4 ms·

The referenced law only mentions "foreign gold or silver coins" as not being legal tender for debts. Did something expand that to non-US currency, or is this ju

The referenced law only mentions "foreign gold or silver coins" as not being legal tender for debts. Did something expand that to non-US currency, or is this just a letter/spirit issue?

ChuckMcM 14y ago
Personally I think its more the latter, and fair warning there are folks who will tell you the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and the only legal money is actual gold or silver. Suffice it to say there are a lot of opinions. In Vegas, the Secret Service was pretty clear that their 'goal' was to mitigate criminal activity not clamp down on people who bought a slurpee at 7-11 and only had a $5 casino chip in their pocket. While there are perfectly libertarian reasons for not wanting your transaction history or cash flows viewable, it is essential in many (most?) criminal endeavors. For better or worse this is an aspect that the US Government uses to uncover those operations. As we've discussed on HN before there are waaaay more federal laws than are necessary which result in making a lot of things "illegal" which I and perhaps others would not agree made sense ( the whole 'lying to the FBI' which is waaaaay overly broad for example ). My point is that if you ask Eric Holder or any Treasury Agent if using BitCoin as the currency for buying or selling goods or services in the US to people in the US they will say "No, it is not." And if you tell them you have been doing so, they may decide to arrest you at that point. Policy debates (and really that is what this is) are messy and heated, but its unreasonable for a print publication to say that BitCoin is in a 'legal gray area' when calling up the Treasury would disabuse them of that notion. Just like saying paying Income Tax is optional. From the point of view of the IRS that is not true, regardless of the number of scholars and researchers who will create a chain of reasoning to show that it is.

The referenced law only mentions "foreign gold or silver coins" as not being legal tender for debts. Did something expand that to non-US currency, or is this just a letter/spirit issue?

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Personally I think its more the latter, and fair warning there are folks who will tell you the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and the only legal money is actual gold or silver. Suffice it to say there are a lot of opinions. In Vegas, the Secret Service was pretty clear that their 'goal' was to mitigate criminal activity not clamp down on people who bought a slurpee at 7-11 and only had a $5 casino chip in their pocket. While there are perfectly libertarian reasons for not wanting your transaction history or cash flows viewable, it is essential in many (most?) criminal endeavors. For better or worse this is an aspect that the US Government uses to uncover those operations. As we've discussed on HN before there are waaaay more federal laws than are necessary which result in making a lot of things "illegal" which I and perhaps others would not agree made sense ( the whole 'lying to the FBI' which is waaaaay overly broad for example ). My point is that if you ask Eric Holder or any Treasury Agent if using BitCoin as the currency for buying or selling goods or services in the US to people in the US they will say "No, it is not." And if you tell them you have been doing so, they may decide to arrest you at that point. Policy debates (and really that is what this is) are messy and heated, but its unreasonable for a print publication to say that BitCoin is in a 'legal gray area' when calling up the Treasury would disabuse them of that notion. Just like saying paying Income Tax is optional. From the point of view of the IRS that is not true, regardless of the number of scholars and researchers who will create a chain of reasoning to show that it is.