The Internet and the World Wide Web are two very different things. As someone who actually used the Internet before the World Wide Web existed I know, and yes the Internet was started by the US Federal Government.
Technically speaking the World Wide Web is currently 99% of the Internet so, your statement is quite misleading especially for the uneducated public! As already mentioned, everything was started not by the US Federal Government, but by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Actually it is not my comment that is misleading, it is the other way around especially in this community since Bitcoin uses the Internet but not the World Wide Web to transfer funds. |
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The Internet and the World Wide Web are two very different things. As someone who actually used the Internet before the World Wide Web existed I know, and yes the Internet was started by the US Federal Government.
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I would respectfully suggest that all involved in this debate including the author of the article, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/dollar-less-iranians-discover-virtual-currency that led to the banning start by actually reading the United States sanctions against Iran http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.txt While the United States sanctions are very broad there are certain exceptions. The following quote form the article ... At online store coinDL.com, shoppers can use bitcoins to buy Beyond Matter, the latest album from Iranian artist Mohammad Rafigh. Anyone in the U.S. downloading songs, which fetch .039 bitcoins or 45˘ each, risks violating U.S. sanctions. ... Here is a quote from the US Treasury document: ...
• IMPORTS FROM IRAN - Goods or services of Iranian origin may not be imported
into the United States, either directly or through third countries, with the
following exceptions:
a) Gifts valued at $100 or less;
b) Information and informational materials;
c) Household and personal effects, of persons arriving in the United
States, that were actually used abroad by the importer or by other family members
arriving from the same foreign household, that are not intended for any other
person or for sale, and that are not otherwise prohibited from importation; and
...
“Information and informational materials” are defined to include publications, films, posters,
phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks,
CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds, although certain Commerce Department
restrictions still apply to some of those materials. To be considered
informational material, artworks must be classified under chapter subheadings
9701, 9702, or 9703 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. ...
It is fair to say that the claim made in the article regarding the importation of a digital download of a song from Iran to the United States is at best highly misleading and at worst out right wrong. Now let me get this straight on the basis of this erroneous claim made in this article someone was banned from #bitcoin-dev? There is way too much paranoia in this community regarding the US Federal Government. Now take a look at the sponsors of the Tor project and how many are related to the US Federal Government https://www.torproject.org/about/sponsors.html.en |
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Here is my question: Suppose I am using a WalletBit wallet and the merchant is using one of your competitors let say BitPay, How does it work?
It works fine, it is all based on Bitcoin. Of course it does. It generates a bitcoin:URI with the bitcoin address and amount in an open standard that is understood across bitcoin clients worldwide including those of competitors. Just like email. Therein lies the Bitcoin's fundamental advantage over the competition. Now how do I convert Interac (Canada) to M-Pesa (Kenya) again? |
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Nice post indeed. But yes, this is the area we as a bitcoin payment processor want in on "Cleaning up the mess?". Paying for stuff Receiving Payment  Here is my question: Suppose I am using a WalletBit wallet and the merchant is using one of your competitors let say BitPay, How does it work? |
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These national / regional money transfer systems have one very serious problem.
We have:
Person A in Kenya using M-Pesa
Person B in the UK using Barclays Pingit
Person C in Canada using Interac
So how do payments from between A and B, B and C, or A and C work again? But we just got started, we have also:
PayPal
Dwolla
Liberty Reserve
UKash
Paxum
PerfectMoney
...
etc etc.
What we have is a growing multitude of incompatible propriety systems that don't and never will talk to each other. It is like an AOL user trying to communicate with a Compuserve user in 1989.
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...
Do these systems have the potential to finally replace cash and thus undermine some of the advantages Bitcoin has?
...
I would say most emphatically no. There is a critical issue which these systems do not address namely the: FICO score or lack thereof of the buyer! If it is 350 or so or if the buyer does not have a FICO score none of them will work and the only alternatives will be cash or Bitcoin. In the United States alone this is a huge market. |
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 CAvirtex slow to adjust. Edit well I guess the high fees bring it pretty much in line. Virtex has been a few % below the MtGox price for most of the last year well before they raised their fees. My theory is Canada's cold climate makes it particularly attractive for Bitcoin mining. |
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Windows 8 Laptops and desktops are now on sale!
