How the government view Bitcoin

[Ayers]

The view of some government on Bitcoin as not a currency but taxable property or a commodity is tremendous outspoken especially in a countries with religion and high volume of Crypto transactions, the government monitored the inflows and payments made through this digital assets like in Nigeria during the former President of Nigeria, no deposit was done from your account to crypto wallets or crypto wallets to your account because of the huge transactions deviating from physical Banks to internet but some others saw Bitcoin has added value assets like US where they delegates part of funds from government treasury bill was invested to boost the economy of the country through solid digital assets like Bitcoin. But now different changes has occurr in many of this country's perspective of crypto as a taxable investment.

It doesn't matter if any govt recognize Bitcoin as currency or not. This will not reduce the value or functionality of Bitcoin in any way. In addition to bitcoin, you will find many asset that were first recognized as property, commodity or investment and later gained importance.

Many govt are hesitant about Bitcoin because it operates outside of their traditional monetary control system. Bitcoin can be an alternative financial tool for people in countries like Nigeria when they face problem of banking restriction, inflation and capital control. Can people's needs be stopped by just banning? no way,

Other hand, USA is now not only looking Bitcoin as speculative asset but also as strategic reserve asset. However govt should focus less on trying to control Bitcoin and more on creating clear regulation that protect us while allowing innovation.

[uneng]

Right now governments see Bitcoin as a mean to extract extra money from citizens through taxes over this category of investment. Governments aren't against Bitcoin anymore, like they used to be in early years. As most of you can already see, Bitcoin has become an official alternative of investment provided by traditional banks (even though they don't allow you to cashout your BTC to a self-custody wallet).

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

[laijsica]

The view of some government on Bitcoin as not a currency but taxable property or a commodity is tremendous outspoken especially in a countries with religion and high volume of Crypto transactions, the government monitored the inflows and payments made through this digital assets like in Nigeria during the former President of Nigeria, no deposit was done from your account to crypto wallets or crypto wallets to your account because of the huge transactions deviating from physical Banks to internet but some others saw Bitcoin has added value assets like US where they delegates part of funds from government treasury bill was invested to boost the economy of the country through solid digital assets like Bitcoin. But now different changes has occurr in many of this country's perspective of crypto as a taxable investment.

Governments fear that the country's assets will be stolen/smuggled. They think that legalizing Bitcoin will attract a large number of investors to Bitcoin. However, it was necessary to make provisions to legalize this digital asset and keep an alternative economy running. Has our government been able to reduce the number of Bitcoin holders in Nigeria? No, because they could not influence individual decisions. A decision can be imposed by force but it cannot be implemented properly. Bitcoin is being bought and sold regularly through exchanges and this number is increasing gradually. The US government has realized that Bitcoin is a store of value, so they have legalized Bitcoin in parallel with their own economy.

[ArabBTC]

The view of some government on Bitcoin as not a currency but taxable property or a commodity is tremendous outspoken especially in a countries with religion and high volume of Crypto transactions, the government monitored the inflows and payments made through this digital assets like in Nigeria during the former President of Nigeria, no deposit was done from your account to crypto wallets or crypto wallets to your account because of the huge transactions deviating from physical Banks to internet but some others saw Bitcoin has added value assets like US where they delegates part of funds from government treasury bill was invested to boost the economy of the country through solid digital assets like Bitcoin. But now different changes has occurr in many of this country's perspective of crypto as a taxable investment.

I am still in limbo when government say they want to tax crypto especially Bitcoin, given the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, if I decide to hold for a long time, how possible will it be for government to be able to tax my crypto especially when it's not on centralized exchange. What really tickles my fantasy in this discussion of taxing crypto is the fact that, this is an asset that has a liquidating ability, and I bear the risk alone as an investor, so at what point does the government have the right to tax me when we don't share risk.

