Do we want to work with money regulators, or keep Bitcoin unregulated?

[cbeast]

“There is a natural order to this world, and those who try to upend it do not fare well.” – from "Cloud Atlas"

[franky1]

a family member is an electrician. he gets paid in fiat and in favours. he also gets a cup of tea from some of the customers. no-where EVER has he had to claim the tea and biscuits or the occassional sandwich as part of his gross earnings.

when it comes to bartering. its common sense.

if a pencil has a value of under £$1 and was traded 1:1 against a house. then the values would instantly show that someone in the trade has made massive profit. and when they go to sell the house they would then have to pay tax on the profits minus the pencil cost.

now in real world bartaring most people find objects of similar value to trade against each other making a fair offer to each other so that both parties get what they want and both don't feel like they have been shafted. this is where no profit is made and thus no tax is needed to be paid.

now for some examples.
1)say i bought a car 4door for £$1000 and sold it for £$1000 no profit = no tax

2)say i bought a car 4door for £$1000 and swapped it for 2door car of similar value no profit = no tax

now taking example 2... lets say the 2door was a sports car that a father of a new born desperately wanted to get rid of due to needing back seat space for his newborn. and the 2 door was worth £$2000

in a 1:1 trade there has been some profit, and it will easily show up when person A sells the 2 door for cash, that is when tax will come into it.

so when you barter for things. look for items of similar value. that if you sold out as FIAT would not net you a profit.

and just like anything. if you make a FIAT profit. expect to pay tax

[rovchris]

a family member is an electrician. he gets paid in fiat and in favours. he also gets a cup of tea from some of the customers. no-where EVER has he had to claim the tea and biscuits or the occassional sandwich as part of his gross earnings.

when it comes to bartering. its common sense.

if a pencil has a value of under £$1 and was traded 1:1 against a house. then the values would instantly show that someone in the trade has made massive profit. and when they go to sell the house they would then have to pay tax on the profits minus the pencil cost.

now in real world bartaring most people find objects of similar value to trade against each other making a fair offer to each other so that both parties get what they want and both don't feel like they have been shafted. this is where no profit is made and thus no tax is needed to be paid.

Exactly it is not a difficult concept to grasp.

[aigeezer]

I'm not sure if those of you making the pencil/house barter comparison are aware of this real-world barter process.

"The website http://www.redpaperclip.com/ was created by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of online trades over the course of a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

It tends to complicate things.     

[rovchris]

I'm not sure if those of you making the pencil/house barter comparison are aware of this real-world barter process.

"The website http://www.redpaperclip.com/ was created by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of online trades over the course of a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

It tends to complicate things.     

Wow that is some trading skill there.

[aigeezer]

I'm not sure if those of you making the pencil/house barter comparison are aware of this real-world barter process.

"The website http://www.redpaperclip.com/ was created by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of online trades over the course of a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

It tends to complicate things.    

Wow that is some trading skill there.

I don't know whether it would make the taxman give up or whether his eyes would light up. They have a tiger by the tail with barter, I think.

Edit: Lest you think I've drifted off topic... the Canadian tax authorities made an announcement in April to the effect (from memory) that BTC was like barter and that they claimed the right to grab a piece of the action in barter transactions (my words, not theirs, obviously). So if the Red Paperclip saga demonstrates conclusively that "value" is in the eye of the parties to the transaction, that one person's trash is another person's treasure, and so forth... then assigning arbitrary "fiat values" to bartered goods and bitcoin trades might be none of the taxman's business. He of course might see it differently.

[franky1]

I'm not sure if those of you making the pencil/house barter comparison are aware of this real-world barter process.

"The website http://www.redpaperclip.com/ was created by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger who bartered his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of online trades over the course of a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

It tends to complicate things.    

Wow that is some trading skill there.

I don't know whether it would make the taxman give up or whether his eyes would light up. They have a tiger by the tail with barter, I think.

