Where to categorize crypto-currencies
"Forex. I will employ my skill for ""suspension of disbelief"" and answer with no visceral reaction to Bitcoin itself. The Euro is not an 'investment.' It's a currency. People trade currencies in order to capture relative movements between pairs of currencies. Unlike stocks, that have an underlying business and potential for growth (or failure, of course) a currency trade is a zero sum game, two people on opposite sides of a bet.  Bitcoin has no underlying asset either, no stock, no commodity. It trades, de facto, like a currency, and for purposes of objective classification, it would be considered a currency, and held similar to any Forex position."
That doesn't make it the perfect medium for theft. The system makes it okay to make non controversial items because its not like someone is going to put in the effort to track you for that.   Yet if you are buying something illicit, a large part of the blockchain can already be analyzed to see where stuff is coming from and they can start dective work from there.   For example, let's say you buy off Local Bitcoin. Well even if the FBI doesn't know your address or who it belongs to, they monitor the site and know that the funds came from a certain account. They know this because that certain someone bought coins from a regulated company.   Its not the perfect medium for theft at all. Do you actually research bitcoin or are you just looking for any reason not to like it? Its really much more complex/grand than most make it out to be. "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://hackernoon.com/cryptoeconomics-paving-the-future-of-blockchain-technology-13b04dab971?source=linkShare-2ce646a74d1c-1500791146) reduced by 96%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; When you dig deep enough into the concepts underlying blockchain technology and specific systems built on it, you will find that they heavily incorporate cryptoeconomic tools specifically designed to minimize the impact of evildoers and hostile actors.  &gt; Cryptoeconomic Assumptions of BehaviorThe exciting thing about cryptoeconomics is that its terminology and theory are being pioneered day-by-day by blockchain developers and thought leaders.  &gt; To underscore the cutting-edge innovation within this field, some of the terms associated with cryptoeconomics have less than 100 results when googled at the time of writing! While many of the ideas in this area are very theoretical, rest assured that their application will have incredible consequences on the development and adoption of blockchain technology.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6p2tm0/cryptoeconomics_paving_the_future_of_blockchain/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~173828 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **cryptoeconomic**^#1 **Bitcoin**^#2 **attack**^#3 **protocol**^#4 **blockchain**^#5" Regulated vs unregulated crypto makes sense - it seems like it's easier for government officials to simply enforce a blanket restriction on cryptocurrency transactions of all kinds than bother to make the distinctions between different types. I expect China's shutdown will be the first of many in terms of national governments on cryptocurrency. This is a long [article](https://www.bcg.com/blockchain/thinking-outside-the-blocks.html?linkId=32278919&amp;utm_content=buffer1d4c7&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=pinterest.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer) written by some leaders from the Boston Consulting Group. It is worth the read; however, based on your comment, I think the biggest piece to pay attention to is this [graph](http://i.imgur.com/q0SPYVQ.png) which does an excellent job of showing the layers from blockchain to app.  For clarity, Bitcoin is a blockchain, and is also the name of the currency for that blockchain, Ethereum is a blockchain and uses Ether as its currency. Given the structure of Ethereum it allows for apps and services to be built on top of its blockchain, such as the [Golem Network](https://golem.network/) which uses its own currency for its specific ecosystem known as [Golem Token](https://coinmarketcap.com/assets/golem-network-tokens/). All governments need to do is figure  out how to monitor, regulate and tax whenever BTC (or any crypto) is converted into dollars or merchandise.  The public ledger doesn't have names associated with it, but it does have public keys, which can be used to determine what other transactions have taken place that might not have been reported and how much crypto is in that wallet?  I agree with Ballsy12, there could be a dark side to crypto that we're not paying attention to because we're all so excited about the money we're making, but it's only money if we can spend it, and that's where it starts to get concerning.  Every transaction recorded is a bean counters wet dream. Fist money does not have legal tender.  And technically there are thousands of people willing to fight for bitcoin, who can be seen as an army so in that logic bitcoin has some intrinsic value.  But both don't have intrinsic value. Most sources on the internet I can find agree with that. Wikipedia, investopedia and many others.  Not that money needs intrinsic value. If the market value is 1000 times above the intrinsic value then the intrinsic value is not even relevant. But 1000 * 0 = 0 and the intrinsic value of the dollar itself (not coins) will always be 0. Same for the EUR and then YUAN. "Alright, so this is all out of the way.  As a further note, I have a degree in computer science so I'm not oblivious to the technical aspects of bitcoin.  I reject the idea that banning bitcoin is akin to banning the internet - in fact, I reject the notion that bitcoin is anywhere as revolutionary as ""the internet"" was (which itself, as a construct, is far older than most people let on).    I've always acknowledged that there are many innovative technical aspects to bitcoin which are likely to find their way into our current system of money and transactions.    The reality, however, goes back to my original contentions - that bitcoin is difficult (if not nearly impossible) to track, and thus serves as a black-market vehicle for those who wish to transact outside the power of the government.  Whether or not you see this as ""good"" or ""bad"" doesn't matter; ""the government"" within any defined national border is the plenary power - period - and thus (for lack of a better phrase) ""resistance is mostly futile.""" If the vendor accepts cryptocurrencies, this may be your only option. It's not clear if exporting cryptocurrency violates Ethiopian law, but at least cryptocurrencies have not yet been banned. If you can find someone who can trade you cryptocurrency, you can send it anywhere. Because cryptocurrencies are still extremely price volatile, I recommend you use Ripple, the fastest I can find.  It can 100% confirm transactions on average within 10 seconds.  This will keep your exposure to price volatility at a minimum if you send the cryptocurrency as soon as you buy it. If you choose this route, please take precausions.  