I've specifically seen folks discussing converting to tether now (on the fear that BTC will fall) and waiting til 2018 to redeem due to pending tax cuts. So thi

I've specifically seen folks discussing converting to tether now (on the fear that BTC will fall) and waiting til 2018 to redeem due to pending tax cuts. So this would be an avoidance strategy. I have no idea on the legal specifics or whether or not Tether/Bitfinex are going to be providing reporting to governmental agencies (like Coinbase+IRS are doing). The discussions I've seen often cite Tether as a way to capture profits in USD and holding off on the "real" USD conversion at a later place or time (taxes or restrictive outflows like China's $50k USD/yr limit). Basically viewing it as a way to operate in USD without creating a banking paper trail. If conversion to USDT causes a legally taxable event that's going to remove a significant portion of the proposed use-cases for tether. > If lots of people really are operating under a different belief then this is going to get really messy. I think "really messy" is a given at this point. I was in Starbucks a few days ago and overhead a non-tech savvy man say: "I need to figure out how to buy some of that bitcoin so I can get rich but all the websites I've found are crooks!"