Edit: Lest you think I've drifted off topic... the Canadian tax authorities made an announcement in April to the effect (from memory) that BTC was like barter and that they claimed the right to grab a piece of the action in barter transactions (my words, not theirs, obviously). So if the Red Paperclip saga demonstrates conclusively that "value" is in the eye of the parties to the transaction, that one person's trash is another person's treasure, and so forth... then assigning arbitrary "fiat values" to bartered goods and bitcoin trades might be none of the taxman's business. He of course might see it differently.

blah blah blah..

now in the real world if someone showed their income and expenditure of 2012 of X amount and showed they bought a red paperclip as part of their asset possesions..

and then in 2013 they showed they sold a house which they didn't not have in 2012. then of course the tax man would be interested.

but on every day bartering. swapping a loaf of bread for a couple pints of milk (equal value) the tax man wont care.

edit:

i think the problem here is that 60% atleast of people that think they are smart on this thread by using google searches are usually under 20yo that have never come into contact with a tax man.

where as i and a few distinctly obvious poster that have the same opinions as me seem to be those with real world experience.

[aigeezer]

...

now in the real world if someone showed their income and expenditure of 2012 of X amount and showed they bought a red paperclip as part of their asset possesions..

and then in 2013 they showed they sold a house which they didn't not have in 2012. then of course the tax man would be interested.

but on every day bartering. swapping a loaf of bread for a couple pints of milk (equal value) the tax man wont care.

edit:

i think the problem here is that 60% atleast of people that think they are smart on this thread by using google searches are usually under 20yo that have never come into contact with a tax man.

where as i and a few distinctly obvious poster that have the same opinions as me seem to be those with real world experience.

My example took place in Canada, which is in the real world. (I live there). It received a lot of publicity at the time.

The example was incremental, which is what makes it interesting and relevant - the paper clip was not traded for a house directly. In Canada the tax man is not interested in your house if it is your primary residence - it is not taxable when you sell it, so you could hypothetically go from paper clip to house without any tax repercussions. The dilemma for the tax man is whether to stake a claim to a piece of each of the barter trades along the way - the trades of two things apparently of equal value, what you call "every day bartering", that somehow wind up being worth far more than the initial item. The ancient Greeks called this kind of thing a sorites or "little by little paradox", as you probably know.

Canadian tax law does not distinguish "every day bartering" from any other kind of bartering - I doubt that any nation's tax law draws that distinction, but please provide a citation if you know of one. I showed upthread how the Canadian tax people tried to deal with this by using the imprecise phrase "regular habit" - it resolves nothing.

I generally provide links to my allegations or examples to demonstrate that they are not just my opinions. It's a common custom in forum dialog. If you looked at the Red Paper Clip site you may have noticed that one of the commenters said it would have been interesting if the person who received the red paper clip - the initial transaction - had in turn exchanged it in barter to start the cycle anew, and then the person after that, and so on indefinitely - a taxman's nightmare, strongly analogous to BTC.

Hehe - I won't state my age but the "geezer" part of my user name might provide a hint that I've paid taxes for a while.     

[ReCat]

If we need to regulate Bitcoins, we need to regulate cash.

[flavius]

you cant regulate it faggots

[dbkeys]

Whose face is on the coin ? Caesar's ? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.  Not  Caesar's ? Then it doesn't belong to him.

[BitcoinAshley]

you cant regulate it faggots

No points for tact, but you hit the nail right on the head 


They can regulate the hell out of converting bitcoins to fiat on legacy exchanges, but they can't do shit for the bitcoin protocol itself aside from shutting down the internet EVERYWHERE and then constantly sending out stormtroopers with guns everywhere on the entire plant to make sure no one's setting up a meshnet...
For the rest of existence...

i.e. not possible.

[Pinwheel]

some countries, like India for example regulating many things by prohibiting it. if in US there will be some sort prohibitive or restrictive kind of attitude toward bitcoins many countries will follow. Sooner or later in India they may prohibit bitcoin exchanges anyway, on anti money laundering basis perhaps.

