Bitcoin Tax Ruling

The IRS has spoken:  Bitcoins are property, not currency.  This was hardly a surprise, but it has some important implication that tells us a lot about what it takes to make a currency work.  

For a payments geek, the real lesson from the IRS Bitcoin ruling is that for a currency--or any payment system--to work, its units must be completely fungible.  One reason dollars work really well as a currency is that one $20 bill is entirely fungible with another $20 bill.  This means that when I pay, I don't have to make a decision about which $20 bill to use (unless I have some idiosyncratic attachment to the crisp ones or the like). It means that when I accept a payment, I don't care which $20 bill I am given, in part because I know that my ability to spend that $20 bill will not depend on which $20 bill it is.  If payment were in, say, camels, then it would probably matter a great deal which camel were tendered.  Camels aren't fungible. And we know that's not going to make for a very good payment system. 

So what does this have to do with Bitcoin?  

The IRS ruled that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are property, not currency.  This means that they are subject to capital gains taxation.  And that means that Bitcoins are not fungible.  The price at which a particular Bitcoin was acquired (and this is traceable) determines the capital gains on that particular Bitcoin when spent.  If I spend Bitcoin A, which I bought at $10, but is now worth $400, I’ve got a very different tax treatment than if I spend Bitcoin B, which I bought at $390. (Poor Satoshi--he's got a lot more capital gains than most...)  This means Bitcoins are not fungible, and that makes it unworkable as a currency.  If I have to figure out which particular Bitcoin in my wallet I want to spend and what the tax treatment will be, Bitcoin just doesn't work as a commercial medium of exchange.  Bitcoin still works as a speculative medium, but Bitcoin's claim has always been to being more than the latest iteration of the trading sardines--it aspired to be a commercial medium.  I don't see that happening now.