Gov't Regulations vs Crypto Freedom
Let’s talk about the role of governments in crypto currency.
Without a doubt, governments actions affect how or why crypto is adopted by its citizens.
The very reason Bitcoin was brought into existence was in many ways a philosophical response to how governments have control over the rules of their countries respective currencies.
Whether a government has chosen to be encouraging of the use of cryptos as a way to achieve their goals of being a cashless society like in Denmark, or if a government is actively enforcing capital controls like in Buenos Aires, governments have a very real way of motivating people to explore their options for storing or transferring their monetary worth, and this is leading them to cryptocurrency.
The reason I wanted to speak on this subject today is because of the recent news regarding the new Bill introduced by the US Senate that would require all travelers entering the country to declare any holding of crypto that exceeds $10,000. It has only been introduced, has not been passed.
But if it is passed, that will mean if you travel with your hardware wallets and they are storing more than $10,000 or more worth of cryptocurrencies you’ll need to declare it or else suffer the consequences for more or less smuggling money.
Now I’m not sure how this wouldn’t also lead to the eventual inclusion of having to report your entire bank account since we can access those with our debit and credit cards, but I’ll leave that little thought nugget here for you all to ponder.…………..
Now let’s consider how certain regulations affect the growth of blockchain based and crypto based companies in that area.
In New York for example, a city known as being a dominant financial hub and home to Wall Street, is one of the U.S. cities that has relatively strict regulations on cryptocurrencies with the implementation of Bitlicense. New York was once home to the online crypto exchanges Kraken and Bitfinex but the restricting regulations have since led these companies to relocate to the more crypto friendly state of California.
It sure is interesting to see which cities and countries are handling this new wild west of cryptos. Some want to try and control it and tax it as much as possible, which might very well end up like a kid trying to hold a wet bar of soap- the more you try to hold on to it the more it will slip away. Like in New York, it’s regulations have already driven out a few companies while others put up with the extra red tape for the sake of having businesses in the financial capital of the world.
Much like how early investors of crypto have reaped the benefits of getting in early, the US states and other countries that choose to facilitate crypto based companies I believe will have the chance to improve their economies.
Bitcoin and now other cryptocurrencies allow us to explore options for borderless, freedom-based, wealth transfer.
At the heart of cryptocurrency, despite the potential for making money, is very much a philosophical ideal of monetary freedom. They are a reminder that human beings are capable of self-governance and that a free market will promote innovation. It’s a breath of fresh air for those already knee-deep in libertarianism and it’s a wake up call for those who believe that governments will always be needed for nearly every aspect of life
Addtional Reading/Sources:
The New US Bill Proposal
Explanation of the Bill
NY's Implementation of Bitlicense
Countries Accepting BTC
US States Working With BTC
Crypto makes taxation voluntary. Can you imagine if governments had to compete for tax payers?
Governments have, for all of human history, extorted taxes via force. Threat of imprisonment, violence, seizure, etc. What happens when citizens can carry a lifetime of wealth in their heads, spend the wealth anonymously and without a trace, and pass that wealth to future generations with no record?
That is the true power of crypto. Governments that adapt quickly and move to attract crypto wealth by respecting privacy, providing excellent service and showing fiscal responsibility will flourish. Governments that continue to treat their citizens as milk cows, are wasteful, corrupt and violent... will wither and die.
Crypto is freedom.
"Governments that adapt quickly and move to attract crypto wealth by respecting privacy, providing excellent service and showing fiscal responsibility will flourish. "
Of course, there are no such governments.
I agree with you... "Of course, there are no such governments."
Japan is already adapting bitcoins into their legislation, I believe there will be countries on both sides of the isle but the countries that realize the power of crypto and respect the people will flourish in the next couple decades
I think there are more governments capable of following this trend than you may could imagine. Not everyone in government is part of the 'evil club', ready to eat babies. A lot of government officials are ordinary people having families and trying to make the world a better place every day. Not that governments may not shrink 'a little' if taxes cannot be brought in that easily anymore...
Full of freedom's stying here!
Another great video @heiditravels.... I think if the Government told people that if you owned crypto currency it would be a felony, a lot of people wouldn't trade them. But this would only be short lived in my opinion. It is very hard to stop something that doesn't have a central area that they operate out of...This is what make Bitcoin amazing! (well one of the hundred+ reasons lol).
Russia tried to stop bitcoin but it failed. Now it regulates the currency and is on board with it. I hope many countries follow or do one step better like Japan.
