{"id":186297,"date":"2014-03-07T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T01:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/03\/07\/bitcoin-has-had-a-disasterous-week\/"},"modified":"2014-03-07T20:13:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T01:13:00","slug":"bitcoin-has-had-a-disasterous-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/03\/07\/bitcoin-has-had-a-disasterous-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Has Had a Disasterous Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve just had <a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/security\/2014\/03\/yet-another-exchange-hacked-poloniex-loses-around-50000-in-bitcoin\/\">3<sup>rd<\/sup> Bitcoin exchange robbery in a week<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/news\/url?sr=1&amp;sa=t&amp;ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_0_t&amp;usg=AFQjCNGTFYdHmvLGlj8zUfsfLF7jFQgHTg&amp;did=f548927dc5f5cfee&amp;cid=52778433634067&amp;ei=hI0aU7DCONOugQeTEA&amp;rt=STORY&amp;vm=STANDARD&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mercurynews.com%2Fbusiness%2Fci_25287516%2Funnatural-death-autumn-radtke-bitcoin-exchanges-young-ceo\">suspicious death of the CEO of another exchange<\/a>, the discovery the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is <a href=\"http:\/\/mag.newsweek.com\/2014\/03\/14\/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html\">actually a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/news\/article_email\/SB10001424052702303369904579423730757355014-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNDEwNDQyWj\">Japan has decided not to regulate it as currency<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I know what you are wondering why is Japan deciding not to regulate Bitcoin a bad thing?<\/p>\n<p>Well, because if it is not currency, then it is subject to the VAT (sales tax) and the capital gains tax:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Japanese government officially said Friday that it doesn&#8217;t consider bitcoin to be a currency and has no plans at present to regulate it as a financial product.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">As it tries to cope with the fallout from the bankruptcy of the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange, the government said that the crypto-currency would be treated like other goods and services, with commercial sales of bitcoin itself and bitcoin-based transactions <b>subject to sales tax<\/b>. In addition, any gains on exchange rates will be taxed as well.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">&#8220;Any bitcoin transactions are taxable when they fulfill requisitions stated by laws on income tax, corporate tax and consumption tax,&#8221; the government said in its statement, which came in response to questions over how bitcoins will be regulated.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">At the same time, the statement ruled out treatment of bitcoin as a currency or a financial instrument.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">&#8220;Bitcoin are neither Japanese nor foreign currencies and its trading is different from deals stated by Japan&#8217;s bank act as well as financial instruments and exchange act,&#8221; according to a document released by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe&#8217;s cabinet. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(<i>emphasis mine<\/i>)<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if Bitcoin is done, but I think that a stake has been driven though the heart of the Randroid libertarian dream of completely unregulated and untraceable crypto currency.<\/p>\n<p>Heh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve just had 3rd Bitcoin exchange robbery in a week, the suspicious death of the CEO of another exchange, the discovery the mysterious founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, is actually a guy named Satoshi Nakamoto, and Japan has decided not to regulate it as currency. I know what you are wondering why is Japan deciding &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1052,1080,1004,985,1019],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-crimes","category-currency","category-finance","category-regulation","category-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}