Bitcoin discussion and news

[StakerOne]

Do you want it to happen?

Yes. It's much more fairer. If it's all on the blockchain, we can cook up new ways to tax the rich in a democrartic way, without harming their underlying businesses, their employees and shareholders.

The alternative is CBDCs and as night follows day, the plebs won't get a say in that, but the rich will.

 

[BigTom]

That's a psycological thing. My probem would be that I have no way of knowing whether HMRC knows about all of my wallets. So at the very least, I would at least declare what I genuinely believe I owe them.
REMEMBER - HMRC uses blockchain intelligence firms who may have enough data to show what wallets I really own. It's not wise to commit any kind fraud or crime using blockchain tech because you are leaving an immutable evidence trail.
Anyone who deals with blockchains will eventually have to pay their taxes one way or the other - it's all out in the open.

not if you use xmr or another privacy coin

 

[kabbes]

Please. It's commonly accepted that tax inspectors around the world take most peoples tax returns on trust. You don't need to be an expert in anything to know that.

I'm an IT man. Computers make complicated things easy. If they can't do it today for a particular use, they will eventually.

OK, so you’re making confident pronouncements about things you admit that you find complicated. Despite your lack of understanding about these things, you nevertheless feel qualified to lecture the rest of us about how the thing you don’t understand can be fixed. Got you.

 

[BigTom]

Yes. It's much more fairer. If it's all on the blockchain, we can cook up new ways to tax the rich in a democrartic way, without harming their underlying businesses, their employees and shareholders.

The alternative is CBDCs and as night follows day, the plebs won't get a say in that, but the rich will.

fairer than what? the current system or CBDCs?

Because what you are saying is just the same as the what you don't seem to like about CBDCs.
In your system HMRC - the government - set the smart contract which you have to accept and they will simply take the taxes they think you owe.
In a CBDC system the government can do... exactly the same.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

That's a psycological thing. My probem would be that I have no way of knowing whether HMRC knows about all of my wallets. So at the very least, I would at least declare what I genuinely believe I owe them.
REMEMBER - HMRC uses blockchain intelligence firms who may have enough data to show what wallets I really own. It's not wise to commit any kind fraud or crime using blockchain tech because you are leaving an immutable evidence trail.
Anyone who deals with blockchains will eventually have to pay their taxes one way or the other - it's all out in the open.

So how I meant to buy drugs now?

 

[kabbes]

If tax could be encoded into some straightforward algorithms, this would already have been done. You don’t need a blockchain to create an algorithm. The problem is that in very messy real life, finances themselves are very messy and laws are intentionally written to be ambiguous, because this allows politicians to reinterpret them as they see fit.

 

[BigTom]

So how I meant to buy drugs now?

No space for doing things the state doesn't like in the blockchain surveillance society

 

[BigTom]

If tax could be encoded into some straightforward algorithms, this would already have been done. You don’t need a blockchain to create an algorithm. The problem is that in very messy real life, finances themselves are very messy and laws are intentionally written to be ambiguous, because this allows politicians to reinterpret them as they see fit.

*The wealthy elite of the world

 

[StakerOne]

If tax could be encoded into some straightforward algorithms, this would already have been done. You don’t need a blockchain to create an algorithm. The problem is that in very messy real life, finances themselves are very messy and laws are intentionally written to be ambiguous, because this allows politicians to reinterpret them as they see fit.

There's no way currently to get the data ... is spread out all over the place in many different standards and guises ... which is the reason accounting software existis.

When ALL transactions are blockchain based, very few problems have to solved in order for HMRC to generate software that would be able to work out the taxes that everyone owes. If they found issues, they could possibly change some tax rules / laws in order for it to work, that would be no big deal, considering how much easier it would be for everyone.

 

[StakerOne]

So how I meant to buy drugs now?

They'll be legal in my cryptopia!

 

[magneze]

So how I meant to buy drugs now?

Have you heard of PoundCoin? Gonna take off like a rocket. Get in quick. Private, secure. Physical, if you can believe that.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

There's no way currently to get the data ... is spread out all over the place in many different standards and guises ... which is the reason accounting software existis.

When ALL transactions are blockchain based, very few problems have to solved in order for HMRC to generate software that would be able to work out the taxes that everyone owes. If they found issues, they could possibly change some tax rules / laws in order for it to work, that would be no big deal, considering how much easier it would be for everyone.

I'm deeply confused, although I don't contribute much to this thread.

I don't really have much to hide and almost all my transactions are digital. But are you really arguing for a state that can see every transaction that's made? And yet have issues with the Chinese government?

 

[StakerOne]

fairer than what? the current system or CBDCs?

