[wc-]

The buddy would owe taxes on receiving the money like receiving any kind of money (is it a gift etc?). Beyond that they owe capital gains or can take a cap gains loss due to changes in btc price if they hold onto the btc. If they receive it and immediately cash it out the additional potential capital gains taxes would be extremely minimal. I don't really see what the issue is here?

People send and receive money and owe taxes on it, whether it is using bitcoin or dollars or whatever... The difference here are the reasons the parent post said they enjoyed sending the money via btc.