Your government may retroactively ban it and pursue you.  Considering the Ethiopian government's history, this is not unlikely, and banning cryptocurrencies outright is. It's already happening. Cryptocurrencies are your friend in this case.  The other day I was on a torrent website which replaced ads with Monero based Captcha. I believe the website was using my CPU power to mine small amount Monero for themselves. If this is true, you won't need ads. Revenue will come straight from mining cryptos using the consumer's CPU. Granted, currencies don't have intrinsic value.   Cryptocurrency is worse than government currencies in a few ways:   - it costs real resources to produce   - no institution keeps values stable   - values are volatile in practice  In those respects, crypto is more similar to a precious metal than a currency. Except it's worse than precious metals too, as metals have some intrinsic value.  Crypto won't be able to overcome these disadvantages to compete with government-issued currencies in the long term. It might compete with gold long term. There are a lot of nuts and gold bugs in the world, and crypto might live on in that fringe space. You won't hear me calling crypto a safe haven as such. The local price volatility is more than most people can handle. And it takes a level of tech savvy to be able to separate facts from nonsense.  By my personal analysis, Ethereum (ETH) would be the safest crypto investment by far. Bitcoin (BTC) is also surprisingly resilient in terms of value, but has been deprecated on multiple levels at this point, so it seems quite overvalued (or Ethereum undervalued for that matter). The rest of crypto can probably best be compared to investing in startups. High risk, high reward. Cryptocurrency investments. Got lucky and turned 1k into 50k in a month. 25k given to me from family members and 25k saved from working. I have a college degree btw. I just can't use it because i have deeprooted anxiety issues keeping me underemployed. Anyway 100k isn't a lot. I can't even buy a house and can barely even get a downpayment where i live and i wouldn't come close to being able to pay my mortgage. "Firstly you have to know exactly what you are asking here.  What you have if you ""own"" bitcoins is a private key that allows you to make a change to the blockchain that can assign a piece of information from yourself to the next person. Nothing more nothing less.  The fact that this small piece of information is considered to have a market value, is a matter of opinion, and is analagous to owning a domain name. A domain name is an entry in a register, that has equal weight to all other entries, but the market determines if that information (eg: CocaCola.com) has any more value than say another less well know domain. Bitcoin is the same - an entry in a register, and the market decides which entry is more valuable than another.  So what exactly are you wanting to declare to FinCEN? Are you willing to declare the ownership of private key? Of course not. So what then? An uncrackable private key can be generated at will by anyone, without even needing to ""own"" or transact in bitcoins, and that same private key would be equally valid on any of the 1000's of other bitcoin clones. The point I want to make is that owning a private key in itself is not valuable. Therefore you do not need, nor would anyone advise notifying FinCEN of that fact. To put this into context, every time you connect to online banking, your computer secretly generates a new random private key to secure your communications with the bank. Theoretically that same private key could also be used to sign a bitcoin transaction. Do you need to declare every private key your computer generates? No. Secondly, if you are using any of the latest generation of HD wallets, your private key changes with every single transaction. Are you seriously saying that you want to take it on your shoulders to inform FinCEN every time you move information (bitcoin amounts) around even in your own wallets? The fact is FinCEN could never ""discover"" your ownership of bitcoins (or any of the 1000s of alt coins) other than by you informing them of this fact.  You may want to carefully consider the personal implications of starting down this road especially as all FinCEN would need to do is subpoena your bitcoin private key to steal your so-called funds, as they have done recently to other more prominent persons in the community. EDIT to clarify the points raised in comments. You do not own the private key to the bitcoins stored on a foreign exchange, nor can you discover it. The exchange owns the private key. You therefore do not either technically have control over the coins (MtGox is a very good example here - they went out of business because they allowed their private keys to be used by some other party who was able to siphon off the coins). Your balance is only yours when you own the private keys and the ability to spend. Any other situation you can neither recover the bitcoin to sell (to pay for any taxes due). So you do not either have the legal right nor the technical right to consider those coins in your possession.  For those who do not understand the technical or legal implications of private key ownership, please do not speculate about what ""owning"" bitcoin actually means, or how ownership can be discovered. Holding Bitcoin is not illegal, and the US government who until recently were the single largest holder of Bitcoin demonstrate simply by this fact alone that there is nothing untoward here." SECTION | CONTENT :--|:-- Title | Как можно быстро заработать Биткоин? Майнинг Сатошей Bitcoin. Сайты по заработку криптовалюты 2017 Description | ¦ Ссылка на регистрацию в проектах: | Elitemining: https://goo.gl/a1UEKz | Cryptostar: https://goo.gl/fQdECh =========================================== ¦ Бинарные опционы Олимп Трейд https://goo.gl/DKryBH ====== Вступайте в Мою команду! =============== ¦? Моя группа https://vk.com/criptovaluta2016 ====== Как связаться со мной =============== ¦? Я в VK №1: https://vk.com/a.alex81 ¦? Я в Одноклассниках: https://ok.ru/alex6373 ¦? Я в Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Alex6373 ¦? Мой Skype: samara... Length | 0:04:36           ****   ^(I am a bot, this is an auto-generated reply | )^[Info](https://www.reddit.com/u/video_descriptionbot) ^| ^[Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=video_descriptionbot&amp;subject=Feedback) ^| ^(Reply STOP to opt out permanently) Actually, I misspoke.  Arcade City doesn't use crypto.  It just connects riders and drivers and lets them work out the payment on their own.  There is an offshoot of Arcade City called Swarm City that does use crypto but it's only in the early development stages.  There is a ton happening in the cryptocurrency space right now.  Lots of really complex applications and development platforms - it's no longer just about funds transfer.  If you are interested, here's a list of 1100 active projects: https://coinmarketcap.com/  On each project's detail page you'll find a link to its web site for further info.