A town in the United States has embraced cryptocurrency to the point where it is accepted by nearly every business in the area.
The post Entire New Hampshire Town Accepts and Uses Cryptocurrency Just Like Cash And Credit Cards appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(ANTIMEDIA) — In the wake of Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in popularity, interest in the dynamics of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has skyrocketed over the past year. With bank-based blockchain projects poised to revolutionize the world of financial services, researchers continue to study the new technology to better understand the inner-workings of the blockchain, as well its economic, social, […]
Bulgaria’s GDP is about $52.4 billion (2016), so it is quite a shock that the Bulgarian Government is sitting on an approximate $3 billion worth of Bitcoins seized in an anti-corruption operation back in May.
Putting this into a little more glaring context, Bulgaria is holding 18% of the national debt in bitcoins…
Fun fact: today"s bitcoin prices have been interesting enough that there was a significant difference in how much Bulgaria had in USD between me writing this story and my editor editing it.
— Nikhilesh De (@nikhileshde) December 7, 2017
Bulgarian law enforcement jointly worked with the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELC), a regional organization comprised of 12 member states, to bust a sophisticated organized-crime network, arresting twenty-three Bulgarian nationals and seizing a total of 213,519 bitcoins.
SELC described the organized-crime scheme as the hacking of Bulgarian Custom’s computers and allowing those associated with the group to skip fees for importing goods into the country. To make it work, the group recruited corrupt Customs officers to upload a virus into government machines, so that hackers could establish remote access.
The organized criminal group consisted in Bulgarian nationals having connections in The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hellenic Republic, Romania and Republic of Serbia. The modus operandi used was recruiting corrupted Customs officers in all involved countries with the purpose to infiltrate a virus in the Customs’ computerized systems. Once the virus installed, from distance, the offenders were able to finalize various transports, as in the Customs’ system appeared that the cargo was already checked and passed.
Further, SELC provided details of how the operation was conducted, involving a large-scale search of “more than 100 addresses, suspects, and vehicles.” Out of the 23 suspects arrested, 5 of them were Bulgarian Customs officers. Police seized “equipment, devices for communication, computers, tablets, and bank documents.”
Bulgarian authorities have searched more than 100 addresses, suspects and vehicles. A large quantity of money was seized, as well as equipment, devices for communication, computers, tablets, bank documents, etc. 23 suspects were arrested, 5 of them acting as Bulgarian Customs officers. As result of this criminal activity the damages recorded by the Customs Agency, only for year 2015, is around 10 million Leva.
Here is where things get interesting… Police also seized 213,519 bitcoins, at the time, worth $500 million. As of writing this article, the amount seized, is now worth approximately 3,676,583,661, according to CoinDesk.
As well, up to now were found in the virtual space bitcoin wallets of the main suspects with a total value of 213,519 bitcoins. As a reference, the value of one bitcoin is rating to 2354 USD. The offenders choose the bitcoin way of investing/saving the money, because it is rather difficult to be tracked and followed.
SELC explained why the criminals used bitcoin,
The offenders choose the bitcoin way of investing/saving the money, because it is rather difficult to be tracked and followed.
What remains a mystery to most, is what the Bulgarian government will do with the seized bitcoins? As mentioned in the beginning, the national debt could certainly be reduced. Have we just discovered a large seller that is ready to pour cold water on the party?
If Bulgaria dump its $btc we are f*cked!#bitcoin #crypto #wtf
— Satoshi Haze (@SatoshiHaze) December 7, 2017
Via Zero Hedge
The post Bulgaria government shocked to discover it owns $3 billion in Bitcoin appeared first on Intellihub.
During his 2015 trial, Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht’s defense attorneys raised questions about the government’s case that, although they were ultimately disregarded by the jury, have continued to bother crypto users with an affinity for so-called “conspiracy theories.” They pointed out vagaries in the FBI’s account of its years-long pursuit of Ulbricht, and questioned whether the bureau had truly discovered Ulbricht’s involvement on its own, or whether it had help from other deep state elements, namely the National Security Agency.
Of course, the judge, who eventually sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison without the possibility of parole, refused to entertain their argument. But if they were correct, it would mean that the government’s whole case was built on evidence that was ultimately inadmissible.
As it turns out, Ulbricht’s lawyers were on to something.
