Yes if tax requirements were removed from small payments that would be a huge thing. Hard to see how it will happen thoughif mostly even the BTC community does not acknowledge the need for change.

On a more positive note I have heard in some places (I think Germany and maybe Portugal) if you have held BTC for a year or more then it is subsequently not liable to CGT...so can be used for small (or large) purchases free of capital gains tax reporting obligations- although I am not sure of the accuracy/detail around this.

Only a very small minority of people are going to be prepared to log every payment transaction (I am not and so adopt civil disobedience in the face of a law I see as inherently unjust) and so mass adoption is prevented as long as these tax requirements remain in place. So few people can see that this obstruction of BTC MoE has and will continue to prevent most consumers from adopting and therefore prevent most retailers from accepting.

If people like you who honestly want greater BTC MoE adoption acknowledged the very real obstacles that have been put in the way of MoE adoption.

So often Bitcoiners naturally want adoption but ignore the cleverness and sly nature of it being broadly designated as a speculative asset which requires anyone holding it to record every transaction, the BTC/fiat price at the time of the transaction and then calculate the sum of tax due upon each and every transaction where BTC is spent. Such a massive burden does not fall upon anyone using fiat money, but it does upon anyone in the roughly 30% of the worlds population where Bitcoin MoE use is even nominally lawful.

BTW I hope as you do that MoE adoption can happen, I am just a lot less sure it will- because most people have no idea of what is at stake and those who may be aware do not want to acknowledge the power and determination of the banks and governments who want to prevent it...and their near complete success so far in preventing it.

This sort of absolutist hopium is I feel naive. Most people have already bought the FUD and do not want to have anything to do with Bitcoin. The few that do are mostly preoccupied with NGU hopium and disregard the true revolutionary intent and content of a P2P payments protocol- they have never used LN (and where can they use it if they had it anyway?!) or even a wallet- they buy ETFs and never hold the keys, giving the power, custody and control the the bankers who operate the ETFs. The sly but very effective obstruction of Bitcoin MoE utility is so nearly universal it is hard to see it being overcome. Perhaps if some jurisdiction where it is allowed experiences significant economic advantage it might happen, but the IMF and other fiat gangster fronts will do everything in their power to stop it, as they have done to El Salvador. I have tried, and failed to encourage several of my favourite merchants to accept Bitcoin (a burger bar and a coffee bean seller) but neither appears keen. The obstacles are in most cases too great and the rewards to slim, and given the momentum of the 'speculative commodity' narrative and the obstruction of MoE utility, I see limited hope of any change...just more gradual restriction of MoE utility...they don't need to outright ban it if they can continue to achieve what they have done already...which is near complete sly, obstruction.

He definitely reminds me several friends who rebelled against the establishment but who also paid a price in terms of health and over time became embattled and debilitated by the struggle that a stand against 'the system' can take. In some cases I have lost those friends due to disagreements but it is a significant achievement that you could remain friends with him despite your political differences. This is what I enjoy about SNs - there is a range of viewpoints and we mostly can air them and share them and keep an open mind - as the truth is something none of us has a monopoly on - our views are all formed from so many origins and life experiences.

I hope you are right- there is a Bitcoin business (lightningpay.nz) set up here in New Zealand the last year or so who are actively trying to encourage and enable businesses to accept Bitcoin and they are based in Queenstown which is an international destination well suited to something like this but I have my doubts about how much Bitcoin merchant adoption governments and banks will allow before they outright close it down.

They have already made it extremely difficult for anyone to conveniently use Bitcoin for everyday purchases by imposing absurd tax recording and payment obligations- this will discourage most people from using Bitcoin as a payment option even if us few maxis are prepared to break tax laws in order to spend and zap.

Too many Bitcoin dismiss the obstructive potency of how Bitcoin has been framed by bankers and governments as a speculative commodity...thus preventing any substantial MoE adoption, while greatly increasing the ratio of the protocol held under the custody of corporate bankers via ETFs and as Treasuries.

I do not think it is a challenge that will be easy to overcome but definitely support anyone trying to increase adoption because if this challenge is not overcome Bitcoin will end up as a speculative commodity plaything.

I find myself agreeing with your friend on a lot of things. The waste of our consumer society is appalling. I try to respond to it by living a life of voluntary poverty which is a lot more fun and much easier than it sounds...and I think maybe also has Catholic origins. Governments cannot be trusted- and I tend to lean toward progressive politics but hate the woke stuff and agree with your friend gay marriage is a nonsense- marriage can only be between a man and woman. As for the medical establishment they are not to be trusted in most things- how you live and what you eat is more important than what doctors can do, in most cases. It is hard for me to understand why he did not get Bitcoin though- so many people otherwise critical of the powers that be seem blind to the power and abuse of power the banks wield over our lives and politics...and the churches until not so long ago warned and prohibited against usury- now they are largely silent on how bankers have taken over our governments, msm and the narrative. May your friend rest in peace - your account of his life and death is a powerful testament to a man who thought for himself and worked, loved and lived his life as much as he could, on his terms. Although sad in some ways (for those who knew and loved him) how he refused medical care, he did this (dying) too on his terms as is his right. Too few people live and die on their principles. Bravo to those few who do. Thanks for honestly sharing your memories and experiences ...death can be a taboo, but is where we are all headed and talking about it often puts things into perspective.

If they cannot be bothered to learn, leave your stack access to someone who does.

Of my entire family and social network only three people are Bitcoiners (one who first told me about Bitcoin) ... it is depressing how few people understand its importance to freedom- are we in the west too complacent? I believe many are.

The banks have such a hold on the narrative and political process that the majority of people do not see they are being farmed.

