41–50 of 79 posts
I still don't understand what happens after all the bitcoins have been mined. It seems to be designed to just fail eventually and be replaced, which I cannot reconcile against the elegance of the rest of the design. To clarify: bitcoins can go away forever. About 6 years ago and had a wallet with a couple bitcoins in it. I have lost the key to that bitcoin wallet and if I can't find it, and noone else can find it, th…
Bitcoins can be split and divided up to 8 decimal points. You can own 0.00000001 BTC. Additionally, the software could be forked to allow division of BTC to a more granular amount than 0.00000001, meaning if all but 1 BTC were lost the entire world could still transact with that last singular BTC by dividing it up into smaller units.
It could be that all those lost bitcoins are just sitting in someone's harddrive, waiting for moment to crash the market
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Bitcoins can be split and divided up to 8 decimal points. You can own 0.00000001 BTC. Additionally, the software could be forked to allow division of BTC to a more granular amount than 0.00000001, meaning if all but 1 BTC were lost the entire world could still transact with that last singular BTC by dividing it up into smaller units.
The problem is we don't really know what's lost and what's in storage. It could be that all those lost bitcoins are just sitting in someone's harddrive, waiting for moment to crash the market
I still don't understand what happens after all the bitcoins have been mined. It seems to be designed to just fail eventually and be replaced, which I cannot reconcile against the elegance of the rest of the design. To clarify: bitcoins can go away forever. About 6 years ago and had a wallet with a couple bitcoins in it. I have lost the key to that bitcoin wallet and if I can't find it, and noone else can find it, th…
A tangentially related question (I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to bitcoin). Suppose I could harness the power of 1,000 or even 10,000 private computers distributed over the internet and all contributing resources. Could I profitably mine bitcoin?(This is not a theoretical question, I actually do have a way to do this) .
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It is. Not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it is handled as a capital gains tax. So you buy some bitcoin, it fluctuates wildly over the course of a week, and you convert back to fiat. You then pay taxes on any earnings from that. So if you bought 1 flubbercoin for 900 USD and sold it a week later for 1200 USD, you are liable for that 300 USD in gained capital. Here is a marginally more technical description ht…
Not really related, but how about mining? What will happen once all the mining costs go down? What system will be put in place?
The Bitcoin wiki article on this is incomplete, but informative[0].
[0]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance#Are_bitcoins_taxab...
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Not really related, but how about mining? What will happen once all the mining costs go down? What system will be put in place?
At that point: Theoretically nothing. At that point the currency is stable and its value adjusts to very small degrees (if any) and it is no different than dave and busters money. You're taxed on your income and all you are doing is adding an extra layer of indirection before spending. And if you were paid in bitcoin, you have the same capital gains to report when you effectively translate it to fiat while buying you…
But what if you never have to translate it to a "real currency"?
Granted - bitcoin isn't anon - but let's suppose it was (or there existed a e-currency that was). If every transaction in the entire supply chain was carried out using such a currency, how would any government ever know (without inserting a MITM into the supply chain)?
An alternative thought: If you conducted all aspects of your life cash-only, how would the g-man "get you"? I suppose Al Capone could be brought up as an explanation (whatever was the reasoning there) - but there were other factors involved (they wanted him for other reasons, but tax-evasion was the easiest way - at least, according to what we've been told).
But as long as you conducted your affairs completely off-the-books, and only worked with vetted (or anonymous) others who were doing the same (so you never transacted cash with a government official or someone working for them) - how would they know?
Another thought experiment: If you conducted everything using barter (let's suppose that were possible) - would you then owe the government so many chickens or pigs as "tax"?