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Bitcoin Japan Government The Almighty Buck

Bitcoin Becomes Legal Payment Option In Japan, Prices Spike (investopedia.com) 77

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Investopedia: A bill to amend Japan's Banking Act has finally come to fruition, recognizing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender. The bill has far-reaching repercussions for the digital currency world as well as the way that cryptocurrencies can be traded and exchanged. The Banking Act was modified after a long process of debate and dialog which saw proponents of digital currencies arguing on their behalf. Now, after months of discussion, the bill has come into effect as of the beginning of April. Section 3 of the bill has been modified to including wording on virtual currency and is being called the Virtual Currency Act, according to reporting by Brave New Coin. Digital currencies like Bitcoin have finally received definition and recognition as a means of payment by the Japanese government. The Banking Act's Payment Services Act has also moved to define a digital currency as "property of value," meaning that it is usable for payment in the broader marketplace and that it may be bought or sold. At the same time, the Japanese bill distinguishes between digital currencies like Bitcoin and "electronic money." Digital currency, in this case, is not issued by a specific entity and may be used by any accepting individual, while electronic money can be linked to a specific issuer and can only be used by that issuer or persons specified by the issuer. Along with the recognition of Bitcoin and other digital currencies is the stipulation that profits from trading of those currencies may be considered as "income from business activities or miscellaneous income." This makes Bitcoin subject to various taxes, including capital gains tax.
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Bitcoin Becomes Legal Payment Option In Japan, Prices Spike

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  • by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Monday April 03, 2017 @07:59PM (#54167989)

    BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY

    Dear Lameness Filter,

    I am not the one that is yelling, it is the pump and dump people that make Bitcoin prices every time there is an article like this.

  • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Monday April 03, 2017 @08:03PM (#54168007)

    FYI, "legal tender" means that people are obligated to accept it in repayment of debts. If I owe you 10 ounces of silver, and I try to give you an equal "value" of Federal Reserve Notes instead, you can't refuse to accept it and then sue me for nonpayment. The courts will consider my offer of the legally-privileged notes as a full defense against that suit.

    Merely having the option to accept something doesn't make it legal tender.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      yes; but then again, I don't have to actually accept your debt. its the credit portion that triggers the legal tender; as a merchant, so long as I offer a pure transactional play, then I can turn down your shit money.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Legal tender is not the right word. What they have done is recognized it as a currency instead of virtual goods that are bought and sold. That means that instead of being theoretically subject to sales tax, it is theoretically subject to capital gains tax instead. And now that it is official, banks can choose to start exchanging it and other exchanges operating inside Japan can theoretically be subjected to regulation.

      Reality on the ground probably doesn't change all that much. The value of Bitcoin should

    • you'd probably end up paying more than repaying in kind, like $20 for a Netflix disc
    • OK, so I can't use cash for that purpose in several restaurants in my city. They operate under a (state issued) license that allows this. So, is cash not legal tender in the US?

      • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Tuesday April 04, 2017 @12:49AM (#54168835)

        It depends. Legal tender laws only apply to debts. If you purchase the meal in an instant transaction (fast food), they can accept whatever they want to accept in trade. If they don't want to accept cash at that point, they don't have to.

        For a full service restaurant where the bill comes at the end, the question is: Is that bill a debt?

        Most likely, regardless of the answer to that question, they'll take cash if you raise a fuss. Can you imagine if that escalated to a police call? Cops already have to put up with all sorts of strange shit, but I'm imagining the restaurant manager rethinking a big part of his life when a cop asks him "You really want me to arrest him? For trying to pay his bill? With cash?"

        Ooh, or a judge. Judges love cases that waste their time.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          It depends. Legal tender laws only apply to debts. If you purchase the meal in an instant transaction (fast food), they can accept whatever they want to accept in trade. If they don't want to accept cash at that point, they don't have to.

          For a full service restaurant where the bill comes at the end, the question is: Is that bill a debt?

          Most likely, regardless of the answer to that question, they'll take cash if you raise a fuss. Can you imagine if that escalated to a police call? Cops already have to put up with all sorts of strange shit, but I'm imagining the restaurant manager rethinking a big part of his life when a cop asks him "You really want me to arrest him? For trying to pay his bill? With cash?"

          A restaurant bill isn't really a debt, non-payment in these circumstances would be considered theft of service, at least in commonwealth countries but I'd be surprised if it was different in the US or Europe.

          A restaurant is under no obligation to accept cash or credit cards as long as the payment methods are known to the customer before the product or service is ordered. Hence "no cheques accepted" signs that some of us are old enough to remember, personal cheques used to be a common method of payment.

          • by markxz ( 669696 )

            When it comes to paying an actual debt, a debtor can put reasonable limits on how you can pay, or conditions on certain methods as long as its disclosed before the debt is agreed upon. For example, they can impose a credit card surcharge because they have to pay a charge to accept it or refuse to accept cash because they have no cash handling facilities. Also payment in legal tender must be reasonable. For example, if you have a £5,000 debt, a debtor can refuse to accept 2500 x £2 coins or even 1000 £5 notes where they would be obligated to accept 250 £20 notes.

            In the UK it depends on which country you are in.

            In Scotland the only legal tender for high value debts is £1 and £2 coins. Bank notes are accepted tender- but not strictly legal tender.

