It's about time Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are taxed and regulated like the rest of finance
Bitcoin
The tokens investors get when they buy a cryptocurrency  like Bitcoin  can be used to buy into blockchain startups (businesses that use the same online ledger as cryptocurrencies). When blockchain startups issue shares in their businesses using cryptocurrency  it’s called an initial coin offering. For investors  this is like any other equity investment.
Money is very often defined by its functions: a medium of exchange  a unit of account (used to represent the real value or cost of any economic item)  and a store of value (that can be saved  retrieved and exchanged at a later time). The early consensus about  Bitcoin  among economists is that it’s not money.
At best cryptocurrencies are a medium of exchange. But many economists doubted that  Bitcoin   given  its  volatility  could ever serve as a unit of account  let alone as a store of value.
Usually if investors acquire or sell an asset  it would be liable to tax  such as the GST. This means people using  Bitcoin  would be taxed twice when using  it .
 It  would be taxed when the person buys  the Bitcoin  and taxed again when  they  used  it  to buy something. Luckily the federal government realised this was a bad idea and moved to repeal the double taxation of Bitcoin.
Clearly the federal government’s view is that cryptocurrency is not legal tender – so don’t try pay your income tax in  Bitcoin  anytime soon. And there are important differences between money  specifically legal tender  and cryptocurrency.
The tokens investors get when they buy a cryptocurrency  like Bitcoin  can be used to buy into blockchain startups (businesses that use the same online ledger as cryptocurrencies). When blockchain startups issue shares in their businesses using cryptocurrency  it’s called an initial coin offering. For investors  this is like any other equity investment.
Money is very often defined by its functions: a medium of exchange  a unit of account (used to represent the real value or cost of any economic item)  and a store of value (that can be saved  retrieved and exchanged at a later time). The early consensus about  Bitcoin  among economists is that it’s not money.
At best cryptocurrencies are a medium of exchange. But many economists doubted that  [TGT]given  [TGT]  volatility  could ever serve as a unit of account  let alone as a store of value.
Usually if investors acquire or sell an asset  it would be liable to tax  such as the GST. This means people using  [TGT]would be taxed twice when using  [TGT] .
 [TGT]  would be taxed when the person buys  [TGT]and taxed again when  they  used  [TGT]  to buy something. Luckily the federal government realised this was a bad idea and moved to repeal the double taxation of Bitcoin.
Clearly the federal government’s view is that cryptocurrency is not legal tender – so don’t try pay your income tax in  Bitcoin  anytime soon. And there are important differences between money  specifically legal tender  and cryptocurrency.