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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @HardRich 8 Aug 2023 \ on: Doesn't Robosats' advice on Amazon gift cards defeat the point? bitcoin
I have the same thought.
With Bisq I use Zelle payments, but it looks kind of fishy to have large amounts of Zelle payments to random people. I think if the amount is in the few thousands then no one would ask questions or you could say you bought some crap on Craigslist or something.
In my mind, however, the only real way to move a lot of money into bitcoin without the government knowing is to receive payment for services/products - but then you gotta have a side hustle or a business that would allow this to happen (and could you really do hundreds of thousands?).
The biggest problem (imo) with a centeralized exchange (like Coinbase) is that it's required by law to keep your info and purchases/sales info. A bad guy could perhaps see your Zelle or Amazon Gift card history but they'd not know that you bought Bitcoin (so $5 wrench attack is not worth it). On the other hand, individuals buying big bucks on Coincbase would be pretty sweet for someone that owns a wrench and doesn't mind hurting people.
In summary, I don't see a great way to hide large amounts of bitcoin from government, but at least you could "hide" it from bad actors (other than government, of course).
It's sad since I, personally, don't mind paying taxes on bitcoin gains to government (though, I'd much prefer non-taxation of bitcoin, of course) but I don't really want people knowing what I have (I'd like to keep my family safe). If the US government never got hacked I'd worry less, but they suck at keeping info private. I think Coinbase has a better track record but almost certainly that info will get leaked, too.
So, yeah, I'm with you. I wonder if anyone knows of a way to a few hundred thousand of bitcoin without a big trail that looks funny. I think home mining might be one of the only other options?
True, and maybe I'm overthinking things thinking in a worst case scenario, but if it's under the thousands it probably doesn't matter, in which case if you're really worried you could spread the spending out over different apps/cards and further obscure what's happening.
And I agree with you on the tax thing, my problem is not really with government laws as they stand, but rather as they could become, not to mention third party risk. You never know what they'll think of Bitcoin in the future, and I'm not sure I see things trending in the right direction. So I have more peace of mind knowing that they (or any other party intent on confiscating it) simply don't know that I'm a target in the first place, so when/if they do start going after people in a hypothetical potential future, there's plausible deniability. Not to mention that, yeah, the US govt does get hacked and so therefore I shouldn't trust them to know as it stands, nevermind the future.
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