Quote from: btcinfo891 on January 18, 2025, 07:18:06 PM

Quote from: zasad@ on January 18, 2025, 01:38:57 PM

Cryptocurrency is not regulated in any way right now, as far as the ideas that Satoshi was talking about.
For example, no regulator can prohibit you from sending or receiving bitcoins, paying for goods and services with bitcoins, and so on.
If you don't use custodial services, you can't get regulated and restricted. Castorial services are regulated in each country

Cruptocurrencies are regulated in the sense that most governments that recognize their existence attach all kinds of strings to their usage. Just to name a few that come to mind

In USA crypto owners are required by law to keep track of all crypto transactions, even if these transactions don't invove fiat. Users are required to report these transactions to the tax authorities
Some countries like France apply a weath tax to crypto assets. Users are required to pay this tax even if their crypto stays in their wallets without being used in any way
Many countries treat crypto payments as taxable events. Essentially crypto is treated as an asset and when the user buys a product/service with crypto, the government assumes that the product/service buyer has converted his crypto to fiat and then used the fiat to buy the product/service. That is why the buyer is required to pay capital gains tax on the converted crypto.
EU governments prohibit financial institutions from accepting or making payments using privacy coins (the MiCA regulations)

Sure, not all of these limitations can be enforced effectively by the governments, but if one is caught breaking the law, he gets fines and/or jail time. And as time goes by, governments get better at catching offenders. So my guess is that currently things are not quite as Satoshi expected them to be.

I will say that there are already so many laws in countries and they are so contradictory that in most cases it is impossible for a person to do business and comply with all the laws. So you have to follow the laws until you start to feel like an idiot.
Your government and tax inspectors will never know about your coins if you don't use custodial services.