Let’s talk about the role of governments in crypto currency.
Without a doubt, governments actions affect how or why crypto is adopted by its citizens.
The very reason Bitcoin was brought into existence was in many ways a philosophical response to how governments have control over the rules of their countries respective currencies.
Whether a government has chosen to be encouraging of the use of cryptos as a way to achieve their goals of being a cashless society like in Denmark, or if a government is actively enforcing capital controls like in Buenos Aires, governments have a very real way of motivating people to explore their options for storing or transferring their monetary worth, and this is leading them to cryptocurrency.
The reason I wanted to speak on this subject today is because of the recent news regarding the new Bill introduced by the US Senate that would require all travelers entering the country to declare any holding of crypto that exceeds $10,000. It has only been introduced, has not been passed.
But if it is passed, that will mean if you travel with your hardware wallets and they are storing more than $10,000 or more worth of cryptocurrencies you’ll need to declare it or else suffer the consequences for more or less smuggling money.
Now I’m not sure how this wouldn’t also lead to the eventual inclusion of having to report your entire bank account since we can access those with our debit and credit cards, but I’ll leave that little thought nugget here for you all to ponder.…………..
Now let’s consider how certain regulations affect the growth of blockchain based and crypto based companies in that area.
In New York for example, a city known as being a dominant financial hub and home to Wall Street, is one of the U.S. cities that has relatively strict regulations on cryptocurrencies with the implementation of Bitlicense. New York was once home to the online crypto exchanges Kraken and Bitfinex but the restricting regulations have since led these companies to relocate to the more crypto friendly state of California.
It sure is interesting to see which cities and countries are handling this new wild west of cryptos. Some want to try and control it and tax it as much as possible, which might very well end up like a kid trying to hold a wet bar of soap- the more you try to hold on to it the more it will slip away. Like in New York, it’s regulations have already driven out a few companies while others put up with the extra red tape for the sake of having businesses in the financial capital of the world.
Much like how early investors of crypto have reaped the benefits of getting in early, the US states and other countries that choose to facilitate crypto based companies I believe will have the chance to improve their economies.
Bitcoin and now other cryptocurrencies allow us to explore options for borderless, freedom-based, wealth transfer.
At the heart of cryptocurrency, despite the potential for making money, is very much a philosophical ideal of monetary freedom. They are a reminder that human beings are capable of self-governance and that a free market will promote innovation. It’s a breath of fresh air for those already knee-deep in libertarianism and it’s a wake up call for those who believe that governments will always be needed for nearly every aspect of life
Addtional Reading/Sources:
The New US Bill Proposal
Explanation of the Bill
NY's Implementation of Bitlicense
Countries Accepting BTC
US States Working With BTC
Crypto makes taxation voluntary. Can you imagine if governments had to compete for tax payers?
Governments have, for all of human history, extorted taxes via force. Threat of imprisonment, violence, seizure, etc. What happens when citizens can carry a lifetime of wealth in their heads, spend the wealth anonymously and without a trace, and pass that wealth to future generations with no record?
That is the true power of crypto. Governments that adapt quickly and move to attract crypto wealth by respecting privacy, providing excellent service and showing fiscal responsibility will flourish. Governments that continue to treat their citizens as milk cows, are wasteful, corrupt and violent... will wither and die.
Crypto is freedom.
"Governments that adapt quickly and move to attract crypto wealth by respecting privacy, providing excellent service and showing fiscal responsibility will flourish. "
Of course, there are no such governments.
I agree with you... "Of course, there are no such governments."
Japan is already adapting bitcoins into their legislation, I believe there will be countries on both sides of the isle but the countries that realize the power of crypto and respect the people will flourish in the next couple decades
I think there are more governments capable of following this trend than you may could imagine. Not everyone in government is part of the 'evil club', ready to eat babies. A lot of government officials are ordinary people having families and trying to make the world a better place every day. Not that governments may not shrink 'a little' if taxes cannot be brought in that easily anymore...
Full of freedom's stying here!
Another great video @heiditravels.... I think if the Government told people that if you owned crypto currency it would be a felony, a lot of people wouldn't trade them. But this would only be short lived in my opinion. It is very hard to stop something that doesn't have a central area that they operate out of...This is what make Bitcoin amazing! (well one of the hundred+ reasons lol).
Russia tried to stop bitcoin but it failed. Now it regulates the currency and is on board with it. I hope many countries follow or do one step better like Japan.
I hereby pledge myself to the Blockchain! My heart and soul belong to the Blockchain! Thank you for an amazing post, @johansmith , for it encouraged me.
Governments shall not "adapt". They shall die!
We will not let them adapt. That is like letting a psychopathic killer adapt to new circumstances. No, he shall die!
Freedom is essential here.
