Yahoo and Google start to list Bitcoin (BTC) currency

Rainer Dorsch ml at bokomoko.de
Sun Jul 6 09:30:57 EDT 2014


Hi John,

On Saturday 28 June 2014 18:35:04 John Ralls wrote:
> On Jun 28, 2014, at 6:19 PM, Rainer Dorsch <ml at bokomoko.de> wrote:
> > On Saturday 28 June 2014 16:18:33 you wrote:
> >> On Jun 28, 2014, at 12:20 PM, Rainer Dorsch <ml at bokomoko.de> wrote:
> >>> Hello,
> >>> 
> >>> Yahoo and Google start to list the bitcoin currency
> >>> 
> >>> http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/06/12/google-and-yahoo-finance-now-sho
> >>> w->
> >> 
> >> the-price-of-bitcoin/
> >> 
> >>> e.g.
> >>> 
> >>> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BTCUSD=X
> >>> 
> >>> What is the status of the addition of BTC to gnucash?
> >> 
> >> You could use it now as a security (which the US Internal Revenue Service
> >> requires), except that the max denominator is still 1E6. You could work
> >> around that by using milli-bitcoin with a 1E5 max denominator.
> >> 
> >> 2.8 will be able to support the additional required precision, though
> >> Christian Stimming and I are at the moment having a frank discussion
> >> about
> >> what's the best way to get there: See the "Rethinking Numerics" thread in
> >> this list.
> >> 
> >> It isn't going to be treated as a currency until the ISO's 4217
> >> Maintenance
> >> Agency says it is one.
> > 
> > The downside of not treating it as a currency is that its "exchange" rates
> > may not be maintained through finance::quote.
> > 
> > Why do you want to limit gnucash to the performance of a (slow moving?)
> > standardization organization?
> 
> If it's a security, then it has prices rather than exchange rates, but that
> has noting to do with Finance::Quote. If the quotes are available on Yahoo
> in the same way that other securities and currencies are, then F::Q can get
> the quotes.

I thought GnuCash fetches the exchange rates via F::Q, and Yahoo treats 
bitcoin as a currency

	http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=USDBTC=X

as they do e.g. with Euro

	http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=USDEUR=X

Whereas securities follow this pattern

	http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog

If GnuCash does not use F:Q to fetch exchange rates, then the only benefit of 
treating it as currency that it is easy to transfer BTC from one 
wallet/account to another wallet/account. That seems to me much more difficult 
in GnuCash if you treat it as security.

> 
> Accounting is all about standards, and GnuCash is an accounting program.
> Besides, in the USA at least bitcoin is legally a commodity and purchases
> using bitcoin are barter exchanges:
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-25/bitcoin-is-property-not-currency-i
> n-tax-system-irs-says.html That gives our position a legal basis as well.
> AFAIK no other financial regulator has said anything about bitcoin's status
> as a currency. Do you know of any such authority or convention that
> recognizes bitcoin as legal tender?

This is the closest match I have

http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-pc-brown-legis-20140628-story.html

Thanks again,
Rainer

-- 
Rainer Dorsch
http://bokomoko.de/


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