Most government are really funny how would they want to tax what they don’t support, they are concerned about making profits from bitcoin through tax but they ain’t concerned about making it a legal tender or creating more awareness that will aid its widespread acceptance. Even advanced countries like China etc that should have a lot of awareness about Bitcoin has still refused to accept it legally as a means of transaction and i wonder why? could it be for political reasons? Or could it be because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature. Why are government so skeptical about bitcoin despite the level of popularity it has gotten in recent times.

[Reatim]

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

some governments who are stuck in the past will have a hard time accepting innovations such as bitcoin and anything that will come up in the future. some governments are not narrow minded but are very self centered and controlling of their citizens that they want innovations coming from their own country

[aioc]

The view of some government on Bitcoin as not a currency but taxable property or a commodity is tremendous outspoken especially in a countries with religion and high volume of Crypto transactions, the government monitored the inflows and payments made through this digital assets like in Nigeria.

That's the same scenario here in our country; the government is always looking for an industry to tax, and our local cryptocurrency industry is their target. They want only local exchanges to operate so they can monitor the volume of transactions and the people making them.
They impose strict regulations and licensing requirements on global exchanges that want to operate in our country; they are afraid that if a global exchange operates here, they will have a hard time monitoring these transactions if the global exchange refuses to cooperate.

[MainIbem]

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

some governments who are stuck in the past will have a hard time accepting innovations such as bitcoin and anything that will come up in the future. some governments are not narrow minded but are very self centered and controlling of their citizens that they want innovations coming from their own country

I don't think it's about being stucked in the past, they just can't give citizens the freedom of banking their money by themselves, they want total control of citizen's money and Bitcoin stands as threat to that which is why some are still very strict with it but some are beginning to understand that they can adopt it into the system and still have partial control by regulations, mostly through exchanges, they can still benefit through tax policies as well.

[SPIDERMAN008]

They see Bitcoin as a rivary, a challenge and treat to their traditional currency existence, and it prevents fraud in the system, Bitcoin stands transparent and outstanding in all it's activities which will be difficult for the government to achieve unlike traditional currency.

Bitcoin digital currency has helped it out performed it's functions with this limited time of existence, growing far and wide for financial freedom which no currency have being able to achieve.

The government does not like the independence of Bitcoin. The government always wants the people of that country to control the financial system on which it operates. Even though the popularity of Bitcoin has increased a lot around the world, not everyone still knows about Bitcoin or there are still many who cannot trust Bitcoin. That is why the government has not yet come under such pressure from the people that they will be forced to create any positive rules and regulations regarding Bitcoin. That is why the government has not taken any direct action so far. Initially, the governments of many countries directly presented Bitcoin negatively, but now due to the increase in popularity, many powerful countries of the world are discussing about Bitcoin, many shops in some countries are accepting Bitcoin for transactions that we see in social media , all in all, the government is still in a moderate position. There is no situation where they will make Bitcoin illegal now because even if they create a policy against Bitcoin, people will use, hold, and invest in Bitcoin regardless of those policies and rules. But due to many economic complications, many countries are positive but are not able to directly approve it. So now there is no competitive relationship between Bitcoiners and the government like before. Because this increase in the price of Bitcoin is also forcing many governments of the country to think. If Bitcoin becomes one of the most valuable currencies in the world and acceptable in the future, then the countries that have Bitcoin will be ahead in the modern economy. Considering this aspect, maybe in the next few years we will see many countries thinking more positively about Bitcoin.

[AmoreJaz]

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

some governments who are stuck in the past will have a hard time accepting innovations such as bitcoin and anything that will come up in the future. some governments are not narrow minded but are very self centered and controlling of their citizens that they want innovations coming from their own country

Of course, their goal is to get profits as much as possible.And that's the reason why they want to control their people. Bottomline, they need to get as much as they want so to speak. And if they feel they can't achieve such, they will do what needs tobbe done.

[Nrcewker]

I want to add one thing here. The government can only impose taxes on you if you use a centralized exchange to cash out your cryptocurrency into fiat currency. If you’re someone who uses Bitcoin and avoids these types of exchanges, then, thanks to the decentralized nature of the network, no second person or entity can know how many bitcoins you hold or spend.

