What would a Bitcoin world look like?

[hugolp]

I don't think Bitcoin is ever going to replace USD or EUR.  If anything, it's going to end up as an auxiliary currency like silver or gold.

So Bitcoin is just an electronic form of gold, and the elites will just usurp all of the bitcoins like they usurped all of the gold, and life will carry on as normal? You just ended my revolution before it began!

The "elites" never usurped gold. They created a government regulated gold certificate system that they controlled. F.e. in the USA receives the name of gold-exchange standard.

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[MikesMechanix]

The point about p2p is that Bitcoin has no central point of failure, so it's resilient. (unlike Napster and e-gold).

And therefore...?

The main benefit of Bitcoin is pretty obvious. You can reliably send money across the Internet sans expensive middle-men.

But until the whole economic "food chain" can work in Bitcoins, it's unrealistic to expect any major paradigm shifts. Anthing that you buy for BTC at the moment was probably bought from a wholesaler with USD or EUR to begin with.

We are lightyears away from an economy where all the basic materials, wages and taxes are paid in bitcoin.

In fact, any sane person should realize such economy is very unlikely to happen at all.

[flug]

The point about p2p is that Bitcoin has no central point of failure, so it's resilient. (unlike Napster and e-gold).

And therefore...?

And therefore it's the first currency of its kind and therefore what are the implications?

In fact, any sane person should realize such economy is very unlikely to happen at all.

I'm encouraging imagination rather than sanity on this thread

[Basiley]

Bitcoin enables massive theft evasion from the world's monopolies on force. Of course it will change the world.

hardly its "enabled" anything-evasion, just simplify it a bit.
but wasn't completely solve the problem. not yet.

[TraderTimm]

I don't think Bitcoin is ever going to replace USD or EUR.  If anything, it's going to end up as an auxiliary currency like silver or gold.  Rather than threatening governments, Bitcoin might actually help governments with their monetary policy once they start holding it as a "foreign reserve".

Don't be naive in thinking that bitcoin can be used to evade taxes. This might work with smaller amounts below 10,000 USD, but as soon as you start spending serious amounts of money (no matter whether 500 Euro notes or BTC) you inevitably leave a trail in meatspace.  

I respectfully disagree with your point that bitcoin will not replace 'legacy' currencies. Because as of this moment, that is exactly what they are. There isn't an "if" but merely "when", in my mind.

As for taxes, you are correct as the system stands now - but when bitcoin replaces legacy systems, it would be more difficult unless governments adapted to such a system. One poster in another thread made a comment that if companies pay in bitcoin, it would naturally follow that governments would require some kind of control for tax purposes. That is entirely possible, but I'm not sure if that would be enough to save the legacy tax-collection system.

I suppose we'll see...

[flug]

Here's a good article by Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party about how a taxation system based on Value Added Tax might work:

https://falkvinge.net/2011/05/19/the-information-policy-case-for-flat-tax-and-basic-income/

[Anonymous]

I rather just see taxation thrown out the window. VAT? Yeah, like I am going to pay that when I can just buy from a tor-protected retailer that skips the parasites.

[Nath]

I don't really see why people think that Bitcoin would really change the balance of power.

What hinders people with lots of money to simply buy lots of Bitcoins? Of course not from one day to another, but in small packets over time, so that they own enough to have as much control in a "Bitcoin world" as they have now. I suppose this is already happening to a certain degree.

Or what hinders a government to impose similar legal regulations over Bitcoin comparable to the regulations which exists today? Even if Bitcoin in itself may stay independent, its always possible to regulate the interface between the currency and the "real world". Even if they can't get a grip on BC itself, they can control services like Mt. Gox and all the companies who trade in BC. While it's convenient to be able to trace money flows, it's not necessary to stay in control. You only need to be able to look into the books of one side of a trade to know gains/losses of the other.

[Acheron89]

Psssh unfair. Not everyone with <100 posts says crazy things. Also, Flug: what they aren't telling you is that there are hundreds of posts like this already. Maybe give one of them a shot?

I guess it wasn't clear. I was not being sarcastic. I agree with flug and applaud and appreciate the posts.

Woops! I totally misread that as "can" rather than "can't." Thats my fault, sorry.