Argentinian tax evaders: Bonds or Jail time. Bullish for BTC?

[BitcoinAshley]

Let me set this up by mentioning: It is often said 'round these parts that every time a government does something that people don't like in regards to finance, demand for BTC goes up. Cyprus was a great example; BTC price is STILL far higher than it was before the Cyprus news partially contributed to an extreme overbought situation. And then we see similar legislation/etc in New Zealand, Canada, possibly Spain, and an FDIC formal strategy in cooperation with ECB (and ECB itself) setting that tactic as a precedent.

If you're not familiar with the situation in Argentina, inflation is increasing at alarming rates, causing people to buy lots of USD on the black market (and we can guess a tiny percentage is buying gold, silver, or perhaps even BTC.) Prez has tried supermarket price freezes, capital controls, etc. Inflation still raging. And with income tax at 35%, everyone and his brother is trying to hide their wealth. The shadow economy is huge and growing ever larger. The gov't is stealing money from people by debasing the currency at 10-25%+ per year, and is now lashing out against the people who try to "steal" it back. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-11/argentinas-modest-proposal-buy-bonds-or-go-jail
Argentina's president Kirchner, a keen observer of recent events in Cyprus, has figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone, namely attempt to put an end to tax evasion, and fund the capex of the recently nationalized state oil company YPF [...]. To do that she will present the local tax-evading population (pretty much anyone with any disposable income and savings) with a simple choice: buy a 4% bond to fund YPF "growth" or go to prison.

From Bloomberg:

    President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner wants tax evaders hiding about $160 billion in dollars to help finance Argentina’s oil-producing ambitions. Her offer: Buy a 4 percent bond or face the prospect of jail time.

    The tax authority announced the plan May 7, [...] warning Argentines who don’t use the three-month amnesty window that they risk fines or arrest. Evaders have two options for their cash and the only one paying interest will be a dollar bond due in 2016 to finance YPF SA (YPF), the state oil company. The 4 percent rate is a third the average 13.85 yield on Argentine debt and less than the 4.6 percent in emerging markets.

TL;DR: Tax evaders encouraged to buy state oil company bonds and get immunity from criminal charges or back taxes, or risk imprisonment if they do not do so and get caught.

Now, plz speculate what effect this will have on the BTC price, if any. It seems there are a lot of tax evaders over there who might start worrying about the suitcase full of bills they have in their closet. Will a growing (but still tiny) number of Argentinians flock to BTC? Or is this an obscure bit of legislation that no one will pay attention to? Your thoughts.

[1714857356]

1714857356

[1714857356]

1714857356

[1714857356]

1714857356

[1714857356]

1714857356

[1714857356]

1714857356

[adpinbr]

If we could get some of our argentinain friends to post on their forums, newspapers, websites etc it could be amazing. but we need to throw out some bait before we can hook into their economy.

[Frozenlock]

Exponential growth is unsustainable! It's a bubble! 

[BitcoinAshley]

I love that graph. It's almost like:

[N12]

As much an effect as China had.

[UltimateReaper]

First thing you have to remember about bitcoin is that it requires an internet connection

I'm joking of course, but how do I put it. We keep getting "news" but what's it done really? I've decided to follow the market. "Maybe this, Maybe that"

I wouldn't put my money on "maybe". I'd put it on "most likely"

[BitcoinAshley]

We keep getting "news" but what's it done really?

Helped stop us from going back down to $50 

A more significant effect is that the steady stream of good news (and the steady stream of bad news) has taught a lot of people not to go all-in or all-out because of one news article.

I hope you realize I'm not looking for a "OMG this news is GREAT! Bitcoin is going to the moon!"
Rather, I'm curious as to whether legislation like this will actually draw people to bitcoin, or just make them keep hoarding their USD fiat in their mattress, hoping they don't get caught.

[ElectricMucus]

As much an effect as China had.

Just about.  

How many times: Cyprus hadn't had any effect on Bitcoin per se, it was just a factor to contribute to an already heated up market. I think the number of people affected by Cyprus and bought BTC because of it can be counted on one hand.

Bullish news in the current situation would be: Further direct usage of Bitcoin (not Bitpay & co), more trustworthy exchanges which are not mtgox and the Bitcoin Community embracing ripple as an alternative to traditional exchanges and trust structures. (without paranoia and FYGM attitude)

[BitcoinAshley]

How many times: Cyprus hadn't had any effect on Bitcoin per se, it was just a factor to contribute to an already heated up market. I think the number of people affected by Cyprus and bought BTC because of it can be counted on one hand.

I should clarify that when I say "Cyprus news contributed to..." I am referring to the bitcoin users in other countries buying bitcoins in response to the Cyprus news, not the actual Cypriots themselves - who, I'm sure, bought bitcoins, but nowhere near as much as the irrational-one-news-article-bulls bought.

Bullish news in the current situation would be: Further direct usage of Bitcoin (not Bitpay & co), more trustworthy exchanges which are not mtgox and the Bitcoin Community embracing ripple as an alternative to traditional exchanges and trust structures. (without paranoia and FYGM attitude)

Pretty much agree, however that's not really news that comes at a single point in time. In the short term for news we are thinking about an immediate effect (1-2 weeks perhaps?), large or small, that comes from X piece of news being released. As everyone has noticed, this hasn't been happening as much because (1) smarter traders and (2) [relative] media saturation, single bullish/bearish news article is a drop in the ocean.

As for the direct usage; I see it progressing this way:
1) Indirect support (receiving mostly USD from 3rd party payment processor) (this is where we are now, with a few exceptions)
2) "Native" support (i.e. no Bitpay-like intermediary) except prices pegged to USD minute-by-minute
3) Native support with weighted peg (a weighted peg means the business wants to give BTC a chance and volatility would have to be MUCH lower to allow this. Peg would be weighted either via time, % of fluctuation, or both)
4) Native support with no short-term peg to any currency (LONG way from this point, but this would be almost as bullish as we could get; it wouldn't happen until USD were inflating up the wazoo.)
5) ULTIMATE INTEGRATION - Business accepts BTC [and other cryptocurrencies] end-to-end, doesn't convert back to USD, doesn't peg. Business also pays all employees in BTC, as well as all operating expenses. Business doesn't need any fiat currency until the tax man comes; but at that point, you could use Bitspend to pay the tax authority

As for Ripple; I have used it, but be honest here; Bitcoin users aren't going to accept it en masse until the concept is a lot more decentralized than it is currently. I'm not paranoid; I don't think the OpenCoin board is going to dump their coins on the market and run away to some tropical island, but Bitcoin set a standard (a pretty shitty standard regarding development and the bitcoin foundation but still a standard) for decentralization that Ripple hasn't touched yet, and might not touch unless someone else comes along with a ripple-esque system that doesn't require as much trust of the founding organization.

[ronaldlee0917]

Glad that I don't live there, that is unfortunate to be forced to buy a bond.

[lysr]

So we are going back to Argentina after visiting China