Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Ashin said:

No one worried about the new amendment in the Senate Infrastrucuture Bill that Biden is backing?

Biden Deals Blow to Crypto Industry, Backs Plan to Tax Proof-of-Stake - Decrypt

The Biden Administration's endorsement of a controversial amendment could be a major blow to the crypto industry.

decrypt.co

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Reading the article, it seems like there are some work arounds even if the amendment passes, which is no sure thing. Looks like we have some BTC Maxis in the Senate lol. Or at least the BTC folks are better at lobbying and are using their political capital to try and kill ETH. That's actually pretty interesting.

Obviously I don't like being taxed and crypto was a good sanctuary for a while, but you had to see this coming and it's not exactly unheard of. I would say Proof of Stake is somewhat on par with dividends and those are taxed as well.

Rangoth said:

Obviously I don't like being taxed and crypto was a good sanctuary for a while, but you had to see this coming and it's not exactly unheard of. I would say Proof of Stake is somewhat on par with dividends and those are taxed as well.

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This isn't about taxes, its reporting requirements. If the Warren amendment passes, it would potentially outlaw staking in the US as the reporting requirement would be impossible. Its a dumb bill and not how this should be handled at all

This has been the general reaction from the ETH crowd:

I can understand why Bitcoiners would be concerned about this stuff, but yeah, Ethereans know that the protocol can be changed if necessary and there's no way Goldman Sachs lets a few retards kill their planned staking service. Crypto is here forever, there is nothing that any government can do to change that. They've missed their chance.

Haus said:

Yeah, I see the biggest effect this law would have would be driving a bunch of companies out of the US (bye bye potential tax revenue), and make more people just start using VPN's and further disconnecting from the US financial system.

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Love it or hate it, it's pretty clear crypto is happening. Those who don't embrace it are going to be left behind. That includes the US

Will be interesting to see how far this goes

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two Florida men and their Cayman Islands company for unregistered sales of more than $30 million of securities using smart contracts and so-called “decentralized finance” (DeFi) technology, and for misleading investors concerning the operations and profitability of their business DeFi Money Market.

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I don't understand why you think that's interesting in the slightest. It's a total non-issue, these people were blatantly lying about what they were doing, it wasn't even a DeFi protocol.

Haus said:

Interesting analysis is that gas fees have either stayed the same or gone up since the london hard fork went in, which seems to be counter to what a lot of ETHmaxis have been saying.

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Nah, actual ETH people have acknowledged for a while now that 1559 wasn't going to do much to lower fees. The primary objective was to initiate ETH burn and lay the foundation for future updates that WILL eventually lower fees. Most people expect some fee stabilization from 1559 though. I.e. fees won't necessarily go much lower but they may swing with much less volatility.

This is one reason I've held on to MATIC through the accumulation phase.

James said:

I don't understand why you think that's interesting in the slightest. It's a total non-issue, these people were blatantly lying about what they were doing, it wasn't even a DeFi protocol.

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I'm curious to see how far regulators take things in this space. There are tons of scams, how many will they go after, what criteria will they decide is unlawful? Its completely new and thus anything the regulators do is interesting

The Portman-Warner amendment is still hostile to bitcoin because bitcoin has layers on top, which would be affected. Lightning would be. I'm also yield farming using Rootstock/Sovryn contracts right now, so bitcoin has some nascent DeFi on it. It's so vague it will just scare developers out of doing what could be legal and harmless because they'll have no idea if state agents with guns will come after them one day. The dumb press might be saying it's only anti-ETH because it has a proof of work carve-out but that's missing the bigger picture.

Basically the Portman-Warner proponents are saying 'they won't go after small guys, don't worry' and detractors are saying 'the alternative Wyden amendment protects the people who would not be able to provide the IRS any information to begin with'. So either the proponents of the Portman-Warner amendment are stupid old fucks who don't understand the tech or this is a dishonest way to kill crypto development in America. Hard to say because congress is full of morons. Our regulators are tyrants who gatekeep average folk out of investments that VCs fund every day to 'protect us' but we're free to squander as much money as we like in casinos.

I've been critical of Ethereum for various reasons but there really is cool stuff going on there. When I first saw Metamask's web site I was like WTF is this shit? But after using it I'm impressed. (and I'm using it for Sovryn, which is borrowing heavily from ETH's ecosystem) Any bitcoin maxi cheering on the Portman-Warner amendment is an idiot. Biden wants no amendment at all. Lol. Dems want to lose the midterms so badly

Torrid said:

Any bitcoin maxi cheering on the Portman-Warner amendment is an idiot.

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Nailed it. I'm not above taking a victory lap, but this ain't it. Shoehorning any regulation at all into this bill is a mistake and is only going to hurt Americans