re: US Treasury issues guidance on virtual currencies, regulatory details unclear

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translation: Bitcoins are legal to use

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Has anyone on this board said otherwise? I don't recall a single post saying or even suggesting that bitcoins are illegal. It's not illegal, just very risky.

Euros are legal to use in the U.S. also, but any entity which processes, accepts deposits or exchanges euros for dollars will be monitored and/or regulated.

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But here on the Money Board, the histrionics among you will certainly predict its doom.

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It is the beginning of destroying your infamous "it's all anonymous" meme. Exchanges will be required to report transactions or subject to review of their transactions, especially those over a certain amount.

Sellers of goods or services will become subject to tax reporting regs. That will likely eventually include issuing 1099's for certain services, just as it is now for dollars, for bartered transactions or transactions taking place in a foreign currency.

Exchanges which sell bitcoins will eventually be required to report the cost basis for those bitcoins so when the bitcoin owner sells them or uses them, there will be tax reporting requirements on the profitable gains. That will take a while just because the amount of the transactions now are so miniscule that the government's costs to track those transactions are not worth the tax revenue benefits.

But if bitcoin becomes more significant, those reporting requirements WILL happen. If an exchange refuses to track an individual's use, storage or exchange of bitcoins, that exchange will be shut down.

That's not histronics, those are just facts. So when it happens, where are you going to hide then?