[ale] [OT] (but computer and cryptography related) Bitcoin, Litecoin

[Mike Harrison]

> used to represent the sides of a barter transaction, and they should be
> approximately equal---and in that case, they can be treated as equal, if
> they are close enough.

There is some slack in the system.. and it's subjective. But I know, and 
have the lawyer bills to prove it, that when done at any large scale with 
payment processing, barter, currency exchange, money transport, etc.. the 
part that ends up screwing over people is the tax man...

A former business I owned did a fair amount of "barter", thousands per 
month worth. Drove the tax auditors into a frenzy. Luckily, the pain in 
the butt accountant we had kept good records and paid taxes. We beat the 
subjective slack because we tried to be fair. ie: No trading cars valued 
at $1.00

At work, we do a lot of currency conversion in our systems, and keep a 
small table of the conversion value from day to day to and from the 
various currencies. It makes the accounting a nightmare.

If you were doing a lot of business in bitcoin, and store the value in 
local currency, you are probably in the best shape.

ie: Today:  Item X is $90.00 USD or 1 Bitcoin...
Tomorrow, its still $90.00 USD or 2 bitcoin..

(Hmm, how does bitcoin handle fractional amounts, I really don't know..)