DBC Mint interactive CLI

Is it not how the story is told?

You can buy a “cryptocurrency” gift card, probably not the best story.
or
You can buy x amount of credits gift card to use on the Safe Network when you upload data.

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If the tax agency see it as crypto ( I’d wager alot will), it won’t matter what you call it, they’ll want their cut and to apply the regs.
In fact, the way law works ( uk anyway ), it is crypto, if you call it something else and you didn’t understand what you were doing, your still in the wrong and a criminal.

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Sales tax is a cut, but you are correct… caution is best.

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Yes, to expand on this just a bit. This past week sn_dbc gained support for the Mint itself to use BLS keys. This means that the Mint within a section can be multi-node with each node holding a SecretKeyShare and the PublicKeySet, as you describe. That will be achieved via a round of DKG, although the actual DKG is outside of sn_dbc. Yesterday I was integrating the multi-node Mint api into the sn_dbc_mint CLI, so it will soon be possible for community members to experiment with that if desired.

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Although a way that they (ones like AU ATO) handle items that they have not covered is to simply see if people are making a profit from it. Be it hobbies, trading baseball cards, buying and selling giftcards (or as prizes) and so on. Basically one would buy a Safe Network gift card to store data, same as one buys a clothing store gift card to buy clothing. If used that way then I do not know any tax system that would charge separate tax (vat, GST, sales tax, etc excepted - although in AU gift cards are GST free).

Obviously any government can rule whatever way they want and may see SNT as crypto. Although in AU if people sold BTC as giftcards and we used the BTC on it to buy goods then it is not taxable as crypto. Not sure of the UK, but our tax laws often follow a similar pattern. Also if moderate amounts (<$10K) of BTC is bought in order to buy things on the net then it is not considered under crypto laws, except a record is to be kept to verify that is what was done if audited.

Imo, you shouldn’t make technical decisions based on what governments may or may not do. It is best to just concentrate on making the best tools for the job.

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Afaik in the UK, you must record every buy , sale or spend.
No need to report if it’s under apx 10k profit.

However, I wouldn’t dare be a person selling pre paid cards full of crypto without aml and kyc stuff, you’re then possibly a money transmitter with no licenses to do so.

I think gift cards are confusing the conversation. A better example is prepaid phone cards.
You are buying future use of a service and they are taxable at point of sale.

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Except the cards aren’t locked, they’re crypto, digital cash, not a company credit.

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Prepaid phone cards and gift cards can only be used to charge your phone, buy goods and services from the gift card provider. Centralised gift/prepaid terms of service strictly prohibit third party trading or alternative payment use under threat of cancelling the gift cards for a reason. DBCs [Edit: Containing SNT] can be used to buy space on the Safe Network sure, but that is not their only use. They can also be used to transfer “tokens” to an exchange and trade, or pay for anything else under the sun that people will decide to exchange for SNTs. Laws are crystal clear on this type of use: “cash equivalent”. No if’s or buts.

Agreed. It was not a technical decision but a political one: we did back away from SafeCoin in an attempt at duck and cover from regulation. Misguided move IMO as you could call it a Jerry but if it is used in the exchange of general goods and services then it is a cash equivalent. Or are we planning of stifling, suppressing in code any economy beyond just buying hard drive space now?

I do not like or endorse any of this BTW am as happy as the next SN’er to give the middle finger to onerous regulations, but if we are going to do battle with that beast you better be sure what even the basic ground rules are before getting on to the weak points. There are projects out there that are way ahead in this pitched battle (Terra [Luna] for example) - there is a lot to be learnt from their experience under heavy fire.

Edit: Added clarification “DBCs [Edit: Containing SNT]”, since you could theoretically have a DBC containing something else. Perhaps possible to have DBCs that can only be used for puts and nothing else(?) which would appear by the rules to not be a cash equivalent since it would not be possible to swap it for anything other than HD space.

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I’ve updated the CLI tool to use latest sn_dbc library 1.6.4. Changes:

  • DBCs now use a blinded owner field. (Hash of owner PublicKeySet)
  • Multi-node mints are supported. Each node reissues independently, then client aggregates signature shares to obtain mint’s signature.
  • validate command now checks and reports spent/unspent status of a Dbc.
  • improvements to decode command output.
  • updated examples
  • added explanatory code comments as learning aid.

On the todo list:

  • enable command invocation via command-line arguments.
  • move cli into sn_dbc library, as example/playground/scriptable tests.
  • support future sn_dbc API changes, eg async.
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I’m just here to say “Good luck, and we’re all counting on you”

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Surely you can’t be serious?

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