Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

azleg.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 111 posts

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#71

Post by ceejayoz »

posterboy wrote: post #70
ceejayoz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Still though, the Dollar isn't listed there as a tender that the state can utilize. That clause does not forbid the Federal government from making other things legal tender, only the states. The Federal government made paper dollars legal tender via the Legal Tender Act of 1862. (They could make blueberries legal tender, if they wanted, but Arizona cannot .) > I don't think "make legal tender" means "create" but ra…

> No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender ). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government. Yeah, that's what they said. Everyone in Arizona is Arizona. It's called metonymy.

Arizona, the state, may choose to accept Bitcoin, for things like fines, state taxes, etc.

Arizona, the state, may not choose to require Arizonans to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. That power is reserved for the Federal government.

The bill attempts the latter, and is flatly unconstitutional.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#72

Post by spywaregorilla »

henryfjordan wrote: post #46
nightski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? From my understanding as long as the restaurant is up front about what types of payment are accepted prior to the transaction they do not need to accept all forms of legal tender. But I am not a lawyer. From Investopedia: "Creditors are required to accept them as payment offered to discharge a debt; however, except where prohibited by state law, private businesses may refuse to accept some or all forms…

If you order at the counter and pay before eating, a restaurant can deny cash. If you sit down and eat all the food, then they bring you the check, they must accept cash (because now you owe a "debt").

But if the restaurant states that they don't accept cash, then you agreed to those terms.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#73

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

posterboy wrote: post #41
bdonlan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government is what makes USD legal tender, and this clause does not restrict the federal government. Standing would presumably be with the party which refused bitcoin payment in satisfaction of a debt.

This only means it would be pegged to the gold standard set by the FED, I reckon. Edit: I'm serious. I'm not saying that's a realistic option.

If you want to be serious; please provide a serious basis for your commentary rather than just making things up.

For example: there is no gold standard set by the Federal Reserve, nor any conceptual relevance of gold to the value of the dollar, since the 1970s.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#74

Post by defgeneric »

ForHackernews wrote: post #17
slimsag wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleting, I shouldn't talk about politics from an N=1 sample size]

Not so sure Salvadoran immigrants would be keen on bitcoin... https://futurism.com/el-salvador-bitcoin-economy > A Central American University survey conducted last September found that nine out of 10 citizens in the country didn’t know what bitcoin was, and eight out of 10 said they had little to no confidence in the digital cash.

The English-speaking media is way behind on the general sentiment regarding Bitcoin in El Salvador.

Most Salvadorans I know are enthusiastic about Bitcoin. Any opposition fizzled once those who had no experience or were confused by it saw no change to their daily lives when it became available.

The politics of El Salvador have changed pretty drastically in the past few years with the election of Nayib Bukele and the subsequent dominance of his Nuevas Ideas party in the assembly. The traditional left (FMLN) and right (ARENA) parties were completely voted out.

My guess is that Bukele's plan with Bitcoin is more political--he's inviting a new class of crypto-rich that he can play off against the influence of what remains of "las catorce familias," i.e. the remains of the entrenched oligarchy that allied itself with the neoliberals. From the point of view of political economy, the adoption of Bitcoin is a smart move in the current situation, where the USD only benefits the old power structures that control imports and services, and where a move back to the colón is no longer feasible after the decimation of the export agro-economy (coffee, sugar, corn).

An analogy I hear often from Salvadorans is that El Salvador could become a Latin American Singapore, with Nayib Bukele as a kind of Lee Kuan Yew.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#75

Post by posterboy »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #66
MadcapJake wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still though, the Dollar isn't listed there as a tender that the state can utilize. I don't think "make legal tender" means "create" but rather "accept as".

I think you're confused. This part of the Constitution limits what states can do. It doesn't limit what the U.S. Congress can do, and the U.S. Congress has passed a law that makes U.S. coins and currency legal tender at what is currently 31 U.S. Code § 5103. Federal law takes precedence over state law, and therefore it is the U.S. government that has decided, on Arizona's behalf, what constitutes legal tender. The sa…

This is stretching the definition of what "to make legal something" means, because ... [1]

It should be "to make something legal" or it requires "legal tender" to be something lexical and precisely not a sum of its parts, in which case they are not making the thing, they are just giving it a new name, which is not new at all and it is loaded with connotation that invites equating the denotated items to a group.

Thus the problem rests on what legal tender really is. Should it be a sum of parts in origin, states have all the right to interpret what's legal. The way it's written it is nearly useless and there isn't really any precedent either unless to show that the meaning, not the word, has changed.

