My First Crypto for Bullion Trade
Last week I decided to start looking into ways to allocate some profits from my crypto holdings into hard assets and as a collector / stacker of silver and gold, this was the first trade I've ever made with crypto for any other type of asset. I'm also very happy to be doing a SSG (#steemsilvergold) post as it's certainly been awhile since my last post about stacking silver and gold.
I got a total of six of these 1/2 oz bars very close to spot price and paid for them with Bitcoin Cash which I have some pretty good gains from some of my earlier buys.
I placed this order a week ago today from Veldt gold and it arrived in the mail yesterday using just standard shipping which was about $8. I was pretty pleased it took less than a week to arrive from when I placed my order--it came in the mail Saturday.
Here's a link to their website https://veldtgold.com/
I know there's a few dealers out there who accept cryptos as payment who I'll also be making purchases from as crypto prices start to recover. A couple of them are here on steemit--@phelimint who I bought from once before and @pit-bullion, but it's also nice to see more and more bullion dealers outside of our little bubble here in SSG accepting crypto as payment. It just gives crypto further legitimacy when more vendors accept it as payment.
Veldt accepts Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin as payment and they were very fast to confirm receipt of my payment and send me my order details. I used BCH because BTC isn't in a very good state right now as far as transaction times and fees go.
I usually buy in 5 oz - 1 kilo increments but I wanted to start small this time since it was the first time as sort of a low risk trial run since the order and shipping was only about $60 worth of BCH.
And regarding the taxation issue (if you are a U.S. resident), Veldt only sends records to the IRS for orders $1,000 and up. I'll not comment any further on paying taxes on crypto trades as that's a sticky subject right now, especially in the United States. Our government has lost its freakin mind micro managing and wanting to know every detail of our lives.
When this dip in crypto prices is over and we get back to rally time again I'll be ordering more bullion with some of my profits from various dealers. Diversity in investing is very important to me and so is taking huge profits off the table in small increments.
And now for the Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and this should not be taken as investment or trading advice. Always do your own research before buying anything and if you don't, please consult a financial professional who will help you with it or do it for you. Also, paying your taxes, whether you agree with the current law or not, is important as the US government wants what they see as their cut (even though they can't spend right now because our govt is currently shut down due to their own incompetence-- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-shutdown/first-day-of-government-shutdown-ends-in-standoff-idUSKBN1F90DE). What a bunch of idiots.
EDIT: IF YOU POST COMMENT SPAM AND UPVOTE YOURSELF I WILL FLAG YOU AND REPORT YOU TO STEEMCLEANERS AND SPAMINATOR SO DO YOURSELF A FAVOR--CEASE AND DESIST WITH THE COMMENT SPAM.
Nice pick ups, it is an amazing feeling to turn something that has value that you can NOT hold into something that has value that you can hold. Thanks for all the support and keep stacking buddy.
Yeah I agree. Cryptos are great but you can't really hold them in your hand like you can silver. I'm gonna be doing this pretty frequently to increase my stacks. Probably won't use fiat to buy bullion much anymore unless I find an amazing deal at a pawn shop or something or at some dealer that doesn't take crypto.
Very cool. I may go this summer and sit down with a CPA and find one that actually understands what's going on? I'm not too worried about it, but seems like something you could easily be thrown in jail for or hit with stupid fines for making an honest mistake on.
Yes the tax aspect of cryptos is going to be a big issue this year. Most CPA's and attorneys don't know anything about crypto much less how to deal with it when filing taxes.
I think it's crazy how much time and resources governments spend trying to squeeze the taxpayer for more money. In many cases it's actually a loss to them because they spend so many man hours digging for mistakes in tax reporting and that costs more than the actual unpaid taxes and penalties that they get out of it. I can imagine the salary of an IRS worker who would investigate this kind of thing pans out to be well over $50 per hour when health care and all the other benefits are included. Is using that person to chase down less than $100 in unpaid taxes worth it? Of course not! But that doesn't mean they won't do it.
So I hear you loud and clear on the tax situation. It's a nightmare for sure.
