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> Capital appreciation resulting from token buybacks is not taxed. Why would we expect the tax code to treat this any differently from share buybacks in the lo

by paulgb 7y ago

> Capital appreciation resulting from token buybacks is not taxed. Why would we expect the tax code to treat this any differently from share buybacks in the long run? I'm having trouble understanding why the rest of the argument would apply to crypto shares but not NYSE shares. I don't agree with the statement that our current system incentivizes low consumption; the less you consume the more capital you have to invest or consume in the future.

cryptica 7y ago
The buy-back could happen in a country where it is not taxed, but token holders from all countries would still benefit from token price appreciation nonetheless. Also, my simulations show that a cryptocurrency's market cap can be much higher than the value of the underlying assets from which income is derived. It depends on how strongly investors hold onto their tokens. It's a way to maximize net-worth at the expense of accepting more fragile trade volumes. So token investors can have a higher net worth and better growth of their net worth if they're willing accept more fragility. To understand this argument (as an extreme example), you can consider what would happen if a group of people were to issue 100 million tokens of a new cryptocurrency and then all together sell only 1 token each day for $1. The cryptocurrency's market cap would be $100 million. It would be extremely fragile in the sense that investors would not be able to cash out anything meaningful without completely crashing the price, but it would have the effect of giving them all a very high net worth. Moreover, my models show that this type of extreme situations with low token supply deliver higher % returns on net worth over time (assuming constant demand) but it requires extreme collaboration between participants. This is an extreme argument but hopefully it illustrates the point that there is a spectrum of fragility which can be used to gain an economic advantage and that blockchain adds an entirely new dimension to standard economics. The idea of net worth becomes meaningless because it forces you to consider wealth fragility as well.

by paulgb 7y ago

cryptica 7y ago

The buy-back could happen in a country where it is not taxed, but token holders from all countries would still benefit from token price appreciation nonetheless. Also, my simulations show that a cryptocurrency's market cap can be much higher than the value of the underlying assets from which income is derived. It depends on how strongly investors hold onto their tokens. It's a way to maximize net-worth at the expense of accepting more fragile trade volumes. So token investors can have a higher net worth and better growth of their net worth if they're willing accept more fragility. To understand this argument (as an extreme example), you can consider what would happen if a group of people were to issue 100 million tokens of a new cryptocurrency and then all together sell only 1 token each day for $1. The cryptocurrency's market cap would be $100 million. It would be extremely fragile in the sense that investors would not be able to cash out anything meaningful without completely crashing the price, but it would have the effect of giving them all a very high net worth. Moreover, my models show that this type of extreme situations with low token supply deliver higher % returns on net worth over time (assuming constant demand) but it requires extreme collaboration between participants. This is an extreme argument but hopefully it illustrates the point that there is a spectrum of fragility which can be used to gain an economic advantage and that blockchain adds an entirely new dimension to standard economics. The idea of net worth becomes meaningless because it forces you to consider wealth fragility as well.