USD is "property" too.

And you can use your house or a car in a transaction, so it's also a currency.

You guys are really reaching trying to find something wrong with what Gensler said here. He certainly has had his problems, and I'll be glad to see him replaced by Mark Cuban when Harris gets elected, but he's not wrong to call Bitcoin "property" because that's exactly what it is.

I agree, bitcoin does not have to be the main currency to replace fiat, but bitcoin can be used as a legalized alternative currency. We know why many governments are afraid to legalize bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as currency, the most common being that they are afraid that fiat dominance will decline.

Bitcoin has the power to influence users to use it as a means of payment or currency. Bitcoin has better advantages than fiat, so there is a possibility that fiat dominance will decrease if bitcoin is legalized. Maybe that's the reason the government doesn't want to say why they don't want to legalize bitcoin as a means of payment or currency.

If they accept bitcoin as an alternative currency then surely fiat dominance will decrease significantly but what I am thinking is: what reason do they have to use bitcoin as an alternative currency? I mean: they don't need an alternative currency now, they never intended to because if they wanted, they could create one themselves instead of using bitcoin.

Governments are not afraid of using bitcoin as a currency but the problem is they don't need an alternative because the fiat system is working very well (in their eyes and for them), IMO.

I guess even if bitcoin becomes centralized and they can control it, they won't make it a currency because they don't have the need.

Bitcoin is already a currency. What is he talking about?

We have people holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, TON, even stablecoins of their country's own dollar. And they're buying stuff with all that too. Is this not using currency?

I tend to think that these financial people don't see the competition that's coming for them, like most executive leadership of monopolies. If they don't embrace this it will not end well for them profit-wise.

I don't think he's talking about taxation at all (which is the only thing tangible about the distinction if "property" here). He is talking about a currency in the sense of it being a mainstream means of payment, e.g. like credit cards, PayPal, and so on. In that context he is absolutely right: Bitcoin was never designed to do that, and is architecturally prohibited from doing so.

In El Salvador, they specifically changed the tax code there to exempt Bitcoin gains from their capital gains tax. They could do that in the US as well, but it would be absurdly unfair to all of the other things people could invest in, e.g. real estate, stocks, small businesses, farms, and so on.

Here in the US, people have been debating the capital gains tax for decades, with many arguing we should get rid of it. That debate will continue, and perhaps someday they will abolish this tax. But there's absolutely zero chance they will pick one investment instrument out of the thousands there are to be tax exempt and everybody else has to pay taxes. That will never fly, politically.

(The only exception I can think of is Trump making his own coin tax exempt so it kills Bitcoin and every other crypto and makes him a trillionaire ).

I think he is right as I think exactly the same.

He has chosen the word “unlikely” very well. I don't think it's impossible but as things stand the future of bitcoin is mainly in being a store of value, not a medium of exchange, and that's already the case today.

What he have done with cryptos? But when I searched it I only saw that he regulated it. I think this isn't totally bad and actually or in fact, it might also offer some benefits. So there are actually people that will like Gary in fact for what he have done there on cryptos. BTC is a currency but it is just that many people are only treating their BTC now like an investment asset, as they see that its value is growing very well.

Another reason on why some can get turned-off of using a BTC as a currency is due to the fact that its fees are a bit high and then the processing time for it is also slow but there are fixes who have been rolled out already for this. It can only be improved more overtime (I believe), so don't lose hope just yet mate. I know we can re-gain the other charm of BTC that once lost once again.

Bitcoin uses $40 billion in hardware to process about 500k transactions per day. There are several billion transactions in the world every day. Do the math: Bitcoin will never ever ever get within orders of magnitude of handling the world's transactions.

That is why Bitcoin is not used for mainstream transactions, not because of some government conspiracy.

In as much as I hate this guy badly and don't want to associate my mental health with their discussions, I think sometimes they make a point in their talks. Bitcoin was never initially design to be a currency but a digital electronic coin to transfer value from one person to another without any barrier of middle person but right now, it's a currency to some people, there are people that are ready to accept Bitcoin as a settlement of debts and means of payment.

He is right but he is saying that in reference to traditional finance, even the countries that has legal Bitcoin as legal tender are having low patronage, so it's going to be less likely to see Bitcoin as a currency and we know it's terrible because of volatility but on the Bitcoin level, those who will use it as a settlement will use it as long as there is a buyer willing to give to the seller.