I cant see this bill passing without major changes in other places as well. Also. It wouldnt be harder to bypass than to send the crypto to the person you want to give anything if u smuggle anyways so I dont see what this bill would fix if anything.
Insane idea anyways from the US!
Agreed sebastiane
@johnsmith your point is valid, I agree with your comment on @heiditravels post . As I indicated in my comment below, government will always fight against our freedom simply because of tax money and addiction to controlling everybody.
On the other hand, it is left for us to continue dancing to their tune or resist smartly. Great comment hence upvoted and following you. Keep it up
That would be the only government I support. Government without any form of conscription. That's why I'm a Cooperative Agorist.
Without taxes, society collapses due to the government not being able to do anything because they have no money. Companies abandon regulations and the rule of law in their quest to make as much profit as possible. Corners get cut to increase profits and avoidable disasters like the Grenfell Tower fire occur regularly.
Without government threats of violence to uphold the laws of society, what's to stop the wealthy from hiring mercs to murder your family and take their possessions? After all, don't they have a duty to shareholders to acquire as much profit as possible? What's to stop the masses of poor people from ganging together and cutting off the heads of the wealthy to take their possessions?
Taxes are absolutely essential for a functional society, therefore anybody who is completely and utterly against taxes (a.k.a deranged lunatics) is against a functional society. They want chaos so that they can exploit it for profit.
Rather than scrapping taxes completely, the tax system needs to be changed to stop taxing income and consumption which clearly hit the poorest in society the hardest. Wealth is generated from productivity, therefore productivity is what needs to be taxed, not income. Any tax on a worker's income is simply an indirect productivity tax on the employer which they pay through increased employee wages.
Most taxes individuals pay are actually indirect business taxes. If our tax systems weren't created by greedy, scumbags trying to funnel wealth to a tiny minority of people, those indirect business taxes would not exist and in their place would be a single tax on productivity from both humans and technology.
Essentially, productivity boils down to the amount of money that can be made from every $1 spent. The greater the productivity, the more money could be earned from spending $1. Given that the most productive companies make the most money from the least amount of work, people doing fuck up to earn shit loads of money would be taxed the most while those working the hardest and earning fuck all would be taxed fuck all too.
This is by far the fairest tax system I've seen so far.
"Without taxes, society collapses due to the government not being able to do anything because they have no money."
Just thinking out loud here...
where on the printing press does it check to see if you've collected taxes before working?
If you think this is reductive logic, ask yourself is there any fiscal responsibility in the west that makes you assume such is necessary to operate a currency?
Could you restate your question as I don't know what you're asking?
First of all, that is an amazing name, props! Love Meditations.
I was merely pointing out, in a roundabout fashion, that pretty much all governments print more of their budget than they tax at this point.
In other words, the link between taxation and seignorage is slipping. Governments are just open printing/QE. At least temporarily, this seems to work regardless of tax receipts.
I agree with your argument, but you can substitute "printed out of nothing currency" for "taxes", apparently.
Not that I agree with it, because it will eventually crash.
I've put in a suggestion in this thread about Land value tax (Check out my comment in the link below). It's a progressive wealth tax and works just fine in cooperation with the crypto world. It leaves crypto alone since crypto uses very little resources, but taxes physical land use which is the ultimate limited resource.
The wealthy elite also happen to own the most land.
It also works great for automation. Automation itself is good for society (less labor for humanity), but the profits used to hoard valuable land by the automation owners will be taxed. Profits that are reinvested into productive assets are not taxed.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@heiditravels/gov-t-regulations-vs-crypto-freedom#@neoncow/re-johnsmith-re-heiditravels-gov-t-regulations-vs-crypto-freedom-20170704t235020176z
The problem with land tax is that it doesn't address the main factor of wealth inequality as it still allows those making the most from the doing the least to pay the least taxes (as a % of income). It's inadequate by itself.
Wealth is generated through productivity whether human or technological. So, taxing that productivity fairly, taxes the wealth fairly. If a business can make $1000 from spending $1 they should be taxed at a higher rate than a business making $10 from every $1 spent regardless of how much profit they make.
A proper productivity tax would also prevent over-production and waste.
I have to TOTALLY agree with you on that!!!
Grenfell Tower is located in the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, one of the richest, most highly taxed and wealth re-distributed locations in the world. Are you even aware of the whopping amounts they rake in in so-called Council Tax alone from every resident household every month? Have you seen how that pile of garbage they call Kensington still looks (and smells)? Makes one wonder, doesn't it...
So, before claiming the oh-so marvellous good of governments and corresponding need to fund them with our money at gunpoint even more generously, you might be well-advised to do your homework first.