In a blockbuster report published Tuesday in the Intercept, reporter Sam Biddle cited several documents included in the massive cache of stolen NSA documents that showed that the agency has been tracking bitcoin users since 2013, and has potentially been funneling some of this information to other federal agencies. Or, as Biddle puts it, maybe the conspiracy theorists were right.
It turns out the conspiracy theorists were onto something. Classified documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the National Security Agency indeed worked urgently to target Bitcoin users around the world – and wielded at least one mysterious source of information to “help track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins,” according to a top-secret passage in an internal NSA report dating to March 2013. The data source appears to have leveraged the NSA’s ability to harvest and analyze raw, global internet traffic while also exploiting an unnamed software program that purported to offer anonymity to users, according to other documents.
Using its ability to siphon data directly from the fiber-optic cables, the NSA managed to develop a system for tracing transactions that went well beyond simple blockchain analysis. The agency relied on a program called MONKEYROCKET, a sham Internet-anonymizing service that, according to the documents, was primarily deployed in Asia, Africa and South America with the intention of thwarting terrorists.
The documents indicate that “tracking down” Bitcoin users went well beyond closely examining Bitcoin’s public transaction ledger, known as the Blockchain, where users are typically referred to through anonymous identifiers; the tracking may also have involved gathering intimate details of these users’ computers.
The NSA collected some Bitcoin users’ password information, internet activity, and a type of unique device identification number known as a MAC address, a March 29, 2013 NSA memo suggested. In the same document, analysts also discussed tracking internet users’ internet addresses, network ports, and timestamps to identify “BITCOIN Targets.”
…
The NSA’s budding Bitcoin spy operation looks to have been enabled by its unparalleled ability to siphon traffic from the physical cable connections that form the internet and ferry its traffic around the planet. As of 2013, the NSA’s Bitcoin tracking was achieved through program code-named OAKSTAR, a collection of covert corporate partnerships enabling the agency to monitor communications, including by harvesting internet data as it traveled along fiber optic cables that undergird the internet.
…
Specifically, the NSA targeted Bitcoin through MONKEYROCKET, a sub-program of OAKSTAR, which tapped network equipment to gather data from the Middle East, Europe, South America, and Asia, according to classified descriptions. As of spring 2013, MONKEYROCKET was “the sole source of SIGDEV for the BITCOIN Targets,” the March 29, 2013 NSA report stated, using the term for signals intelligence development, “SIGDEV,” to indicate the agency had no other way to surveil Bitcoin users. The data obtained through MONKEYROCKET is described in the documents as “full take” surveillance, meaning the entirety of data passing through a network was examined and at least some entire data sessions were stored for later analysis.
Naturally, once the NSA got involved, the notion of anonymity – whether with bitcoin, or even some of the privacy-oriented coins like Zcash – was completely crushed.
Emin Gun Sirer, associate professor and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts at Cornell University, told The Intercept that financial privacy “is something that matters incredibly” to the Bitcoin community, and expects that “people who are privacy conscious will switch to privacy-oriented coins” after learning of the NSA’s work here. Despite Bitcoin’s reputation for privacy, Sirer added, “when the adversary model involves the NSA, the pseudonymity disappears. … You should really lower your expectations of privacy on this network.”
Green, who co-founded and currently advises a privacy-focused Bitcoin competitor named Zcash, echoed those sentiments, saying that the NSA’s techniques make privacy features in any digital currencies like Ethereum or Ripple “totally worthless” for those targeted.
While bitcoin appeared to be the NSA’s top target, it wasn’t the agency’s only priority. The NSA also used its unparalleled surveillance powers to take down Liberty Reserve – a kind of proto-ICO that was involved in money laundering. Though the company was based in Costa Rica, the Department of Justice partnered with the IRS and Department of Homeland Security to arrest its founder and hand him a 20-year prison sentence.
The March 15, 2013 NSA report detailed progress on MONKEYROCKET’s Bitcoin surveillance and noted that American spies were also working to crack Liberty Reserve, a far seedier predecessor. Unlike Bitcoin, for which facilitating drug deals and money laundering was incidental to bigger goals, Liberty Reserve was more or less designed with criminality in mind. Despite being headquartered in Costa Rica, the site was charged with running a $6 billion “laundering scheme” and triple-teamed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the IRS, resulting in a 20-year conviction for its Ukrainian founder. As of March 2013 — just two months before the Liberty Reserve takedown and indictment — the NSA considered the currency exchange its No. 2 target, second only to Bitcoin. The indictment and prosecution of Liberty Reserve and its staff made no mention of help from the NSA.