          • A restaurant is under no obligation to accept cash or credit cards as long as the payment methods are known to the customer before the product or service is ordered. Hence "no cheques accepted" signs that some of us are old enough to remember, personal cheques used to be a common method of payment.

            I seriously doubt this is legal, at least in the US. Cash is legal tender. You *cannot* refuse to accept it to repay a debt. A check is not legal tender, so businesses have every right to refuse to accept them,

            • This is usually used at restaurants where a diner can be expected to pay $200+ at the end of the meal. Handling that much cash becomes a problem.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      FYI, "legal tender" means that people are obligated to accept it in repayment of debts. If I owe you 10 ounces of silver, and I try to give you an equal "value" of Federal Reserve Notes instead, you can't refuse to accept it and then sue me for nonpayment. The courts will consider my offer of the legally-privileged notes as a full defense against that suit.

      Within reason. If I owe you £10,000 I cant pay you in £2 coins. A debtor has the right to demand a reasonable form of payment. Paying in chickens means that the debtor has to wear the cost of converting chickens into whatever medium for trade is suitable for them. If the debtor is OK with that (say you owed £10,000 to KFC) then the debt can easily be paid in chickens. However if its not, debtors are within their rights to set limits on what kinds of payments they will accept.

      So yes if y

      • Not in the US. We occasionally have disgruntled taxpayers pay their tax bills and such with wheelbarrows of pennies. Debtors do not have the right to set limits on what kinds of US currency they will accept; they can only do this if there's no debt (e.g. they haven't yet sold you the product). Once there's a debt, any US currency is fair game, and they cannot refuse it and then claim non-payment.

        If you're thinking of places where they refuse to take high-value bills, those places don't have a debt in pla

  • Seriously, it might be interesting to see some small nation switch to bitcoin for its money. It would allow ppl to see exactly what their gov is up to.
    • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday April 03, 2017 @09:48PM (#54168411)

      Seriously, it might be AWESOME to see some small nation switch to Bitcoin for its currency, so people would finally shut the fuck up when they see it crash under the load.

      3.5 TPS. That's it. You can't run a small TOWN on 3.5 transactions per second.

      • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Monday April 03, 2017 @11:03PM (#54168645)

        You do know that bitcoin doesn't need to take over all transactions in order to be successful, right?

        Wait for the price to rise another order of magnitude or two and the world will be scrambling to move all of their settlement activity to it.

        • >You do know that bitcoin doesn't need to take over all transactions in order to be successful, right?

          I love how you idiots redefine what Bitcoin has to do every time any one of its fatal flaws is pointed out.

          Luckily, there are so many flaws to point out it's rare anyone bothers to name them all simultaneously, so you always have somewhere to move your goalpost to.

          • What are all these flaws that all these idiots are unable to see? I thought it was the absolute perfect currency that cannot be bested by anything, I guess I was wrong ... You have singlehandedly and so eloquently disproven the entire basis of Bitcoin I am forced to see it for the absolute trash that it is.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Seriously, it might be AWESOME to see some small nation switch to Bitcoin for its currency, so people would finally shut the fuck up when they see it crash under the load.

        3.5 TPS. That's it. You can't run a small TOWN on 3.5 transactions per second.

        As much as I agree with your point...

        But how do you define a small town?

        A town is widely considered to have a population of 1000 to 20,000 people, lets say a small town in the fourth (bottom) quartile of that. Up to 5000 pop. 3.5 transactions a second means that 210 transactions occur each minute, 12,600 transactions an hour, that means that every man, woman and child needs to make a transaction every 24 minutes (2.5 times an hour). This would be a difficult feat, even at multiple locations. You may e

    • by ET3D ( 1169851 )
      Hopefully none. Cryptocurrency, not a bad idea, Bitcoin, terrible idea. It has many problems and is almost exclusively mined in China these days, to the point where if China decided to take control of it, it could manipulate the blockchain to its will.
  • Let's say bit coin becomes legit. How long before we got greedy copy cats sniffing money and start breaking in? How many forms of money will it take before money becomes worthless?
    • by zieroh ( 307208 )

      Let's say bit coin becomes legit. How long before we got greedy copy cats sniffing money and start breaking in?

      You're late to this particular party. Really late. Bitcoin has been legit enough for long enough that the number of copycat cryptocurrencies is fast approaching infinity.

      How many forms of money will it take before money becomes worthless?

      All of them.

  • The legislation, as far as I can tell, simply recognises it as a taxable commodity, not as legal tender.
    • What if you never sell if for "cash", is there a gain (or loss)?

      Say you purchase 1 bitcoin for, say $700. Later, the purchasing power "appears" to be about $1000 (or whatever).

      I can see the argument for capital gains if I just sell it for the cash, but if I purchase something, it is just cheaper for me, like it is on sale.

      Like if someone has foreign currency left over from a trip and they go back later when it is worth more. (Glad I didn't keep any of my ~$1.55 euros from my 2008 trip, to use on my
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Bitcoin fluctuates to much compared with real currency and is therefore not stable. $1127 to $1158 is comparison price against the dollar just in the last 24 hours and even over the last 30 days it has swept from $1280 to $935 and back up to $1158.That is to much swing

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