> primarily speculative medium of exchange to a regulated currency. This I find interesting in this context. I will focus on currency.
To me in the context of gnucash what I’m after for a currency is to be able to track transactions of purchases of goods and services in a ledger using a specified currency. In my perfect world every ledger could have a independent configuration of that ledgers currency and at its core lets say a currency has the following characteristics: symbol ($), name (dollar), decimal (2), … So I could have one ledger using dollars another using pound or another using bitcoin. Each ledger uses the specified currency. Now all currency’s are speculative relative to all other currency so ideally in a perfect world an automated means of translating between one and the other would be built into the system so you could still see an over all value of your assets in some configurable/adjustable overall currency or even potentially multiple currencies. Total value ### bitcoin ####### dollars. All of the above is a big effort and when you get down into the weeds it really has some ugly nasty problems in terms of insuring accuracy. But having a financial product that could do this to me would be unique and very desirable (although I haven’t touched anything other than gnucash for probably 20 years now, so it is very possible this exists some place and I wouldn’t know it). Just a side perspective one of the reasons for cryptocurrency is that they specifically are not regulated by governments. My bet is bitcoin never will be. It would probably more likely die, would be my guess, than be regulated by any government. Governments may try and define how it is used inside a countries borders and or if it is legal but all that would do is turn it into a black market in those places. It won’t go away as long as your internet is for lack of better term open and as long as some segment of the world population continues to keep it alive. The value of a currency is not defined by any government or regulation it is defined the people that are willing to trade goods and services for that currency. The other side of this is bitcoin and most cryptocurrency are generally rather explicitly well defined and regulated by some community. In many respects it could be argued far better and more accurately than government currencies. For me I find all governments less and less deserving of my trust in their management of their currency. I actually specifically look for opportunities to diversify into multiple currencies to hedge against any government doing something really stupid under some future leadership …. caughs. All that aside hear hear on all of us taking owner ship of positively contributing to the growth of gnucash if I retire some day and have time I may actually work on something like this in gnucash but for now I hope maybe some thing in the above may spark someone else’s interest to think about how to actually implement it. More dialog about what a truly generic multi-currency accounting product might look like I think would be interesting even if it never does get implemented for another 20 years. Regards, Matthew > On Dec 10, 2021, at 1:30 PM, davidcousen...@gmail.com wrote: > > Dustin and Dave, > > As always with GnuCash the priority accorded to an item is a weighted decision > based on the need and the availability of developer time against other > priorities. The principal weighting is the availability of someone in the > development team (by no means a fixed resource outside the core developers of > the project and even the volunteer core developers are a time limited > resource) > with enough familiarity with the areas of code affected with both the time and > the interest in making the necessary changes. It is not simply a matter of > management assigning an appropriate resource as it is in a commercial > application. > > Discussions such as these are a useful and a necessary part of building up the > momentum for introducing such changes and defining the issues involved but > until > someone self identifies to take on the task of implementation, it remains > just a > topic of discussion. John Ralls has defined the conditions which would raise > the > priority for him to consider taking up the issue of BTC as a currency and it > is > highly likely that most of the other core developers are going to have similar > priorities > > Ultimately it gets down to if you want it badly enough and non-one else is > prepared to or has offered to implement a desired change, then you either put > on > your developer hat, learn the necessary skills and get it done yourself, or > forget about it for the moment, until someone is prepared to make the offer to > implement it or your need becomes a sufficient motivator. > > The GnuCash user forum has had many such issues raised over its history, many > of > which are still languishing after more than 20 years waiting for someone with > the necessary skills and interest to take them up, particularly the case for > issues which only affect a minority of the jurisdictions in which GnuCash is > used. > > My personal judgements is that at present BTC is not yet a universal currency > and is not regulated enough to be usefully recorded as a currency but I do > recognize as Dave Kirby has pointed out that this position is rapidly > changing. > Yes standards lag behind practice, but their introduction usually signals the > process of regulation and control is underway that will change BTC from a > primarily speculative medium of exchange to a regulated currency. > > David Cousens > > On Fri, 2021-12-10 at 11:12 -0500, Dustin Henning wrote: >> On 12/10/21 10:14 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: >>> 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 >> If you were to trade a chicken for three loaves of bread and had >> considered the chicken to be an asset, how would you record that in >> GnuCash? AFAIK, assets can be "sold" directly to expense accounts, the >> same way currency can be "transferred" to them. The fact that a >> separate, purchase-able plugin exists hardly means QuickBooks is >> treating it as a currency. With no investigation at all, it seems more >> likely the plugin is necessary because QuickBooks is not doing not >> that. I have previously pointed out that that any charity or company >> accepting it is likely still accounting in some other fiat currency, and >> that the term "legal tender" may be getting used loosely at best. I >> seriously doubt any company accepting BTC "payments" is pricing in BTC >> due to its volatility, and that again implies something other than >> currency. Given that option, most, if not all, companies "accepting" >> BTC (accepting in quotes because many of them likely insta-convert with >> their payment processors) also "accept" other cryptocurrencies that >> behave more like currency. To be frank, considering all of that makes >> it look to me like you have an agenda here. The team has already given >> you an appropriate answer, and now you are resorting to ad hominem and >> shotgun argumentation. All of your new points are equally refutable, >> but there doesn't seem to be much reason for continued discussion at >> this point. It seems to me that it would be advisable for you to drop >> it or go build your own software at this point (and GnuCash is FOSS, so >> you could always fork it). Barring that, you could at least try to show >> why you think you need this instead of continuing to try to convince the >> developers that they do. >> _______________________________________________ >> gnucash-user mailing list >> gnucash-user@gnucash.org >> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: >> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user >> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see >> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. >> ----- >> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. 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