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South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

reuters.com

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Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#141

Post by bookmarkacc »

zeep wrote: post #139
scottnyc wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this might be a wealth transfer to China. Bitcoin inherently does not hold any value, it is a ledger. When someone buys bitcoin, someone else sells it and takes the cash out of the system. Right now, a lot of mining is still taking place in China since energy is cheap. These miners sell their coins outside of China and bring cash back into the mainland to pay for the energy and hardware used for mining.…

So if you buy a bitcoin for $15K, and sell it for $16K, you are taking wealth away from the Chinese?

No because you buy for 15k from them and sell for 16k to someone somewhere else in the world

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#142

Post by nine_k »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #128
nine_k wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suppose both flows exist. * Chinese energy producers and miners get cash into China from bitcoins they create and sell. * Chinese (early) buyers of bitcoin sell their coins in the West for cash stored in Western banks , or turned into other Western assets. I suppose the second stream is wider, but the first is not to be neglected, too.

They don’t need bitcoin for the first stream, just for the second. Besides, there is plenty of excess capital floating around in china anyways, they don’t need many initial investment from the outside.

People who mine bitcoins just make a living.

The outflow of the capital from China via bitcoin must definitely be larger than inflow. And those who transfer wealth from China via bitcoin are keenly interested in bitcoin growing as much as possible without crashing. They likely have bought a lot for a much lower price, and want to cash out in the West, at least partially, without trouble.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#143

Post by passwordreset »

WJW wrote: post #105
glorkk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin and cryptos ought to be banned for good. Serious question: how would you go about “banning” cryotocurrencies? The most you can do is close exchanges which would make crypto harder to acquire and liquidate.

_If_ I wanted do this (and was a government): - Prohibit trading of cryptocurrencies, punishable by several years in prison if caught. Structure it so that you can personally go to prison even if you did it as part of a business. This should 'discourage' casual investors. - Pass a law stating banks can lose their banking license if they allow transactions from/to crypto exchanges. Basically, declare cryptocurrencies…

Would it not be the case that declaring "cryptocurrencies to be similar to hard drugs or something and follow the same playbook" is a recipe for disaster? None of the drugs laws have really worked out all that well, as they've led to mass incarceration which has a high social cost.

Many people seem to want drugs. Banning them often increases the price, due to the supply going down or being more costly to obtain versus a constant demand. To follow the same playbook, there seems to be a non-zero chance that Bitcoin would become rarer, and therefore more valuable, and therefore more attractive than fiat, increasing demand even more. I think it's a crap-shoot what role cryptocurrencies would play after a large-scale ban.

But, yeah, _if_ I wanted to do that, and I was a government, that would probably be the way I'd do it.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#144

Post by apalmer »

afsina wrote: post #137
pjc50 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a "barbarous relic" in the words of Keynes, which is why it's not really used as currency any more. There are real reasons why the world went off the gold standard.

Or, Keynes was wrong and he is responsible with all the boom and bust cycles and inflationary theft.

Serious question, Keynes was born in the late 1880 and didnt publish anything until 1900s... we had boom and bust cycles long before this. How do you explain that?

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#145

Post by patrickk »

thkim wrote: post #76
fragsworth wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin & cryptos are financial weapons of mass destruction. You need to explain this. Many of us just think it's a good replacement for gold and other precious metals. Is gold a "financial weapon of mass destruction"?

that's a valid question. three reasons why bitcoin & crypto is NOT like gold and very dangerous. 1) limited supply: drives up price enormously. almost endless. minimal supply, infinitely increasing demand. depending on how far this will go it can potentially suck up all liquidity in the world. 2) no authority, no price stabilization, meaning extreme volatility that adds fuel to vol & price rise, 3) ease of access: an…

> either collapsing a global economy

Barely anyone uses bitcoin as a percentage of the world's total population, this isn't even remotely feasible today, or likely even in five years.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#146