I hereby pledge myself to the Blockchain! My heart and soul belong to the Blockchain! Thank you for an amazing post, @johansmith , for it encouraged me.
Governments shall not "adapt". They shall die!
We will not let them adapt. That is like letting a psychopathic killer adapt to new circumstances. No, he shall die!
Freedom is essential here.
I cant see this bill passing without major changes in other places as well. Also. It wouldnt be harder to bypass than to send the crypto to the person you want to give anything if u smuggle anyways so I dont see what this bill would fix if anything.
Insane idea anyways from the US!
Agreed sebastiane
@johnsmith your point is valid, I agree with your comment on @heiditravels post . As I indicated in my comment below, government will always fight against our freedom simply because of tax money and addiction to controlling everybody.
On the other hand, it is left for us to continue dancing to their tune or resist smartly. Great comment hence upvoted and following you. Keep it up
That would be the only government I support. Government without any form of conscription. That's why I'm a Cooperative Agorist.
Without taxes, society collapses due to the government not being able to do anything because they have no money. Companies abandon regulations and the rule of law in their quest to make as much profit as possible. Corners get cut to increase profits and avoidable disasters like the Grenfell Tower fire occur regularly.
Without government threats of violence to uphold the laws of society, what's to stop the wealthy from hiring mercs to murder your family and take their possessions? After all, don't they have a duty to shareholders to acquire as much profit as possible? What's to stop the masses of poor people from ganging together and cutting off the heads of the wealthy to take their possessions?
Taxes are absolutely essential for a functional society, therefore anybody who is completely and utterly against taxes (a.k.a deranged lunatics) is against a functional society. They want chaos so that they can exploit it for profit.
Rather than scrapping taxes completely, the tax system needs to be changed to stop taxing income and consumption which clearly hit the poorest in society the hardest. Wealth is generated from productivity, therefore productivity is what needs to be taxed, not income. Any tax on a worker's income is simply an indirect productivity tax on the employer which they pay through increased employee wages.
Most taxes individuals pay are actually indirect business taxes. If our tax systems weren't created by greedy, scumbags trying to funnel wealth to a tiny minority of people, those indirect business taxes would not exist and in their place would be a single tax on productivity from both humans and technology.
Essentially, productivity boils down to the amount of money that can be made from every $1 spent. The greater the productivity, the more money could be earned from spending $1. Given that the most productive companies make the most money from the least amount of work, people doing fuck up to earn shit loads of money would be taxed the most while those working the hardest and earning fuck all would be taxed fuck all too.
This is by far the fairest tax system I've seen so far.
"Without taxes, society collapses due to the government not being able to do anything because they have no money."
Just thinking out loud here...
where on the printing press does it check to see if you've collected taxes before working?
If you think this is reductive logic, ask yourself is there any fiscal responsibility in the west that makes you assume such is necessary to operate a currency?
Could you restate your question as I don't know what you're asking?
First of all, that is an amazing name, props! Love Meditations.
I was merely pointing out, in a roundabout fashion, that pretty much all governments print more of their budget than they tax at this point.
In other words, the link between taxation and seignorage is slipping. Governments are just open printing/QE. At least temporarily, this seems to work regardless of tax receipts.
I agree with your argument, but you can substitute "printed out of nothing currency" for "taxes", apparently.
Not that I agree with it, because it will eventually crash.
I've put in a suggestion in this thread about Land value tax (Check out my comment in the link below). It's a progressive wealth tax and works just fine in cooperation with the crypto world. It leaves crypto alone since crypto uses very little resources, but taxes physical land use which is the ultimate limited resource.
The wealthy elite also happen to own the most land.
It also works great for automation. Automation itself is good for society (less labor for humanity), but the profits used to hoard valuable land by the automation owners will be taxed. Profits that are reinvested into productive assets are not taxed.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@heiditravels/gov-t-regulations-vs-crypto-freedom#@neoncow/re-johnsmith-re-heiditravels-gov-t-regulations-vs-crypto-freedom-20170704t235020176z
The problem with land tax is that it doesn't address the main factor of wealth inequality as it still allows those making the most from the doing the least to pay the least taxes (as a % of income). It's inadequate by itself.
Wealth is generated through productivity whether human or technological. So, taxing that productivity fairly, taxes the wealth fairly. If a business can make $1000 from spending $1 they should be taxed at a higher rate than a business making $10 from every $1 spent regardless of how much profit they make.
