The Next Web published an article today on a new paper published out of the U.K. The document is Cryptoassets for individuals.
It basically lays out how the U.K. government sees things like financial trading, mining, airdrops, etc.. of crypto assets and how they should be taxed.
From the article:
Indeed, the HMRC sees crypotcurrency, tokens, and digital assets of this nature as property rather than as forms of money.
As a result, cryptocurrency investors who buy based on speculation will need to pay capital gains tax, but only when they sell their coins. If you receive tokens or coins as forms of payment, whether that be from your employer, from mining, transaction fees, or even airdrops you will be liable for standard UK income tax and national insurance.
Read my lips:
Governments will never allow anything to be formally considered “money” that is outside its control and that of its anointed central bankers, even if it practically can and sometimes does function as money. Any lesser power so doing will almost certainly also be brought in line sooner or later.
And for more adventurously inclined readers and thinkers:
“And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, that they give them a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, the name of the beast or the number of his name.”
https : // www . biblegateway . com/passage/?search=Revelation+13%3A17-18&version=NASB
All that is not only now technologically feasible for the first time in history, but rapidly racing toward politically and societally feasible as well. Even the “mark” can already be a literal “mark” and not a chip as many like to speculate.
Or substitute “currency” for “money” in this particular case of course.
Good reading:
“Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom”
http://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/
The inevitable is still inevitable, however.