I haven’t read the article, so please forgive if my reply is redundant…
I can understand ETF holders to pay a fee. The fund is providing you the service of custodying your bitcoin.
But why would you pay a fee to simply hodl your Bitcoin? Sounds like nonsense. But I’d be curious to hear the author’s arguments. Will look for it later!
It comes from him making a base assumption that there is something called 'Bitcoin ethos', interpreting said imaginary ethos in his own way and opining that the code that everyone runs on their node should adhere to these ethos.
This stands contradictory to the fact that there is no 'official' reference implementation or spec that the Bitcoin network adheres to. (Something that Bcashers wanted if I remember correctly)
There is no such thing as 'Bitcoin ethos'. Just code, consensus rules and a database. If he wants to change any of this, he can indeed fork off, run his own version on his node and convince other people to run it.
I won't.
Just read the article
Tbh a “HODL tax” sounds like a joke to troll the overly serious or curmudgeonly bitcoiner.
If so…. He got me 😂
Just a couple of thoughts as to why bitcoin doesn’t need, shouldn’t attempt, and (LOL) will never see a HODL tax in consensus rules:
1) HODLing bitcoin, ie reducing the liquid supply, is arguably the main reason that Bitcoin’s purchasing power increases over time.
2) We don’t have a “security budget problem” — if Bitcoin doesn’t die (which it won’t), then it will become so widely adopted that miner revenue will not be a concern.
2b) Mining will eventually become so competitive that most “bitcoin mining companies” won’t be profitable on their own. Instead, the majority of companies in the world will also mine Bitcoin as a supplementary form of income, whether by using the heat for their operations such as in the case of drying lumber for paper mills or heating the pool at a local fitness club, or literally heating office spaces. Businesses will do business as usual to make an income, and their Bitcoin mining byproducts will offset the cost of regular business and therefore give them a competitive edge in their industry. It will be mind-boggling to witness, especially for those of us who anticipate it and see it coming.
3) Has the author thought about why Satoshi structured Bitcoin to be a perfect blend where self-interested action is synonymous with the greater good [of the network]? Why on earth would any node-runner choose to implement a rule that would directly reduce their own financial well-being (especially in the utter absence of completely overwhelming absence of any evidence that a hodl tax would be beneficial in reality)?
4) If he’s writing an opinion piece for Bitcoin Magazine, he must have spent at least a little time around the Austrian economic philosophy that many bitcoiners prefer. Yet he’s proposing a TAX…. Is he just trolling???
hodl tax is crazy. the experiment is that there is 21 million fixed supply, set distribution schedule, and a fee market for transactions. It either fails or succeeds. Plenty of other crypto projects out there with all this other bullshit.