Because what you are saying is just the same as the what you don't seem to like about CBDCs.
In your system HMRC - the government - set the smart contract which you have to accept and they will simply take the taxes they think you owe.
In a CBDC system the government can do... exactly the same.

No they can't they do a whole lot more. With CBDCs, they can help themselves to the money, they can't do that with crypto.

With crypto you don't have to pay as long as you can accept the consequences.

 

[Storm Fox]

No space for doing things the state doesn't like in the blockchain surveillance society

So these last few pages have gone round and round and either tax is voluntary or government-controlled.
If it's gov controlled then the population is fucked and at the whim of whatever the govt puts into its smart contracts.

If not then tax is voluntary and the population is fucked by a libertarian nightmare. These things have never worked. See lots of examples of libertarian towns that have failed.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

They'll be legal in my cryptopia!

Yes but you don't get to write the rules.

I used to agree, but after seeing what mephedrone was like I'm a bit uncertain.

 

[NoXion]

Certaintly not the government. The government knows best and if they manage to get us all on CBDCs you'll can go and do one, the government will take what it wants and to hell what you think, they've got climate change, food rationing and an economy to run! Who needs an army of people complaing about taxes? The government has better things to do!

If I enter into a smart contract (or two) that was specifically designed to screw me, and I can't tell that because I don't have the technical expertise to pick it up, then where do I turn for redress? Who do I report the fraud to, who investigates it, who brings those responsible to court so that I might have some kind of remedy for their malfeasance? Without government, little guys like me would be shit out of luck, because one guy on a prole's wages can't afford a massive team of hot-shot lawyers and/or their own team of private security/paid thugs. I might be able to enlist a friend's help and get the other guy's knees broken if he's an ordinary schlub like me, but even that relies on me knowing where the hell the guy lives. Since all this crypto shit can be done online, the guy who scammed me could be on the other side of the planet.

Indeed, so far this has exactly been the Wild West scenario at play in the crypto space, and what do we see? All manner of scams and rugpulls, including repeat offenders, the heavy use of crypto by fraudsters (1 in 4 reported dollars lost, Jesus Christ), and it goes on. The authorities have recently started taking an interest, so I guess if the government wants to lay the law down, then they don't need CBDCs or whatever. I would have thought that it should be obvious, since they already have shit like police and armies and nuclear weapons. They've already got the power, and nothing about crypto truly challenges that.

 

[StakerOne]

So these last few pages have gone round and round and either tax is voluntary or government-controlled.
If it's gov controlled then the population is fucked and at the whim of whatever the govt puts into its smart contracts.

If not then tax is voluntary and the population is fucked by a libertarian nightmare. These things have never worked. See lots of examples of libertarian towns that have failed.

Congratulations. You've ignored all the nuances. That's why we're going around and around in circles.

1. With crypto the govenment has more intelligence on your financial goins on, therefore are better placed to calculate what you owe in taxes. If you fall out big time, the government will never be able to confiscate your crypto if you store it right.
2. With what we have now, the government has less intelligence, but if they really fall out with you, they can always seize your funds from the bank.
3. With CBDCs, it's fuck you, we're the government, we'll take what we want and if you don't like we'll ruin your life pretty quickly considering we control every aspect of it.

Does that clear it up?

 

[StakerOne]

Yes but you don't get to write the rules.

I used to agree, but after seeing what mephedrone was like I'm a bit uncertain.

No but all of us will be more poweful as a collective, not the lobbyists.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

No but all of us will be more poweful as a collective, not the lobbyists.

The vast majority of the population rightly or wrongly don't want to see drugs legal.

And I'm not sure how changing how we pay for stuff changes the power dynamic.

If anything tech has just shown us that elites can manipulate people more easily. And if you dont think this is true you don't spend enough time looking at people.

 

[BigTom]

Congratulations. You've ignored all the nuances. That's why we're going around and around in circles.

1. With crypto the govenment has more intelligence on your financial goins on, therefore are better placed to calculate what you owe in taxes. If you fall out big time, the government will never be able to confiscate your crypto if you store it right.
2. With what we have now, the government has less intelligence, but if they really fall out with you, they can always seize your funds from the bank.
3. With CBDCs, it's fuck you, we're the government, we'll take what we want and if you don't like we'll ruin your life pretty quickly considering we control every aspect of it.

Does that clear it up?

1) they will just physically lock you up if you refuse to hand it over. That's going to fuck your life up just as badly as 3.
Plus look at what the FBI are trying to do with tornado cash right now. They can block you from spending that money by requiring merchants refuse payments from your wallets. Those merchants will accept the request because to refuse would mean no longer being able to do business in the country whose government they are dealing with.
So yeah they can't "confiscate" your crypto, but they can sure as hell stop you from being able to do anything useful with it, and they can lock you up if they choose to do so.

