Wouldn't that prohibit transactions in foreign currencies or am I misinterpreting your question? The US tax law already handles all types of foreign currency transactions, and bitcoins would full under that law. So all transactions, at the time of the transaction, are virtually converted to US dollars at the current spot rate for cost basis and gross sales calculations.
I first thought MPex traded BTC futures, but no, it trades in BTC. The loper-os website is really interesting, he has 5 articles about Bitcoin. He also thinks the same as I do, that maybe Bitcoin is the creation of the NSA as a honey pot... He thinks that a huge dump of early bitcoins could kill the whole idea, I think it would be actually good in the long run, because the distribution would be more even, more new comers could enter at a lower price and more coins were in circulation, instead of being horded...
I am aware of both facts. So why didn't they distribute BTC widely? It was worthless anyway, but to make it work, they needed more users. So they should have donated to pretty much anyone or at least people who did some good deed. I started to think of Bitcoin as a company. Think of Facebook. You start a website so a small group of your friends can communicate with each other and share pictures. What is the value? Not so much. Make it 200 million people communicating, and you are a billionaire. So the starters of Bitcoin could be the "venture capitalists" who put time, codewriting and maybe some money into the project, kept most of the coins, and now they are reaping the benefits... But the strange thing is that they are STILL not cashing out. They are either very patient investors or there is something else going on. Reasons for the early coins never been used: 1. Early adopters are experts at investing and they know that the current price is still pocket change, more to come. 2. Most of those coins have been lost. 3. The creators were government employees and they are not allowed to use/benefit from basicly what is government property. 4. All or some of the above....
Sorry, I should have been more clear. Mandate all US domiciled business/internet business to accept payment *only* in USD? Edit - after reading your post again, you're right, it would. But perhaps there's an avenue here....exempt foreign currency transactions. Applies to all other goods and services sold within the US? Edit#2 - that would exempt US companies who traded foreign currency for USD How about requiring all foreign currencies to be transacted through authorized banks/exchanges. And then all brick and mortar shops only accept USD? I'm just thinking aloud here...
I am surprised nobody has jumped on the arbitrage bandwagon. Apparently there is huge (up to 5%) difference between the exchange rates, namely between bitfloor and mt.gox: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1bt2gx/why_is_bitfloor_trading_6_above_mtgox/ "Bitfloor has usually always been +0-5% higher than mt. gox. I'm assuming it's due to easily being able to get your money in, smaller trade fees, and less available supply."
There is tons of opportunity, but good luck transferring all the coins and converting currencies on the fly. I am assuming some do this, but the best opportunities are with CNY currency, last check was like $15 above Mt Gox price after converting. There are also opportunities with btc-e.com - which I believe are the most exploitable. Still have to add in fees etc..
The problem with bitcoin is that it can be ruined by governments blocking the points where bitcoin is exchanged for traditional currency, or legitimate (IE not black market) points of sale and businesses. Kind of how they mostly killed online poker in the US by going after payment processors.
Well, there was one guy who bought a pizza for 10.000 BTC, and he reordered. Lots of early coins are lost forever as people did not pay much attention to keeping proper backups when it was worthless.
Bit coin is not a currency since the fluctuations are too large to have any place in the real financial system. Stability of price is a requirement for monetary usefulness. Read productivity credits. They will have more validity in the financial system since they will not fluctuate the way bit coins have.
I meant to post on Friday that the hourly chart is showing an ascending triangle and a breakout is very likely to the upside. (Horizontal line was around $145.) It sure broke out, now at $155. Nice to know that TA also works on Bitcoin. A TA site for Bitcoin: http://btctrading.wordpress.com/ "What is doing now bitcoin is a good example of a parabolic rise in an early stage, using last 10 weeks i derived the formula of the current parabolic that bitcoin is following: y = 1.81 * x2 â 11* x + 35 where x2 is x to the power of 2 As i explained many times i think that normally a swing can last up to 25-30 bars, in this case weeks, extrapolating the above formula i can compute a target (you can do the same just substitute âxâ with the number of weeks). With 25 weeks iâve a target of 890$, using 20 weeks iâve a reasonable 540$ target; i think that a long term top beetween 500$ and 1000$ is likely to happen, all depends if bitcoin will reach the wall street crooks or not"