[Room101]

this entire discussion rests on the assumption that things will continue the way they are for some time......personally i don't think things will hold together much longer. The PetroDollar standard is in its death rattles, the US economy is NOT getting better, it can't, there is too much debt and something has to give. And every time throughout history, when fiat currencies collapse, especially world reserve ones, people will, for a while, revert to any form of money that serves them best. In Argentina in 2001 the people just started making their own money.

Bitcoin is useful, i know this because i use it. Gold is less useful, but has 5000 years of history behind it. Regulation is the least of our worries, the "people" that would be doing the regulating, will soon all be out of a job.

Or in other words, winter is coming.
Or in other other words, all this has happened before, and will happen again

[Lauda]

Definently keep it unregulated, or this will cause trouble for the coins

[lonestranger]

Let us remember, people, that "regulation" means being prevented from engaging in "crimes" that are UNAUTHORIZED.  You see, the anti-money laundering laws are intended to keep money flowing TO THE BOYS and no one else.  The purpose of such laws is to eliminate competition!

Do you know who Dick Grasso is?  He was the head of the New York Stock Exchange.  Here is a picture of Big Dick hugging a leader of the FARC guerillas in Colombia in 1999:



Why would the head of the NYSE be in a Colombian jungle hugging up a sweaty gun-toting rebel leader?  To make a deal to launder drug money through Wall Street, of course!  Big Dick said he was there to invite the rebel leaders up to New York to see capitalism first-hand and if you believe that you are, indeed, a statist tool.

But Big Dick's visit paid off because a few years later we have Wachovia Bank paying a trivial fine for nearly $400 BILLION of drug related money laundering:

"Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine."

Did you get that number?  FOUR HUNDRED BILLION!!

And then more recently HSBC gets away with laundering more billions of drug cartel money:

"Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts), has once again revealed the dangerous double standards at the heart of the US justice system. Appearing at the Senate Banking Committee, the former Harvard law professor questioned officials from the US Treasury Department and US Federal Reserve over why criminal charges were not pressed on HSBC or any HSBC official who helped to launder hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. But just like the last time, she was met with wholly inadequate responses. The impression one got from the Treasury and Fed officials was that some banks are not just ‘too big to fail’, they are also ‘too big to prosecute’, and ‘too big to jail’."

So, when Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Director of FINCEN says THIS:

"Liberty Reserve operated as an online money transmitter deliberately designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny and tailored its services to illicit actors looking to launder their ill-gotten gains"

we know what's going on, right?  She's either too stupid to know what her bosses are up to or she's in league WITH them!  I mean how can we pretend that FINCEN is interested in stopping money laundering when they let BILLIONS and BILLIONS get laundered right under their noses?

FINCEN is organized crime with a flag on the wall.  So for those who say "let's work with the regulators", you are now negotiating with the most bad-assed, ruthless criminal organization on the planet.  What kind of a deal do you think they will cut with you?

[aceking]

If they want will regulate it without asking us.

[rovchris]

Let us remember, people, that "regulation" means being prevented from engaging in "crimes" that are UNAUTHORIZED.  You see, the anti-money laundering laws are intended to keep money flowing TO THE BOYS and no one else.  The purpose of such laws is to eliminate competition!

Do you know who Dick Grasso is?  He was the head of the New York Stock Exchange.  Here is a picture of Big Dick hugging a leader of the FARC guerillas in Colombia in 1999:



Why would the head of the NYSE be in a Colombian jungle hugging up a sweaty gun-toting rebel leader?  To make a deal to launder drug money through Wall Street, of course!  Big Dick said he was there to invite the rebel leaders up to New York to see capitalism first-hand and if you believe that you are, indeed, a statist tool.

But Big Dick's visit paid off because a few years later we have Wachovia Bank paying a trivial fine for nearly $400 BILLION of drug related money laundering:

"Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine."

Did you get that number?  FOUR HUNDRED BILLION!!