A proper productivity tax would also prevent over-production and waste.
I have to TOTALLY agree with you on that!!!
Grenfell Tower is located in the Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, one of the richest, most highly taxed and wealth re-distributed locations in the world. Are you even aware of the whopping amounts they rake in in so-called Council Tax alone from every resident household every month? Have you seen how that pile of garbage they call Kensington still looks (and smells)? Makes one wonder, doesn't it...
So, before claiming the oh-so marvellous good of governments and corresponding need to fund them with our money at gunpoint even more generously, you might be well-advised to do your homework first.
Taking your reasoning and your example, the Grenfell Tower disaster proves the exact opposite and is living proof of government never achieving any tangible and meaningful results whatsoever for the taxpayer at the end of the day. Curiously, it was this very government, aka the RBKC, you want to even more generously finance who screwed things up with their "renovation" of that shipwreck. They used taxpayer money to have it done more poorly than even the shrewdest and greediest private real estate investor would dare doing. For all our tax money we have to surrender, these highly-paid losers did not even know construction basics nor did they have the brains to equip the facade of a 20+ floor building with vent blocks stopping the ascent of hot air/smoke under the cover materials causing the particulars of this tragedy.
This is what you get from any and all forced-upon-for-the-common-good (i e socialist) wealth re-distribution schemes.
So let me get this straight, some disaster occurs in a capitalist nation under a right wing government following right-wing ideology and implementing right-wing policies and that's somehow the fault of the "socialist" tax system?
Most of the things that councils did have been handed over to private corporations to deal with. Housing associations now run council housing, inspections are outsourced to private companies as are renovations, etc. This has been going on since Thatcher the fucking Milk Snatcher came to power. Councils across Britain are facing massive shortages in funding due to ideological fools ignoring the evidence and not giving a shit about the consequences of their actions. Hell, these right-wing ideologues are even paying private foreign corporations to reject people's disability claims to "reduce the deficit" despite the evidence showing that they're paying more to the private corporations than they're saving from reducing claimants.
This is a government who have killed thousands of disabled people through their idiotic, ideologically imposed austerity measures and you're calling them socialist? Are you truly that delusional?
Now, no matter how much I detest these right wing ideologues in power, I'm neither stupid enough nor insane enough to think that giving private corporations direct control of society would be anything but a complete and utter disaster.
yes, you 'got that straight', more or less -- except you should hopefully be sufficiently grown-up to see that -- while the mass-media may call them right-wing -- there is no such thing as an even remotely "free-market system".
A centrally-planned EU member country like the UK (or any other so-called first-world country for that matter) may or may not be "right-wing" or following "right-wing ideologies" (not willing to nor interested in arguing about that -- nor with you, at all), but in light of all these first-world countries having a tax and related "social" cost burden of around 50% I find it a bit "surprising" that this is still not a sufficiently-"fair" share that's being contributed there...
It's easy to see how "efficient" and "useful" all that tax money is spent and how great that centrally-planned system of one NHS (oh, that's not socialist??), subsidised council housing (oh, that's not socialist??), £60m per day to those un-accountable technocrats in that un-elected soviet over in Brussels (oh, that's not socialist??) really works.
Also, thank you for calling me delusional and insane while not even having taken the time to understand my point and my reasoning. Gives those musings of yours (as well as yourself as a person) a lot more credibility :)
If you think the UK is socialist then you are clearly delusional. If that hurts your feelings, so be it. It's simply a fact as the UK is clearly not socialist.
Just because it's expensive to currently govern society, doesn't mean we should abandon the governance of society or hand over over direct control to those with the most wealth. If it cost 70% of GDP to sufficiently support society then anything less than that would see society deteriorate.
My argument is that people shouldn't pay any taxes anyway. Businesses should pay those taxes directly instead of palming them off to employees and customers. Those that earn the most from every $1 spent should have the highest tax rates.
Why are you against that? Why should those making money from the least effort have lower or similar tax rates to those who making money from the most effort? If you have two workers the same age doing the exact same job and one is extremely lazy and the other is a proper hard worker, would you say they should be paid the same amount?
Edit: In response toy your edit.
Yes, both those things are very efficient and useful. For example, look how much the UK spends on healthcare per person compared to the US. The NHS is absurdly more efficient despite the Tories efforts to get rid of it. As for social housing, just look at what's happened in the UK since Thatcher sold off social housing and never replaced it. Now people can't afford to buy homes and rent prices are getting out of hand. More social housing is precisely what the UK needs right now. That doesn't make them socialist though.
