Suggest you read the post that started this thread.

Not a tax attorney but I have satisfied myself about the law on this point and this is what I do.

Cryptocurrency transactions are taxable when they are executed. If you have had the asset for > 1 year it is a long term gain/loss, otherwise a short term gain/loss.

If you trade one crypto for another you have to consider that you have sold one for cash, then bought the other for cash and calculate your taxable gain/loss on this basis. There is a lot of misinformation floating around to the effect that as long as you don't leave "crypto world" your gains are not taxable but this is (almost certainly) incorrect. It hinges on whether trading one crypto for another is a "like kind" transaction (which, by the way, you have to declare) and most tax attorneys seem to agree that it is not, any more than selling one stock and buying another which is fully taxable.

The IRS has not formally ruled on this but I'm pretty sure this is the way it will go.  If you have claimed "like kind" status on your crypto transactions you will have to pay back taxes and interest and possibly penalties. If you haven't declared them at all I wouldn't want to be you.

I know this is not a popular opinion but every time you trade one cryptocurrency for another it is a taxable event, e.g. when you want to lock in your profits by converting some altcoin to more stable Bitcoin you have to pay tax on your paper profits on the altcoin. I have thoroughly researched the issue and I'm pretty sure that unless you are a tax attorney specializing in cryptocurrencies I know more about it than you do. Not many actually do this and are in for a rude awakening at some point.

Read (carefully) the terms of service at tether.to/legal. You're in for a rude awakening.

Poloniex withdrawals are working again. Now it will take a lot longer to get my XMR out. Oh well, one could have worse problems.

While I'm a big Monero fan and this writer has got the some of the generalities right it is a very poorly written puff piece. And Monero "about $60" in an article dated June 4? I wish.

So the rules are positive comments only?

The volume on this coin is so low that if you try to cash out any significant amount you will crash the price.

Add: checked the price before I hit post and it has crashed from .012 to .004 in the last two hours. A blip so thin you can barely see it.

Why do you think those 999xxx unit transactions are block rewards? Each of those suspect blocks contain payouts of (very close to) 50 units which appear to be the block rewards - moreover at least one of (on a cursory examination) the destination addresses of these 50 unit payouts in the suspect blocks are repeated in the block rewards of other blocks, so presumably they are going to the same miners which confirms that they are indeed the block rewards for those blocks.

So the 999xxx unit transactions do not appear to be block rewards at all. This is very close to your 1% of 100,000,000 total unit = 1,000,000 unit premine. It appears that someone is moving the premine around.

Maybe that's what people are doing. I wonder if this has something to do with Monero's price slipping in the last few days.

Poloniex should have enough respect for their customers to at least post some explanation of what's going on. I am starting to get ticked off about this.

Today is the fourth day that Monero withdrawals have been disabled on Poloniex.

That was intended as a rhetorical question. Did the scenario where they pack up and leave with the money just get more plausible?

I have something of a bee in my bonnet about this, and it's getting a little off topic, but one more comment and I'll shut up.

A promise to pay USD is specifically and explicitly what Tether is _not_, per the terms of service.

Safeguards? Safeguards are to make sure companies can and do keep their promises. Tether doesn't make any. Yes, unless you read the TOS you might get the impression from their site that Tethers are backed by money in the bank, and that you have the right to redeem Tethers, but the TOS say no right to redeem and helpfully resolve the conflict by specifying that if the site says one thing and the TOS another, the TOS wins. I don't know what the talk about Tether's reserves and whether they are actually are what Tether says they are has to do with anything - what does it matter if Tether holders have no legal claim on them?

I don't think many realize how all-encompassing Tether's disclaimers in their terms of service (https://tether.to/legal) really are, e.g. you specifically cannot sue them for unjust enrichment. Why would that be in there? Any ideas?

Monero withdrawals are "temporarily disabled" on Poloniex. No explanation.

Do you really know what USDT is about?

From the Tether terms of service:

There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers. - tether.to/legal

Tether: not even a scam https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1881199.0

20,000,000 tether tokens were created today https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1936774.0

Nevertheless Tether is listed at $1.03 on coinmarketcap.com this morning after dipping to .93 a few weeks ago. I don't get it. Tethers are extremely dangerous to hold, IMO.

I may be missing something obvious but I don't see it.

I'm running the monero gui on Linux (64 bit). It seems to be working fine but I can't find any way to exit it. I have to go to the terminal, enter ps -ax, find the pid, and kill it. There has to be an easier way. On the mac there's a menu to quit from. No such menu on Linux.

There actually was a coin called CaptchaCoin launched in 2013 that (supposedly) worked this way. It fizzled out pretty quickly I think.

But..but..but...

All tethers are backed 100% by actual assets in our reserve account - from tether.to/transparency

What could go wrong?

Maybe this?

There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your Tethers for money. We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of Tethers by us for money. There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, sell, or redeem Tethers. - from tether.to/legal

Read the terms of service. Tether specifically and unequivocally disclaims any obligation to exchange Tethers for fiat.

Looks like Fluffy has crashed the entire cryptocurrency market Bitcoin included.

I think we all know the market has been in a bubble and something had to pop it. Maybe it's better sooner than later. Less total pain.

In the long term this won't make any difference. If cryptocurrencies makes sense, and none of us doubt that, the market will inevitably recover, and Monero is undoubtedly the most well thought out of them all. Though I am concerned that it will carry for a long time the stigma of having started the whole rout.

Strongly recommend that you not do this. Cryptocurrency valuations are insane right now and the risk is too great. Read about the South Sea Bubble and the Dutch Tulip Mania so you can get some perspective. Plus if you do this you will waste too much time that you should be spending studying on worrying about and following the markets.

I think it's still possible to get your school debts paid off if you are willing to practice in an underserved area.