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Several countries and states have laws reflective of what I described, with the same taxonomy already in committee in Congress US payment processors are the on

Several countries and states have laws reflective of what I described, with the same taxonomy already in committee in Congress US payment processors are the ones flying blind and interpreting things arbitrarily, and the courts might too, but the direction the legislatures are going will correct that

ceejayoz 7y ago
US payment processors have been giving casino chips this treatment for decades. I see no reason US legislatures would give cryptocurrency better treatment than that - if anything, they're more likely to smack it around.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Casino chips tend to be fiat-denominated and trivially redeemable at face value, so are true cash equivalents. Cryptocurrencies tend not to be fiat-denominated, and even those that are don't have trivial free frictionless exchange for fiat at face value.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The Euro has an exchange rate and forex spread, too, hence neither of those things are disqualifying as a cash equivalent.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      In pretty sure Euros are fiat-denominated and readily exchangeable for fiat (being, after all, fiat, makes this trivially true.)
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking. Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like Bitcoin does. Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances.
        rolltiide 7y ago
        > Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances Courts typically will look at the bank's rationale for charging customers higher fees arbitrarily. You are heavily focused on the semantical debate about "cash advance" and not the consequences of categorizing this way. A court might say "sure call them that, just don't charge customers higher a cash advance fee and higher interest", the bank will consider that irreconcilable and change the categorization anyway. Nobody will address the specific difference you wanted to debate about.
        dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking No, it's not. Having done a political science degree with significant coursework in law and judicial politics, and gone back later and done a couple years of law school while working as a programmer before deciding that the cost/benefit of a license to practice law wasn't really worth it, I'm somewhat familiar with the differences between law and computer code. > Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like Bitcoin does. That's, ironically, the “law works like computer code” thinking you were just complaining about. While there are certainly laws focussed on USD and equivalents vs every other asset imaginable, there are lots of laws about money more generally, and a lot of established precedent about what is and is not money, and, perhaps more critically, about how terms which are ambiguous in contracts (perhaps because subject matter to which they are being applied wasn't well known when they were drafted) are applied between parties with unequal power over drafting of th contract. > Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances. Governments aren't going tonban banks from applying the same didadvantageous conditions applied to cash advances to any transactions they want, but those with decent consumer protection laws may also not let them do so arbitrarily after the fact without clear notice in contracts of the kinds of transactions to which those terms will be applied, just because of some loose analogy between the subject of a term in a contract and product class to which it would not generally have been understood to apply by most people agreeing to the contract.

ceejayoz 7y ago

US payment processors have been giving casino chips this treatment for decades. I see no reason US legislatures would give cryptocurrency better treatment than that - if anything, they're more likely to smack it around.

dragonwriter 7y ago
Casino chips tend to be fiat-denominated and trivially redeemable at face value, so are true cash equivalents. Cryptocurrencies tend not to be fiat-denominated, and even those that are don't have trivial free frictionless exchange for fiat at face value.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The Euro has an exchange rate and forex spread, too, hence neither of those things are disqualifying as a cash equivalent.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    In pretty sure Euros are fiat-denominated and readily exchangeable for fiat (being, after all, fiat, makes this trivially true.)
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking. Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like Bitcoin does. Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances.
      - rolltiide 7y ago
        > Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances Courts typically will look at the bank's rationale for charging customers higher fees arbitrarily. You are heavily focused on the semantical debate about "cash advance" and not the consequences of categorizing this way. A court might say "sure call them that, just don't charge customers higher a cash advance fee and higher interest", the bank will consider that irreconcilable and change the categorization anyway. Nobody will address the specific difference you wanted to debate about.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Again, this is that "laws work like computer code" thinking No, it's not. Having done a political science degree with significant coursework in law and judicial politics, and gone back later and done a couple years of law school while working as a programmer before deciding that the cost/benefit of a license to practice law wasn't really worth it, I'm somewhat familiar with the differences between law and computer code. > Euros vary in USD value, and take a process to convert to/from USD just like Bitcoin does. That's, ironically, the “law works like computer code” thinking you were just complaining about. While there are certainly laws focussed on USD and equivalents vs every other asset imaginable, there are lots of laws about money more generally, and a lot of established precedent about what is and is not money, and, perhaps more critically, about how terms which are ambiguous in contracts (perhaps because subject matter to which they are being applied wasn't well known when they were drafted) are applied between parties with unequal power over drafting of th contract. > Governments are not going to ban banks from treating BTC transactions as cash advances. Governments aren't going tonban banks from applying the same didadvantageous conditions applied to cash advances to any transactions they want, but those with decent consumer protection laws may also not let them do so arbitrarily after the fact without clear notice in contracts of the kinds of transactions to which those terms will be applied, just because of some loose analogy between the subject of a term in a contract and product class to which it would not generally have been understood to apply by most people agreeing to the contract.