Soon illegal to use cash for purchases over 5K euro in belgium!

[P4man]

A new law will be passed to make cash transactions over 5000 euro illegal in Belgium. In two years this will be lowered to just 3000 euro.
Yep, you read that right! Any purchase above that amount has to be done by bank transfer (or electronic wire or whatever).

For those that understand Dutch:
http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/989/Binnenland/article/detail/1378933/2012/01/14/Boven-5-000-euro-cash-betalen-mag-voortaan-niet-meer.dhtml

Well, its a shame Belgium is so small, but this cant be bad for bitcoins!

Anyone ever heard anything like that for any other country?

[conspirosphere.tk]

Amateurs. Italy just outlawed any cash tranfer above 1000 euros.
The more they outlaw and tax, the more bullish the Bitcoin scene gets.
Talking 'bout doom-profits.

[paraipan]

Amateurs. Italy just outlawed any cash tranfer above 1000 euros.
The more they outlaw and tax, the more bullish the Bitcoin scene gets.
Talking 'bout doom-profits.

same here in Spain, i heard Greece and Portugal too, 1000 euros cash limit

[pointbiz]

WTF??!?

So Euro's are not legal tender in Europe?

[paraipan]

WTF??!?

So Euro's are not legal tender in Europe?

they outlawed cash over that sum, not checks or credit cards. They're all denominated in euro

[phatsphere]

WTF??!?

So Euro's are not legal tender in Europe?

it's legal. they just want to see all the transactions, have full control, ...

[bb113]

Complete collapse is bad for bitcoins. A gradual transition is better. The powers that be are trying to drag this out until something happens to save them, they don't know what. Alternatively, it is until they die, or are completely invested in land and security forces, along with the political capital to preserve these resources.



The current situation is not natural, and has no precedent. How would anyone know what to do about it? Do you think they are that much smarter than you? Do they know some secret method for dealing with the end of 50 years of inflation? They are just hoping for a paradigm changing event/idea before it collapses and playing CYA in the meantime.

[cbeast]

I suppose this is how they plan to stop drug trafficking. 

[3phase]

Well, P4man, welcome to the club.

That limit is 1500 EUR currently in Greece (for the last 2 years), and is being talked to go down to 300 pretty soon. We are ahead of the curve as it's always been.

Wait until you hear the next one:
Consumers will be given an incentive to use credit cards for smaller amounts than the limit. They will get a 2-3% instant discount. What gives? Well, the VAT applied to the purchase will be directly deposited to the state's accounts, and will never pass from the merchant's account. The generous state then will pass back 2-3% of the amount to the consumer.

This is supposed to be aiming to combat tax evasion, but is obviously aims also to impose total control on "free market" transactions, and drain even more of the already dwindling cash flow for stores.

I don't think that this direction is positive for Bitcoin. On the contrary, if Bitcoin starts to spread more, it will probably be vindicated as a "money laundering scheme", "enemy of the state" or whatever.

We might need alternative currencies sooner rather than later.

[conspirosphere.tk]

I don't think that this direction is positive for Bitcoin. On the contrary, if Bitcoin starts to spread more, it will probably be vindicated as a "money laundering scheme", "enemy of the state" or whatever.

"Enemy of the state"? I would take that as a title of honour, even if it just the state that is the enemy of most of us. But even I expect a move to outlaw bitcoins at the moment they enter the radar screen of big brother, and I expect that such move will fail. Truecrypt and Tor are so easy to use.

Quote of the day:
“Remember, government is not an enlightened organization designed to promote public welfare. It is barbaric, uncivilized force… military and police power put to the service of the insiders who control it.

Yes, there are constraints on the way the insiders use their power. There are ‘checks and balances,’ built into the constitution, for example. And there are cultural norms and traditional prohibitions.

But eventually, the norms and traditions wear off, like painkillers. And then, the pain of raw government begins again.” – Bill Bonner

[neptop]

Nope I neither wouldn't consider transactions actual money. I mean come on, it's a difference when some company (bank) has a pool of money and you kinda own something like shares or when you have real money in your hands.

I know, in some countries money isn't really considered to be your own anyways (it therefor for example illegal to destroy larger amounts of money).

If you really want to own your money there are only two good ways precious metals (even though for example where I live these have to be coins or ingots - am not exactly sure how jewelery and various other things are handled - I guess it's about the amount - which also don't really make me feel like owning something) or something like Bitcoins. I know in fact the network owns it and in a way you also have shares, but at least it's basically about numbers and I could print them out, have qr codes, put them on cards, etc. all by my own. In theory I could even have it all in my head. It's still valid money I can transfer with whatever client software I want to use. This is much more I can do with all the other currencies, even more than what I can do with gold coins.

I am looking forward to Bitcoin jewelery btw.