Taking your reasoning and your example, the Grenfell Tower disaster proves the exact opposite and is living proof of government never achieving any tangible and meaningful results whatsoever for the taxpayer at the end of the day. Curiously, it was this very government, aka the RBKC, you want to even more generously finance who screwed things up with their "renovation" of that shipwreck. They used taxpayer money to have it done more poorly than even the shrewdest and greediest private real estate investor would dare doing. For all our tax money we have to surrender, these highly-paid losers did not even know construction basics nor did they have the brains to equip the facade of a 20+ floor building with vent blocks stopping the ascent of hot air/smoke under the cover materials causing the particulars of this tragedy.
This is what you get from any and all forced-upon-for-the-common-good (i e socialist) wealth re-distribution schemes.
So let me get this straight, some disaster occurs in a capitalist nation under a right wing government following right-wing ideology and implementing right-wing policies and that's somehow the fault of the "socialist" tax system?
Most of the things that councils did have been handed over to private corporations to deal with. Housing associations now run council housing, inspections are outsourced to private companies as are renovations, etc. This has been going on since Thatcher the fucking Milk Snatcher came to power. Councils across Britain are facing massive shortages in funding due to ideological fools ignoring the evidence and not giving a shit about the consequences of their actions. Hell, these right-wing ideologues are even paying private foreign corporations to reject people's disability claims to "reduce the deficit" despite the evidence showing that they're paying more to the private corporations than they're saving from reducing claimants.
This is a government who have killed thousands of disabled people through their idiotic, ideologically imposed austerity measures and you're calling them socialist? Are you truly that delusional?
Now, no matter how much I detest these right wing ideologues in power, I'm neither stupid enough nor insane enough to think that giving private corporations direct control of society would be anything but a complete and utter disaster.
yes, you 'got that straight', more or less -- except you should hopefully be sufficiently grown-up to see that -- while the mass-media may call them right-wing -- there is no such thing as an even remotely "free-market system".
A centrally-planned EU member country like the UK (or any other so-called first-world country for that matter) may or may not be "right-wing" or following "right-wing ideologies" (not willing to nor interested in arguing about that -- nor with you, at all), but in light of all these first-world countries having a tax and related "social" cost burden of around 50% I find it a bit "surprising" that this is still not a sufficiently-"fair" share that's being contributed there...
It's easy to see how "efficient" and "useful" all that tax money is spent and how great that centrally-planned system of one NHS (oh, that's not socialist??), subsidised council housing (oh, that's not socialist??), £60m per day to those un-accountable technocrats in that un-elected soviet over in Brussels (oh, that's not socialist??) really works.
Also, thank you for calling me delusional and insane while not even having taken the time to understand my point and my reasoning. Gives those musings of yours (as well as yourself as a person) a lot more credibility :)
If you think the UK is socialist then you are clearly delusional. If that hurts your feelings, so be it. It's simply a fact as the UK is clearly not socialist.
Just because it's expensive to currently govern society, doesn't mean we should abandon the governance of society or hand over over direct control to those with the most wealth. If it cost 70% of GDP to sufficiently support society then anything less than that would see society deteriorate.
My argument is that people shouldn't pay any taxes anyway. Businesses should pay those taxes directly instead of palming them off to employees and customers. Those that earn the most from every $1 spent should have the highest tax rates.
Why are you against that? Why should those making money from the least effort have lower or similar tax rates to those who making money from the most effort? If you have two workers the same age doing the exact same job and one is extremely lazy and the other is a proper hard worker, would you say they should be paid the same amount?
Edit: In response toy your edit.
Yes, both those things are very efficient and useful. For example, look how much the UK spends on healthcare per person compared to the US. The NHS is absurdly more efficient despite the Tories efforts to get rid of it. As for social housing, just look at what's happened in the UK since Thatcher sold off social housing and never replaced it. Now people can't afford to buy homes and rent prices are getting out of hand. More social housing is precisely what the UK needs right now. That doesn't make them socialist though.
Socialism is about the relationship to the means of production, not health care, housing or welfare benefits. Under socialism, workers control the means of production and get a fair share of the profits dependant upon the amount and type of labour they perform.
A good example of socialism would be mining bitcoin at a pool. All the workers get a fair share of the rewards proportional to the amount of work they do. Some workers do more work than others and therefore get a greater share than others. Imagine if it was based on capitalist redistribution, the pool owner would keep most of the rewards for themselves.
Now I want to watch Braveheart.
@heiditravels I started to draw a realistic charcoal portrait of you and will be posting it soon in post these days on Steemit :) I hope you will like it . Stay tuned! ( sorry if this was out of subject in here, but couldn't direct message you somehow ) .
YEP!
Taxation will adapt. The Land Value Tax is a crypto-compatible tax. It's the taxation of the unimproved value of land. That is, it's a property tax, but only taxes the value of the land but not the property. This means you pay tax for the rights on land, but everything you build on top of it is not taxed. Your home, your business, your leisure, or your crypto.