In many countries, governments dislike Bitcoin for this reason and are trying hard to make the public use centralized exchanges to cash out their funds. Once you do, they can track how many coins you hold and transact with, and then impose taxes accordingly. However, thanks to peer to peer or P2P transactions, some people have been able to avoid this.

[Taricoins]

Right now governments see Bitcoin as a mean to extract extra money from citizens through taxes over this category of investment. Governments aren't against Bitcoin anymore, like they used to be in early years. As most of you can already see, Bitcoin has become an official alternative of investment provided by traditional banks (even though they don't allow you to cashout your BTC to a self-custody wallet).

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

Alot of government often see Bitcoin as a threat as you have likely stated and I feel that is because of they don't really understand the structure of and they fear that Bitcoin might likely replace a conventional fiat systems but coming to realize that importance of it, especially my government has devised a tax policy to better utilize the lucrative nature of it.

Most of the people fear what they cannot see and understand and that poses a problem to  there wealth generation and monopoly.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

I want to add one thing here. The government can only impose taxes on you if you use a centralized exchange to cash out your cryptocurrency into fiat currency. If you’re someone who uses Bitcoin and avoids these types of exchanges, then, thanks to the decentralized nature of the network, no second person or entity can know how many bitcoins you hold or spend.

No, it's unlike automatic tax on you if you use centralized exchanges.

You have to submit your tax documents annually to government and its national tax/revenue service such as IRS in the USA. Centralized exchanges don't automatically send their user information including trading activities to governments and tax agencies. It's not allowed by law.

You as a citizen of a nation and a user of a centralized exchange will have to do that proactively if you don't want to have troubles with government.

[knowngunman]

Thank you for the correction but I was only trying to point out what the government of different countries view Bitcoin, like Nigeria government ban the use of it or transaction during the regime of former President and its really affects traders but today's view, government see crypto as a taxable property or business to generate revenue base on the inflow of Transactions being carried out by citizens, that's my point. But I will improve my writing as pointed

Has anything really changed?

People were trading crypto even government claimed they have banned it. They realised they can not ban behaviour that almost every youth is involved with and now they are looking for a way to take a cut from it. People don't really care whether government lift the ban or not, the damage is done with reputable exchanges withdraw their services in Nigeria. Even with new regulations, it's not certain whether things would be the same as it was originally. Binance, Kucoin and OKX are yet to restore the P2P service on their platforms due to government regulation.

[MainIbem]

Right now governments see Bitcoin as a mean to extract extra money from citizens through taxes over this category of investment. Governments aren't against Bitcoin anymore, like they used to be in early years. As most of you can already see, Bitcoin has become an official alternative of investment provided by traditional banks (even though they don't allow you to cashout your BTC to a self-custody wallet).

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

Alot of government often see Bitcoin as a threat as you have likely stated and I feel that is because of they don't really understand the structure of and they fear that Bitcoin might likely replace a conventional fiat systems but coming to realize that importance of it, especially my government has devised a tax policy to better utilize the lucrative nature of it.

Most of the people fear what they cannot see and understand and that poses a problem to  there wealth generation and monopoly.

The government understands any modern tech more than any citizen so lack of understanding is not the case, they always want to be in control of money and Bitcoin is now gradually dividing the control through adoption, as more citizens uses it for storage of money the more control the government lose so it's a big threat to them, which is why they came up with tax policy to so they'll still own some share of Bitcoiners money but those who sale through exchanges.

[SmartCharpa]

As a Nigerian with first hand experience of how difficult it was to use Bitcoin in the country especially when making transactions with traditional banking system of the country when the former administration was in power, the government didn't wake up one morning and suddenly became pro-Bitcoin. I think they had to make changes to their initial stance when they realized that banning Bitcoin didn't stop Nigerians from using it. They simply got tired of fighting a borderless network that didn't need a third-party approval to function so they shifted their focus on regulating it.

