are reported, is it easier or harder to investigate with the availability of the Block Chain?
From the Tax Attorneys
- Comment on Bitcoin as a unit of account?
- How any tax liabilities from Bitcoin appreciation are handled?
- How much state tax revenue is there from Bitcoin economy?
From Chairman of the Foundation,
- Counterpoints to any of the above.
- How decentralization, pseudo-anonymity, forensic accounting of the block chain, and predictable money supply achieve many of the goals of the interlocutors or make them more simple once understood.
- Why Bitcoin is not just good for people, but also for civilization.
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