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October 29, 2013, 07:53:59 PM |
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You mean official government acceptance? As in: bitcoin is accepted for the payment of tax liabilities, fees, licenses, and the like? That will be a long time in the making. My sense is that no EU members will make such a move independent of EU monetary authority. It would be tantamount to a strike against the Euro itself. Not that the notion is exactly illogical in my mind, but political movements with consequences of that magnitude don't move very quickly and without substantial press. And they will never greenlight acceptance of bitcoin for financial obligations to the government until some mechanism is put in place to trace and tax it. That's how governments are.
If you mean private businesses in Belgium: well, transactions need to clear faster for point of sale scenarios (assuming you're talking brick and mortar) before acceptance occurs on a broad scale. And customers are going to get a little peeved with e-commerce where they expect clearance of a transaction within a minute or less. The less than savvy are going to be concerned the transaction stalled. Bitcoin is very new and needs some infrastructure upgrades.
Also, to complete a half-baked comment I alluded to earlier: while bitcoin prices are volatile (a function of infrastructure problems), and while transactions remain *truly* anonymous, businesses are going to be somewhat shy of accepting bitcoins for fear of an AML crackdown--pools of funds get recalled because they are tainted from money laundering activities and businesses are implicated as accessories or partners in crime. Etc. The bitcoin community needs to start getting used to the notion that some transparency to transactions has to occur (and I think they can still maintain a sense of *privacy* regardless) before broad institutional acceptance happens. Businesses rely on third party trust: assurances that transactions will either go through or there will be recourse if they don't. This "wild west" culture is only going to work for pioneers and risk-friendly forward thinkers. Mark my words: bitcoin acceptance will be capped until some light can be shone on bitcoin transactions. Some new approach must be forwarded to cleanse and keep clean the financial channels in order for them to widen for big-scale use. This anarchistic culture within the community is understandable (I despise most forms of government) but not practical from a business perspective.
Cheers to Belgium from a Canadian living in the United States. I used to live in Tourcoing. Miss is terribly.
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