Of course, several of the agency’s defenders argued that the notion that the NSA would use these programs to spy on innocuous bitcoin users is “pernicious”, according to one expert source.
The hypothesis that the NSA would “launch an entire operation overseas under false pretenses” just to track targets is “pernicious,” said Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Such a practice could spread distrust of privacy software in general, particularly in areas like Iran where such tools are desperately needed by dissidents. This “feeds a narrative that the U.S. is untrustworthy,” said Green. “That worries me.”
But forget bitcoin: the notion that the NSA has been illegally feeding intelligence to other federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been a watershed issue for civil libertarians, with implications far beyond cryptocurrency money laundering. The process, known as “parallel construction”, would, if definitive proof could ever be obtained by a defense attorney, render an entire case as inadmissible.
Civil libertarians and security researchers have long been concerned that otherwise inadmissible intelligence from the agency is used to build cases against Americans though a process known as “parallel construction”:building a criminal case using admissible evidence obtained by first consulting other evidence, which is kept secret, out of courtrooms and the public eye. An earlier investigation by The Intercept, drawing on court records and documents from Snowden, found evidence the NSA’s most controversial forms of surveillance, which involve warrantless bulk monitoring of emails and fiber optic cables, may have been used in court via parallel construction.
The timing of the Intercept’s report is also interesting. We reported last year that a Russian national named Alexander Vinnick, the alleged mastermind of a $4 billion bitcoin-based money laundering operation, had been arrested following an indictment that levied 21 counts of money laundering and other crimes that could land him in a US prison for up to 55 years.
And given the justice system’s treatment of other cryptocurrency-related criminals, the notion that Vinnick might spend multiple decades in prison is not beyond the realm of possibility. Of course, if the case against him is built on illegally obtained evidence, one would think his defense team would want to know.
Heavily redacted versions of the Snowden documents are available on the Intercept’s website.
The post NSA Has Been Tracking Bitcoin Users Since 2013, New Snowden Documents Reveal appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Showing that they are scared of the privacy implications of cryptocurrency, a new leak from Edward Snowden reveals the NSA carried out a massive campaign to spy on users of bitcoin.
The post ‘Bitcoin is #1 Priority’: New Snowden Leaks Show NSA is Targeting Cryptocurrency Users appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Fresh off his move to Los Angeles, and a profile in the New York Times where he defended President Donald Trump and lashed out at the pervasive groupthink that drove him out of Silicon Valley, billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel sat for an interview with Maria Bartiromo at the Economic Club of New York.
Early in the discussion, Bartiromo asked Thiel – who famously opened for Trump at the Republican National Convention – what he thought about Trump’s performance.
In response, he explained that he’s extremely happy with the president’s performance during his first year in office. While the media has been hyperfixated on the latest leak from the Russia probe, Trump has quietly been slashing regulations and questioning orthodoxies like the economic benefits of free trade.
“That’s why, if he runs again, he will be reelected,” Thiel said.
Though “it’s probably the case that Democrats will do quite well in the midterms.”
He also pointed out the irony that people in the Bay Area describe him as a “contrarian” for supporting Trump…
“Supporting Trump was the least contrarian thing I ever did…nearly half the country voted for him. But within the context of Silicon Valley it was viewed as extremely contrarian.”
“The one thing that I liked about Trump and still very much like about him is a willingness to ask questions and to reframe the debate and not be bound by these strictures.
“There are any of a number of issues where it’s good to rethink things.”
Later in the conversation, Bartiromo asked Thiel about the “Gawker situation.” Thiel, who sounded uncharacteristically willing to discuss an episode about which he has been famously reticent, explained that Gawker’s argument in its own defense was, in reality, an insult to journalism. Thiel said that just because Gawker billed itself as a news site doesn’t automatically extend first amendment protections to everything it publishes.
“I’m very proud to have supported Hulk Hogan in a successful lawsuit… The claim that a pornographer pays someone for sex tapes, and a journalist gets to publish sex tapes without paying people… that’s what in effect what Gawker was arguing.”
“We have a first amendment, we believe in free speech, but that doesn’t mean you get to steal a sex tape made in the privacy of a bedroom and post it on the Internet for everybody to see. We have a first amendment…but we also have a fourth amendment that protects us from unreasonable search and seizure…so that’s the legal framing.”
