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0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 12h \ parent \ on: Living On Bitcoin bitcoin
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.
The governments around the world will be forced, one way or another to have an "open arms" policy towards Bitcoin. Unless it wants to be stuck behind, HFSP.
At the end of the day, people want change, change will come. Never stop mining for that diamond my friend.
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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.
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I acknowledge the obstacles and have an appreciation of conversation. Please don't take this as me dismissing you as FUD. Like I've said in other replys, I know I may not change your opinion, and vice versa, mine won't change. However, what would need to happen for you to feel more optimistic?
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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.
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I see the obstacles, which makes me feel the burdens of tax and regulatory issues. Trust me, I know the power of the big man. Its not a joke.
If tax laws were simplified (say, small payments under a certain threshold were exempt), would that meaningfully change your outlook? Or do you think it runs deeper than just taxes?
I enjoy the journey, if it means I have to log each transaction, so be it. I understand that I am very different than the rest of the world. Using fiat is easy and 99% of the world likes to take the easy route.
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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.