I'm assuming they'll start leaning on exchanges and places like steemit to track this to make it more manageable for them. Until then I don't possibly see how they can go after anyone, but it's the government and needs no reason to throw me in jail so i'll do my best as a citizen and pay what i think they want.
Yeah I'm gonna do it to the best of my ability--reporting the gains and what not. But even a lot CPA's and attorneys don't even understand this stuff yet much less the average taxpayer. So you can't even go down to your local H&R block or whoever and ask them to do your taxes if you have crypto trades and purchases. Scary.
Yeah worst comes to worst I have how much my crypto is worth at the beginning of the year so whatever it's worth at the end of the year I'll report as gains and pay whatever is required.
The IRS doesn't even know how they're going to tax it. They want you to keep records of all your transactions. I do the majority of my trading on exchanges that did NOT ask for a picture of my driver's license, passport, phone number, social security card, etc. It's still the wild west out here ;-)
Do all bullion dealers have a similar policy? That would be good to know. Would like to keep Uncle Sam out of my safe.
Understanding taxes is a nightmare already throw cryptos into the mix and then PM and we are in uncharted waters. Might be a case of better to ask forgiveness than permission. Hypothetically of course.
I think it varies by dealer. Hopefully the dealers that do accept crypto as payment will disclose what they'll report to the IRS and how high the transaction value has to be. I'm making a point to keep mine under those limits so as not to receive more paperwork to process. Not saying I'm not gonna pay all my taxes but I can do without all the official documentation. It's just extra clutter.
In the case of tax year 2017 they really screwed everyone by the coin to coin trade NOT being considered like kind transaction AND coin for bullion too. The last month of the year no less. The silver lining is the only exchange reporting transactions to the IRS is Coinbase and that's for BTC only for people with over $20,000 transaction, withdrawal and what not.
From what I understand none of the other exchanges will provide cost basis and trade data to the IRS or user for 2017. You can download an excel csv file from most exchanges that show all your trades for your account. So at least you have your own record in case you need it.
My biggest concern is retroactive law being passed in later years and the govt demanding trade data going back years and years and them making all of us refile. I hate our government. Hell they're not even up and running now they're so dysunfunctional! How in the hell can they expect us to do everything perfectly when they can't even keep their own house in order?
I don't see the IRS successfully subpoenaing Binance in Japan. Good luck with that. Plus I lost all my cryptos in online dice games.........
Yeah our government sucks.
This is very cool. I think both crypto and precious metals are great complementary hedges against a failing fiat money system.
It is marginal steps like this, cutting out the fiat middle-man that will eventually bring down the whole house of cards.
exactly. I think both are necessary in order to survive whatever the next government / big business induced catastrophe is. House of cards is a great analogy for it (and a great tv show lol).
@cryptokeepr I am going to start taking crypto to for transactions in precious metals. I do business on eBay under stokjockey too. I think that eBay will not be relevant in a couple of years if they don't let their customers use cryptos for purchases.
I'll definitely check it out in the near future. Thanks for the heads up!
I love the skull and crossbones one. I'm crpto poor so I'm starting to offer my jewelry for crypto. Just started my first auction on steembay. If bitcoin drops to 10,000 I'll start selling some gold jewelry for btc... Mostly I need more steem power lol. A guy is selling a one ounce steemit logo silver coin you may want to check out. #steembay should come up as one of the top listings. Anyway thanks for sharing, love to see precious metals.
Nice congrats on turning that fairy dust into some PM's my man! I'm now accepting LTC and SBD too. Come get it yall
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Did you get a certificate of purity of bullion???
All that glitter................looks like gold. Nice man.
No when you buy generics like this for very low price over spot they usually don't come with a certificate. That's why they're not marked up as much as pieces that do come with the certificate.
I like to keep a variety--some like this and some that have the certificate. This was just a trial run buying with crypto so I was just looking for something inexpensive. I suppose if I really wanted to verify they're not fakes I could measure their weight vs volume to verify they're silver. But that doesn't verify that it's 0.999.
Thanks for the reply
I believe in diversification too. Nice bars.
Thanks man! I didn't know what I was gonna get when I ordered but I was pleased with the design of them when I took them out of the package.