Engrave it, shape a crystal or do whatever to embed Bitcoins. This would be really awesome and it would kill the "but gold can be used for jewelery" argument. Wouldn't that be awesome?

[anu]

I don't think that this direction is positive for Bitcoin. On the contrary, if Bitcoin starts to spread more, it will probably be vindicated as a "money laundering scheme", "enemy of the state" or whatever.

We might need alternative currencies sooner rather than later.

Think not. Companies will simply be required to register their Bitcoin accounts with the tax authorities. An outright ban of Bitcoin would help the Pirate party which is the last thing the established parties want at this point.

[bitdragon]

The Euro is ending this year!

[neptop]

An outright ban of Bitcoin would help the Pirate party which is the last thing the established parties want at this point.

Pirate parties. I think they have a major problem in most countries for two reasons: Their name and the lack of a boarder concept. I like the German "implementation". Sadly where I live they don't get to this point, because they are not really politicians and are kinda afraid of taking positions. Yeah, I thought about joining to help changing this, but to be honest I think I would be too lazy to get involved.

I don't think the Bitcoin and in general the "aware" community isn't big enough to make a change of the political structure. I know there are a lot of movements to raise awareness, but most of us aren't too much into raising awareness. This doesn't mean we can't do it, but in some way we are all geeks that spend most of their time where other geeks are and this is where we talk about most stuff. Also these topics can become kinda complex and nobody wants to be the weird, paranoid boring guy starting a political discussion in certain situations.

I think we can still do it with things like simple, entertaining animations. We need to feed small bits that whet the appetite, so people think about stuff they maybe don't intend to think about, because they are hard.

[3phase]

I don't think that this direction is positive for Bitcoin. On the contrary, if Bitcoin starts to spread more, it will probably be vindicated as a "money laundering scheme", "enemy of the state" or whatever.

We might need alternative currencies sooner rather than later.

Think not. Companies will simply be required to register their Bitcoin accounts with the tax authorities. An outright ban of Bitcoin would help the Pirate party which is the last thing the established parties want at this point.

How do you "register your Bitcoin account"? What do you mean actually by "Bitcoin account"? Who can tell if my business has 2,3 or 1000 different wallets and how can it be proven that a specific customer payed for a specific item with legal funds (meaning not funds coming out of black market). It's almost impossible to control and track on a bigger scale, and that's what will probably make it illegal. I hope that this won't happen, but it is too much of a threat to the established finance environment.

And, BTW, the Pirate party in Greece is a joke. I entered their forums and told them about Bitcoins facilitating local barter exchanges, and all someone mumbled was "yeah, I need to read up about it some time".

[anu]

How do you "register your Bitcoin account"? What do you mean actually by "Bitcoin account"? Who can tell if my business has 2,3 or 1000 different wallets and how can it be proven that a specific customer payed for a specific item with legal funds (meaning not funds coming out of black market). It's almost impossible to control and track on a bigger scale, and that's what will probably make it illegal. I hope that this won't happen, but it is too much of a threat to the established finance environment.

I mean that any time Philips or EADS or BMW or whatever creates a receiving address on their SAP Bitcoin module, a message is generated to the tax authority like:

Company Name | TAX NR | Bitcoin address.

Then the tax authority can check on the block chain what this account is doing. Bitcoin is perfect for them: they can automate transaction monitoring between companies just by following the block chain.

When employees are getting paid with Bitcoins, they give their Bitcoin address(es) to their company which is entering it into SAP. SAP then issues a message to the tax authorities:

Company Name | TAX NR | Bitcoin Address | Employee Name | TAX NR | Bitcoin Address.

EDIT: Don't think corporations or even small companies are going to evade this. They'll follow the law. So tax authorities can attach names to bitcoin addresses and by analyzing the payment graph they can deduct much of the rest.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Then the tax authority can check on the block chain what this account is doing. Bitcoin is perfect for them:

This.

Bitcoin, in many respects, is the perfect govt. honeypot and transaction tracking tool.

Without a true fully anonymising layer it is deficient as a money.

[saykor]

I suppose this is how they plan to stop drug trafficking. 

all is about of a control. few ppl in this world want to control all other. if you money is 1010101010101 you have a nothing.

[saykor]

The Euro is ending this year!

and this is a based on what?

[anu]

Then the tax authority can check on the block chain what this account is doing. Bitcoin is perfect for them:

This.

Bitcoin, in many respects, is the perfect govt. honeypot and transaction tracking tool.

Without a true fully anonymising layer it is deficient as a money.

Such layers exist and they will be used for *spending* on private purchases. Otherwise if you spend money from your salary account, the seller can see your salary. So Bitcoin is no that bad. And this is Bitcoin's chance to survive because govt is mainly interested on what you earn. They are only moderately interested on what you spend it for. So they will tolerate anonymization. But it may be that they themselves operate Bitcoin Tumblers.