Back in April 2017 Donald Trump tweeted that the "failing financial system had disgraced american people for years. That is why I gave you Bitcoin. I am Satoshi Nakamoto."
Does anyone really buy this? With all the controversy surrounding the 45th president, it just seems to me that a statement like that would have exploded into a social media conversation like the world has never seen. Some expressing outrage, others expressing delight, but it seems nobody has even really questioned it. But it didn't. In fact a search concerning the statement often leads only to the one single YouTube source above.
I personally have my doubts, not that it really matters but it just seems like yet another narcissistic type statement that Trump would make knowing there would be no opposition, True or untrue. And whether you believe the statement or not it's equally harder to imagine a anyone even remotely narcissistic who's most brilliant brainchild is something as phenomenal as Bitcoin, would then turn around, only a few months later in order to sign an outrageous tax bill that could very well kill all cryptocurrency.
We are all well versed in the practice of paying taxes on income, interest and holdings the grow. But we would be absolutely outraged if we were taxed for trading one "like kind" asset for another. Yet that is supposedly what this tax bill does. In other words not only are we taxed for profits made with bitcoin which is OK, but we would also be taxed for just exchanging Bitcoin with say Litecoin. Now if you did exchange and the price of the other currency went up and you made a profit then fine. But this bill apparently alleges that we'd be taxed just for exchanging the coins from one crypto to another. Outrageous! (See Article)
So what's you take, Is trump lying about being Satoshi Nakamoto? Is it a narcissistic GOD play? "I brought Bitcoin into this world, I can take it out, see my power"? Or are the details of "Like Kind" taxation just a start of how the government will eventually try to take even more of our hard earned cash?
-Cyrus
M.A., M.S.