Bitcoin and Crypto Thread

Lightning doesn’t touch on-chain, and all my channels are funded with post mixed UTXOs. But of course I’ll pay exactly what I owe in taxes.
I am not accusing you of anything by the way. I am just asking why anybody would pay using Bitcoin in a country that makes it a taxable event? That is a cost you can avoid by paying fiat. Besides shouldn't we paying with the bad money (fiat) and hoarding the good money (bitcoin)?
 
Steak ‘n Shake report:
I haven’t been to one for a long time, probably 7 years! There aren’t any waiters any longer, you simply order at the screen and they put your food on the counter.

I got a triple steak burger $7, large beef tallow fries $3 and a coffee at $1.50…all together about 13,000 sats including tax. Taste was good, and payment easy…just tap the button to pay with bitcoin, scan the QR code with phone, approve the amount and the lightning payment went through in about 3 seconds - faster than waiting on the chip reader for a credit card. Now they just need to offer a discount for bitcoin since the payment processing is much cheaper than credit cards.

Off topic but all I remember of steak and shake was going there in high school on a Saturday night at 1am and even if the entire place was empty you still waited hours for your food for some reason.....every single time.

Was that still the case???
 
I am not accusing you of anything by the way. I am just asking why anybody would pay using Bitcoin in a country that makes it a taxable event? That is a cost you can avoid by paying fiat. Besides shouldn't we paying with the bad money (fiat) and hoarding the good money (bitcoin)?
I know, I don’t believe I owe taxes brother so I won’t be paying any.

Yes if you pay in fiat then no cap-gains. But what if you have no fiat?

It does actually make more sense to just use a credit card, until the merchant starts giving discounts for bitcoin, since you get a 30 days free loan. That’s how I regularly operate. I put everything that I can on credit, and stuff I can’t I have to sell bitcoin into fiat (since I have very little and sometimes negative fiat balance in my bank - if I overdraw they account they automatically loan me up to $5000 - I try to keep near zero balance in fiat). Strike bill pay makes it seamless in that they will sell the exact amount of bitcoin into fiat to do automatic bill pay.

The food was fast, I would say 5 minutes - not McDonald’s fast but fast enough. I too have had the 30 minutes experience in the past at Steak ‘n Shake while the kids were melting down from starvation.
 
For a business like fast food, bitcoin doesn’t solve any problems. For other businesses like those targeted by operation chokepoint (gun retailers, Mary Jane dispensaries, etc) it solves a huge problem. Especially the marijuana sellers that can’t even get any payment processors - they are constantly in danger because the criminals know they have tens of thousands of dollars in cash at the shop or at home.

Correction: bitcoin is really nice for international travel because you don’t have to get ripped off changing into the local currency - exchange rate and atm fees - so I wish all businesses accepted it world wide, it would make travel easier and less expensive

Especially on short trips when you are only changing a small amount of money for a few meals, you end up paying ridiculous fees at ATM or banks (not even the airport exchange rip-offs)
 
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Correction: bitcoin is really nice for international travel because you don’t have to get ripped off changing into the local currency - exchange rate and atm fees - so I wish all businesses accepted it world wide, it would make travel easier and less expensive

Especially on short trips when you are only changing a small amount of money for a few meals, you end up paying ridiculous fees at ATM or banks (not even the airport exchange rip-offs)
Yeah 100%. The whole forex situation makes my blood boil. Consumers are getting extorted by banks and forex operators and card companies. When you are overseas and you combine forex fees (the difference in rate compared to the official spot rate), the ATM fees and the credit card EFTPOs fees, over the course of a trip in some countries you can pay 5 - 10% by the time all is said and done. Its truly an outrageous amount and a perfect example of rent seeking. That means in certain countries if you spend $10,000 during your vacation $500 - $1000 of that could be spent on the forex related expenses. A mind boggling amount for transferring data on a computer system or swapping physical bits of paper.

Don't even get me started on the whole remittance thing (western union et al) which can cost in the 10 - 15% range (exchange fees plus transfer fee) depending on the amount of money sent. And its also inconvenient and slow.

