I'm happy to take the tax hit on using my BTC to promote services like Fountain and Stacker. However I find it difficult to use it on large goods/more costly items because the hodl mentality kicks in and makes me think of my buying power in the future so I'm more inclined to use dirty fiat 🙂

If on Stacker News I'm spending Bitcoin and I'm paying here to someone for the service named: providing a good reply to read - does it create a taxable event?

in other words: "Don't comment on SN because if it is good - it will be a taxable event." ;) let's not be slaves... (we aren't already, it seems... :)

I believe that before a money becomes a medium of exchange, it must be an established store of value in the eyes of the masses. I also believe the adoption of a new money take a long time. Bitcoin is still going through its monetization and early adoption phase. Bitcoin’s current volatility make it not suitable as a medium of exchange for people. Imagine someone earning 100k sats only to have its purchasing power cut in half in a few days. That simply does not work for someone trying to use it to pay rent and buy food (even if they find landlord and vendors that accept bitcoin).

Don’t get me wrong, I believe Bitcoin is the best savings technology ever invented; in other words, the best store of value ever. But not everyone believe that; as a result, we have a lot of speculation and volatility. It is simply the phase we must endure while bitcoin is being adopted and being monetized. More hodling actually stabilizes bitcoin’s purchasing power and will help cement bitcoin’s position as the best store of value.

We need much greater adoption and more stable purchasing power in bitcoin before the masses will use it as a medium of exchange. Until that day comes, I see nothing wrong with hodling and hodling should not be demonized. After all, bitcoin is freedom money, and anyone should be able to use their coins as they see fit; be it spend and replace or hodl or degen trade or even trade 1 sat for 1 million sats.

I say do whatever you feel will help adoption while making sure your actions align with your values, while remembering that you are responsible for your actions. Personally, I’m just going to keep stacking, keep hodling, keep working and keep it real.

I would prefer spend bitcoin and earn bitcoin, rather than replace by converting fiat into bitcoin to spend bitcoin again. Also, most merchants that accept bitcoin probably convert it right away to fiat when they receive the bitcoin. So we only convert fiat to bitcoin, spend it and convert it back to fiat instead of creating a bitcoin only circular economy. It only cost more fees and taxes than spending fiat directly.

If you live on a Bitcoin standard, you already do this naturally because you need to live. I'm aware there's gaps, but you can get pretty far just using Bitrefill/Fold/Bitcoin Company.

Creating a circular economy is essential for Bitcoin. Regardless of the drawbacks you just described.

onboarding is difficult. work at a marketplace that only sells stuff in crypto, my parents have talked about buying stuff from it for about a year now, and still haven't. The friction is quite high.

Countries that would absolutely benefit today by - Argentina and Afghanistan - inflation & cut-off from outside banking sector.

Yes. If nobody spends their bitcoin, how are bitcoin businesses supposed to survive? If there are no bitcoin businesses/services, what use does bitcoin have outside hoarding?

Merchants offering a slight discount for their goods or services when paid via Bitcoin seems to be the biggest driver in adoption. We just need a way to expand that into more mainstream places, so that it's not simply a novel once-a-year purchase with Bitcoin, but rather a more frequent use of the network for more people. Gift cards for grocery shops is a great way to encourage spend and replacing, but we need to work on having these shops and chains accept Bitcoin directly.

For bitcoin to be be viewed as money by the public at large, it will eventually have to be commonly used in transactions between individuals. It must also be so obvious that it is a good store of value that the commentary from other media suggesting that all crypto (with is still including BTC in a lot of people's mind) is looked at as ridiculous. For now, developments such as merchants offering discounts to be paid in bitcoin and continuing to grow circular communities that exchange in bitcoin intentionally seem to have a lot of potential in increasing future adoption.

I took the time to convince several merchants in my vicinity to accept btc.

Now, I spend btc every day. My goal is "zero fiat", but I regularly purchase cash (using btc) for buying items where btc is not an option

I do have some credit in a bank, it feels dirty, and I know it's unsafe, but card payments are still necessary for some of my payment obligations.

I literally live using Bitcoin as money from 2018. I do not accept anymore fiat and closed my bank accounts. How? Simple:

Here some more details:

i confirm that spend and replace is a better model then just HODL

I don’t know if it was Carl Menger or someone else who pointed out the four steps to becoming “money” but I believe Bitcoin will need to follow this path on its way to becoming a widely accepted currency. That is it will need to be 1) collectible, then 2) a store of value, 3) a medium of exchange, and finally 4) a unit of account.

So the sentiment among our forum here that Bitcoiners will need to move onward from 2) HODLing to 3) exchanging would seem to be correct.

Those of us who are having this discussion are the ones to light the path ahead. But we need to be aware and understand that this progression–like all social movements–cannot be forced.

Bitcoin will become money as water finds its way down from the mountains. Use it, share it with others, respect it. But in general, just get out of its fucking way.

If you care about a "taxable event" you need to be smarter.

I think merchants wanting to acquire Bitcoin because they want to have more Bitcoin is a good organic way for adoption to spread, but that will be driven by increased awareness that there are people out there willing to spend their Bitcoin.

A bitcoin circular economy is crucial for the project's success.

However, merchant adoption usually means that they'll reluctantly accept bitcoin and then immediately convert it to fiat.

The solution is, we have to become the merchants.

Produce everything under the sun and accept bitcoin for it.

That's it. I solved it.

How is it that you get taxed paying with bitcoin? For example, let's say I bought 1 BTC (even if it's KYC) but then secretly spend 0.5 BTC on something. If I say I haven't touched my BTC, then in theory I could delay paying taxes until forever, or you're supposed to pay taxes yearly even if you don't sell?

Tell me how bitcoin has a limited number of transactions? Is it all about time? 600 seconds?

i’m not a fan of the spend and replace idea, it seems like a way to superficially force adoption - and one that could create a rift between bitcoin spenders and holders.

i think tools that help people earn bitcoin will light the path to bitcoin adoption, and i think it will be easier to get new earners to spend than holders.