The United Kingdom is gradually becoming a global hub for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies thanks to the support that the British Government is showing to it. Well, reports indicate that Australia might just happen to be ready to treat Bitcoin as regular currency, which is definitely not something that we have been expecting.
One year ago, the country ruled Bitcoin as an intangible asset that anyone can own, sell and use for various purposes. Well, according to the latest reports, it looks like the Australian Senate Economics References Committee believes that Bitcoin should be treated as regular currency rather than just an asset. This is probably due to the fact that many emerging Australian enterprises have left Australia and gone to other countries which do not hinder their growth regardless of the fact that they prefer to do transactions in digital currencies only. By having a more progressive cryptocurrency regime, Australia will be compared to the United Kingdom, and become a place where companies will WANT to go in order to take their businesses to a new level.
However, it’s also worth pointing out that for a long period of time, Bitcoin had been considered an exempt from all sorts of taxation over in Australia. This was until last summer, when the government decided that a goods and services tax could be imposed on the currency, thus asking for taxes when transactions of over $10,000 were made. This made the actual scope of Bitcoin obsolete, as people who use it want to be free to carry out whatever transactions they want to, without having to pay taxes to the government, or having to follow strict legislation. When this was done, our beloved Andreas Antonopoulos made an announcement in which he warned all Australian regulators that the tax will harm the country’s position in the global financial market, where more and more companies are gradually beginning to accept the idea of Bitcoin transactions. The Bitcoin taxation imposed back then pushed most of the companies in Asia, where the lack of regulation made Bitcoin transactions go ahead with ease.
As time passed, it was proven that Andreas Antonopoulos was actually right. Once the bill was passed, quite a few emerging Australian companies decided that they would be better off by leaving the country and relocating somewhere else. An example is Australia’s biggest cryptocurrency platform, known by the name of Coinjar. By beginning to treat Bitcoin as regular money, the tax applied for transactions exceeding $10,000 would disappear. However, Bitcoin will also face other regulation, which has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Based on this, further investigation will be carried out by the Australian government, to decide what the best decision in this case really is. If the new regulations that have been written are accepted by the RBA and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, then four big banks have announced that they are willing to begin offering their customers the possibility to go ahead and bank their bitcoins. Now, why would someone do that? Interest! Australia has high chances of becoming the first country where Bitcoin Banks are a thing, and where people can lend, and borrow Bitcoin, but also get interest by allowing it to circulate within the bank. Of course, this also means that transactions will be inspected by anti-fraud agents to make sure that no money laundering or tax evasion is going on, which would also hurt the privacy statement that Bitcoin is an advocate to.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what is your take on this? Should Australia accept Bitcoin as an actual currency? Will the advantages be greater than the disadvantages? Let us know your thoughts!