If you have been interested in bitcoin for the last few years, there is no doubt that you have made a lot of money. You have been a good hodler, but maybe you want to buy something, a house, a car, some dinner or a holiday. So you go to sell, but as a thinking person, you find yourself bogged down.
To start there is forking. You don't want to just through money away so you want to cash in on your bitcoin cash and your bitcoin gold before you sell your good old traditional bitcon. That takes time and can be a logistical nightmare. On top of that, there are the other
endless forks that are worth a little now, like
bitcoin diamond,
bitcoin silver,
bitcoinx,
bitcoin cash plus and
super bitcoin that may one day be worth a lot. In a way, bitcoin is becoming an interest-earning asset and it compounds. Forks are even starting on top of forks.
Whether you need to pay taxes or not is a difficult question to answer and increaingly puts a damper on selling. Taxes across the world are confusing, is it a currency, is it an asset, do you pay capital gains or not. In NZ it is supposed to be an asset. if bitcoiners are to be required to pay capital gains when they sell then they will be tempted not to, if they are to pay on gains or interest yearly, then they must either find a way to sell or just try to keep their stash secret or in another jurisdiction.
Anonymity is also at risk when you sell your bitcoins. especially if you have been holding them for a long time it is likely that at least the person who you sell them to will be able to trace those bitcoins back to figure out how many others you likely have and where you or someone close to you has been spending them.
Banks continue to make it hard to sell because they can sometimes not be receptive to large deposits from bitcoin sales, or large cash deposits. When selling bitcoin you often have to do it on an overseas exchange, this leads to a slow four day "swift" (the name sounds so ironic lately) transfer and probably an inquisitory phone call from the banks call centre. If you sell for cash you have a security risk, someone could rob you, and then you can't deposit it without questions, it's also difficult to spend cash on large items. In many cases, cash is treated worse than cryptos. Sellers could be running back to bitcoin so they can buy things on
cheapair,
overstock and
open bazaar.
So when faced with all this.With FOMO from forks and fear of taxes, publicity, banks and cash, in addition to FOMO of the regular 100% gains, I can see why many just decide to crack a homebrew and HODL
Lets review some beers.