I'll try my question again: How about laptops without Windows? Windows is an expensive piece malware I don't need, and I certainly don't want to pay for it. I once bought a laptop from Zareason. Turned out to be a bad idea; got charged like $200 extra taxes when the laptop arrived. I think BitcoinStore would be in a perfect position to get the paperwork behind the international shipping properly sorted out so stuff like that wouldn't happen, and if they start selling Linux (or no-OS) laptops I would gladly buy my next one from them. No. No international store is responsible for the taxes due when packages arrive at your country. You're the one responsible for paying them. The only way they have to help you is if they lie on the value of the order(yeah, not happening). The key question in my mind here is who was the shipping company? If it was UPS I would not be surprised if the $200 in "taxes" consisted of $20 in actual taxes and $180 in "brokerage" charged by the shipping company the merchant selected. So while the store should not be held responsible for the $20 they must certainly be held responsible for the $180 because the merchant selected the shipping company. In Canada avoiding this problem is very simple. Avoid shipments by private couriers UPS, FedEx etc and only use USPS for US based shippers. This limits the "brokerage" and "bond" charges to CAD 8.50. I would check with the postal authorities in your country first to find out what the charge is; however I suspect it will be very reasonable since it is set by international postal regulations. I visited the Zareason site and they no longer ship internationally since they were having many "fraudulent" orders. I suspect more often than not the customers where refusing the shipment and a making a chargeback on their credit cards when UPS or some other private courier pulled their "brokerage" scam. For Canada I can say one thing Bitcoin + USPS is a killer combination. |
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2. ASICS (totally not a scam). If this happens, then we will see a huge amount of BTC will be sold for buy new hardware.  (myself included) Well that actually makes sense. I must admit I am a bit disappointed by how much time and effort the community is putting into mining while we still don't have a BTC credit card and the many other things Bitcoin needs done. If all these geeks had spent half the energy they have spent on mining on something productive, BTC would be worth twice as much by now or more. I disagree. Mining is the critically important solid foundation on which to build a lot of what Bitcoin needs. The higher the network hashrate the more secure Bitcoin becomes, and security is critical. |
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And in other news...
Your credit card is no longer any good at California medical marijuana dispensaries, whose accounts with credit card processors have been canceled, thanks to pressure from the federal government.
Take some money from an ATM and you're good to go.  spiccioli This works for in person transactions with a bricks and mortar business but not online where the only practical alternative today is Bitcoin. It is the one reason the real opportunity for Bitcoin lies with online businesses as opposed to bricks and mortar businesses. |
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Yes but what happens if one simply does not sell for years or even decades then one defers the income and payment of the corresponding tax for years or decades and the CRA is not going to be happy at all. The procedure I use is to treat income earned in BTC for tax purposes at the BTC / CAD rate when the income is earned. If the BTC are subsequently sold afterward the difference is a treated as a capital gain or loss.
So for example let us say I earn 25 BTC on December 30th 2012 and the BTC / CAD rate is $12 then the income declared for tax purposes is 300 CAD. I am also deemed to have acquired the 25 BTC for 300 CAD which will affect the adjusted cost base of all my BTC.
Now let us say in 2013 I sell 25 BTC for say 600 CAD. Let us also say my adjusted cost base for BTC is say 10 CAD per BTC. This would lead to a capital gain of 350 CAD (600-25*10). If on the other hand my BTC adjusted cost base is say 30 CAD per BTC then I would have a capital loss of 150 CAD (600-25*30).
It is the same treatment one would use if one was paid in a foreign currency or in kind as barter. This can get real interesting when one trades on MtGox since one is dealing with both the BTC / USD rate and the USD / CAD rate; however the principle is the same with two steps involved.
I am not a lawyer, accountant or other financial advisor and this should not be construed as legal, accounting or financial advice.
