Oddbean new post about | logout
 GM☕

Capital gains tax is the real ban on Bitcoin.

In theory what makes Bitcoin the bubble that never pops, or the black hole that consumes everything, is because of the property of "money".

Money is the most liquid good. The more liquid, the more valuable. And the reverse, the more valuable, the more liquid. Liquidity begets liquidity, and so the best money can in theory "go up forever".

Capital gains tax hurts the store of value properties of Bitcoin, but also at the same time it's liquidity. Bitcoin can't become the most liquid good if there is a ceiling on it's use because people don't want to incur capital gains tax.

That's why I think the game theory of countries banning Bitcoin in practice is the game theory of how high a country will set it's capital gains tax on Bitcoin, and what legal status they will give Bitcoin as a unit of account.

Hopefully the game theory will play out as bitcoiners have theorized, that capital will flee to countries with low or now capital gains tax on #Bitcoin, and that this will be the evolutionary mechanism that will take us to hyperbitcoinization.