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Donald Trump as a businessman had a reputation for always keeping investors guessing on his next corporate moves. As the current President of the United States, he has quickly gained a reputation for doing the same. The issue with his decisions in his latest rule is both the short-term and long-te rm impact they will have on investors across the US and all over the world. When it comes to the fast-growing realm of cryptocurrency, the US President is having an impact on the trading value of Bitcoin. This is the most popular and widely-accepted cryptocurrency in the digital currency industry, but its uncertain future continues to impact its overall value.
In a recent article on Verdict, out of the UK, the question as to the Trump administration’s plans for Bitcoin came into question. The actual headline included the idea that it might be banned outright probably sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency investment community. President Trump has never publicly stated that this was going to be his course of action. However, the concern with how Bitcoin is used on the dark web for funding illegal operations such as drugs and weapons remains a pressing concern.
In a direct response from Jeff Sessions acting as attorney general last October, the report added the quote, “The FBI’s very concerned about the dark web. They did take it down, I think, the two biggest, dark websites. This last one, Alphabay, we took down recently. They had 240,000 sites where individuals were selling, for the most part, illegal substances or guns on that site, including Fentanyl. And, they use bitcoins and other untraceable financial capabilities, and it is a big problem.”This led to initial speculation that President Trump would move to ban bitcoin currency, but no decisive action was taken at that time. More recently, the report states that according to a statement released by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders that the situation with bitcoin is being monitored.
In a direct quote, she said, “The bitcoin situation is something that is being monitored by our team-Homeland Security is involved. And we’ll keep you posted when we have anything further on it.”
The other big concern dogging cryptocurrency investors is the potential tax implications for this industry moving forward. One of the biggest reasons why the price of bitcoin is constantly in flux is the growing belief that governments all around the globe will look to profit from bitcoin through the use of taxes. The most common tax that countries could impose would be on the capital gains from trading cryptocurrencies.
This report mentioned that last month the tax minister in Denmark commented that regulators were exploring the option of taxing the profits made from trading bitcoin currency. It also noted that India is using its income tax department to investigate investors that have failed to pay tax on the gains made from this cryptocurrency. There is always the possibility that the Trump Administration will follow suit with taxes on bitcoin capital gains.