It's another way to calculate it, but my problem is, we're using a BTC / CAD rate that have really small volume and with a huge spread. It's not rare to see spread of 30, 50 cents. Also, if you sell your mining production, you affect the price, and you can change it a lot. If I mine and sell 500 BTC right now, I have thoses prices on Virtex: Bid = 10.80 Ask = 11.37 If you use the ask price: 11.37 x 500 = 5685$ If you use the bid price: 10.80 x 500 = 5400$ Which one do you use? Also, if I would sell in the real world those 500 BTC, the price drop more. Here's the depth: 10.80 345 (3) 345 3726 10.75 31 (1) 376 4063 10.67 9 (1) 385 4156 10.65 10 (1) 395 426 10.60 359 (2) 754 8064 But also, since the price moves so much, maybe by the moment I mine those BTC, I discover I mined and I check the price, the rate have moved a lot more. If I mine them at 10.80$, but I was busy today and the price dropped to 10.25$ when I looked at it, do I have to use the 10.80$ or the 10.25$ price? We're not talking about a couple of cents of margin error, it's about a couple of hundred dollars of difference. And no, I'm not interested in using Mt. Gox rate for that, since I'm not going to sell them for USD. As for using their CAD rates, it gets better. Right now, it is at 11.69$. So, for the BTC I'm mining right now, my choice of rate is from 10.80$ at one location to 11.69$ at another location. It's almost a 1$ difference, or a 9.2% difference. Go try to make a 9.2% error on your income tax to see how it goes. Without rules, tools or advice, it's pretty hard to figure it out on our own. Yes but what happens if one simply does not sell for years or even decades then one defers the income and payment of the corresponding tax for years or decades and the CRA is not going to be happy at all. Well, they will still sell them one day. And at that point, the BTC value risk to be higher than is it currently. If the CRA would come and tell us "hey guys, we saw that you're doing Bitcoin and it's great. Here the rules about how to do all the calculation of the income tax", I would be the first in line to apply those rules. But it seems they don't care at the moment, and I can't invent rules myself. I'm not paid to do their job, so I'm using the simplest way to manage all this and use my time to work on more important things. *EDIT* Forgot the disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, accountant or other financial advisor and this should not be construed as legal, accounting or financial advice.The problem here is to determine the fair market value for tax purposes for a deemed acquisition or disposition of property, and this is not a problem unique to Bitcoin. In fact Bitcoin is in comparison very simple. Ever had to deal with the tax of an estate and have to determine what the price of a piece of real estate was a year ago or in one case 20 years ago? I had. The reality is one has to make an estimate that is reasonable and that one can justify. Furthermore it has to be applied consistently. In my real estate example I obtained an appraisal. Would another appraiser be out by 9% especially in the 20 year old case?. Possibly, but the point is I have the documentation and can justify the valuation as being reasonable. So in the BTC example if liquidity is a concern then using the MtGox BTC / USD rate and multiplying it by the Forex USD / CAD rate is reasonable so is using the Virtex price. I would use the last price at the time of receiving the income as opposed to the bid or ask price and of course be consistent. Are they going to differ by a few percent of course but one must also keep in mind that this is self correcting. If one over estimates the cost of the BTC by say 9% then upon sale that capital gain will be 9% less or the capital loss will be 9% greater. The bottom line is it is way better to be out by 9% on a deemed acquisition with a reasonable and justifiable valuation than to be out 100% by not declaring the income at all. I would put myself in the position of the income tax auditor here. Which file would I rather audit? The one where I have to argue that a deemed acquisition is off by a few percent and the taxpayer acted in good faith or the one where the taxpayer failed to report a whole lot of income? Let us keep in mind I can only audit one of the two files and I am measured on my performance by how much additional tax revenue and penalty revenue I bring in today, not a few years down the road. I would bring your example and calculations to a tax professional. Trust me there is a very high chance they have seen this issue before and on an asset way less liquid than Bitcoin. I am not a lawyer, accountant or other financial advisor and this should not be construed as legal, accounting or financial advice. |
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Let us keep it simple. Let us say you mine 25 BTC on December 30, 2012 and sell those BTC on January 03, 2013. For the sake of argument let us assume the BTC / CAD rate is the same when you mine the BTC and when you sell the BTC. What year do you declare the income 2012 or 2013?