Yeah, we knew what we went through when the former administration was in charge. Banks were banned from supporting any cryptocurrency transactions. The Nigeria government was just given an unnecessary excuse, they were worried that people could use Bitcoin to scam people. Some people might use that to cover any illegal transactions because it is difficult to trace some bitcoin transaction. They assumed that criminals could use it to make transactions, and they had failed to even trace those collecting cash as ransoms.

Sure, they were tired of fighting over something they couldn’t control. Despite the restrictions, Nigerians could not stop using Bitcoin. They just need to accept the fact. Other countries are developing and adapting this new technology, while ours was busy fighting against something that could develop the country… you can hold millions of money in Bitcoin and nobody will notice, and safer than holding same amount in your bank account.

[Itz-prisigold]

Governments fear that the country's assets will be stolen/smuggled. They think that legalizing Bitcoin will attract a large number of investors to Bitcoin. However, it was necessary to make provisions to legalize this digital asset and keep an alternative economy running. Has our government been able to reduce the number of Bitcoin holders in Nigeria? No, because they could not influence individual decisions. A decision can be imposed by force but it cannot be implemented properly. Bitcoin is being bought and sold regularly through exchanges and this number is increasing gradually. The US government has realized that Bitcoin is a store of value, so they have legalized Bitcoin in parallel with their own economy.

Personally, I believe the most important lesson all these governments should learn from is that even banning Bitcoin will not prevent citizen from using Bitcoin. If there's enough demand, people will always find an alternative and thus P2P trading became popular in many countries. That alone, just demonstrates that to control individual interest is not easy.

I feel it's more beneficial to have some sort of guidelines than to be against Bitcoin itself. That will actually allow the governments to raise taxes, track illegal activities, and provide normal users with freedom in investing and transacting in a legal manner. However, Bitcoin has become to established where it will be hard to ignore and it would be better to adjust to Bitcoin than resisting it.

[MusaPk]

The government understands any modern tech more than any citizen so lack of understanding is not the case, they always want to be in control of money and Bitcoin is now gradually dividing the control through adoption, as more citizens uses it for storage of money the more control the government lose so it's a big threat to them, which is why they came up with tax policy to so they'll still own some share of Bitcoiners money but those who sale through exchanges.

Every government is fully aware of pros and cons of Bitcoin and they have imposed necessary restrictions due to some reasons. The authorities are not against Bitcoin but its core concept of decentralisation, which makes it an independent financial system that government can't control. It's more about power issues as Bitcoin is taking the financial power away from authorities, something not acceptable for them. The countries where Bitcoin is legalised are the one where authorities have done necessary legislation regarding usage of Bitcoin in the country and these regulations makes bitcoin a centralised entity.

[AgriTrack]

Right now governments see Bitcoin as a mean to extract extra money from citizens through taxes over this category of investment. Governments aren't against Bitcoin anymore, like they used to be in early years. As most of you can already see, Bitcoin has become an official alternative of investment provided by traditional banks (even though they don't allow you to cashout your BTC to a self-custody wallet).

Only very narrow minded governments still understand Bitcoin as a threat.

You're naive if you think that only because governments are now regulating cryptocurrencies and crypto-related platforms, they are not against them or they now suddenly like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The reality is actually different, and they are not doing all this out of interest but they are doing it because they know they don't have a choice anymore. In the beginning, governments thought that they can push cryptocurrencies away and then their people won't use them anymore and they won't become a threat to their fiat currencies and digital financial systems and platforms, but now that they've realized that they can't push them away because they are too widespead and people won't stop using them, they decided they are going to allow and regulate them so that they can at least get taxes from those using centralized platforms.

They also understand that they can't regulate or control the blockchains or the networks of decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which is the biggest reason why they are always trying to ban decentralized platforms and stuff and trying their best to keep as many people into centralized platforms as possible because they know, if people use centralized platforms, everything they do can be monitored and then taxed, but they can't do that if people use self-custodial wallets and decentralized platforms.