The traditional Finance (trad-fi) parasites/rent seekers cannot die soon enough as far as I am concerned,
 
Yeah 100%. The whole forex situation makes my blood boil. Consumers are getting extorted by banks and forex operators and card companies. When you are overseas and you combine forex fees (the difference in rate compared to the official spot rate), the ATM fees and the credit card EFTPOs fees, over the course of a trip in some countries you can pay 5 - 10% by the time all is said and done. Its truly an outrageous amount and a perfect example of rent seeking. That means in certain countries if you spend $10,000 during your vacation $500 - $1000 of that could be spent on the forex related expenses. A mind boggling amount for transferring data on a computer system or swapping physical bits of paper.

Don't even get me started on the whole remittance thing (western union et al) which can cost in the 10 - 15% range (exchange fees plus transfer fee) depending on the amount of money sent. And its also inconvenient and slow.

The traditional Finance (trad-fi) parasites/rent seekers cannot die soon enough as far as I am concerned,

You make it sound like it's easier to move bitcoin into foreign accounts overseas. It's not, most exchanges have huge fees.
 
Don't even get me started on the whole remittance thing (western union et al) which can cost in the 10 - 15% range (exchange fees plus transfer fee) depending on the amount of money sent. And its also inconvenient and slow.
Agreed. Banks charge way more than the value they provide, IMO.

Have you tried Wise (formerly transferwise)? They usually have good rates, fees aren't too bad. I've heard their virtual cards are also great.
 
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In most countries nobody wants to pay with Bitcoin or other cryptos because of the tax situation. I think if the tax laws change that will change also.
This is a valid point. All my BTC is non-KYC and I have never used an exchange, so I have to manually enter every BTC transaction into tracking software that spits out a nice capital gain/loss report I use to file my taxes (I've seen Koinly mentioned on here, but I use one called Cointracking.info). Bitcoin is a fun hobby for me, so I don't mind entering every spend for a coffee or burger into the software, but it is a hassle that most people will not tolerate.

I really do hope they fix this nonsense soon.
 
The big fees in Bitcoin are for buying and selling Bitcoin not for transferring it. I can send $1 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin to a wallet address of somebody living in Venezuela and it won't cost me more than a few dollars.
Yes, we're talking the real use case, which is p2p value transmission, trustless and permission-less. That's what makes it inexpensive and super useful. Getting fiat or "washing it" is quite a different angle of things.
 
This is a valid point. All my BTC is non-KYC and I have never used an exchange, so I have to manually enter every BTC transaction into tracking software that spits out a nice capital gain/loss report I use to file my taxes (I've seen Koinly mentioned on here, but I use one called Cointracking.info). Bitcoin is a fun hobby for me, so I don't mind entering every spend for a coffee or burger into the software, but it is a hassle that most people will not tolerate.

I really do hope they fix this nonsense soon.
Acquiring KYC-less cryptocurrency and admitting to your Government that you own some 😑

Yeah 100%. The whole forex situation makes my blood boil. Consumers are getting extorted by banks and forex operators and card companies. When you are overseas and you combine forex fees (the difference in rate compared to the official spot rate), the ATM fees and the credit card EFTPOs fees, over the course of a trip in some countries you can pay 5 - 10% by the time all is said and done. Its truly an outrageous amount and a perfect example of rent seeking. That means in certain countries if you spend $10,000 during your vacation $500 - $1000 of that could be spent on the forex related expenses. A mind boggling amount for transferring data on a computer system or swapping physical bits of paper.

Don't even get me started on the whole remittance thing (western union et al) which can cost in the 10 - 15% range (exchange fees plus transfer fee) depending on the amount of money sent. And its also inconvenient and slow.

The traditional Finance (trad-fi) parasites/rent seekers cannot die soon enough as far as I am concerned,
The big fees in Bitcoin are for buying and selling Bitcoin not for transferring it. I can send $1 billion dollars worth of Bitcoin to a wallet address of somebody living in Venezuela and it won't cost me more than a few dollars.
It's baffling that folks aren't utilizing crypto for this purpose.
 
It's baffling that folks aren't utilizing crypto for this purpose.
They will eventually the problem for now is the network effect and lack of critical mass/adoption. If for example you send Bitcoin to someone in Argentina firstly they have to have a bitcoin wallet address to receive the Bitcoin and many do not yet. Secondly even if they receive the Bitcoin they need an exchange account to sell it for fiat or find merchants who accept it. And even if they get around that and use a middleman app so they can spend their bitcoin and the shop, etc receives fiat then there is the tax situation to deal with. Once Bitcoin has more adoption due to store of value then it will become easier to use it for other use cases and eventually tax laws will change also.
 
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