- How can a lightning network transaction be audited? Don't private payment channels differ from the legacy payment rails that we're used to?
oh so let me get this straight the plan with lightning - is that it would be untraceable, unauditibale & anonymous - and that it would obscure transactions?
One basic and simple point so we can put that this L2 payments nonsense to bed - how is the untraceable, unauditable & anonymous BTC project going? Not very well....L2 sits on top of BTC.....BTC has been subsumed & concubined into the tradifi system....L2's based on BTC are by logical extension trapped by this too.
What clarity has the IRS (or any other tax authority in the world for that matter) provided with regard specifically to lightning network payments? If you can provide a link to that info, that would be informative.
You with your links @tecate and specfic regulatory clarity. I provided an IRS link explaining capital goods abive....BTC is a capital good.....L2's require (1) BTC, a capital good, as the fee for service & (2) L2 wallets are funded by underlying BTC deposits & withdrawals.
Now to your constant hunt for links where you want every regulator in the world to get down into the weeds on what constitutes a triggering of XYZ regulation.
Well @tecate you've demonstrated a naivete in this - you want everything spelled out for you by the authorities. Let me help you understand the legal and regulatory system. It is principles based....and never envisages having to outline in law or regulatory rulings how the principal of regulation or law is triggered by every possible combination of how a law can be triggered.
The BTC speaking point of regulatory clarity - is one of the great red herrings in crypto land.....underlying use case clarity is not required in a principled based legal system
Simple example for you that you really need to let sink in & stop asking for links to XYZ org getting into the weeds on L2 or any other derivative of BTC - every nation state legal system in the world is constructed on principles of law - for example the law says that you cannot steal somebody's else's property....that a principle, theft, is enshrined in law.
Now what would @tecate and BTC community say in regard to say the stealing of someone's PS5......well what you would say to me is well send me a link where it specifically states from a regulator or government official that taking somebody's PS5 is stealing?!? That the law as regards taking others PS5 is unclear, it lacks clarity as regards PS5's.......the links dont exist for this & minute regulatory or legal clarity doesnt exist for every WAY in which a law can be broken.....it would be impossible...and thats why every legal system in the world has a principles based legal framework.
So please stop asking for links & regulatory clarity -and lets deal in the real world of legal principles - the legal principle as regards BTC is set, its a capital good..... so I just gave you a free law school lesson that I hope sticks moving forward.....as you stop going down the cytpo rabbit hole & talking point of endless legal clarity which is a trick the industry plays all the time....its intellectually crazy & disingenuous....the functional equivalent of assaulting somebody with say a baseball bat and arguing in front of a judge that you shouldn't be convicted of assault because the law specifically makes no reference to use of baseball bats in an assault and so the law doesn't apply therefore your not guilty.
What your saying here is that because a regulator hasn't written an L2 law or specifically addressed L2 use cases in some circular or speech or such - that somehow L2's sit outside the law/regulation/tax system. Thats not the way the world works.
Put simply @tecate when you do this thing you do ALL THE TIME...asking for links to prove XYZ activity contravenes the law...your the functional equivalent of somebody asking for the legislative paragraph that specifically says assaulting somebody with a baseball bat is assault. The principal, in this case assault, is triggered the method doesn't matter.
In the case of L2's.......the capital goods & gains/losses principal is triggered....the buying or selling of a capital good either BTC or an "in-kind" transaction on the L2 are pointless details as it pertains to the principal of taxation that exists. Revenue or the IRS would simply look at all the techno mumbo jumbo and shrug their shoulders and say whatevs @tecate ......all very clever & complicated and we dont care..... you've triggered the principal of a gain on sale of a capital good....file the paperwork buddy and send us our money.
So as I said - imagine going into the shop and looking at a pint of milk and thinking ok its €3 euro..I'm gonna use lighting to pay...now let me think, whats my embedded capital gain on BTC right now... do the math.....OK so this tax event will trigger a 15c gain on sale....so the milk on an after tax basis will cost me €3.15 and I need to keep track of that 15c gain on sale to report at the end of the year....and do a tax filing with revenue on all my little purchases of milk.
You've lost your mind - if you think such mental and intellectual friction and overhead....is the basis for a successful scaling of a future payments system to compete with MasterCard & Visa
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