Please stop asking for "legal tender status"

[legiteum]

Legal tender means that the government forces everybody to accept Bitcoin whether they want to or not.

If a country makes a currency a legal tender it doesn't mean you're forced to use it. [...]

That's actually the exact definition of "legal tender".

Again, don't confuse the term, "legal" with "legal tender". They are two different things.

legal tender is not about replacing countries FAIT. its about allowing businesses to sell goods/services and pay taxes and such in bitcoin..
[...]

Again, like many here, you are confusing the terms, "legal" and "legal tender".

Bitcoin is legal in most countries. Anybody can trade in Bitcoin if they want to.

Bitcoin is not truly legal tender in any country, including El Salvador, since even there they don't universally enforce their law.

Legal tender means payees must accept Bitcoin as a means of settling a debt whether they want to or not.

It's also worth noting here how incredibly rare it is for this to even be an issue.

The US dollar's legal tender status only comes up in court judgements where there is disagreement about a settlement of a debt denoted in some other form of payment (e.g. a barter), in which case the court can make a judgement that an equivalent US dollar amount be paid, and the payor is forced to pay in that currency.

That's it. That's all "legal tender" actually does.

[1714632919]

1714632919

[1714632919]

1714632919

[1714632919]

1714632919

[1714632919]

1714632919

[famososMuertos]

First of all, I do not understand your "allergy" to the situation of people asking for "legal tender status", they are free to ask and demand what they believe, it depends on those who make these requests to make the respective declarations that this is what they want.

Bitcoin is accepted in many countries in different ways, since you simply buy it and sell it like any other asset or digital possession.

In many places on the planet, people buy things with art, watches, vehicles, etc., let's say that barter is still active, and none of that is "legal" to pay for goods and services but they use it, that configuration obviously depends on the country, now, to declare that in a sale contract the legal tender must be justified with a deposit in an account or check if applicable.

So, there is a fiscal order in that sense, so making bitcoin legal for payments, even if it is not legal currency, is a solution for many users, in those cases that "legal status" is welcome.

[Ever-young]

Making something legal tender means you can freely use it in that space no body is forcing anybody to make use of anything, we have freedom of what currency you want to use and which one you don’t want to use the only thing their is that you don’t need to hide and use bitcoin again if they have been made a legal tender and when they are now legal tender you can use it to go into contract agreement which is qualified to be sued and can go into any court case.

In countries where bitcoin is not legal tender their are some point of sales you use bitcoin to make and they can take legal action against your and you have no prove of payment since your means of payment is not recognized in that region. Their is nothing wrong with legal tender their might be some level of control up to a certain level when it comes to the bitcoin owns and distributed to citizens by their government they can be monitored.

[franky1]

legal tender is not about replacing countries FAIT. its about allowing businesses to sell goods/services and pay taxes and such in bitcoin..
[...]

Again, like many here, you are confusing the terms, "legal" and "legal tender".

Bitcoin is legal in most countries. Anybody can trade in Bitcoin if they want to.

Bitcoin is not truly legal tender in any country, including El Salvador, since even there they don't universally enforce their law.

Legal tender means payees must accept Bitcoin as a means of settling a debt whether they want to or not.

It's also worth noting here how incredibly rare it is for this to even be an issue.

The US dollar's legal tender status only comes up in court judgements where there is disagreement about a settlement of a debt denoted in some other form of payment (e.g. a barter), in which case the court can make a judgement that an equivalent US dollar amount be paid, and the payor is forced to pay in that currency.

That's it. That's all "legal tender" actually does.

