Anonymity – Online and Offline

Julia Dixon on November 14, 2012

Anonymity is slightly off topic for this blog, however, online payments and internet security do go hand in hand and I try to stay educated on these matters.

While following the Petraeus scandal I have been shocked by how few precautions these military and intelligence officers were taking to protect their online anonymity. From this I can only assume that there is a serious lack of education on these topics.

The new website dedicated to privacy, Shadow Life, is working on a 5 part series on anonymity. So far only parts I & II are available but they are an excellent lesson in understanding anonymity.

Check it out … this stuff is important!

Anonymity – Online and Offline – Part I

The Turkish Prime Ministers Wants the IMF to Use Gold Instead of Dollars

Julia Dixon on November 13, 2012

Sabah, a Turkish new site, reports that the Prime Minister has said, “Why do we not switch then to a monetary unit such as gold?”

It would seem that Prime Minister Erdoğan is not pleased with the IMF as they are “going to rule the world based on the exchange rates of [the dollar]” and has “no intentions of working with the IMF again.”

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The Canadian Mint Announces Silver ETR, but ‘Redeeming’ Your Silver May Not Be So Easy

Julia Dixon on November 13, 2012

Last week The Royal Canadian Mint announced that it will make an initial public offering of $100 million in silver exchange-traded receipts.  This comes after the success of the Mint’s Gold ETR last year.

MineWeb reports that “The Mint will offer exchange-traded receipts, priced at $20 each, Proceedings from the C$100 million offering will be used to purchase silver bullion. … The silver ETRs will trade on the TSX and will be redeemable once a month for either cash or silver bullion.”

However, a careful read of the ETR’s prospectus, reveals that physically redeeming your silver is a complicated process that is subject to “suspension” and “Any declaration of suspension made by the Mint shall be conclusive.”

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The Blue Market: Bitcoin, Dollars and Pot-Banging Protests in Argentina

Julia Dixon on October 29, 2012

From The Blue Market

This post is a peep into the underground exchange markets for dollars and bitcoins in Argentina. For the last couple of weeks, I have experienced the informal exchange of bitcoin and dollars on first hand in Buenos Aires. Furthermore, I have realized how both locals and expats may reap significant gains by using bitcoins as a medium of exchange.

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BitInstant: Surprise, The US Dollar is a Virtual Currency

Julia Dixon on October 18, 2012

In a blog post put up today, BitInstant’s Erik Voorhees makes an excellent and very simple argument.  People often have an aversion to Bitcoin on the basis that it is purely virtual, but the money you have sitting in your bank account “is virtual already… bitcoins, and other virtual currencies, are no more virtual than the money we’re already using every day.”

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GoldMoney’s Alasdair Macleod: The SCO, China, Iran, and Gold

Julia Dixon on October 8, 2012

I make no apology for returning to the subject of China, its role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and gold. Gold is now a strategic metal for present and future SCO governments, which between them have over 40% of the world’s population; and now that the price of gold is re-establishing its rising trend, understanding its future role as a replacement for the US dollar is increasingly urgent, because gold is wealth and this wealth is being transferred from west to east.

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Sprott Global: Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left???

Julia Dixon on October 4, 2012

Eric Sprott & David Baker of Sprott Global recently published an article titled “Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left???” In the article they take a look at the supply and demand of gold and reach the conclusion that central banks are likely “leasing their gold reserves to ‘bullion bank’ intermediaries who were then turning around and selling their gold to China, … The central banks’ gold is likely gone, and the bullion banks that sold it have no realistic chance of getting it back.”

The piece is not long and well worth reading in its entirety, but below are the highlights.

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