This allows for a market based economically efficient progressive tax. The elite of the world dominate in terms of wealth inequality. In the US, the 1% own 40% of the wealth. Land value is highly correlated with wealth. A land tax would allow ensure they pay a fair share, but do not pay when they build productive things.
It's inherently market based since if the government's valuation of the land is too high, they could pay you in a lump sum of it's assessed value in exchange for your payments. This would make the government very cautious about value assessments.
For the most of us who labor for a living, a land tax would not distort labor markets. It would reduce administration expenditures for business and individuals alike. Most of us own very little land and your tax will only go up if you have enough wealth to pay it. If you have no wealth, you pay no tax.
A crypto holder who lives a modest life will pay very less tax. A crypto holder who consumes lots of resources will directly and indirectly pay the land tax through their consumption. The tax would not require declarations of crypto assets or detailed transaction histories.
It could vastly reduce the government's administrative burden in tracking all transactions for sales taxes, all income for income taxes, and all investments for capital gains taxes. The value of land can be market based since a too high tax will cause people to abandon their land and a too low tax will increase land values. If the government invests in good projects, the value of the land goes up. If the government invests poorly, the value of the land goes down and they will be forced to adapt.
A foreigner who consumes local land and resources will pay, no matter what their income is. There's no dodging, evading, or hiding land in offshore accounts. A shell corporation doesn't deter this tax, which reduces the number of corporations solely for tax purposes. This makes it easier to keep track and investigate corporations who fund terrorism and other crimes. With the government apparatus freed from investigating normal people for tax purposes, they could focus on the funders of international terrorism or cartels.
I love your idea of governments having to compete for tax payers - What a refreshingly novel concept!! Love it!
That's essentially what "cooperative agorism" is about. The concept of oubuilding the state by introducing private competition and forcing governments to adapt or lose "customers" over time.
You can already see this happening with blockchain technology around the world today.
You've echoed thoughts I've been having for a while now. I'm in Africa and when I look at how the government in my country handles its financial responsibility and then imagine a future where cryptocurrency rules, I see taxation as voluntary also, and not only that, but way more effective. I see that right now, people lose half their wages to tax, which gives back very little value to them. It's lost value that could have been better used to improve people's lives. This actually hampers everyone's growth and so you'll have the government taking tax from 10% of the population which happens to be working and that tax accounts for more than half of what they earn. It's a vicious non productive cycle.
Fast forward to when crypto rules and you'll see more people working more efficiently and paying taxes because they want to help their countries. Think 90% of the population being productive and earning very high values and then paying say 5% from that as tax. The government will end up getting more tax.
one more thing:
The government should be on the blockchain. Blockchain governance that's transparent and effective. Imagine a time when any citizen can just use an interface to see the current amount of tax money allocated to a certain department or cause and see the transactions being made clearly. That will actually motivate me to pay tax. When blockchain governance is in place we'll see a lot less people abusing their positions and 100% accountability.
"Cooperative Agorism" is all about establishing such government and a society efficient enough not to need any forced taxation.
Big fan here plz follow
Followed you and hope for more constructive contributions like this from you
I watch your youtube videos
Excellent insight. Well put....It is my view that when the blue collar sector of the economy gets on board and starts trading in crypto the government will have little choice but to comply to the will of the people that provide them with their ambiguous jobs. Skilled Trades people are at least one tit on the milk cow.
"Governments competing for Taxpayers" that would be fantastic, as taxpayers could literally choose to support the government that is cultivating the society that keeps closets to their values and is more conducive to their ideals. But in order to accomplish this Crypto will have to force a change in the political maps of the world, Some governments may still be able to hamper us by way of their immigration systems and that's what I'm looking at in this bill. "How does this bill relate to immigration policy in the long run, because I'm sure that law makers understand that from a Tech perspective the currency can circumvent anything they come up with, so there has to be some yet undeclared piece of immigration legislation coming down the line that needs this one seemingly idiotic bill as its foundation.
It might acctuallt happen. Good god that will be exiting times. It's going to look like someone dropped the cat into the bath tub. :)
Makes me think of the old adage, "taxation without representation is tyranny". How much of what goes on in government today isn't tyranny? Do we really get to choose the leaders that represents our best interests?
But it is unlikely that citizens will voluntarily pay taxes to the state. Are you ready to stay without police, without border guards? Taxes, whatever one may say, but are needed ...
you are so right. Crypto is freedom
I think Cryptocurrency is a game changer to the world. The government has no control about it.
Nice theory, but unrealistic. Imagine a government without any tax income. Who will build roads? Who will provide medical infrastructure? Who should pay for all the basic infrastructure we all expect to have? Without tax as such, the country will either be run-down or, to keep the standard, very very expensive to live in.
You want running water in your flat? Pay someone to build a pipe from the mountains to you. ;)
hehehe, yeah here is no government involves!
