4 ms·

Man offers to sell house for Bitcoins

11 points by dan1234 14y ago

rheide 14y ago
Hm, I feel compelled to upvote this because I own bitcoins and any promotion of bitcoins will likely result in an increase in value, but I can see how it will result in HN being full of meaningless articles about bitcoins. Incidentally, by placing this comment I've out-meta'd myself.
TorKlingberg 14y ago
It is worth noting that he is asking for $405,000 Canadian worth of Bitcoin, not a fixed number of Bitcoins. As long as people as selling things for "$X in Bitcoins" is doesn't really provide any liquidity for Bitcoin. Of course, nobody wants to take on the currency risk of setting a fixed price in Bitcoins, until Bitcoin gains more liquidity and stability.
- rheide 14y ago
  Very good point. It might even be cheaper to offer it in bitcoins, tax-wise, depending on government regulations. (off-topic: are you the Asahi Kasei Tor? long time no see!)
eah13 14y ago
Transactions like this are the beginning of regulators getting interested in Bitcoin. If the entire transaction was done in Bitcoin instead of Canadian dollars, how could the government tax it? They could I suppose call it a barter and tax it under barter tax laws. In North Carolina property can be exchanged for "any valuable consideration" and a tax is due to the state according to the value of the consideration exchanged. Lot of interesting issues here. But I agree with TorKlingberg that the fact that he didn't price it in Bitcoin is a little disappointing. Though I believe the value of the house would be a distressingly high percentage of total daily volume of Bitcoin exchanges.
- nawitus 14y ago
  While I'm not familiar with Canadian law, I think the same law which applies to any foreign currency would work here. I don't think you can avoid taxes by using a certain currency. The government can simply determine the value of the bitcoins and then tax based on that.
- illuminate 14y ago
  It is a barter for fair market value regardless.
yawniek 14y ago
i wonder when those cornering the market start to unload. i guess some already have a decent amount of FY money in coins. so why should they wait for regulations or even bans other than pure greed?
lifeformed 14y ago
The link at the bottom of the article (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0) is awesome. Just 2 years ago, someone paid 10,000 BTC for a pizza. That was worth $40 USD back then. If he saved it, he could've had $600,000 USD...

11 points by dan1234 14y ago

Hm, I feel compelled to upvote this because I own bitcoins and any promotion of bitcoins will likely result in an increase in value, but I can see how it will result in HN being full of meaningless articles about bitcoins. Incidentally, by placing this comment I've out-meta'd myself.

TorKlingberg 14y ago

It is worth noting that he is asking for $405,000 Canadian worth of Bitcoin, not a fixed number of Bitcoins. As long as people as selling things for "$X in Bitcoins" is doesn't really provide any liquidity for Bitcoin. Of course, nobody wants to take on the currency risk of setting a fixed price in Bitcoins, until Bitcoin gains more liquidity and stability.

rheide 14y ago
Very good point. It might even be cheaper to offer it in bitcoins, tax-wise, depending on government regulations. (off-topic: are you the Asahi Kasei Tor? long time no see!)

eah13 14y ago

Transactions like this are the beginning of regulators getting interested in Bitcoin. If the entire transaction was done in Bitcoin instead of Canadian dollars, how could the government tax it? They could I suppose call it a barter and tax it under barter tax laws. In North Carolina property can be exchanged for "any valuable consideration" and a tax is due to the state according to the value of the consideration exchanged. Lot of interesting issues here. But I agree with TorKlingberg that the fact that he didn't price it in Bitcoin is a little disappointing. Though I believe the value of the house would be a distressingly high percentage of total daily volume of Bitcoin exchanges.

nawitus 14y ago
While I'm not familiar with Canadian law, I think the same law which applies to any foreign currency would work here. I don't think you can avoid taxes by using a certain currency. The government can simply determine the value of the bitcoins and then tax based on that.
illuminate 14y ago
It is a barter for fair market value regardless.

yawniek 14y ago

i wonder when those cornering the market start to unload. i guess some already have a decent amount of FY money in coins. so why should they wait for regulations or even bans other than pure greed?

lifeformed 14y ago

The link at the bottom of the article (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0) is awesome. Just 2 years ago, someone paid 10,000 BTC for a pizza. That was worth $40 USD back then. If he saved it, he could've had $600,000 USD...