..
you are not understanding the bigger out-of-box thinking looking into the whole thing

saying something is legal is saying government say its in legislation to allow..
saying something is not illegal is saying government have not said in legislation its not allowed..
see the difference?

lets explain
pre 1900, alcohol was not "illegal" as it had no rules. thus not illegal... nor legal.. it was just out of scope of legislation due to having no legislation
thus no scope for government to do anything (no jurisdiction) thus no crimes can be claimed for using it

then the 1920's prohibition ban where legislation was written it make it illegal.. then the licencing permit of alcohol, with rules attached, where legislation was written. which made it legal to sell to [insert minimum wage] legal to consume [insert location conditions] blah blah blah

bitcoin is the same. by having no rules it was not ILLEGAL.. because pre to 2013 there were no rules
however countries did then recognise it and start forming rules thus started making legislation

whats legal and illegal is based on legislation rules.
if there are no rules its not "legal", nor not "not legal" its just not "illegal" either.. in short has no scope in legality..

next "legal TENDER"
unlike other things that are LEGAL in legislation. 99.999% of those things are not treated as convertible currency and common accepted moneys
governments that declare something as legal tender then allow businesses to treat it as good as money.. but this does not mean replacing current fiat. it just means extra regulations apply to the rules of legislation when getting legal tender status.. such as banking rules and taxes

[The Cryptovator]

I think OP misunderstood and mixed everything. Legal tender doesn't mean being forced by the government to hold or buy Bitcoin. It does mean that if someone offers a Bitcoin payment, you have to accept it. If no one offers you Bitcoin to exchange something, you don't need to be involved with Bitcoin. Its like two currencies in the same country. When someone offers native currency against something, you are forced to accept that native currency. Where Bitcoin is accepted as a legal tender, there are two native currencies.

[legiteum]

First of all, I do not understand your "allergy" to the situation of people asking for "legal tender status", they are free to ask and demand what they believe, it depends on those who make these requests to make the respective declarations that this is what they want.

Bitcoin is accepted in many countries in different ways, since you simply buy it and sell it like any other asset or digital possession.

In many places on the planet, people buy things with art, watches, vehicles, etc., let's say that barter is still active, and none of that is "legal" to pay for goods and services but they use it, that configuration obviously depends on the country, now, to declare that in a sale contract the legal tender must be justified with a deposit in an account or check if applicable.

So, there is a fiscal order in that sense, so making bitcoin legal for payments, even if it is not legal currency, is a solution for many users, in those cases that "legal status" is welcome.

Again, you are already free to trade Bitcoin in most countries. Nobody is stopping you. Bitcoin is already legal for payments and has been since it was invented in almost all countries.

People who are asking for legal tender status are asking for the government to use their power to force people to accept Bitcoin.

It is also perfectly legal to use barter to pay for things in most countries.

Making something legal tender means you can freely use it in that space no body is forcing anybody to make use of anything, we have freedom of what currency you want to use and which one you don’t want to use the only thing their is that you don’t need to hide and use bitcoin again if they have been made a legal tender and when they are now legal tender you can use it to go into contract agreement which is qualified to be sued and can go into any court case.

In countries where bitcoin is not legal tender their are some point of sales you use bitcoin to make and they can take legal action against your and you have no prove of payment since your means of payment is not recognized in that region. Their is nothing wrong with legal tender their might be some level of control up to a certain level when it comes to the bitcoin owns and distributed to citizens by their government they can be monitored.

Again, that's not what the term, "legal tender" means. The word you seem to think it means is, "legal". You can currently pay for things with Bitcoin if you want, and the counterparty freely accepts it.

What legal tender means is that you want to force people to accept Bitcoin even if they don't want to.

[...]
next "legal TENDER"
unlike other things that are LEGAL in legislation. 99.999% of those things are not treated as convertible currency and common accepted moneys
governments that declare something as legal tender then allow businesses to treat it as good as money.. but this does not mean replacing current fiat. it just means extra regulations apply to the rules of legislation when getting legal tender status.. such as banking rules and taxes

Any business in the United States, right now, under today's laws, can accept Bitcoin as payment. Nobody is stopping them.

I can also accept gold as payment, or baseball cards, or shares of AAPL.

There is no law against any of this.

What "legal tender" means is that businesses are forced to accept Bitcoin as payment.

And people should stop asking for that, because it's wrong...

[franky1]

Again, you are already free to trade Bitcoin in most countries. Nobody is stopping you. Bitcoin is already legal for payments and has been since it was invented in almost all countries.

People who are asking for legal tender status are asking for the government to use their power to force people to accept Bitcoin.