Or you can obfuscate what you own in which case they don't have more intelligence than they do in 2.

 

[BigTom]

The vast majority of the population rightly or wrongly don't want to see drugs legal.

And I'm not sure how changing how we pay for stuff changes the power dynamic.

If anything tech has just shown us that elites can manipulate people more easily. And if you dont think this is true you don't spend enough time looking at people.

No need for people in the cryptopian future! It's a completely automated trustless humanless system! You don't deal with HMRC anymore remember, no more people needed, because computers understand complex tasks and can do them easily... no matter what that task is apparently.

 

[kabbes]

There's no way currently to get the data ... is spread out all over the place in many different standards and guises ... which is the reason accounting software existis.

When ALL transactions are blockchain based, very few problems have to solved in order for HMRC to generate software that would be able to work out the taxes that everyone owes. If they found issues, they could possibly change some tax rules / laws in order for it to work, that would be no big deal, considering how much easier it would be for everyone.

Oh, so now you’re suddenly an expert in tax after all?

Tell me about the tax treatment of, oh, let’s say a multinational reinsurance treaty?

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

No need for people in the cryptopian future! It's a completely automated trustless humanless system! You don't deal with HMRC anymore remember, no more people needed, because computers understand complex tasks and can do them easily... no matter what that task is apparently.

.

computers understand complex tasks and can do them easily, what tey lack is the desire.And his is where humans come in. Humans are desiring creatures.

Humans input their desire into the blockchain by signaling through the purchase of tokens. Tokens which are representation of value, not in the spot money price, but in the potential price baked into the values of that protocol.We, collectively as humanity, need to have better desires...less desire for crap immediate individual pleasures, and more desire for long term collective investments, like clean air and rich forests.

One day the machines will desire too, and we better hope we taught them well.

crypto incentivises long term collective thinking rather than the narrow function of spot price. Those who chase spot prices get rekt, those that stay with the vision get rewarded. Bitcoin/crypto is a revolution dressed up as a get rich quick scheme. Its a revolution that funds itself, it doesnt need donors, or sponsors or advertisers.

 

[Smangus]

Please. It's commonly accepted that tax inspectors around the world take most peoples tax returns on trust. You don't need to be an expert in anything to know that.

I'm an IT man. Computers make complicated things easy. If they can't do it today for a particular use, they will eventually.

Remarkably niave precis on how tax systems "around the world" operate and what risking systems are in place to assess potential (Non) compliance for any individual tax/duty etc. Let alone the myriad of different taxes, rates, allowances etc they need to be able to assure.

 

[StakerOne]

I'm deeply confused, although I don't contribute much to this thread.

I don't really have much to hide and almost all my transactions are digital. But are you really arguing for a state that can see every transaction that's made? And yet have issues with the Chinese government?

At the moment the state can already see just about every transaction made on most blockchains.

I predict that ONLY when public blockchains are used by everyone (directly or indirectly) will the issue of privacy be solved implemented, because then both sides can have their cake and eat it. The government would get their taxes with meaningful stats that they can use WITHOUT compromising people's privacy.

How would it work?

When you actually pay your taxes, believe it or not, HMRC doesn't get to see the payload of your private transactions as it's actually your own PC (or even mobile phone) that is executing the code. It's not possible to cheat because if it's not run from the HMRC website, your code would be missing secrets that the HMRC website passed onto your web browser.

The HMRC smart contract would only get the data it needs - encrypted. So your tax payment is right there on the blockchain, but only HMRC and yourself would be able to decrypt it.

This just one reason of many why Web3, blockchains mixed in with a load more cryptography are so powerful, everyone gets what they want, you get your privacy, but in a way that we all know is transparant and fair as we are all playing by the same rules - it's all there in the code.

 

[StakerOne]

Remarkably niave precis on how tax systems "around the world" operate and what risking systems are in place to assess potential (Non) compliance for any individual tax/duty etc. Let alone the myriad of different taxes, rates, allowances etc they need to be able to assure.

So what if different durastictions use risk analysis software as a tool to establish whether someone warrents investigation?

The myriad of different taxes, rates and allowances aren't written down on a piece of paper or stored in the memory of a pack of tax inspectors, they are sat on computers.

EVM based blockchains are a standard that everyone in the smart contract / crypto-currency business are gravitating around.

My prediction is that eventually all money, all currencies will wind up on those types of blocchains that are interconnected with bridges.