The Gawker lawsuit demonstrated to America why defining the scope of privacy protections in the digital age is so important. Today, the conventional wisdom is that Americans have tacitly surrendered their right to privacy by participating in the digital world. But Thiel says this notion is anathema to the preservation of a free society.
There was a brief discussion of trade, in which Thiel briefly pointed out that US is in a much stronger position to bargain with China and EU than vice versa…
“Quite unclear where China can reciprocate with tariffs on US. We’re exporting so little. US no longer is a monopoly exporter in any single area.”
“With Germany, it’s a very similar thing, hard to know how you retaliate in a way that hurts them more than it hurts US.”
The Silicon Valley billionaire then added that Peter Navarro has sold 1 million copies of his book “Zero To One” in China vs. 40,000 in India, which Thiel says is one way to show how one country is thinking about entrepreneurship versus the other.
When Bartiromo raising the European Union’s decision to introduce the “first ever” regulations of Google, Facebook and other giant tech platforms. Thiel sees good reasons and bad reasons for this threat of regulation:
“The good reasons are these privacy concerns and the bad reasons are there are no successful tech companies in Europe and they are jealous of the US so they are punishing us.”
Additionally, Thiel acknowledged that “privacy in a digital era deserves to be rethought” but said that “as a libertarian I always dislike regulation.”
Intriguingly, amid all the hype and anxiety surrounding investment, Thiel explained why, as an investor, he wasn’t particularly interested in artificial intelligence: because of its bad reputation.
“The thing that struck me is how uncharismatic AI is at the point. Basically, it’s going to take our jobs and, once it takes our jobs, at the singularity [the theoretical point at which superhuman artificial intelligence is created, triggering an unprecedented cascade of technological change] it’s just going to kill everybody.”
“I’m not sure that dystopian view is necessarily correct but that’s actually what most people believe,” he said, adding that when considering investments he tends to ask whether technologies are good and how they are going to make the world better…
“The answers for things like AI are quite weak,” he said.
Bartiromo then steered the conversation toward bitcoin, and mentioned that, the last time she had spoken to Thiel, that he had expressed reservations about a lot of cryptocurrencies, but was optimistic about the long-term prospects of bitcoin. Thiel explained that he’s owned bitcoin for a long time, and has been consistently bullish.
Though he doubts it’ll ever be successful as a medium for payments, Thiel believes bitcoin could endure as a store of value that, much like gold, could serve as a hedge against inflation.
“The technology that people like to talk about is the blockchain technology, and I’m somewhat skeptical about how that translates into good investments, but the one use-case of cryptocurrency as a store of value may actually have quite a bit of a ways to go. I would be long bitcoin and neutral to skeptical of just about everything else at this point, with a few possible exceptions.
“The question with something like bitcoin is whether it can become a store of value. And the thing it would replace is something like gold. The analogy is it’s like bars of gold in a vault that never move and you get it and it’s a hedge of sorts against the whole world falling apart.”
“The objections that people have to bitcoin are also objections to gold. It’s this weird currency that’s not backed by any government. Same thing is true of gold. It’s not clear what the intrinsic value of bitcoin is. Same thing is true of gold. It may well be a bubble, but – and most bubbles are unstable and end – one of my friends has this line that ‘money is the bubble that never pops’, so if it is a bubble, then it is money.”
“If everybody decided that a $100 bill was worthless then you wouldn’t want to have a $100 bill.”
There are a lot of crazy dynamics in the crypto world, but one thing that’s different from the dot-com bubble of the late 90s is there aren’t any Wall Street bankers involved… yet – one reason why bitcoin strikes Thiel as “deeply contrarian.”
At the very least, both Wall Street and Silicon Valley were both late to the bitcoin party. While this isn’t a reason to be bullish in and of itself, it’s definitely a factor worth considering. And while there are risks surrounding the influence that miners exert, as well as the unraveling of privacy protections. But, Thiel says, there will likely be only one online equivalent to gold…and right now, bitcoin is the only crypto product that fits that bill.
Thiel offers some parting advice: “Never bet against Elon.” and “don’t compete with Amazon.”
When Thiel first invested in Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, he was sceptical that it would be able to build a reusable rocket.
“I have known Elon for 18 years and you should never bet against Elon,” he said.
