Malibuflyer wrote:
By the way: By doing so, you just destroyed one of the core claims of btc made by fanboys – the pretended anonymity.
No. It is pseudonymous. You do have an identity on the network, it is your public/private key pair. That identity is not per se linked to your real world identity, until, as you outline, you make a link.
Dimme wrote:
Use the original Bitcoin Core open-source client with your own keys, and no shady bank will ever be able to access your funds.
Yup. But that’s not how most people use bitcoin, for lack of technical expertise, dedicated hard disk space, always-on computer and/or stable internet connection. They do get bitcoins by putting them at an “account” of a person that has all the previous things, and runs a node. That person acts as a bank, or a “para-bank”, but not quite regulated as such.
Malibuflyer wrote:
How do you feel about bank “bail in”s ?… extremely good! (…) that theoretical (at least if you deal with EU banks) risk is completely negligible
Cyprus is in the EU; people having money deposits there for diversification of systemic risk, or for getting payments from local businesses, lost part of their money.
Landesbanki, Kaupthing, etc were maybe not “EU banks” stricto sensu, but they had branches in the EU, regulated and supervised by EU regulators, and they were EFTA banks, that is with full rights to freedom to supply services in the whole EU. EU residents/citizens went to a local branch, in their language, opened a bank account and… lost the money. The branch vs subsidiary difference is lost on the consumer. These branches didn’t feel, to the consumer, any different from how e.g. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro would be felt in Italy or Komerční banka in Czech Republic. Would you call BNL… an Italian bank? a French bank (it is owned by BNP Paribas)? Komerční banka, is it a Czech bank or a French bank (it is owned by Société Générale).
These two events profoundly changed, among many people I know, (mis)trust in “EU banks”.
Peter wrote:
The same amount of intellectual rigour should be put into discussing aviation
Maybe not so much aviation related but a subject which is not talked about enough. Those mechanisms have huge impact on the lives of nearly all people and are still not understood enough by most of us.
Binance banned over lack of money laundering controls.
lionel wrote:
That identity is not per se linked to your real world identity, until, as you outline, you make a link.
Fully agree here! It’s just important that everybody understands that this anonymity is removed as soon as you pay or receive funds from somebody who knows your real life identity. So “making the link” is not something you do consciously but something inherent to making btc payments. If you pay your beer at the local pub with btc, the owner knows how much btc you have in your wallet – and that for every point in time from the creation of that wallet to indefinite.
lionel wrote:
Cyprus is in the EU; … Landesbanki, Kaupthing
I’m not familiar with the Cyprus cases (guess they have been more relevant in the UK than in Germany due to historic connection), but for Kaupthing and Landesbanki I’m pretty sure that customers who had money on their current accounts did not suffer a loss in the end. Only subprime debt have been cut.
In general – and here is a link to aviation – in my observation many fans of btc or similar tokens have what I would call a strong “control illusion risk bias”.
The very same way as SEP pilots fear mid air crashes and engine failures while it is much more likely to die from CFIT or fuel starvation, bitcoin fans fear bankruptcies of banks while it is much more likely that their computer gets hacked or that they loose their key pair.
Peter wrote:
Binance banned over lack of money laundering controls.
Not quite correct. Binance Markets Ltd has been banned, which I believe was a company with a licence they bought a year or two ago so that they could offer other more complex regulated products. The simple exchange functions have not been banned as I understand it.
This is most of the article in The Times
@Malibuflyer wrote:
The question is: Have you ever? And did you really accept btc (or doge) as compensation or did you do it “the Tesla way” (so basically creating the hoax that you accept btc but all you do is to offer a (costly) exchange service while the amount owed is defined in real cash and during the entire period until the transaction is settled the buyer carries the exchange rate risk…)?
At wich value do you account receivables in btc? On which btc value do you calculate VAT on?
That was more than one question, but I will try to answer regardless.
1. Yes
2. BTC
3. At the value they have the moment they end up in my bank account.
4. Same, VAT is only paid when the money has been converted to SEK and is in my bank account.
If you’re interested in Swedish accounting methods, look up “kontantmetoden.”
Off_Field wrote:
The simple exchange functions have not been banned as I understand it.
Yes, that’s right.
The “funny” thing about that is the such crypto exchanges very strongly argue – opposed to some opinion in this thread – that such crypto-tokens are by no means any currencies and actually have nothing to do with currencies. Hence trading with them is like selling panini stickers on eBay. If these token were currencies, the exchanges needed a banking license to run current accounts on them – which they don’t have.
Therefore you are fully right: Biance can carry on exchange business because neither biance nor the FCA believes that Bitcoin is a currency.
Malibuflyer wrote:
At wich value do you account receivables in btc? On which btc value do you calculate VAT on?
I’ve never used BTC, but I guess it would be handled just like payments in any regular foreign currency. There are well defined rules for such situations.
Airborne_Again wrote:
I’ve never used BTC, but I guess it would be handled just like payments in any regular foreign currency. There are well defined rules for such situations.
I don’t know the regulations in Sweden (obviously) and the regulation and practice on this topic is heavily national.
In Germany – and also according to IAS – for accounting purposes are not considered as financial asset or even cash (IAS 32) but as an other intangible asset (IAS 38) or inventory (IAS 2). This has significant impact on how you account for the value: You can’t just account it at the exchange rate of your favorite crypto exchange at the due date of the balance sheet.
If you bought the crypto against cash in many cases you can account the buying cost – but situation gets quite complex when you get the crypto as compensation for some goods or services. It’s more like if you run a computer shop and agree with an artist “you don’t have to pay me for fixing your computer but you paint a picture for me”.
There obviously are rules for such situations but they are not really well defined and finally a lot of the valuation is depending on what your auditor is willing to sign…
