— Covering digital currencies, precious metals and online payments
The 2013 San Jose Bitcoin Conference has proven to be rather controversial. While it is considered to have been a success, being well attended and attracting high profile speakers, it has brought up a very divisive topic in the Bitcoin community…regulation.
By Paul Rosenberg, FreemansPerspective.com
An increasing number of people have complained about governments and central banks in recent years, even using the word “tyranny” to describe them. They are, of course, called names in the establishment press: conspiracy theorists, mainly.
Calling someone a name, however, does not erase their argument (at least not among rational people) and both the governments and the big banks stand accused.
Up till now, however, these accusations were never accepted by the general public. The average guy really didn’t want to hear about the evils of government money. After all, that was the only thing he had ever used to buy food, clothes, gasoline, cars, and so on. He didn’t want to acknowledge the accusations because he feared what might happen to him without his usual money.
Now, however, we have a brand new currency (called Bitcoin) available to us: something radically different. This gives us a new way to directly address the subject of monetary tyranny, providing a clear test for the governments and money masters of the world:
Read More about Freemans Perspective: Bitcoin – The Tyranny Test
Bitcoiners, Bart Chilton is here to protect you. In a Monday interview on Bitcoin with the Financial Times the CFTC’s lead commissioner Bart said “It’s not monopoly money we’re talking about here – real people can have real risk in these instruments, and we need to ensure that we protect markets and consumers, even in what at first blush appear to be ‘out there’ transactions.”
Another regulator with their eye on the currency can only add to the headache that US based Bitcoin businesses are already experiencing as they try to sort through the implications of FinCEN’s recent guidance and deal with scared banks closing their accounts.
As Bitcoin is a global, non-political currency the obvious question is will heavy regulation simply move Bitcoin businesses off shore? This possibility isn’t lost on the Financial Times who discussed this with Bitcoin entrepreneur Roger Ver. The Bitcoinstore.com founder said that he knew of a few Bitcoin entrepreneurs who had moved to Panama to look into basing their businesses outside the US adding “Even if US regulations make it hard for Bitcoin businesses to operate in the US, that doesn’t mean it will make it difficult for people to use Bitcoin as a currency in the US. Bitcoin is a world currency,”
Chilton is head of the CFTC, that’s the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As Bitcoin is not a traditional commodity one might not think of the CFTC as a Bitcoin regulator. However, the regulator has broad authority and certainly Mr. Chilton sees his organization as having authority. Reuters is reporting him as saying “Here’s what I know for sure: we could regulate it if we wanted. That is very clear,”
Hopefully it will be back very soon.
Update: And we’re back…this time with better spam protection! A few users may have lost their logins, but it only takes a minute to make a new one.
What was an incident now appears to be a trend. Banks are refusing to work with Bitcoin businesses…It would seem out of fear. In the latest example TransferWise, a business that offers low fee international money transfers, has announced that they will no longer be processing transfers to Bitcoin exchanges as their banking providers are “not comfortable with Bitcoin”.
Read More about Banks too scared to work with Bitcoin businesses
As Mt.Gox is by far the largest Bitcoin exchange the USD price listed on the site is the unofficial Bitcoin price. With such market concentration Mt.Gox is the obvious first choice for any attempt at market manipulation.
Anyone following Bitcoin will be well aware of the constant DDoS attacks that the exchange has been subject to, but ComputerWorld is reporting that Bitcoin’s Mt.Gox price is also being influenced traders who use the sites trading software to submit large quantities of trades for very small fractions of bitcoins.
Bitcoin is pseudonymous, but not exactly anonymous. A group of Cryptographers out of John Hopkins University are aiming to change that. The group, led by Professor Matthew Green, has been working on Zerocoin, a proposed Bitcoin extension that would increase Bitcoin’s anonymity.
Read More about Zerocoin, a potential Bitcoin extension, aims to improve anonymity
“Two years ago, I tried to hack BitCoin. I failed. This was very exciting.”
Dan explains why the Bitcoin network, which is “a Pot Of Gold At The End Of The Rainbow for any hacker who could break it”, has performed so well.
Read More about Computer Security researcher Dan Kaminsky tried to hack Bitcoin and failed
Repeatedly hit by DDoS attacks while experiencing a surge in new accounts has made for a rough few weeks for the Bitcoin exchange. Mt. Gox is by far the largest Bitcoin/USD online exchange handling over 80% of trades. This heavy reliance on one entity does not make for a healthy Bitcoin economy and contributes to Bitcoin’s volatility.
In a recent interview with USAWatchdog.com the always exuberant Jim Willie gives some very interesting predictions.
Jim sees the BRIIICS (that includes Iran and Indonesia) moving away from the US Dollar, the Yen and the Euro and adopting a USD alternative for trade. He believes the East will sell off its US bonds, continue to purchase gold (driving it up to $7,500) and perhaps adopt “gold trade notes”. As he sees it the consequences of this will not be inflation, but a “large widespread cut-off of supply chains” in the states as foreigners will not be willing to accept US Dollars.
The 28min interview is full of colorful commentary and interesting thoughts including the possibility of “bail-in’s” in the states.