It is also perfectly legal to use barter to pay for things in most countries.

bitcoin is not "legal" everywhere as that involves legislation
bitcoin was everywhere deemed not "illegal" due to no legislation(pre2013~)
there is a difference. and worth learning

the correct term is bitcoin is not illegal in countries where its not recognised, banned, licenced .. (basically places where theres no legislation)

EG
"It is also not illegal to use barter to pay for things in most countries." would be the more accurate wording

by wanting legal status officially = creating legislation.. something that comes with negative commitments/conditions

i prefered bitcoin in the days when it was not illegal. far more then the days where its now legal

there was a pivotal point around 2013-2014 in US-EU and most large countries where bitcoin changed from being not illegal to being legal, even if not attaining the higher status of tender recognition

think of it as four statuses
not illegal = no laws, no regulations, no legislation exist for it(do as you please with it, theres nothing stopping you(lawless))
illegal = laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its not allowed
legal = laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its allowed
legal tender laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its allowed, and also extra regulatory oversight to be treated as good as money within condition

...

something being legal. is allowed because the law says so
something being not illegal vs being legal are two separate things

hope that clarifies things

[Hypnosis00]

Understand that "legal tender" does not mean "legal". Bitcoin is already perfectly legal in most countries: you can own it and you can trade it if you want to.

That is the meaning of legal tender, it is perfectly allowed by the government for the people to use it freely depending on what they want to do with their Bitcoin. Once a country officially announces the legality of Bitcoin, it is an indication that Bitcoin is very welcome in their country and this will also help people to have confidence about accepting/using this as a payment option. In some countries, like mine, I haven't heard it was considered legal but authorities don't ban this which still gives us freedom to use Bitcoin in whatever we want as long as it is never used in illegal activities.

[Finestream]

For any currency to be a legal tender, it means that the government have made it part of the currency of that country by law, that should be accepted for payment of goods and services and also for paying debt. So, any country that makes bitcoin a legal tender does not really mean that the government will force its citizens to use it, but it will be an alternative means of payment to fiat. and it will be accepted by all.

Making bitcoin a legal tender by the government of a country does not give the government any power to control bitcoin. Let's take a look at El Salvador, it is not all of them that is using bitcoin, and Bukele didn't force anyone to use bitcoin.

Being a legal tender is simply considered a national currency which means that it’s legally valid to be accepted as a payment option for any commodity. However, the government will not force the people to use it or utilize it most especially for bitcoin that it’s known more being an investment and trading purposes. But I believe the government has certainly some plans to control bitcoin and monitor all its activities or transactions once the country decides to accept bitcoin as a legal tender.

[magneto]

I thought that this debate has ended several years ago now?  

Frankly I could not care less about whether or not bitcoin is legal tender. As you say legal tender status is just a government endorsement, which means very little when it comes to actual adoption. We've seen massive growth in BTC adoption, both as a store of value and medium of transaction, without it having been recognised as legal tender in most advanced nations.

There are plenty of merchants that accept BTC already who don't care either. And you are always free to convert your BTC into fiat in order to spend, if that's what you desire.

[franky1]

Frankly I could not care less about whether or not bitcoin is legal tender.

its more about the ramifications of becoming legalised (wrote into legislation)
before 2013 bitcoin was jsut lawless, open, free-trade. like pokemon cards or anything of barter
but when wrote into legislation, it then becomes conditioned. where governments gain jurisdictional control of utility and permitted use of

when deemed legal tender.. (a status above just legal) it then becomes dependant that people log where the funding came from, who it went to and what reason, for tax purposes.

where as just the "legal" status still had some conditions but not as much as "legal tender" does

there are other categories such as being recognised as asset or commodity.. rather then tender
where by the rules are not about banking laws, but about the securities and commodities regulators laws

so when certain institutions were lobbying to get bitcoin recognised as a asset and/or commodity.. this then allowed those regulation rule makers to start righting conditions of use too

[thecodebear]

I think a lot of people misunderstand what "legal tender" means.

Legal tender means that the government forces everybody to accept Bitcoin whether they want to or not.

Typically a country only has one currency like that, which is their sovereign national currency.