I go with bobitza on that. I would use the moment when you sell and go with 2013. When you sell, you tend to maximize your profit, so it's the most logical valuation of your income in that period of time. There's also no guarantee you mined those coins on december 30. Maybe you mined them 3 months ago, when the price was at 10$, but use the December 30 date because the BTC price dropped at 4$ at that moment. If you would declare your income based on the moment you got the coins, people would tend to minimize their income (use the lowest prices). With the selling moment, you tend to maximize your profit, so make more money, pay more taxes and make government happy. Consider it's my personal advice, and I'm no lawyer, financial advisor or nothing like that. Yes but what happens if one simply does not sell for years or even decades then one defers the income and payment of the corresponding tax for years or decades and the CRA is not going to be happy at all. The procedure I use is to treat income earned in BTC for tax purposes at the BTC / CAD rate when the income is earned. If the BTC are subsequently sold afterward the difference is a treated as a capital gain or loss. So for example let us say I earn 25 BTC on December 30th 2012 and the BTC / CAD rate is $12 then the income declared for tax purposes is 300 CAD. I am also deemed to have acquired the 25 BTC for 300 CAD which will affect the adjusted cost base of all my BTC. Now let us say in 2013 I sell 25 BTC for say 600 CAD. Let us also say my adjusted cost base for BTC is say 10 CAD per BTC. This would lead to a capital gain of 350 CAD (600-25*10). If on the other hand my BTC adjusted cost base is say 30 CAD per BTC then I would have a capital loss of 150 CAD (600-25*30). It is the same treatment one would use if one was paid in a foreign currency or in kind as barter. This can get real interesting when one trades on MtGox since one is dealing with both the BTC / USD rate and the USD / CAD rate; however the principle is the same with two steps involved. I am not a lawyer, accountant or other financial advisor and this should not be construed as legal, accounting or financial advice. |
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I see BTC like hockey cards. If you buy a hockey card package and you get a Mario Lemieux rookie platinum card that is worth 3000$, I don't see how you have to declare that income, since you never had income in the first place, only a hockey card that you bought 2$ that some people value at 3000$. But, if you sell your Mario Lemieux rookie card for 3000$, now you have income that you have to declare. So, for those living in Quebec, Canada, mining is a hobby in the government eyes until something new comes out. Since I'm a freelancer, I'm looking into putting that revenue with my "Travailleur Autonome"(autonomous worker?) status.
Merci pour l'info. Now about BTC as cash in hand ... would you basically report the value of your BTC deposits in CAD when doing a Balance statement? I wouldn't agree with that because: - BTC is not actually cash in hand, you have to find an exchange to trade it in CAD in large amounts without crashing the price. - there are big price fluctuations, so your BTC reserve can be valued at 10k or 20k; that will impact your profit and loss and it shouldn't. I declare what is in CAD. If there was a column where I could declare my BTC I would, but there's nothing for that. And I'm not going to declare the theorical CAD of my BTC, since it's that value only in theory. If, when I mine a BTC, is at 12$ on the market, but when I go to sell it, it's now at 9.50$, I get 9.50$, not 12$. Let us keep it simple. Let us say you mine 25 BTC on December 30, 2012 and sell those BTC on January 03, 2013. For the sake of argument let us assume the BTC / CAD rate is the same when you mine the BTC and when you sell the BTC. What year do you declare the income 2012 or 2013? |
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... Citizens from many countries are blocked out of the typical payment channels like PayPal and credit cards simply because they lack access to a bank account. Sometimes, even those that have banking infrastructures within their countries are blocked out due to poor credit histories or insurmountable fees. ... This is a huge market for Bitcoin. For an online business large or small Bitcoin brings in a customer who before 1) Had the funds to pay for the product or service 2) Is very keen to purchase the product or service 3) Had no way to pay for the product or service or paying for the product or service was insurmountable In the bricks and mortar world these people of course use cash everyday and are the major reason why despite over a quarter of a century of attempts to eliminate cash and billions spent on marketing cash stubbornly refuses to go away. Excellent article by the way |
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It is said that Bitcoin has no Terms of Service. And indeed it does not. May it benefit from having some? Why wouldn't we sketch some simple and funny terms of service ourselves? In fact since there is no central authority I feel ourselves as good as Bitcoin Foundation for the job  Here I have started, anyone can edit and there is a mini-chat. Have fun. Absolutely not. The fact that Bitcoin does not have a Terms of Service (TOS) is one of its greatest strengths! In fact it is the only way to pay online without having to agree to some company's TOS. It is like using cash, silver or gold for in person transactions. |
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I would not dismiss the United States as a winner so quickly. Countries that are major exporters of digital goods and services are likely to be the biggest winners and in this area the United States is a major player. There is a reason why Wordpress based in the United States embraced Bitcoin.
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No one wants to snap up my leftover btc on gox at 12.25. Hurry up bulls.
No. I can get it for less on Virtex |
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the poll is reset.
feel free to vote whether you think bitcoin prices go up or down
Also, I give 2 BTC as a prize for the one who gives the most creative reason for his prediction in this thread here. Close this Sunday 23:59 CET
UP. People with FICO scores below 375 will use Bitcoin to purchase goods and services ranging from blog hosting to electronics online. |
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Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?
I noticed the change from Cuba and Iraq to Ethiopia. Actually they do not have to go that far. There a millions of adults, more than the entire adult population of Cuba and Iraq combined, in the United States that cannot get a bank account, credit card or PayPal account due to poor credit. |
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