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by preseinger 1110 days ago
there is no universe in which a (edit: financially sound) nation will accept tax payments in a denomination over which it has no influence or control

(edit: nations that peg their currency to the euro or the dollar are clearly exceptions to what i'm describing here)

this is literally money 101 type stuff, wars have been fought over this stuff, and it's insane that crypto folks don't seem to understand any of it
2 comments
KptMarchewa 1110 days ago
There's a lot of nations that either directly accept tax payments in foreign currency: for example, Montenegro uses Euro. Salvador, Zimbabwe, etc use US Dollar. In other forms, Danish Krone and Bulgarian Lev is pegged to Euro.
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rafaelero 1110 days ago
That's why Bitcoin is so powerful: they can't do anything about it and, if people choose to use it, the government has no choice other than accept it as the standard.
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preseinger 1110 days ago
a government that accepts tax payments in BTC would be abandoning its financial authority to the bitcoin network, over which it has no influence whatsoever

this is suicidal for any nation with even a nominal amount of financial autonomy

maybe it's something that failed states like venezuela or somolia would consider, but it's a complete non-starter for anyone else

the idea that "the people" can force countries to accept tax receipts in BTC is absolute unhinged nonsense, read a fucking book

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rafaelero 1110 days ago
> the idea that "the people" can force countries to accept tax receipts in BTC is absolute unhinged nonsense, read a fucking book

Government money will worth shit if people stop putting their savings in it. Unless you think the US government will make it ilegal to possess BTC, then it is just a matter of time for people to migrate to a better store of value.

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preseinger 1103 days ago
the US government probably won't make it illegal to possess BTC, but it will never accept e.g. tax payments in BTC

also, the instant there is a non-trivial amount of commerce conducted in US jurisdictions via BTC, you will immediately see aggressive counter-measures (lawsuits, criminal charges, etc.) from the federal government

germany's minister of finance said it succinctly when there was this facebook libra thing going around

> One of the core activities of a sovereign State is to issue a currency. We will not cede this task to private companies.

https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2019/10/germany-opposes-facebo...

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