I don't think they understand any of these cryptos well enough to effectively regulate them. It's going to take another 20 years before the ancient elite zombies finally die off and a generation gets into power that doesn't think the internet is "basically a series of tubes".
Many people believe that we need freedom, but I think we still need gov regulation to support the coin in the furture. Without the help of the government. It is still some uncontrol things. If it need to grow, it need regulation I think and it is my opinion only.
Government will NEVER be able to stop crypto. If they start regulating exchanges, then we shall create DECENTRALIZED exchanges. If they try to screw Bitcoin merchants over by sting operations, then we shall create a system which guarantees no FBI agents will ever be able to screw anyone over. If they try regulating the domains on which they run, then we shall create a dark-web network of said exchanges.
Like I said: They will NEVER be able to regulate this or take away our beautiful Blockchain. NEVER. We will make sure of it.
Yes...Administrations can grow fast by making availability of up to date services to catch the attention of crypto wealth along with keeping in view the elements of secrecy and confidentiality...
This comment has received a 0.06 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @qasimwaqar.
nice :)
cool
picture says it all
Lol
I'm making the crypto world friendly and accessible for everybody by explaining acronyms and terms related to cryptocurrency. Here I found:
Please upvote for visibility. If there are any missing terms here you want to be added to the database, please comment, so I'll become better.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the info, hoping this doesnt come into effect, also not to Europe!
Hi @heiditravels
It is like a general paranoia from gov and alike institutions to get hold on to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
It is too much money in this new market that goverments cant stay out of it longer (imagine the vampire fangs coming out when they see the money being collect by the recent ICOs.
The IMF even proposed a Central Banks for cryptocurrencies!!!
I wrote about it >>> https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@albertogm/the-devil-talks-about-cryptocurrencies-and-how-to-control-them
Nice post. Cheers!
nice!
@heiditravels very good analysis on how Government try to regulate cryptocurrencies . In reality government will always fight against our freedom simply because of tax money and addiction to controlling its citizens. We all should resist their move any way we can in order not to go against the principles of Bitcoin : freedom from governmental control . Thanks for sharing
Interesting...
Government should not control cryptocurrency. It's cryptocurrency... It's created for not being controled by anyone.
Thanks for the update!
digital assets which exist entirely online but are exchangeable for goods or services – have grown in popularity in recent years, in part because they grant a degree of user anonymity. Coinbase is the largest bitcoin exchange and its best-known brand.
But user confidentiality has also caused headaches for governments, who worry the currencies are being used for drug dealing, money laundering or tax evasion. Digital currencies are currently taxed as an asset like gold, with capital gains tax due when there is an appreciation in value.
However, the extent to which bitcoin users with US tax liabilities have been declaring such assets is unclear.
i think you add more value through your post and the people here on steemit want these type og info more and more , keep it up dear and keep inform us by this type of info
That is the question. Some governments dont think cryptos are just an asset.
they all have to admit one day that this is the real way of success and those who are working on it are the real heroes
DIDNT UNDERSTAND u bro!
I believe I read that with the IRS investigation into coinbase they found that only 80 out of the many thousands of users from 2013-2015 had reported BTC on their taxes. So they haven't been declaring them very well lol
The irony that those in the US government who want to pass this Bill for the sake of preventing money laundering and the support of terrorism is comical and so sadly hypocritical.
what a great thought you have on this totally agree with you dear ,, you really make me right i also think the same
I don't believe there is anything to indicate that the 80 people who declared BTC gains were even Coinbase users. The IRS is demanding customer records from Coinbase because only 80 people declared gains from Bitcoin on their taxes, a far cry from the 100s of thousands of users that had accounts with Coinbase at the time.
I do think they are overreaching by immediately demanding all of Coinbase's customer records. Records from a random sample of a few thousand accounts held by US residents would be more than enough for them to establish whether or not there is rampant cheating on taxes being perpetrated by Bitcoin users. If their findings confirm their suspicions, then further action would be justified, but if not - then it wouldn't.
It scares them and in many ways it should. "Government", if by that we mean organizing to set rules and achieve common goals, will not disappear. Ethical society is under no threat. But with global cooperative agorism, the "state" is going to have an increasingly hard time keeping up...
Curb some of that tax owed in the US. See my blog: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@avva/nevada-burgeoning-center-for-high-tech-innovation
yeah i read that its such an owsome blog thanks for sharing vd me
The government can't really stop the freight train right now.. They made the mistake to release Internet to the masses now they are reaping the effects.
Don't even know why they even try to restrict freedom as it's beneficial for the whole freaking world.
Hopefully we find some change in this cold world we've made for ourselves.
Cheers and much love from me
cryptos could even change the current system of state control and question the "role" a state currently has.
They can easily restrict the internet, in germany it is already starting
Yes and they are trying. Check out my blog on how to stop this: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@avva/how-would-you-feel-if-your-internet-service-provider-blocked-your-access-to-steemit-the-deadline-for-the-comment-period-is
Yes if you are american you should definetly do that !
