Man does anyone have a subscription to that site that could post the whole article?  Great find.

Good article. Well thought out and researched.

This is a massive understatement.

Deepbit alone has ~2 THash/s... does it really make up that much of the network?

No agenda, just misinformed.  Didn't do the math but it didn't sound like enough.

That's good to know and what I thought was the case. It's probably best to check with your local tax accountant, though, since how this is handled exactly might be different in different countries. It also might change over time. Right now, I think Bitcoins can be considered a commodity, in case Bitcoins become an actual currency, things might change.

At the moment, I think buying Bitcoins is kind of like buying credits with some services (like Fotolia, for instance); but the more there is a "Bitcoin-based economy", the more countries will try to directly tax Bitcoin transactions.

I think registering with New Scientist and writing friendly letters to the editor might be a good idea :-)

Yes, impressive for the computer power of the network. I'm kind of annoyed there hasn't been a slashdot article on the technical network aspect achievement alone. If nothing else it has wiped folding@home's bottom, and the hardware come together in not much more than 8 months.

In the bigger scheme power usage and hardware in the industrial sphere it is nothing. A small fraction of the gaming market or Xbox network power consumption and hardware probably even.

It's from 2011 though.

I wish we could get that statement from the IRS in the United States. I am getting ready to file and I will be treating my trades like stocks.

I was fortunate in my trading. I moved Bitcoins to an exchange, bought Namecoin and Primecoin (should have got Litecoin too, my timing was good, I could have bought almost any of the alts) then the alt's had that 10x growth from less than a dollar. Eventually I traded half my alt coins positions and traded them back to regain my original position for Bitcoins. So my alt coin cost is zero but I never cashed anything into dollars.

It doesn't make sense for me to take capital gains on Bitcoin when I exchanged them for Namecoin and Primecoin but that's probably what I'll have to do for fear of getting accused of hiding something.