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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

The alternative is to do things off the grid, so to speak - meet people in person, exchange funds for cryptocurrencies. Actually that might be a small side business idea.

Of course, one of the goals of cryptocurrencies is to not have to go through central organizations at all. Not converting your cryptocurrencies back to fiat, and not storing them on an exchange will be the best way to dodge taxes. Pretty sure that if you hide your keys well enough, the IRS and co cannot prove that you have any assets in cryptocurrencies as long as how you acquired them can't be traced.

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Sure, you can make tax evasion mainstream. That worked out brilliantly for Greece.

To be fair, Greece didn't have any control over its currency (the Euro).

In case you're not kidding: LocalBitcoins.com has been doing this.

Although you still have to be careful, as one trader found out [1]. His was a little more than a "small side business," though.

[1] https://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-trader-pleads-guilty-...

I always think of this quote from the movie, "Body of Lies":

"Our enemy has realized that they are fighting guys from the future. Now, ahem, it is as brilliant as it is infuriating. If you live like it's the past, and you behave like it's the past then guys from the future find it very hard to see you. If you throw away your cell phone, shut down your e-mail pass all your instructions face-to-face, hand-to-hand turn your back on technology and just disappear into the crowd"

Your supposed "enemy", has barely even noticed you. If the big bad government wants to shut down your little cryptobubble, it can do so anytime it wants with the stroke of a pen.

But yes: please walk into a forest and "life as if you don't exist". I suppose that includes not posting conspiracy fanfic online, right?

>If the big bad government wants to shut down your little cryptobubble, it can do so anytime it wants with the stroke of a pen.

Let's think this through. How well has government prohibition of what private citizens do in their own homes worked in practice for anything else it's been tried on? Then consider that we're talking about data rather than physical objects, which are even slipperier.

All such an action would do is drive it underground. Anyone who wants to use bitcoin still will.

Why the vitriol. The comment was meant to allegorically offer a conceptual approach to fighting the dystopian onslaught of oppressive technology.

By oppressive technology I am referring to the kind of tech that obviously oppressive governments would have built decades ago if it had been possible, and that the US will gradually arrive at soon enough without explicitly seeking to do so.

Only works until they have facial recognition everywhere.

> If you throw away your cell phone, shut down your e-mail pass all your instructions face-to-face, hand-to-hand turn your back on technology and just disappear into the crowd

Except we've been fighting tax evasion for as long as there have been taxes.

https://localbitcoins.com

https://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-trader-pleads-guilty-...

So two people out of hundreds of thousands, who were running significant money-trading businesses through the network? They weren't targeting regular users or many people at all...

This would be so incredibly to sting if the authorities got interested at all.

Sure, you can tax evade all you want at a small scale, but once you hit remotely interesting figures they are going to wreck you.

Even if you managed to convert all your crypto assets to cash completely off the grid, and not only your bed but also your closet is full of the stuff, what good does that do? You've just moved the "problem" from one asset to another.

As soon as you buy a sports car, or a yacht and pay in cash (which is probably at least as difficult as doing it in Bitcoin) the IRS will take notice. You're going to have to explain why you suddenly drive an expensive car without any trace of payments for it, or you're going to lose it.

Unless your money really come from illicit sources, in which case you have no choice, I doubt it is worth it.

Sounds like tax evasion.

this exists - localbitcoins.com

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