-Having an ‘official’, digital currency that can be controlled by the banks, stripped of anonymity, tracked, taxed and have unnecessary fees applied to every little transaction would entirely defeat the purpose of cryptocurrency. This disconnect and delusion that so many regulatory groups and lawmakers suffer from is part of the problem.
“With cryptocurrencies, it’s not that they didn’t aspire to be a payment mechanism, it’s that they’ve completely failed to become one, except for people who desire anonymity, of course, for whatever reason,”
-Well, golly gee…I wonder why that is?!? Nearly every government in the world has been aggressively cracking down on cryptocurrency. How can anyone ever expect it to succeed in this climate? Ridiculous comment.
Maybe. We would certainly be led to believe that it is being used everywhere, for everything horrible under the sun. After all, it serves as justification for blanket regulation and blatant overreach.
I know, for a fact, that there are MANY payment processors of fiat that are abused on a regular basis and used for scams all throughout the internet, yet I hear about nothing being done at a ‘regulation’ or legislative level to address it. And why? Because it doesn’t pose the same threats as cryptocurrency does for world governments and banking institutions.
Thanks for the questions, and I’d like to add some transparency to the situation. We’re still dealing with what we consider a “commercial network” of accounts systematically posting about a handful of brokers. Normally, mentioning your broker in a discussion about brokers isn’t unusual. However, having conversations and only praising that broker, repeatedly, and doing so with the same accounts also exhibiting that exact same behavior, over several months, on a schedule, is not natural.
With those observances, along with other account specific details, being this similar and exact in some cases, lead us to believe there is a commercial campaign being run.
This has nothing to do with the broker’s business offerings or services.
It’s an inconvenience not to see a broker’s name, and we understand the “whole” shouldn’t be punished because of a “few”. With that, we’re working through a variety of measures to get the situation under control.
Feel free to PM me or any other moderator with any additional questions.
The original purpose in Satoshi’s paper was to eliminate intermediaries.
This could still happen to varying degrees. Commerce could speed up immensely.
I, and many others, don’t have a problem with law enforcement tracking transactions and acting if they have a warrant.
If they use it to bust child porn and mad bombers, great!
If taxes are low, the digital dollar performs well technically, it doesn’t wildly fluctuate, and they don’t lay the smackdown on ordinary citizens, it could work really well.
Problems arise when they start taxing regular people at 66% on income, again on property, again on sales, on everything, and cutting off possible sources of income.
When they go full Commie, everyone will need anonymity, because it will be impossible to make an honest living.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
I mean, they COULD do this right. It is doable.
I’m still rooting for the home team here.
So, I do agree that it could be done really poorly with every drawback you listed.
However, a Fed backed cryptocurrency doesn’t have to be done that way.
Call me cynical, but I simply do not have much confidence in our government. If history and even current events are any indication, I expect that things will continue to lean heavily in the direction of the ‘not-so-ideal’.
In a perfect world, sure, but the nature of cryptocurrency, as things currently are, make it very difficult to prove (and even worse, disprove) wrongful doing. Even if wallets were stripped of anonymity, there is still the chance that your wallet or funds could be compromised and used for illegal activity. Good luck trying to prove your innocence. The problem of ‘dirty’ currency could erroneously lead to blacklisted wallets, banned exchanges and even prosecution and jail time for innocent people.
To be fair, I actually hope for the best…but I would certainly not bet money on it playing out that way.
Bitcoin: $1bn seized from Silk Road account by US government
Earlier this week, crypto-currency watchers noticed about 70,000 bitcoins being moved from an account believed to be linked to the illicit marketplace.
Silk Road was an online black market, selling everything from drugs to stolen credit cards and murderers-for-hire.
Yes, it really is a no-brainer, in my opinion. With firms like FTMO adding news/swing-trading and 200K account options, there really is no excuse not to at least consider them, even if as a buffer to what you are already doing.
Yes, been doing this since last year. I use 3 of them, including FTMO and MyForexFunds, the other one, the 5%ers, I only use due to their temporary free offer with a “challenge” model similar to FTMO and MFF. I strongly discourage the “scaling” model firms where the initial fee is higher than the initial DD they offer, as obviously, you would do better with that “fee” in a personal account. I have scaled back and only have one personal account offshore now.
My Algo code runs at 5-10% loss all the time! On big market moves it will be down 20-30% but it always comes out with positive at the end. Their trading requirements of 5% loss etc…works for some people for others it will not work. To be profitable long term IE 20+ years you haft to work in 10-20% draw downs. I do understand about money at risk. Using other people money and splitting the profits and that is a good thing to not be at risk for capital. If their were firms that were more realistic in what they expect it would be worth it for me.
Just a suggestion as I was in the same situation, although I am a manual trader. I mainly swing trade from pivots. I simply reduce my position size to accommodate their limits. Hence the reason I am using 3 firms as the more capital I have, the less risk I can take and still come out the same.
Exactly. Having your account in a 20%-30% draw-down (or even 10%-20%) is a matter of choice and is not advisable for most traders. That being said, having (2) 200K consolidated accounts would allow 20% draw-down. Scaling from there would give you your breathing room @tme.
I also see MyForexFunds want to see your source code. This is doable, since MT4 is just a trade manager for me. Most code is elsewhere. Still, I don’t like to share code.
Keeping it as an option though. May scale back risk and give it a try at some point. Less risk=less dd=less profits and have to split profits. Probably would still be worthwhile anyway.
Prop firm earnings = earned income taxed @ ordinary rates which can get over 50% for Fed + state + local + 50% self employment depending on which state you reside in.
Forex is taxed at 60% long term capital gains and 40% short term capital gains if you elect Section IRC 1256 (Futures tax treatment) for a maximum state + local + fed tax rate of 37-38%.
Advanced strategy… If you elect section IRC 988 tax treatment and have your forex account denoted in non USD, you can legally defer taxes on your gains indefinitely like an IRA until you actually convert that non functional fiat into functional USD… effectively paying taxes on the amount you want to pay on your schedule not IRS’s schedule.
That being said, I still think the online prop firms are a great alternative option that traders should investigate.
I am exploring the options of setting up an LLC. From what I understand, I would save self employment tax, but I cannot contribute to an IRA or deduct health insurance premiums. You seem incredibly knowledgeable on the subject, what is your opinion on this approach or I’m assuming it would really depend on how much I’m earning. Keeping in mind, I also have profits from a personal account, which I’m sure I can include under the LLC
Just be careful not to commingle funds once you have everything set up.
Regarding the other stuff, I would advise speaking with an accountant. Most do not charge any sort of consultation fee and are a lot cheaper than most people think.
If most of your income is now via prop firms… you’re basically being payed as an independent contractor. That income to the LLC is 100% pass through earned income subject to self employment tax.
You would just have to pay yourself a salary on the LLC’s shedule C so you have the personal income to make the health insurance payments and IRA contributions, and so you’re eligible to take the full deductions against that income.
So no real benefit to creating an LLC. I reside In Florida, no state or local tax, just federal. I will pay less tax on ordinary income as an independent contractor than I would on gains from my own capital. It seems more and more obvious to drop the personal account(s) all together, just earn money as an independent contractor or as you said trade my account in non-USD and pay tax when I convert into USD. Such a difficult occupation as it is and now have to worry about the IRS taking more than half. I know there are way better places in the world for traders but my family just doesn’t see the light.
it’s a joke.