[GNC] Bitcoin is legal currency in El Salvador - why not add BTC?

[Dr. David Kirkby]

On Tue, 7 Dec 2021 at 17:52, john <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

> Of course it is, and it has been since v3.0.
>
> But GnuCash permits only currencies for denominating Equity (which
> includes income and expense) and Liability accounts and some users want us
> to enable that for cryptocurrencies.
>
> When the banking industry starts using cryptocurrencies they'll get added
> to ISO4217 and when that happens we'll do the same for GnuCash.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>

Is there a particular reason to only accept currencies listed in ISO 4217?

>From my own background, which is engineering, I see that standards are
often well behind the times. In electronics, the Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Standards are often accepted as authoritative, and in many
cases legal requirements in the USA. Yet some of those standards get well
out of date. Here's an article about one particular IEEE standard

https://incompliancemag.com/article/the-antenna-measurement-standard-ieee-149-finally-gets-an-update/

which starts by saying that IEEE standard 149 for antenna measurements is
"marginally useful", then goes on to describe how the standard says
chart-recorders should be used to collect data. These are long since
obsolete. Now people would log data directly into a computer, not a bit of
paper.

Now, in 2021:

* Hundreds of millions of people own bitcoin
* Multi-billion dollar exchanges such as Coinbase exist, which trade in
bitcoin.
* Bitcoin is traded on the Swiss Stock Exchange
* Multi-billion dollar companies are accepting bitcoin as a payment method.
* Charities are accepting bitcoin.
* bitcoin is huge - the circulating supply is currently $936,632,823,929
* Bitcoin is legal tender in one country.
* Some accounting software works with bitcoin. For example Quickbooks
https://quickbooks.intuit.com/app/apps/appdetails/blockpath/en-us/ although
it seems to need a bit of a hack.

Do you not consider it worth just accepting that

* ISO 4217 standard is not relevant
* bitcoin is here to stay for the foreseeable future
* bitcoin is not just for geeks, as it used to be, but now is very
mainstream.
* People are currently using gnucash for bitcoin, but have to use
workarounds.

A Google indicates the ISO 4217 maintenance agency (MA), SIX Interbank
Clearing <https://www.currency-iso.org/en/home/tables/table-a1.html>, is
responsible for maintaining the list of codes. If I search their website,
there's lots of references to bitcoin - that's where I learned bitcoin was
traded on the Swiss Stock Exchange.  😂😢

With not many mainstream accountancy packages directly supporting bitcoin,
GnuCash has the chance to be almost a leader here, although it seems you
have been beaten at least somewhat by Quickbooks, although that needs an
add-on which is extra cost.

Dave