In other words, when you are asking for legal tender status, you are asking for a free, open and decentralized thing like Bitcoin should become controlled by the government because they force everybody to own it. Not only is this immoral, it will absolutely backfire because anything you force everybody to own will always end up being controlled by the government.

Understand that "legal tender" does not mean "legal". Bitcoin is already perfectly legal in most countries: you can own it and you can trade it if you want to. Even in China, where people consider Bitcoin "banned", individuals there can own it and the laws only apply to financial entities there (which are already highly regulated in all kinds of ways and there is probably a long, long list of things they cannot own).

So please stop asking for government help in proliferating Bitcoin by forcing people to accept something they don't want to accept.

And concede that Bitcoin is already legal for the most part, and governments at this point are not meaningfully "holding it back".

That's really not how legal tender works. Legal tender is a designation. It has nothing to do with the government controlling it. No government is forcing anyone to use Bitcoin. That would only happen is a country GOT RID OF their current legal tender and made Bitcoin the ONLY legal tender, which is not something any country is going to do.

[Churchillvv]

The legality of Bitcoin doesn't matter to me as far as I can do what want with it. the only difference is it's not accepted for some transactions. the truth is Bitcoin works viz vice with the current currency of any country.

legal tender doesn't really meant it most be accepted for all transaction but at least it's recognized by the law or it passes through the law for its use in the country. Bitcoin isn't a legal tender but it's not also illegal so it's just a misconception in the term legality.

[hatshepsut93]

The term "legal tender" is only related to debts, what you are talking about is a "legal payment method". And that varies heavily from country to country. Some are quite liberal in this regard and allow people to use any currencies they want, while others are very strict and only allow the national currency to be used and punish those who use other currencies. This is actually one of the major obstacles in Bitcoin adoption - if they don't allow even the US dollar to be used as a payment, why should they allow Bitcoin? Bitcoin in this case is a lot like another foreign currency.

[GreatArkansas]

The legality of Bitcoin doesn't matter to me as far as I can do what want with it. the only difference is it's not accepted for some transactions. the truth is Bitcoin works viz vice with the current currency of any country.

legal tender doesn't really meant it most be accepted for all transaction but at least it's recognized by the law or it passes through the law for its use in the country. Bitcoin isn't a legal tender but it's not also illegal so it's just a misconception in the term legality.

Well, this really differs by country or government, just like what OP said. For me, overall what we are experiencing is a misconception, which most people misunderstand how legal tenders work.
And for me, as far as I know, only El Salvador right now is the country that accepts Bitcoin as "legal tender".

[legiteum]

[...]

not illegal = no laws, no regulations, no legislation exist for it(do as you please with it, theres nothing stopping you(lawless))
illegal = laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its not allowed
legal = laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its allowed
legal tender laws, regulations, legislation wrote to say its allowed, and also extra regulatory oversight to be treated as good as money within condition

[...]

Here in the USA at least, there's no distinction between "not illegal" and "legal". If there is no law against it, then you can do it.

"Legal tender" is a different classification wherein citizens are forced to accept a means of payment even if they don't want to.

That is the meaning of legal tender, it is perfectly allowed by the government for the people to use it freely depending on what they want to do with their Bitcoin.

Usually countries don't announce, "such and such is legal now!" unless it was previously illegal. In the US at least, Bitcoin was never illegal.

The term, "legal tender" has a specific meaning that is not the same as "legal", but it would appear that almost nobody is willing to understand this so maybe I should just give up trying to explain it .

That's really not how legal tender works. Legal tender is a designation. It has nothing to do with the government controlling it. No government is forcing anyone to use Bitcoin. That would only happen is a country GOT RID OF their current legal tender and made Bitcoin the ONLY legal tender, which is not something any country is going to do.

No government is forcing anybody to use Bitcoin right now because no government has designated Bitcoin to be "legal tender" and enforcing that (they announced this in El Salvador, but they clearly aren't serious about this since they don't enforce the law so even they are not truly "legal tender" for Bitcoin).

The definition of "legal tender" is that the government forces people to accept that currency whether they want to or not.