It's a damn shame so few countries have constitutionally protected freedom of speech...
Only because all the various national governments are not a unified entity. If any one government is too restrictive with regulating cryptos, they simply push all the investment and growth that their economy could benefit from to one of their neighbors, costing them more in the long run.
Out of curiosity, how would governments know how much your holdings are in your crypto currency wallet was?
Exactly, this is why this will likely not pass. The technology they'd need in order to enforce this to even identify a hardware wallet, let alone the training to teach them how to use it, it's just too much effort... hopefully.
Ok. That's what I figured. Again, I'm new to cryptocurrency, and you mentioned a hardware wallet a few days ago and that was the first time I'd ever heard of that. Maybe Ill get one once I make more money on steem. ;)
Here's a great hardware option: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@avva/get-your-safe-true-2fa-hardware-wallet-now-coolwallet-usd119-shipping-to-us-shipping-is-estimated-august-10th
Thank you @avva
@vegetarianbaker I was a vegetarian for 9/10 years of my life. I'm not at the moment, but I am very much into organics. I will be following you to see what insights you have into current vegan life and maybe one day I shall return.
Add to that, with Devices like a Trezor, you can make a sort of hidden wallet. Keep your main stash there, and a tiny stash on the main wallet - if asked to show the wallet contents, just show the small wallet.
I doubt this will pass. I'm confident Rand Paul and others wont let this happen. Trump has some pro-bitcoin people in his cabinet.
Drumpf has mainly former Goldman-Sachs people in his cabinet, and "Neo-Conservatives".
Doesn't mean they aren't pro-bitcoin.
They know that if Non-sovereign, safe and not inflationary currencies prevail, their business model will not be as successful.
They rely on free cash like they got in the bailouts.
They also have stocks of the Federal Reserve.
So yes, it means they are anti-bitcoin.
I just moved my entire balance from an online wallet (except some spending money) to electrum with a Trezor hard wallet key. Feeling better about Aug 1 and the probability of govt. capital controls. Thanks for the update. :-)
They would only know if you have it with you. Then they would demand that you open your wallet to prove to amount.
Gotcha. I thought they mostly looked like external hard drives.
Most cryptos are easily traceable. All transactions are public, and you often become identifiable at the point of contact with a financial institution (such as a Bitcoin exchange).
There are cryptos which are harder to trace, but Steem for example is probably the easiest. Loads of us attach our names and faces to our accounts here, and you can see anyones wallet balance just by going to their page.
Speaking of harder to trace.. Check out my blog on Monero: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@avva/i-m-in-lub-again-and-don-t-know-why-their-name-is-monero
Awesome, followed you.
I was beginning to wonder if I might be the only Monero fan (2nd to BitShares) on Steem. The absence a Monero/XMR tag in the sidebar was somewhat surpising.
Just like they know with pretty good certainty who is plotting to commit a violent act and who doesn't.
It's not perfect but the people at the border control are professional lie detectors and will spot it if you are lying and just won't let you in until you tell them the truth and prove it.
Unlike them, most people are not professional liers. As a result, mostly honest people will suffer.
Ok gotcha. I'm no where near 10,000$ worth of a crypto currency, but Ill keep it in mind next time i've traveling.
Honestly! How can the Government control this. You are not entering or leaving with any physical currency. Unless you have your crypto-wallet on you when you enter the country, they would not even know you had Cryptocurrency.
Governments could easily kill Cryptocurrencies by regulating the internet and preventing the access to blockchain-nodes.
So we need to instead focus on causin a change in peoples minds that will prevent the government from doing so.
As governments can't shut down the entire internet forever, they can't shut down all the nodes either. Beside. Just imagen that governments decides to shut down the entire internet. LOL. If there is internet. Then there is somewhere a node runing. Governments should not fight this, they should accept and understand that their role in the society and the power of their citizens are going to change with this technology. I believe that the governments needs a change of mind, not the people. Just think. You work and earn your money. Right? Right. You pay taxes over your income already before you get it . Which is good, because we need good infrastructure, healthcare and help the government to help the people without a job. The government needs to get the money from us. No problems there. :) Then you decide to save some money. Which they will tax to. Then when you go to buy something in the store with your hard earned money, they tax you again. You buy a house, they tax you. From the first moment they start with taxing and they actually never stop taxing you. :) They tax the same money again and again. On the otherhand they give big componies a lot of tax advantages so they base there headquarters there. How is any of this fair??
So if a government decides to tax cryptocoins they should also accept that when people lose value on their crypto that they should be able to deduct it from their taxable income to. I am not aware of any government which is doing this. Are you?
