Bitcoin

Did you sell any bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) in 2017? If you did, do you know how to pay taxes on the transaction(s)? I’m going to guess that a lot of people in the US that fit in the category of having sold some bitcoin in 2017 haven’t spent a millisecond thinking about what tax they might owe. There are probably others who feel like they shouldn’t have to pay any tax because they believe bitcoin is outside the reach of the government. And then there are others who believe the theoretically anonymous elements of the cryptocurrency they are trading should prevent anyone – especially the government – from finding out about what they are up to. ...

My favorite Onion article of all time (from 2010) is U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion . It starts off with some Bernanke brilliance. “Though raising interest rates is unlikely at the moment, the Fed will of course act appropriately if we…if we…” said Bernanke, who then paused for a moment, looked down at his prepared statement, and shook his head in utter disbelief. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of this—this so-called ‘money’—really matters at all.” ...

If you are interested in understanding the business implications of blockchain technology, William Mougayar ‘s new book – The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology – is a must read. I’ve known William for about five years. I almost invested in his company Engagio (there’s now a different company by that name) but decided not to. However, our friendship developed and he’s been an amazing host anytime I’ve been in Toronto. ...

If you are interested in the blockchain or bitcoin, go support William Mougayar’s new Kickstarter The Business Blockchain Books. William is writing two books on the blockchain. We had early discussions with him about doing them via FG Press, but since we’ve decided to shut down FG Press (more on that in a later post) we encouraged William to explore different options. He chose to launch on Kickstarter, which I think is an awesome place for an domain expert like William to do this instead of going the traditional publishing route. ...

A few weeks ago a I wrote a post titled It’s Not Right vs. Left, It’s Old vs. New about the conflict between innovators and incumbents. As a society, we are just starting to wander into the real structural conflict around this and I don’t believe our government, either at the local, state, or federal level, really knows what to do about it, or how to effectively engage in it. ...

I woke up this morning to several articles about Bitcoins. From Dave Taylor’s explanation in the Boulder Daily Camera to a paywall article that you can’t buy with bitcoins (ironic) in the NY Times (A Bitcoin Puzzle ) to Fred Wilson’s blog (A Note about Bitcoin ), I was surrounded by words about them. We have an awesome CEO list that covers plenty of topics. Early in the week I posted a link to Fred Wilson’s post Buying Your Holiday Gifts With Bitcoin . That generated a fun discussion including lots of “what are bitcoins and why do I care”; “here’s what they are” kind of things. And then Kwin Kramer of Oblong weighed in with a phenomenal essay. It follows. ...

My long time friend Terry Kawaja (history question – which Colorado-based company was Terry once CFO of) from Luma Partners sent me his latest parody video titled Use Bitcoin. I knew it was a parody of something, but I didn’t remember “Wear Sunscreen ” (which I saw when it first came out in the late 1990’s) until I read the liner notes on Terry’s Youtube post. Both are awesome. But to really grok how awesome Use Bitcoin is, you have to watch Wear Sunscreen first. It follows. ...