Trump, Crypto and Fairer Taxes

Among some members of the crypto commentariat, there was a very different reaction to The New York Times' recent scoop on Donald Trump's tax returns - a bombshell story to kick off a week of even bigger bombshells about the now COVID-afflicted U.S. President.

The concerns in 2015 about a VC-funded Bitcoin Association's potential for conflicts of interest that led MIT Media Lab's Digital Currency Initiative to take over responsibility for some Bitcoin developers' salaries.

Currency-issuing governments monetize their debts this way, but it's also how Bitcoin users are taxed when miners are rewarded with 6.25 bitcoins for securing a block.

Should a progressive income tax or a regressive sales tax be used, or a combination of the two? Or should we do away with all taxes and instead fund the security system through monetary dilution and managed inflation?

At one point, amid the initial COVID-19 shock, bitcoin seemed correlated with gold because both collapsed while a panicked world rushed into dollars.

What people think about future inflation and how about Bitcoin's place in the world seem quite aligned.

The 10-year breakeven inflation rate quantifies the difference between the yield on the ordinary 10-year U.S. Treasury note, whose interest rate coupon is fixed, and the yield on 10-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, whose payout rate is adjusted according to changes in the CPI. As the willingness to protect against inflation grows, the price on the 10-year TIPS also rises, which by definition makes its yield fall.

Inflation expectations are generally rising on the back of the Fed's aggressive stimulus and, yes, that seems to align with a recovered bitcoin price.

U.S. regulators brought serious charges against BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, a prominent figure in crypto circles, as well as others from his groundbreaking and highly successful crypto derivatives site.

Should DEXs Be Worried After BitMEX? DeFi Founders Weigh In. The aggressiveness and cross-departmental nature of the BitMEX enforcement action naturally has people wondering whether U.S. regulators have their eyes on other Wild West corners of the crypto world, in particular the DeFI craze.