[rawtxapp]

Because of the open nature of the blockchain, the IRS knows all your exact movements, so there's no nudge-nudge-wink-wink especially if you have tied your real identity to a Bitcoin address using a centralized exchange.

Presumably, tools like cointracker (maybe even Visa themselves), etc, will take care of reporting these taxes for you, still a pita, but doable.

[pmastela]

> open nature of the blockchain

Only some are open. Take a look at Monero. There's a bounty out to make transactions on it traceable [1].

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25752042

[qeternity]

Or maybe nobody really wants to spend Bitcoin because its only use-case is wild speculation and this is just a marketing stunt on Visa’s behalf.

[imtringued]

People will spend Bitcoin, grudgingly (remember the pizza? what a fool, never spend your Bitcoin!), thanks to Visa people will actually be able to spend it. Thanks to Visa Bitcoin will not be decentralized anymore either.

[qeternity]

Why would you do this unless you literally had no fiat.

Bitcoin’s only killer feature for 99% of people is number go up. If people are hodling and and don’t want to sell, they won’t want to spend it either (it’s the same thing).

If people want to sell, they will just so it on exchange so that they don’t have to go through the hassle of getting fiat back on exchange.

There is literally no advantage to this except for a fuzzy feeling some people might get. Maybe that’s enough, what do I know. But this does not fit in the with digital gold narrative. Nobody walks around with a card trying to pay with fractional gold ounces.

They’re just trying to ride the hype train.

[MrMan]

If it keeps going up why does decentralization matter? Poor people are decentralized, I don't know any rich people who are decentralized