How many governments have allowed Bitcoin to be used as a convenient MoE? El Salvador and a few areas in Switzerland and very few others. The 'liberal democracies' of the west still almost all impose absurdly onerous transaction recording and tax payment obligations on anyone who chooses to use BTC as a MoE- only the very few (like us here at SN) use BTC as a daily MoE and most if not all of us are technically in breach of the laws of our 'liberal democratic' governments because who the fuck records every zap and pays the tax due? The wests obstruction of Bitcoin MoE use is more subtle and sly but equally effective at preventing large scale use of Bitcoin as a payment as the authoritarians who outright ban it.

Western 'liberal democracies' like to thimnk they are liberal and free but when it comes to monetary power their governments are owned by the banks, probably more so than in more 'authoritarian' governments where the banks are sometimes more subservient to the political class than in the west.

Anyone who thinks Bitcoin use as a MoE is allowed in the west is ignoring that fact that lawful Bitcoin MoE use in the west is effectively impractical and this obstruction is rendered because Bitcoin is designated a taxable commodity, so anyone using it as a MoE must record every transaction and calulate tax due upon every transaction - WHO THE FUCK is going to do that? Answer more or less NOBODY!

Does anyone here on SN record every zap and pay the tax due? I suggest nobody does. Ordinary citizens are not going to adopt Bitcoin as a MoE because they do not wish to break the law and there is almost nowhere to spend it even if they wanted to. Bitcoin has been effectively obstructed from MoE use, except for the small minority of us who believe in it enough to break the law every single time we use it as a MoE.

70% of humanity live under governments deemed authoritarian. None of those authoritarian governments allow Bitcoin to be used as a lawful MoE. In most of the other 30% of the world, the so called libneral western democracies, using Bitcoin as a lawful MoE is made impractical due to tax laws that make it extremely onerous to use Bitcoin lawfully as a MoE. Nearly all governments are very reluctant to release their hold over people by allowing Bitcoin MoE to become widespread- I would argue there is absolutely no guarantee that Bitcoin will ever become lawful and easy to use in most countries unless we all genuinely and determinedly, fight for it. Otherwise it will be completely captured and controlled as a KYCed, taxed speculative commodity held exclusively by institutions and governments.

The ratio of the protocol held by private individuals is rapidly and constantly falling already...and by far most still held privately is held with the primary intent and purpose of speculative gain because MoE use has been so successfully and slyly obstructed (if not outright banned) by almost all governments.

Biggest problem here in New Zealand is so few merchants accepting Bitcoin for payment.

How is it self defeating?

Without the security and economic framework provision of the nation state most people would be shivering quivering wrecks...only fucking retards don't understand this!!! The forks were fun - and then they stopped. Anyone with 10,000 btc + 10,000 bch is not a complete retard...surely?

Most people are sheep and prefer the safe pastures of state governance than the wilds of anarchy.

Don't ETFs have tax advantages? Selling large sums of Bitcoin off the radar is not always easy. Stackers wanting KYC free BTC need to deal directly with OG whales to prevent this!

When I first heard of it in 2017 I was excited as for many years before then (at least since 'Occupy') I had felt the fiat banks have gained too much power and misused fiat powers by using fiat debt issuance to inflate non productive asset prices. Making the first Bitcoin transfer was mind blowing. It was an exciting time and initially I experimented with other 'crypto' but soon realised they were all DINO, thanks the The Bitcoin Standards excellent explaination of the dynamic of Bitcoin and money in general. Bitcoin is now Occupying Wall st. Fuck the banks.

China has won the trade war. How many western manufacturers have to go to China and show China how to build the product and then lose the global market to China? China used Tesla and Musk to show them how to build EVs and now China leads the world in EV production by using the Chinese parts suppliers Tesla contracted and gave the blueprints to. They just never learn. The west is fucked as it cannot compete with Chinas highly organised and determined mercantilism. The west has no cohesive overall strategy. China has beat the west at its own game. Chinas mixed economy led byb a poliburo composed mostly of engineers beats the wests crony capitalism run by bankers, real estate age, rentseeking corporate lobbyists and lawyers. China told Trump to get fucked with his tariffs because USA needs China just as much as China needs USA. The world is watching. US financialisation of everything has decimated the wests economic dominance and opened the door to China to be the new economic super power.

I do agree there is a strong case for Bitcoin being superior in terms of the way the individual is treated and there is definitely a case where the modern nation state (and probably less modern nations states as well) have abused fiat monetary powers. My own position is simple and does not require a book to explain... since neoliberalism of the 1980s deregulated banking allowing bankers to issue new money toward finance of any purpose whether productive or not, our fiat monetary system has become dysfunctional and has directed huge sums of capital/debt fiat monetary issuance toward non productive speculative asset price pumping which dose not compensate most participants in the host economy with any increase in overall wealth production and prosperity. It is in protest of this misuse of fiat money that I hold Bitcoin and partially escape the rentseeking neoliberal banksters fiat debt slavery while being part of building an alternative. Fuck the banksters and their politician puppets.

Isn't using a third party to insure and provide custodial solutions anathema to the whole point of Bitcoin?

I hold Bitcoin because I can hold it without any reliance upon third party rentseekers.

'he says that a money is immoral if a small group of people can control it for their own benefit at the expense of others. Who would disagree with that?'

It can be argued that fiat money by effectively giving the government and bankers the ability to debase the savings of all citizens also gives the government the power and leverage to defend the nation against adversaries.

It can also be argued that by giving banks the power to issue fiat funding to productive investment proposals the entire wider economy can benefit from this investment as it spurs jobs and wealth creation by creating an effectively limitless source of capital funding for potentially productive investment proposals.

What Bitcoiners often fail to recognise is the significant role the nation state and its government play in the wealth and security of a nation and its people.