Socialism is about the relationship to the means of production, not health care, housing or welfare benefits. Under socialism, workers control the means of production and get a fair share of the profits dependant upon the amount and type of labour they perform.
A good example of socialism would be mining bitcoin at a pool. All the workers get a fair share of the rewards proportional to the amount of work they do. Some workers do more work than others and therefore get a greater share than others. Imagine if it was based on capitalist redistribution, the pool owner would keep most of the rewards for themselves.
Now I want to watch Braveheart.
@heiditravels I started to draw a realistic charcoal portrait of you and will be posting it soon in post these days on Steemit :) I hope you will like it . Stay tuned! ( sorry if this was out of subject in here, but couldn't direct message you somehow ) .
YEP!
Taxation will adapt. The Land Value Tax is a crypto-compatible tax. It's the taxation of the unimproved value of land. That is, it's a property tax, but only taxes the value of the land but not the property. This means you pay tax for the rights on land, but everything you build on top of it is not taxed. Your home, your business, your leisure, or your crypto.
This allows for a market based economically efficient progressive tax. The elite of the world dominate in terms of wealth inequality. In the US, the 1% own 40% of the wealth. Land value is highly correlated with wealth. A land tax would allow ensure they pay a fair share, but do not pay when they build productive things.
It's inherently market based since if the government's valuation of the land is too high, they could pay you in a lump sum of it's assessed value in exchange for your payments. This would make the government very cautious about value assessments.
For the most of us who labor for a living, a land tax would not distort labor markets. It would reduce administration expenditures for business and individuals alike. Most of us own very little land and your tax will only go up if you have enough wealth to pay it. If you have no wealth, you pay no tax.
A crypto holder who lives a modest life will pay very less tax. A crypto holder who consumes lots of resources will directly and indirectly pay the land tax through their consumption. The tax would not require declarations of crypto assets or detailed transaction histories.
It could vastly reduce the government's administrative burden in tracking all transactions for sales taxes, all income for income taxes, and all investments for capital gains taxes. The value of land can be market based since a too high tax will cause people to abandon their land and a too low tax will increase land values. If the government invests in good projects, the value of the land goes up. If the government invests poorly, the value of the land goes down and they will be forced to adapt.
A foreigner who consumes local land and resources will pay, no matter what their income is. There's no dodging, evading, or hiding land in offshore accounts. A shell corporation doesn't deter this tax, which reduces the number of corporations solely for tax purposes. This makes it easier to keep track and investigate corporations who fund terrorism and other crimes. With the government apparatus freed from investigating normal people for tax purposes, they could focus on the funders of international terrorism or cartels.
I love your idea of governments having to compete for tax payers - What a refreshingly novel concept!! Love it!
That's essentially what "cooperative agorism" is about. The concept of oubuilding the state by introducing private competition and forcing governments to adapt or lose "customers" over time.
You can already see this happening with blockchain technology around the world today.
You've echoed thoughts I've been having for a while now. I'm in Africa and when I look at how the government in my country handles its financial responsibility and then imagine a future where cryptocurrency rules, I see taxation as voluntary also, and not only that, but way more effective. I see that right now, people lose half their wages to tax, which gives back very little value to them. It's lost value that could have been better used to improve people's lives. This actually hampers everyone's growth and so you'll have the government taking tax from 10% of the population which happens to be working and that tax accounts for more than half of what they earn. It's a vicious non productive cycle.
Fast forward to when crypto rules and you'll see more people working more efficiently and paying taxes because they want to help their countries. Think 90% of the population being productive and earning very high values and then paying say 5% from that as tax. The government will end up getting more tax.
one more thing:
The government should be on the blockchain. Blockchain governance that's transparent and effective. Imagine a time when any citizen can just use an interface to see the current amount of tax money allocated to a certain department or cause and see the transactions being made clearly. That will actually motivate me to pay tax. When blockchain governance is in place we'll see a lot less people abusing their positions and 100% accountability.
"Cooperative Agorism" is all about establishing such government and a society efficient enough not to need any forced taxation.
Big fan here plz follow
Followed you and hope for more constructive contributions like this from you
I watch your youtube videos
Makes me think of the old adage, "taxation without representation is tyranny". How much of what goes on in government today isn't tyranny? Do we really get to choose the leaders that represents our best interests?