And then more recently HSBC gets away with laundering more billions of drug cartel money:

"Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts), has once again revealed the dangerous double standards at the heart of the US justice system. Appearing at the Senate Banking Committee, the former Harvard law professor questioned officials from the US Treasury Department and US Federal Reserve over why criminal charges were not pressed on HSBC or any HSBC official who helped to launder hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. But just like the last time, she was met with wholly inadequate responses. The impression one got from the Treasury and Fed officials was that some banks are not just ‘too big to fail’, they are also ‘too big to prosecute’, and ‘too big to jail’."

So, when Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Director of FINCEN says THIS:

"Liberty Reserve operated as an online money transmitter deliberately designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny and tailored its services to illicit actors looking to launder their ill-gotten gains"

we know what's going on, right?  She's either too stupid to know what her bosses are up to or she's in league WITH them!  I mean how can we pretend that FINCEN is interested in stopping money laundering when they let BILLIONS and BILLIONS get laundered right under their noses?

FINCEN is organized crime with a flag on the wall.  So for those who say "let's work with the regulators", you are now negotiating with the most bad-assed, ruthless criminal organization on the planet.  What kind of a deal do you think they will cut with you?

Can not fault a word of what you said. You are totally correct.

[Pinwheel]

Let us remember, people, that "regulation" means being prevented from engaging in "crimes" that are UNAUTHORIZED.  You see, the anti-money laundering laws are intended to keep money flowing TO THE BOYS and no one else.  The purpose of such laws is to eliminate competition!

Do you know who Dick Grasso is?  He was the head of the New York Stock Exchange.  Here is a picture of Big Dick hugging a leader of the FARC guerillas in Colombia in 1999:



Why would the head of the NYSE be in a Colombian jungle hugging up a sweaty gun-toting rebel leader?  To make a deal to launder drug money through Wall Street, of course!  Big Dick said he was there to invite the rebel leaders up to New York to see capitalism first-hand and if you believe that you are, indeed, a statist tool.

But Big Dick's visit paid off because a few years later we have Wachovia Bank paying a trivial fine for nearly $400 BILLION of drug related money laundering:

"Criminal proceedings were brought against Wachovia, though not against any individual, but the case never came to court. In March 2010, Wachovia settled the biggest action brought under the US bank secrecy act, through the US district court in Miami. Now that the year’s “deferred prosecution” has expired, the bank is in effect in the clear. It paid federal authorities $110m in forfeiture, for allowing transactions later proved to be connected to drug smuggling, and incurred a $50m fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine."

Did you get that number?  FOUR HUNDRED BILLION!!

And then more recently HSBC gets away with laundering more billions of drug cartel money:

"Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat-Massachusetts), has once again revealed the dangerous double standards at the heart of the US justice system. Appearing at the Senate Banking Committee, the former Harvard law professor questioned officials from the US Treasury Department and US Federal Reserve over why criminal charges were not pressed on HSBC or any HSBC official who helped to launder hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. But just like the last time, she was met with wholly inadequate responses. The impression one got from the Treasury and Fed officials was that some banks are not just ‘too big to fail’, they are also ‘too big to prosecute’, and ‘too big to jail’."

So, when Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Director of FINCEN says THIS:

"Liberty Reserve operated as an online money transmitter deliberately designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny and tailored its services to illicit actors looking to launder their ill-gotten gains"

we know what's going on, right?  She's either too stupid to know what her bosses are up to or she's in league WITH them!  I mean how can we pretend that FINCEN is interested in stopping money laundering when they let BILLIONS and BILLIONS get laundered right under their noses?

FINCEN is organized crime with a flag on the wall.  So for those who say "let's work with the regulators", you are now negotiating with the most bad-assed, ruthless criminal organization on the planet.  What kind of a deal do you think they will cut with you?

thank you very much for taking time and posting it. Drugs money is the only real money what they have in banks.

[TippingPoint]

Options include:

• Work with the money regulators
• Don't work with the money regulators
• Work with the money regulators, but only with the intent to remain unregulated (North Korean style).  Get concessions and institutionalize any advantages (gain wider public acceptance), stall, delay, fork the software, decentralize