This is actually one of the major obstacles in Bitcoin adoption - if they don't allow even the US dollar to be used as a payment, why should they allow Bitcoin? Bitcoin in this case is a lot like another foreign currency.

What country does not allow US dollars to be used as a payment? I suspect there might be a few somewhere in the world, but come on, how many could there be? And why would a country even care?

Like Bitcoin, you can use US dollars as a means of payment almost anywhere if the counterparty will accept that payment. Governments almost never get involved in trade like that unless it's a really crazy draconian government.

So since there's not actually a problem here, this is absolutely not a major obstacle for Bitcoin adoption.

Bitcoin is legal for individuals to trade and hold in most of the civilized world already.

[franky1]

Here in the USA at least, there's no distinction between "not illegal" and "legal". If there is no law against it, then you can do it.

correct if there is NO LAW then yes you can do it. and yes it is NOT ILLEGAL
but for something to be legal there needs to be some legislation, paperwork, contract that makes something legal and binding allowed condition

"Legal tender" is a different classification wherein citizens are forced to accept a means of payment even if they don't want to.

if there is only one currency available then its the sole currency businesses have to accept within reason
its for tax, income, and auditing of a businesses finances for a multitude of government agencies.

however if a currency adds another currency as legal tender, it offers choice

ill give you an example
the US dollar is deemed the only legal tender of the US. where bitcoin is not legal tender status. nor are airmiles
however US airlines can also accept "travel miles" it is not forced to only accept dollars, however dollars are made to be accepted as the main form of payment that businesses cant refuse without good reason, where a businesses accountants measure value, wages, taxes in dollars

[Darker45]

Let the people freely ask what they want to ask from the government. And let the government decide what they think is better for the nation and her people.

As far as I know, Salvadorans, the citizens of the beautiful El Salvador where Bitcoin is a legal tender, are not forced to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a legal tender there, meaning the people, businesses, the government itself may accept it. But since there is another legal tender which is the US dollar, everybody has the option to prefer the US dollar. It would certainly be a different case if Bitcoin is the sole legal tender of a country.

Anyway, worry not about governments controlling Bitcoin. It can never happen.

[radjie]

Even though several countries have been able to legalize Bitcoin as a means of payment, they do not force every person or resident to use it, this is done so that the existing local currency does not lose its value or divert the use of Bitcoin.  More precisely, if several governments can legalize Bitcoin as a means of payment, of course this is intended as an alternative that can make things easier for all people who don't have cash, such as making it easier for foreigners who come to that country

[legiteum]

Let the people freely ask what they want to ask from the government. And let the government decide what they think is better for the nation and her people.

As far as I know, Salvadorans, the citizens of the beautiful El Salvador where Bitcoin is a legal tender, are not forced to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a legal tender there, meaning the people, businesses, the government itself may accept it. But since there is another legal tender which is the US dollar, everybody has the option to prefer the US dollar. It would certainly be a different case if Bitcoin is the sole legal tender of a country.

Anyway, worry not about governments controlling Bitcoin. It can never happen.

As I said above (and I provided a link where you can read about El Salvador and Bitcoin), they are not "really" implementing legal tender there because they don't enforce it. (And I suspect it's because they simply couldn't in practicality--and I further suspect that El Salvador did this as a publicity stunt, not real policy).

I don't worry about governments controlling Bitcoin--it's legal almost everywhere. But the only thing that could change that is a government forcing everybody to use it, which means they'd need to regulate it.

Even though several countries have been able to legalize Bitcoin as a means of payment, they do not force every person or resident to use it, this is done so that the existing local currency does not lose its value or divert the use of Bitcoin.  More precisely, if several governments can legalize Bitcoin as a means of payment, of course this is intended as an alternative that can make things easier for all people who don't have cash, such as making it easier for foreigners who come to that country

Again, "legal" is not the same thing as "legal tender". People in these forums say they pine for "legal tender status" for Bitcoin even though it's already perfectly legal almost everywhere. (They want the "extra boost" that a government forcing everybody to use Bitcoin would give the price of Bitcoin I guess  .)