Internet is super easy to kill, just shut down all the ISPs and there is no internet any more. The same goes with blockchain technology, they just need to block the access to those IPs running them. Of course they can´t shut all nodes but they don´t even need to.
Sadly internet is very complex and therefore centralized (in order to maintain it) while we could implement an internet that sort of works like the blockchain (p2p) not much effort or research went towards it so far (hope that will change).
Hi Johannes,
Thanks for the explanation. It's an eye opener. The thing is that I am not talking about the technical part. They can not shut down the internet because of the economic consequences. Just imagen your day at work or just in your freetime without internet. Everyone and every business uses internet and is dependend to some degree of the internet.
And shut down most of the modern economy in the process. Super Easy. /s
TOR+VPN?
Depends on how far they go with their regulations, if they would really want to kill it, even TOR or VPN wouldn´t get you anywhere
If they ban TOR, how will the secret agents and other similar assets large governments deploy in foreign countries communicate with headquarters?
Cryptocurrency nodes can be run on common ports such as 443, as well as over TOR/I2P. The addition of SSL support to mask node traffic would make them more expensive to detect (it would require DPI).
And I wouldn't worry too much about governments banning TOR. Freedom of speech and the enabling of citizens living under oppressive regimes to access information aside, if they banned it, how would the secret agents most governments have deployed in foreign countries, both allied and enemy, communicate with headquarters?
The only countries that can deploy somewhat effective "great firewalls" are the ones that have very large disparities between their population and the number of IPv4 addresses they have allocated, because such conditions force them to have large swaths of their internet using population operating behind a NAT.
Why do people hate GOVs? I love paying taxes, makes me feel honored and just.
Joke, moving to hong kong.
So, here's the interesting question. If I memorize the 12 word or 24 word seed... and I travel, am I then subject to this law? I mean effectively most wallets whether hardware, mobile, desktop, or web, all which you can travel with, only hold value due to the seed for the private key. So I guess my brain can be considered illegal if I do not claim it.
Came here to say this, but it looks like you beat me to it.
Haha you're right!
Good points! Thanks!
Well, when it comes to crypto everyone is trying to make money like there is no tomorrow. In this crypto race, people are trying to purchase "Ferrari's" out of crypto investment. Having seen these, why should government fall behind? Infact this is a great opportunity for government to collect more tax plus having records of anyone holding a substantial amount to cryptocurrencies.
I believe crypto has a revolutionary potential but because people are very bullish on crypto's , they will loose thier charm before they would even pass the growth stage, let alone the maturity stage. Cryptocurrencies is not for everyone, rather it is the most volatile investment in the human history. One day the price is on the sky, next day it is deep buried in the ground.
People should take a deep breath and get to know about the crypto's first and after proper understanding, they should buy crypto's
However, this bill can, if passed, can put a speed breaker in crypto's growth in USA. Just hope for the best.
Thanks @heiditravels . Good luck.
Honestly, I wonder how the government is supposed to enforce taxation on cryptocurrency. Then again, isn't the whole point of cryptocurrency to reduce the inefficiency of money in the marketplace.
Now, I understand that in the US, you have a right to shoot people if they are trying to rob you. What if the "robber" is the government and they quietly "rob" you in the disguise through taxation?
Are we in the Matrix?
We are also robbed via the hidden tax..inflation via the loss of purchasing power.
Exactly. So take advantage of debt and load up if you can. However, don't leverage up too much such that you end up becoming at the mercy of the banks when it's time to raise the interest rate.
In the US if you don't give your money to the robber (gov't) you get put in a small box for a long time. They really value their citizens.
yes, because then they can recover your unpaid tax money from the subservient middle class. IMHO, that's the whole point of the US prison system and the drug war, etc that supplies it with victims. It's how the rich convince the middle class to pay the taxes for the poor, while at the same time cleaning the streets of "undesirables". It's just one evolution of slavery. There are many other modern adaptations of the slave trade, like closed source software, for instance.
Well, at least you have free food and lodging! Isn't better to be in prison if we can have free stuff? :D
And god rest your soul if you resist their attempts to cage you...
You talk sense mate. Followed👍
The government has a monopoly on the use of force. They are the only entity allowed to rob you.
On a side note, I believe Iowa's castle doctrine even extends so far as to even protect an individual who uses lethal force against home invaders with badges - of course only in instances where police invade a home unlawfully. For example, this applies in instances where police executing a no-knock warrant fail to check house numbers before breaking down a door, and inadvertently invade a house next door to the one specified in their warrant.
Wow, I wonder if there's anyone that actually shot the police for invading their home. Then again, what about the government robbing us via the banking system. What's the recourse?
Let's shoot the government?
hehe, did you choose the red pill ?
yup, choose the red pill by abandoning a banking job where I had a "stable" monthly pay. Choose to give up everything for my love. So far, this has led me down a deep rabbit hole which I'm extremely keen to explore further.