Govenment's will adapt their taxation and taxation collection strategies around that .. so if they find problems that has the potentional to be a showstopper, probably a number of tax rules that involve millions rather than billions, they'll step back, scrap those taxes and introduce some new ones they know will be easier tax on chain.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

At the moment the state can already see just about every transaction made on most blockchains.

I predict that ONLY when public blockchains are used by everyone (directly or indirectly) will the issue of privacy be solved implemented, because then both sides can have their cake and eat it. The government would get their taxes with meaningful stats that they can use WITHOUT compromising people's privacy.

How would it work?

When you actually pay your taxes, believe it or not, HMRC doesn't get to see the payload of your private transactions as it's actually your own PC (or even mobile phone) that is executing the code. It's not possible to cheat because if it's not run from the HMRC website, your code would be missing secrets that the HMRC website passed onto your web browser.

The HMRC smart contract would only get the data it needs - encrypted. So your tax payment is right there on the blockchain, but only HMRC and yourself would be able to decrypt it.

This just one reason of many why Web3, blockchains mixed in with a load more cryptography are so powerful, everyone gets what they want, you get your privacy, but in a way that we all know is transparant and fair as we are all playing by the same rules - it's all there in the code.

'it's all there in the code'

There's a theme to this, isn't there?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No space for doing things the state doesn't like in the blockchain surveillance society

I'm moving to China for some freedom if this shit goes down here.

 

[StakerOne]

1) they will just physically lock you up if you refuse to hand it over.

Today, in isolation, if you did that right now, after you've withdrawn the money from your bank account, yes they would lock you up.

My point is in the context of a government that tries to take the piss with everyone by trying to tax us all unreasonably. If millions of us did that (And it would be legal, I'm no expert in common law or taxation law), there is definately a law that allows citizens to declare that the goverment is being unjust and that payment of taxes are being witheld. BUT you are expected to eventually pay such taxes.

It comes back to what I call the government's cost to persecute an individual.

1. It costs a lot of money to arrest someone, try them and chuck them in prison - which is the only option if the money is hidden.
2. It costs some time and money to seize someone's bank account.
3. It will cost them peanuts to seize CBDCs potentially without much oversight or recourse.

I'd live with scenario 1.

Plus look at what the FBI are trying to do with tornado cash right now. They can block you from spending that money by requiring merchants refuse payments from your wallets. Those merchants will accept the request because to refuse would mean no longer being able to do business in the country whose government they are dealing with.
So yeah they can't "confiscate" your crypto, but they can sure as hell stop you from being able to do anything useful with it, and they can lock you up if they choose to do so.

The situation around Tornado Cash concerns criminality in the form of state sponsered hack attacks from hostile states such as North Korea who have used the service to frustrate the authorities in their quest to hunt down the money.

That is a wildly different scenario than people not paying their taxes. They see the former as a national security issue.

The FBI has blacklisted wallets that used by the actual Tornado Cash project NOT the wallets of people who have used Tornado Cash.

They aren't threatening to blacklist the wallets of people who use Tornado Cash in such a way, that other people aren't to do business with them.

It's simple. If you are a US citizen and you use Tornado Cash, you may be prosecuted. There has been NO threat to blacklist the wallets of those that don't comply, HOWEVER, as night follows day, you can bet that no centralised exchange that has operations in the US, will do business with anyone who uses Tornado cash from yesterday onwards.

People have no practical way of checking which governments around the world have blacklisted what wallets, however, if my own government says "You all need to stop using Tornado Cash or else." - then of course, it's easy for me to follow that dictate.

How would the US government blacklist millions of wallets of people that it's pissed off with and seriously expect everyone around the world to comply? That's not going to happen. The US govt would never try and pull that kind of a stunt because they know that citizens around the world would see them as the problem, not Korean hackers.

On the other end of it, if Tornado Cash has any sense, they'll be blocking US IP addresses from their websites.

By the by, the FBI wouldn't have bothered going after Tornado Cash if it was properly decentralised. Many say that they aren't.

 

[StakerOne]

'it's all there in the code'

There's a theme to this, isn't there?

Yup.

Find out if you can buy insurance on case the smart contract goes wrong.

If insurance hasn't been offered, then it's because either there isn't sufficient demand OR because the code hasn't been audited by a credible auditor - avoid.

You may be able to get insurance against a smart contract that hasn't been audited, but it would be pretty clear that it hasn't been audited - again avoid.

Of course, all of that is different than bad tokenomics as when USDT blew up. In that instance, it's just normal common sense investor 101 rules that should be used - diversify, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

* Disclaimer - This is not fiancial financial advice.