5 ms·

Governments really screwed crypto when they decided to treat it like the stock market...

• davidgerard 4y ago
  if only speculation wasn't by far the greatest use case. It's important to remember that bitcoin failed as a payment system by the mid-2010s. It turns out nobody wanted to use it, including bitcoin holders - they wanted merchants to support it, but they didn't actually use it themselves. Merchants would switch off the bitcoin option, and get more emails of protest than they ever had transactions using it. The rule where every transaction is a taxable event came after crypto had already failed for payments.
  • Vladimof 4y ago
    > The rule where every transaction is a taxable event came after crypto had already failed for payments. They are making sure it stays that way... Its not like crypto can't change.
    • lern_too_spel 4y ago
      As long as money needs to be regulated to prevent money laundering (and thereby reduce the incentives for criminal profits) and sanction avoidance, anything that isn't regulated like money can't be money and will instead be an asset whose transactions will be taxed. If you try to regulate crypto like money, it can no longer be decentralized, and you might as well run it on a traditional bank with a centralized ledger, which is far cheaper. So yes, crypto can't change in the way you want it to, not in any way that makes financial sense.
      • Vladimof 4y ago
        Did they crack monero yet?
        • toomuchtodo 4y ago
          Lots of time left to pursue monero exchanges and users. Nation states and their enforcement mechanisms aren’t going anywhere.
      • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
        If they made every time you trade a five dollar bill, say for a meal, a taxable/paperwork event, USD etc would never be money, either. I don't really understand your point.
        • lern_too_spel 4y ago
          I explained why in my comment. USD is regulated like money.