Once you are out of the Matrix, there's no going back. :D
Really, the world is flat? Gosh I didn't know that. haha.
Taxation will be a huge mess. How will they tax an individual? Some people gain bitcoin via payment for goods and or services, others acquire bitcoin and hold or trade it. Right there I mentioned 4 possible taxes, taxes on sales, taxes on income, taxes on long term investments (capital gains) and taxes on short term investing. - Edit (not that we were even talking about taxes really).
Ideally, the IRS should treat it the same way they treat foreign currency - exempt from capital gains. Not taxing the gains would allow the money they would otherwise claim circulate through the economy, and it would probably be utilized more efficiently than the government could manage... Unfortunately, the world we live in is far from ideal.
they will definitely get u.s. citizens who are buying/selling on Coinbase for capital gains taxes. The IRS has already gained all records on all customers for the past 3 years.
I say good luck to the govt trying to get people to pay taxes on bitcoins.
Government and money are an unholy alliance. The state should not be in the business of money. Bitcoin and the blockchain were created to free people from financial tyranny.
Great post. I think that it would be very hard to implement this bill if it passes. We the people need to gather all our power to avoid at all cost that bills like this one becomes law. We are not powerless, we are powerful.
The Steemit platform is one of the greatest inventions that benefits humanity worldwide in the history of civilization. Governments will not be able to control it with regulations. I can't wait to hear Dan and Ned choke up as the give their Nobel Prize acceptance speeches.
Awesome info and great content!
Government will never cease efforts to control finances of its citizens, in this case even of those who enter the country. Since the money is power, those who are allready in power are very careful to maintain their position of power. Controling is half owning, and this control trend will keep growing. So we have two choices; either continue our lives accepting every restriction "they" throw at us, or raise our voices and tell "them" how unacceptable this is!
Sadly i have to strongly agree, as long greed is driving force in humanity this will not end. But we have to remember that power is given and taken from the People, not other way around!
This law is completely unenforceable. I mean, if I have $10k on cryptopia in New Zealand, how the hell would they ever find out? LOL More meaningless and pointless government overreach by greedy fascists that will not actually do anything but waste more of our tax payer money.
they want to lay hands on money
Interesting perspective. Same happening within Europe.
SOME regulation is good . This will bring crypto to mainstream . Also when regular folks loose money in unregulated ico market it will happen. Follow the leader !!!
Nice! Plain simple, governments are us, we and only all of we together will decide our future. And crypto's as well!!
In the next few years we will see if crypto beats fiat currency.
hey
crypto is the new reality and it scares so many out there who are hell bent on trailing the traditional money system
ANYONE WITH A CHASE DEBIT ACCT PLS READ MY RECENT POST
Love your videos i am a youtube sub and i really enjoy your content.
I haven't read all the responses but you are assuming the US government could even begin to validate or check each person's crypto values. This is the same entity that runs the US post office (borderline bankruptcy) and the IRS... much less several other messed up agencies. I highly doubt they will be able to manage figuring out your crypto wallets.
they will surely put their nose in cryptocurrency also!
following you in youtube and was surprisingly happy to see u here.
well coming to post it's as great as your other videos <3.
i think that future lies within the crypto currency. Digital money has made the trading so simple and easier then past. Governments want to monitor each and every penny earned by people and people need some privacy. Digital currency is the most versatile currency and probably the most dangerous one to invest in. If bitcoin prices can reach so much height who knows they can also decline!.
Sadly if the government regulate the exchanges, and most are regulated already they can then have a great deal of control over Bitcoin as they can shut accounts down, prevent spending from certain accounts, Prevent you from cashing out and basically do whatever they want. It seems a lot of people store their Bitcoin and other cryptos on exchanges instead of using a cold storage wallet which puts them at the mercy of the exchanges and who ever regulates them, which seems to be the governments.
Governments competing for tax payers would be an interesting concept.
I am new to this crypto world and new to Steemit, and I am excited to learn new things from this world of digital currency. Your post was a great read and interesting as well as thought provoking.
Cryptos seem to be a source of freedom from what I can see.
I look forward to more of your posts...!
I think that these type of measures seem like a negative action, but in fact it might just give cryptocurrencies the regulation needed to motivate people to get into them.
crypto currency unlocks and unveils a new world, one not yet controlled or monitored, it feels like the ones who are a part of it are taking something back and hold some sort of power. thank you for your article
I really hope the bill doesn't become a law but wouldn`t shock me if it does. I think this is more of a scare tactic to prevent the u.s. people from switch from fiat currency to cryptocurrency the more people use crypto the less power the government has and that's they last thing they want.
Great post, I will follow you :)
You just know they're going to try something as they lose control over everyone's income and assets. The government is a subsidiary of the banking cartel and unless Satoshi's real name is Rothschild they won't let us all go easily.