So who is giving BitPay cash for the coins instantly? Are there literally buys just chomping at the bit, even when the market is in a downward trend, to buy coins from BitPay, for cash, instantly after they put them up for sale? At some point the piper has to be paid, and if it isn't a large financial institution, I'm still not seeing how this plays out. There has to be someone to soak up the massive loss in value...
As far as I can tell, BitPay has less than $100 million in investment, I don't see how that even comes close to covering the risk.
Bitpay uses exchanges such as Bitstamp to sell the coins immediately. There are plenty of buy orders there to cover these purchases. Note that this doesn't mean every tax bill is due to be paid by bitcoin but individuals could if they wanted to.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with bitcoin, I'm not sure. For every seller on a exchange there is a buyer. Yes if there happened to be a flash crash this may be an issue but generally this hasn't been a problem. As an example, bitpay will lock in the dollar value for a 10 minute period, as long as you pay in that window they guarantee the retailer the USD value and the buyer the BTC price. To achieve this they would keep some funds in btc all the time, then when a sale like this comes in they sell the equivalent amount (or a part of it) to hedge against future fluctuations.
I think you are thinking that the states entire tax revenue would come via this method, currently I doubt there are enough BTC in that state to achieve that outcome. But anyway this proposal is feasible as it currently stands.
Comments
So who is giving BitPay cash for the coins instantly? Are there literally buys just chomping at the bit, even when the market is in a downward trend, to buy coins from BitPay, for cash, instantly after they put them up for sale? At some point the piper has to be paid, and if it isn't a large financial institution, I'm still not seeing how this plays out. There has to be someone to soak up the massive loss in value...
As far as I can tell, BitPay has less than $100 million in investment, I don't see how that even comes close to covering the risk.
Bitpay uses exchanges such as Bitstamp to sell the coins immediately. There are plenty of buy orders there to cover these purchases. Note that this doesn't mean every tax bill is due to be paid by bitcoin but individuals could if they wanted to.
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with bitcoin, I'm not sure. For every seller on a exchange there is a buyer. Yes if there happened to be a flash crash this may be an issue but generally this hasn't been a problem. As an example, bitpay will lock in the dollar value for a 10 minute period, as long as you pay in that window they guarantee the retailer the USD value and the buyer the BTC price. To achieve this they would keep some funds in btc all the time, then when a sale like this comes in they sell the equivalent amount (or a part of it) to hedge against future fluctuations.
I think you are thinking that the states entire tax revenue would come via this method, currently I doubt there are enough BTC in that state to achieve that outcome. But anyway this proposal is feasible as it currently stands.