“Bitcoin has no use except for speculation by tech bros”. A debunk thread.👇

The UK holds an estimated 61,000 Bitcoin making it the third largest nation state holder. Please sign and share my petition for Parliament to create a UK Strategic Reserve now! 👉 petition.parliament.uk/petit…

There's a lot to unpack here, and if I'm being flippant I'd say the TLDR is: they hate you and the fact that you have any money at all to spend on things you want to buy utterly enrages them. But fun though it is to be flippant, this is a serious matter. To the unpacking 👇 ▶️ This is from the latest of a series of discussion papers being published by @TheFCA, setting out the proposed regulatory regime for the entire cryptoasset sector. 'Discussion paper' is a misnomer, since the FCA have typically already decided all these points by the time the paper is published. ▶️@bitcoinpolicyuk prepared responses to previous papers and will do the same here. A key issue is the FCA's ongoing failure to understand that different cryptoassets have different risk profiles and should be treated differently. Saying Bitcoin has the same risk profile as a meme coin called Unicorn Fart Dust is as idiotic as saying that Meta/Facebook has the same risk profile as an unfunded start up I founded in my bedroom. But this is the FCA that we are burdened with.... ▶️Specifically on the use of credit for purchasing cryptoassets, note that the small print states the prohibition will be against 'directly' using a credit card to buy cryptoassets. It will also likely not apply to stablecoins. There will therefore be fairly obvious workarounds that will make this prohibition largely pointless and ineffective, though I am still considering how much detail I want to give to the FCA as to how we will circumvent their ineffective regulation. ▶️Also on the credit prohibition, this is similar to the pre-existing prohibition on using credit cards in gambling. A reasonably obvious point to make here is that if the FCA clearly think that buying cryptoassets is essentially gambling (a view point I actually agree with in the context of meme coins) then any gains from such 'gambling' should also be treated the same way - namely any gains should not be subject to capital gains tax. If you think the market is gambling, then regulate it in exactly the same way. ▶️There's also a much more profound point at work here. Not only will the credit card company have performed credit checks and an affordability analysis on you before issuing you a credit card, but it will also have assessed exactly how much credit you could responsibly take out and set your credit limit appropriately. How you spend that money is up to you, even if you want to buy something lawful but harmful, like alcohol. Once these changes are implemented, I will be able to use my credit card to buy enough vodka to kill myself, but not to buy and save a single Satoshi. I'm personally not generally supportive of using credit to buy things in any case, but I'm not going to dictate to law-abiding citizens how they choose to spend their cash or use their credit. How is it within the remit of the FCA to tell me what lawful things I can spend my own money on? Short answer - it absolutely is not. And such attempts, though frustrating, will not succeed. What can we do to foil them? Firstly, we push back. @bitcoinpolicyuk will continue doing so, in response to this and to future consultations. Secondly, we find workarounds. If you've read this far, you've likely already thought of several that will render the FCA's efforts here largely pointless and ineffective. Thirdly, and most importantly, prepare. The direction of travel is clear, and it should by now be apparent to all of us that in their desperation that they are losing control of the simplest way to enforce their will over the population - the financial system - they will take increasingly aggressive action. So it's imperative you learn how to be self sovereign and self custodial before you need to – so that when you are suddenly faced with a banking system that forbids you from withdrawing cash or spending your own money, you won’t care because you’ll already be ready to move into a parallel system that they cannot control. This will be a long battle. But there are more of us than there are of them. And our aims and goals are just - simply to live our own lives in peace, to determine our own destiny, and to spend our own money peacefully and without interference as we do both. They will not win.

The UK is falling behind in Bitcoin policy.  We need a clear, pro-growth framework that fosters innovation.  Let’s fix this together.  Who should be paying attention? Please retweet & tag. bitcoinpolicy.uk/policy