Excellent insight. Well put....It is my view that when the blue collar sector of the economy gets on board and starts trading in crypto the government will have little choice but to comply to the will of the people that provide them with their ambiguous jobs. Skilled Trades people are at least one tit on the milk cow.
"Governments competing for Taxpayers" that would be fantastic, as taxpayers could literally choose to support the government that is cultivating the society that keeps closets to their values and is more conducive to their ideals. But in order to accomplish this Crypto will have to force a change in the political maps of the world, Some governments may still be able to hamper us by way of their immigration systems and that's what I'm looking at in this bill. "How does this bill relate to immigration policy in the long run, because I'm sure that law makers understand that from a Tech perspective the currency can circumvent anything they come up with, so there has to be some yet undeclared piece of immigration legislation coming down the line that needs this one seemingly idiotic bill as its foundation.
you are so right. Crypto is freedom
I think Cryptocurrency is a game changer to the world. The government has no control about it.
Nice theory, but unrealistic. Imagine a government without any tax income. Who will build roads? Who will provide medical infrastructure? Who should pay for all the basic infrastructure we all expect to have? Without tax as such, the country will either be run-down or, to keep the standard, very very expensive to live in.
You want running water in your flat? Pay someone to build a pipe from the mountains to you. ;)
hehehe, yeah here is no government involves!
It might acctuallt happen. Good god that will be exiting times. It's going to look like someone dropped the cat into the bath tub. :)
But it is unlikely that citizens will voluntarily pay taxes to the state. Are you ready to stay without police, without border guards? Taxes, whatever one may say, but are needed ...
I don't think they understand any of these cryptos well enough to effectively regulate them. It's going to take another 20 years before the ancient elite zombies finally die off and a generation gets into power that doesn't think the internet is "basically a series of tubes".
Hallo Heidi,
I think that researching conspiracies and understand fully why we need anarcho capitalism would be great for your future.
Denmark is not a a cashless society, but yes you can use credit cards everywhere and it could be that they remove the cash soon.
https://steemit.com/eos/@lasseehlers/illuminati-is-burning-eos-decentralize-everything
Personally I am beginning to focus more on privacy.
Lasse
Hint: Resently I came to fully understand that the earth is flat:
https://steemit.com/flatearth/@lasseehlers/flat-earth-proof-1-my-first-flat-earth-proof-debunking-ball-earther-mathias-kp-who-made-the-turning-torso-ball-proof-video
Illuminati is burning because of EOS:
https://steemit.com/eos/@lasseehlers/illuminati-is-burning-eos-decentralize-everything
I was on SteemSpeak just before I fully was convinced that the earth if flat, I usually don't ise the kind of language I used that day, but it was 15 against me, also it is edited by a ballearhter and he didn't put my most important points: earth is Flat, it take some alone time to get over that fact, is my experience:
https://steemit.com/funny/@condra/steem-speak-podcast-04-flat-earth-blogging-tips-nymphomania
Many people believe that we need freedom, but I think we still need gov regulation to support the coin in the furture. Without the help of the government. It is still some uncontrol things. If it need to grow, it need regulation I think and it is my opinion only.
Government will NEVER be able to stop crypto. If they start regulating exchanges, then we shall create DECENTRALIZED exchanges. If they try to screw Bitcoin merchants over by sting operations, then we shall create a system which guarantees no FBI agents will ever be able to screw anyone over. If they try regulating the domains on which they run, then we shall create a dark-web network of said exchanges.
Like I said: They will NEVER be able to regulate this or take away our beautiful Blockchain. NEVER. We will make sure of it.
Yes...Administrations can grow fast by making availability of up to date services to catch the attention of crypto wealth along with keeping in view the elements of secrecy and confidentiality...
This comment has received a 0.06 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @qasimwaqar.
nice :)
cool
picture says it all
Lol
I'm making the crypto world friendly and accessible for everybody by explaining acronyms and terms related to cryptocurrency. Here I found:
Please upvote for visibility. If there are any missing terms here you want to be added to the database, please comment, so I'll become better.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the info, hoping this doesnt come into effect, also not to Europe!
Hi @heiditravels
It is like a general paranoia from gov and alike institutions to get hold on to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
It is too much money in this new market that goverments cant stay out of it longer (imagine the vampire fangs coming out when they see the money being collect by the recent ICOs.
The IMF even proposed a Central Banks for cryptocurrencies!!!
I wrote about it >>> https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@albertogm/the-devil-talks-about-cryptocurrencies-and-how-to-control-them
Nice post. Cheers!