Post by passwordreset »

scottnyc wrote: post #118
rudiger wrote: post #101

At its core, the current cryptocurrency craze is simply an unprecedented wealth transfer to China from the rest of the world. Until the end of 2013, Bitcoin was predominantly traded for US dollars. However, after the crash of 2013, miners consolidated in China and Bitcoin mostly traded for Chinese yuan[1]. At the start of 2017, regulators in China cracked down on digital currency exchanges[2] and trading quickly move…

I agree that this might be a wealth transfer to China. Bitcoin inherently does not hold any value, it is a ledger. When someone buys bitcoin, someone else sells it and takes the cash out of the system. Right now, a lot of mining is still taking place in China since energy is cheap. These miners sell their coins outside of China and bring cash back into the mainland to pay for the energy and hardware used for mining.…

> Bitcoin inherently does not hold any value, it is a ledger.

I just want you to be aware that those 2 sentiments are directly contradictory. A ledger has value -- an online, world-wide, decentralized, distributed, peer-to-peer ledger moreso. Estimate the value of the ledger (this is a significantly different endeavour than estimating market cap), divide that value by the total number of BTC in circulation, and you have estimated the value of a BTC.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#147

Post by nybble41 »

tomtimtall wrote: post #80
fosco wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is far easier to transfer 10 million dollars wworth of bitcoin than it is 10 million of gold. this comparisons are _not_ doing either bitcoin nor gold justice. bitcoin is far more liquid, accessible and usable than gold ever will be. I will start calling it Internet Liquid Gold... because while the transactions might be slow, being able to transfer it across continents multiple times back and forth is possible bef…

People don't move gold around. They trade gold IOU's which can be transferred faster than bitcoin, with far lower fees.

> People don't move gold around.

Precisely, because it's slow and expensive. If you're going to hold out transfers of IOUs in place of actual gold, that can work for any commodity; a Bitcoin IOU would function just as well as a gold IOU. As a practical example, most Bitcoin exchanges allow transfers between members instantaneously and without any notable fees. Of course, that reintroduces a trust relationship. The point of having actual gold in-hand, or actual bitcoins recorded on the blockchain, is that the transfer is completed and effectively irreversible. You don't get that with IOUs.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#148

Post by neuro_imager »

WJW wrote: post #106
mtgx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think most people owning cryptocurrencies are affluent tax evaders?

Yes? It's certainly not the people struggling to buy food if that's what you are implying.

Its ironic that the same people who keep saying cryptocurrency has no underlying value, that its just a speculative bubble, are saying that profits from its increase in price should be aggressively taxed.

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#149

Post by neuro_imager »

rudiger wrote: post #101

At its core, the current cryptocurrency craze is simply an unprecedented wealth transfer to China from the rest of the world. Until the end of 2013, Bitcoin was predominantly traded for US dollars. However, after the crash of 2013, miners consolidated in China and Bitcoin mostly traded for Chinese yuan[1]. At the start of 2017, regulators in China cracked down on digital currency exchanges[2] and trading quickly move…

You know you're citing articles that are almost a year old?

Please also provide evidence that "all of the early buyers are selling".

Re: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax

#150

Post by alistproducer2 »

scottnyc wrote: post #118
rudiger wrote: post #101

At its core, the current cryptocurrency craze is simply an unprecedented wealth transfer to China from the rest of the world. Until the end of 2013, Bitcoin was predominantly traded for US dollars. However, after the crash of 2013, miners consolidated in China and Bitcoin mostly traded for Chinese yuan[1]. At the start of 2017, regulators in China cracked down on digital currency exchanges[2] and trading quickly move…

I agree that this might be a wealth transfer to China. Bitcoin inherently does not hold any value, it is a ledger. When someone buys bitcoin, someone else sells it and takes the cash out of the system. Right now, a lot of mining is still taking place in China since energy is cheap. These miners sell their coins outside of China and bring cash back into the mainland to pay for the energy and hardware used for mining.…

That's an interesting statement. I've never thought of it that way. In essence, Chinese miners are exporting subsidized Chinese energy (via mined coins) for foreign currencies. Sounds very much the M.O of Chinese trade practices (not meant to be overly negative, I'm just saying).
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