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Comment by viraptor | Hacker News Reader

I think you're thinking of use cases that would definitely be stopped outside of ethereum world:

> Some rich soon-to-be-dead billionaire tech nerds want to be able to do something every year without worrying about a judge taking that away from them.

You can do things like this, but the law either already covers this, or will adjust. If you gain money, you're expected to pay the usual tax on that gain. First few may get away with it, but once it becomes popular, audits will start.

> Individual will is what cryptocurrencies are about.

Same as above - inheritance tax.

Essentially it's this xkcd situation: https://xkcd.com/1494/ Just with wealth gain and tax office instead.

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The point of Ethereum is to provide something that is different from the real world. If not, it is simply fiat, except that it is 1000 times more inefficient and burns up loads of electricity.

It has to affect the real world at some point. If it doesn't, what's the point?

You cannot rely on the law to treat your wishes long after you are dead. The largest park in Toronto (High Park), for example, should technically not be owned by the city because the person that bequeathed it to the city said that it would revert to some other organization if a catholic was ever elected mayor, but that never happened.

As for XKCD - where something happens is no longer clear cut. If someone creates a etherium contract during a year in Argentina while SSH'd into a computer in Hong Kong it starts to become very difficult to enforce the law.

I'm not even talking strictly about tax evasion I'm talking about subversion of the states restriction on individual action - and I agree that this isn't a good thing across the board. I don't like the idea of billionaires hiding their influence and wealth, I just think it is inevitable.

As long as you never convert into traditional currency, how will they know you participated in a transaction?

As long as you never convert, what use is it? (and that's assuming your country doesn't require you to declare cryptocurrency gains)

Some people are willing to trade goods and services for Bitcoin, just like they would dollars.

I don't think it's relevant what the person receiving the Bitcoin does with it after (converting directly to dollars, holding, or buying other goods/services), since those are the same things people do with regular dollars anyway.

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