Blueberries, as are implied by a sibling comment, are not comparable, because, I suppose, they are perrishable. So that's only an argumentum ad absurdum.

Or in other words, you can't make a number illegal.

[1] one could quibble about flat adverbs

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#76

Post by posterboy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #71
posterboy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. To make it legal tender means requiring acceptance of that item as payment for a monetary debt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender ). It would impact everyone in Arizona, not just the state government. Yeah, that's what they said. Everyone in Arizona is Arizona. It's called metonymy.

Arizona, the state , may choose to accept Bitcoin, for things like fines, state taxes, etc. Arizona, the state , may not choose to require Arizonans to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. That power is reserved for the Federal government. The bill attempts the latter, and is flatly unconstitutional.

Another comment argued with sources that this is not entailed, because businesses can choose to decline electronic cash already.

I have heared that Disneyland is crazy like that and EC is virtually ubiquitious, but that's not the norm. Conversely, you don't expect to pay with a 500 everywhere (if you have that, EU phased it out recently)

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#77

Post by posterboy »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #73
posterboy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only means it would be pegged to the gold standard set by the FED, I reckon. Edit: I'm serious. I'm not saying that's a realistic option.

If you want to be serious; please provide a serious basis for your commentary rather than just making things up. For example: there is no gold standard set by the Federal Reserve, nor any conceptual relevance of gold to the value of the dollar, since the 1970s.

Then the entire clause would be meaningless. I should have said pegged to the US$, but I thought that was obviously implied.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#78

Post by posterboy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #59
posterboy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, they'd have to print it in gold. Still an option at the worth of it currently.

No, that wouldn't work. The gold printout would be worth its weight in gold, not the value in Bitcoin of the data printed on it. If you used $1 worth of gold to print one BTC worth $40k, the recipient would only be legally required to count it as $1 towards your debt.

Who says that? This thread seems to be full of arm chair lawyers as another comment just told me that there is no gold standard since 1970.

Whatever, the thing I want to buy with the particular coin would immediately reduce 40.000 fold in price. That might be illegal in some sense, if contracts are bound to stay valid across fluctuation, but that's basically how markets work.

In the end it's all numbers on paper anyway, so I don't see the immediate implication, except that a state is supposed not to go on a lone run.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#79

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

posterboy wrote: post #75
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confused. This part of the Constitution limits what states can do. It doesn't limit what the U.S. Congress can do, and the U.S. Congress has passed a law that makes U.S. coins and currency legal tender at what is currently 31 U.S. Code § 5103. Federal law takes precedence over state law, and therefore it is the U.S. government that has decided, on Arizona's behalf, what constitutes legal tender. The sa…

This is stretching the definition of what "to make legal something" means, because ... [1] It should be "to make something legal" or it requires "legal tender" to be something lexical and precisely not a sum of its parts, in which case they are not making the thing, they are just giving it a new name, which is not new at all and it is loaded with connotation that invites equating the denotated items to a group. Thus…

No-one is talking "making legal [something]".

The compound noun "legal tender" is a legal term of art that refers to forms of payment that must be accepted in the settlement of a debt. When we say "the law would make Bitcoin legal tender in Arizona", we mean "the law would require that Bitcoin be accepted for the settlements of debt within Arizona's jurisdiction".

There is no sensible alternate reading nor lexical nor linguistic ambiguity here.

Re: Arizona Introduces a bill to make Bitcoin Legal Tender [pdf]

#80

Post by warkdarrior »

posterboy wrote: post #75
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confused. This part of the Constitution limits what states can do. It doesn't limit what the U.S. Congress can do, and the U.S. Congress has passed a law that makes U.S. coins and currency legal tender at what is currently 31 U.S. Code § 5103. Federal law takes precedence over state law, and therefore it is the U.S. government that has decided, on Arizona's behalf, what constitutes legal tender. The sa…

This is stretching the definition of what "to make legal something" means, because ... [1] It should be "to make something legal" or it requires "legal tender" to be something lexical and precisely not a sum of its parts, in which case they are not making the thing, they are just giving it a new name, which is not new at all and it is loaded with connotation that invites equating the denotated items to a group. Thus…

USD banknotes and coins are also perishable in the sense that they do not last forever. The only difference in that sense between banknotes and blueberries is the magnitude of their lifetime (coins and banknotes last decades, blueberries last weeks). I doubt perishability is the legality of making something legal tender.
Post reply on HN