What's interesting here, if you hold bitcoin long enough such that doctors take it in the future as payment, not only might you have made a lot of money, you'll be exchanging it for the exact same price you paid for it— bitcoin— thus no taxes.

In other words, we don't know what doctors charge people in bitcoin, when bitcoin is $23.  But we know what they charge in bitcoin, when bitcoin is $23,000, the price is in bitcoin.

The government/IRS/auditors may try to convince you that you owe taxes using some doctor-fee logic, but I don't think it would hold up in court.  barter is barter.  If I buy 10,000 pens with aged horse poop, I don't think the tax man is going to evaluate the prices of aged horse poop when the horse plopped it on the ground vs when you "sold it" for bartered pens.  That's ridiculous.

This is not tax advice, but simply a thought progression of what the world looks like in 15 years if you simply hold all your bitcoin and spend it as vendors accept it as payment as time progresses.  Absolutely SILLY to pay taxes when buying things with bitcoin.

The government screwed this up with gold, since 1933 when it made gold ownership illegal.  No one should have to pay taxes for owning gold, even if selling back to dollars.  Now THIS you have to pay taxes, and good luck arguing 50+ years of tax history.  However, this is proof of bad and even evil government.  They broke their contract with the people regarding the currency, and then doubled-down on stupid by actually charging people taxes simply for owning a substance that doesn't depreciate with the printed dollar.  In this respect, the government has learned how to sneak a significant tax on the people for all assets (not just held-cash):

If you hold cash, you're diluted about 9% per annum since 1971 Nixed dollar.

If you hold assets, they tend to go up in price vs a printed debased dollar, so you're taxed on ALL the goods you own, based on your capital gains.

Taxation without Representation 2.