So I had a friend senior to me who works in a shipping and logistics company here in India. Recently he saw me using bitcoin for payments and he also got to know about SN.
He was a staunch fiatist. He hated bitcoin and all sorts of crypto because all he knew about bitcoin was that he saw in some news that bitcoin was an illegal form of currency. So today I sat with him and had a heated debate on crypto. By the time I had finished explaining the blockchain in layman's terms, he thought it was a good point to ask his boss to think about it as well.
So he asked me how would investing in bitcoin help his business since it's quite a reputed company but I'll not name it even then. However it is a shipping company that deals with shipping, docking and overseas logistics and all that stuff.
I am actually unaware of the business side of bitcoin.
Can anyone tell me what to explain to him and the risk factors relevant to him as well?
I think Bitcoin and taxes can be something tricky for businesses. Here in the US, Bitcoin is legally treated as a commodity. When you sell Bitcoin for dollars, it's a taxable event because of capital gains tax. Then there's short term capgains vs. long term capgains. You can save money if it's long term.
It's kind of a mess having taxable events every time you make a sale. So I think the prevailing strat is to have a Bitcoin account "treasury" that you don't ever sell. You just hold it and let it grow. Hold it for 10+ years to get the long-term capital gains tax rate.
But I don't know how taxes work in India so I can't really help you there.
I think understand what you mean by that. I'd rather share this entire post to him if that helps....
if the businessman is interested in profit and his business depends on the bottom line, predicting business volume, and other fiat metrics, don't bother with investment angle - this inspires hopium & unreasonable expectations;
for a business that operates in fairness, bitcoin the mainchain is more valuable as an accounting system that cannot be hidden or fudged as is commonly done in shadow-banking; u can explain it as the triple-entry accounting, where accountants are the computers (nodes, miners); OP_RETURN can even be used for business notes, accessible by anyone anywhere; privacy implications can be addressed here as well;
another way it can be valuable for a fair business is longevity - a business that has figured out how to operate on bitcoin cannot be shut down; instances of censorship are rising in frequency & number;
wait how?
okay, good idea indeed!
For a logistics company, I would not start with “Bitcoin as an investment.” I would start with payments. A business that works across borders could potentially benefit from faster settlement, fewer banking delays, and in some cases lower payment friction. But the real questions are volatility, custody, accounting, taxes, and local regulation. For a logistics company, this is also not something that should be decided overnight. It would need proper research, internal planning, and probably legal and accounting advice before any serious step is taken. So I would tell him to first explore whether Bitcoin can solve an actual payment problem in the business before thinking about putting company money into it.