Cryptocurrencies

[adamu]

By the way, for those who have successfully traded bitcoins for dollars (or yen): have you been able to successfully remit to your Japanese bank account? From what I have read, most exchanges are pretty cautious when it comes to bank transfer, especially international ones...

I've done it with Bitflyer. At registration there was a problem as always with the account name. But after a support ticket the actual withdrawal was no problem. I wouldn't bother trying to transfer to a Japanese bank from a non-Japanese exchange. Maybe transfer the BTC to a Japanese one, sell it for JPY, and request withdrawal from there.

[sutebayashi]

That's when you buy directly from them. If you use the Exchange (also Lightning, a flashier version of the exchange), you can buy and sell from other users for no spread, although there is a transaction fee involved.

I see, thanks.

One strange thing I noticed after buying BTC early in the year is that my BTC balance grew slightly.
Now I have 0.001045 BTC in my account and the same amount of BCH, but this is below the minimum unit of 0.01 that I can sell back to bitFlyer directly.
Can I dispose of this residual amount of BTC somehow? (I am not sure why I even have this residual in the first place, I suspect a possible bitFlyer bug is at fault).

Indeed there is potential for great profits in BTC but intend to think it will likely come a crashing down at some point. Hence sticking with my initial 5,000 yen speculation fund only - just to be part of an historic bubble perhaps in my own small way.

[RetireJapan]

Indeed there is potential for great profits in BTC but intend to think it will likely come a crashing down at some point. Hence sticking with my initial 5,000 yen speculation fund only - just to be part of an historic bubble perhaps in my own small way.

I think there will be a huge crash, and that is when I would be tempted to buy. Should probably learn how to do it first, eh?

[sutebayashi]

Yes, buying the crashes is the way to go I think. However I did attempt to buy crypto after a recent mini-crash prompted by the Chinese, but unfortunately picked the wrong cryptocurrencies after the crash, and did not double my money as planned.
Then I did have a floating doubling of my money recently after loading up on ‘monacoin’ when bitFlyer launched that, but it promptly crashed before I could make my mini-fortune.

I guess sticking to bitcoin is the way to play...

[Jamo]

May I ask why you bought Monacoin?

[sutebayashi]

I bought it because it was suddenly available to buy, and going up

I dumped for a much smaller profit than I could have but was hoping for 500% gains, rather than just 100%. Too greedy. That is I sold it after its initial burst petered out.

[Jamo]

Another issue I'm unsure about is the tax concerning trading of currency pairs.

E.g. buying OMG or some other currency on another exchange using BTC. Some people say it is not a tax event, because the assets are "like-kind". But others say they are different, and thus you should think of it as BTC->YEN->ETH, i.e. selling BTC for yen, calculating the gain/loss, and then buying ETH.

The different between the two being that if BTC had risen in value before buying OMG, you would be making a gain that isn't accounted for. Likewise if it had dropped in value before using it to buy OMG, you would be making a loss that isn't accounted for.

Is there any other precedent in Japan, such as trading stocks for other stocks etc.?

[sutebayashi]

In foreign currencies, if you sell dollars for euros for example, my understanding is you are supposed to assume that you sold dollars at the prevailing yen rate.
In practice though I have no idea which specific rate is correct.
For foreign currency interest income I am using a specific rate from a consistent source, and will plead ignorance if ever audited about it. They should be happy I report my foreign income at all!

[adamu]

Had a long think, slept on it, and adjusted my asset allocation to cryptocurrency down* and as a result sold over half of my holdings of what was once play money for... a few million yen... The price continues to rise.

Tax return looking further ominous, but probably a new record bank balance in the mean time!

* actually I put it back to where it was before the recent craziness. I'd increased it due to the recent price rise, not wanting to miss out on the gains. But realised this is exactly the wrong thing to do. The asset allocation should be constant, thus keeping your risk steady, buying low and selling high, not increased in the good times and decreased in the bad.

[sutebayashi]

Nice job! I continue to feel silly for selling my play balance when the price was around 190,000 yen earlier this year. It cracked 1,000,000 yen today.
Have with your kakutei shinkoku next year