"Bitcoin is a bad name. It should have been Bitbucks or Bitbux. Bad call."

lololol

Anyone used VirWox? I dont remember anyone talking about ITT since I started lurking, but all I want is to connect my skrill to some reputable exchange. Seems its the only one or am I wrong?

This guy needs to stay in his SysAdmin cave and not talk about things outside his tiny world.

I'm sure the IRS would look upon it just like any other foreign currency transactions. Nothing special about Bitcoin in this regard. Look up "taxes on foreign currency".

Actually it's a bit different, there are significant differences between something like Gold, which is treated as a store of value vs. foreign currencies. If you buy gold and don't sell it, you don't pay taxes until you do. If you bought GBP and still held them at the end of the year, and they went up in value, you would have to pay taxes at end of year IIRC.

*not a tax attorney, so always make sure you educate yourself on this*.

thank you for taking the time to explain this.

I do not believe this is true. All foreign currency is just property. The taxable event happens when you exchange that property for other property or US currency.

For the capital gains portion, that seems correct, but it's a bit more complex than that.

Can we walk through the math on my hypothetical?

Our base 10btc/$100 was worth $150 at the end, so that's easy to see as $50 cap gains. So then the remaining $75 profit has to be a combo of income and cap gains. I'm just experiencing math fail.

Bitcoin expert DeathAndTaxes gives out valuable tax information in this thread. It is highly relevant to what you guys are talking about. If someone can post a summary, that would be good.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=326308.0

Certainly a lot of money being made here but it would scare the hell out of me to hold this for any long term outlook. I'll be on the sidelines enjoying the view.

I'm the opposite. The short term is scary as hell, but the long term is very bright.

What are your long term concerns?

I guess I phrased that poorly. I mean I wouldn't be shocked at all to see this lose 75%+ of its value in a day. I wouldn't want to be in long term at these prices.

These prices aren't sustainable. It's a pull out when your goals are hit, and come back in if you feel comfortable in the next dip.

I haven't paid attention to this thread since the last crash but if I remember last time tom you seemed very bearish on bitcoins. Now you are full steam ahead bullish, what changed? What concerns did you have that have now been alleviated?

Bitcoin has survived its first serious bubble and now I am interested in getting into it.

There is too much money in now and too much money sitting on the sidelines to buy during such an immediate drop. You might see a shock and recovery (we've seen this a lot lately), and a bleed, but I just don't see a ton of money immediately not jumping in if it crashes, unless there are technical glitches or some absurd type ruling like making it criminal to possess Bitcoins.


Cool story. Why are they unsustainable?

Your memory is correct. I was in on the early bubble in 2011, saw the potential, just didn't see the roadmap to get to that potential. Got bored, dropped out, saw it stagnate for a year. Then the investment started coming in to actually show how that roadmap was not only possible, but likely. I've been doing my homework, getting way more involved, and learning more about what is actually happening. And right now the momentum is too huge. One of my concerns was of alt-coins making it not scarce (and ruining all crypto), that pretty much has been solved by alt-coins being jokes and wider adoption of Bitcoin. Governmental problems are much lesser based on neutral/positive guidance/cases. And I began to understand the investment world better and can see where this is going. I am stocking any money I can afford to lose into Bitcoins presently and getting involved in several projects, extensively networking, etc...

This is no longer pure speculation, there is active development in actually making the things Bitcoin can be superior at possible. That's probably been my biggest change, is seeing what is actually being built and its not just some random idiots with geocities-like webpages, which it was in 2011.

Tom, why don't you just tell me why the prices are sustainable?

You seem to get very hostile towards anyone who disagrees with your TO THE MOON IT HAS TO!! attitude. You have supporters because they think the same way. "I'm not wrong..hype doesn't control the price any more..BITCOIN HAS VALUE!!"

Bash alt-coins, call them jokes, everything is ****ed, except bitcoin and oh no don't you dare talk about the price adjusting!! It can't! IT WON'T! ...ride the train brother. Hope it all works out for you.

How much of the recent upswing is from people actually using bitcoin like WU and not from speculation?

<5%i guess

Could be because of Baidu.

They're not sustainable because nothing appreciates 10% per day. Just look at the long term graph and it's obvious we've overshot a sustainable rise. It will be very interesting to see what happens when bitcoin has back to back losing days for the first time in like a month.

Standard disclaimer. I'm no accountant and this could be totally wrong. Cliffs from my understanding is:

If you hold your coins for less than 1 year you're taxed on short term capital gains which is taxed at your ordinary income tax rate.

If you hold your coins for longer than 1 year you're taxed on long term capital gains 0, 15, or 20% depending on your income.

Buying an item with bitcoins is considered realizing a gain.

You can write off losses, and some can be carried over to next year.

If you live overseas for 330+ days a year you may not have to pay taxes on up to $100k according to "Elwar".

Uh oh.

Are you arguing bitcoin versus alt-coins or arguing against crypto currency in general?

Thanks tom, even when I disagreed with your bearish views I always respected you as one of the more evidence based opinions in this thread. I'm pretty encouraged to see you back on the bitcoin train, makes me feel more confident in putting money in.

I imagine this gets asked all the time but is there a beginners guide to buying/selling bitcoins?

I don't even argue in that subject. There isn't any need to. It's when you even mention the world litecoin or namecoin, you get a slew of die hard Bitcoiners coming in to slam it to the wall.

Market cap is about $5B right now, which is peanuts, which makes it entirely sustainable. We are still at the very early adopter phase.

It's not sustainable to keep growing at 10% daily, but certainly sustainable to hold value here, or even go up 10x and hold. There will be some corrections, its just a matter of if its tomorrow from 420->300 or from 800 -> 500. I'll be interested in finding my prediction of the dip from 500 -> 250 as the crash point when we were at 120 or something. Take my specific short term predictions with grains of salt, though.

I actually think namecoin is interesting. Flawed, but interesting. Litecoin is just a copycat that hopes to make miners feel better and to pump and dump. I'm interested in actual arguments, though, on why I'm wrong. Keep in mind that I have made the same statements when I owned 0 BTC and even now my net worth is only very slightly tied up in BTC. I don't gain anything by bashing alts and promoting Bitcoin.