“I thought it was inconceivable that it could be done … and they have actually pulled it off,” he said.
The company to watch, he said, was Amazon, which has expanded into a broad range of industries, from infrastructure and logistics to retail and healthcare.
“Amazon is the most ferocious company in the US at this point. It’s probably the company you don’t want to be competing against,” he said.
“I can’t think of any other company even close to Amazon.”
Finally, Thiel circled back to Silicon Valley and the politically-correct folly of it all…
“It’s striking how what had always been a very liberal place has become almost a one-party state,” he said.
“When you have complete unanimity that tells you that political correctness may have gone a little bit too far.”
Allianz Global Investors, the investment arm of Europe’s biggest insurer, employees economists who say Bitcoin is absolutely worthless, and a bubble that’s about to burst. Allianz Global, which manages almost 500 billion euro, says Bitcoin “ticks off all the boxes” for a major asset bubble.
“In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero,” Stefan Hofrichter, the company’s head of global economics and strategy, wrote in a recent web post. “A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream.” Gold doesn’t generate an income stream either but has been a viable currency for over 2,000 years.
But according to Bloomberg, the investors at Allianz Global have more to say about Bitcoin. Additionally, they added that the world’s largest cryptocurrency “ticks all of the boxes” of the essential criteria for any asset bubble, including overtrading, “new-era” thinking and rising leverage, he wrote. Bitcoin mania is a textbook-like bubble, “one that is probably just about to burst.”
Hofrichter is far from the only person to make comments regarding Bitcoin’s value. Even Peter Schiff says the cryptocurrency is heading toward its “real worth” of $0. University of Pittsburgh researchers have concluded it’s “an asset which has no value by traditional measures” and economist Nouriel Roubini called it the “biggest bubble in human history.”
Others, such as Jeff Berwick from The Dollar Vigilante, says that it isn’t the Bitcoin bubble we should worry about. We should be more concerned about the elites engineering an economic collapse and blaming the cryptocurrency as an excuse to ban or heavily regulate all sources of “money.” It is easier to believe the global elitists dislike Bitcoin, because of the mere fact that the currency is decentralized and regulating it is incredibly difficult.
But that doesn’t stop many in the global economy scene from continuing to bash Bitcoin while passively admitting the risks are small. “Bitcoin’s demise would have few spillover effects on the ‘real world,’ since the market for this cryptocurrency is still quite small in size,” Hofrichter said. “As a result, we believe that the risks to financial stability stemming from bitcoin are negligible — at least as of today.”
Google has also come out swinging against Bitcoin, saying it will ban ads for all cryptocurrency. Remember, the elites that run things are actively trying to keep things from the public. There’s probably a very good reason why tech giants and the globalists who run them don’t want people involved in cryptocurrencies. “Improving the ads experience across the web, whether that’s removing harmful ads or intrusive ads, will continue to be a top priority for us,” said Scott Spencer, Google’s director of sustainable ads, in a blog post. The post did not explain why digital currencies may be harmful.
This follows a similar move by Facebook as a part of an effort to” clear unregulated financial products off its platform.” Does anyone catch the keyword “unregulated” in there? If the elitists can’t control your money, they can’t control you.
(ANTIMEDIA) It’s been an embattled year so far for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world in general. The start of the year saw a precipitous drop in Bitcoin value, marking somewhere around blockchain’s 250th death. Then, numerous financial institutions, government regulatory agencies, and elite moguls rubbed salt in the wounds with a series of rhetorical attacks aimed at discrediting cryptocurrency and dismissing it […]
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Having explained why central banks are so nervous about cryptocurrencies, it seems the rest of the banking sector is finally admitting the real driver behind their disdain for digital currencies – they are competition and an existential threat.
As CoinTelegraph’s Molly Jane Zuckerman reports, J.P. Morgan Chase has added a segment on cryptocurrencies to the “Risk Factor” section of their 2017 annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), filed yesterday, Feb. 27.
The annual report mentions cryptocurrencies under the “Competition” subsection when describing how new competitors have emerged that threaten J.P. Morgan’s operations:
“Both financial institutions and their non-banking competitors face the risk that payment processing and other services could be disrupted by technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, that require no intermediation.”
The report notes that these new technologies, evidently including Blockchain, although they don’t mention it by name, “could require JPMorgan Chase to spend more to modify or adapt its products to attract and retain clients and customers or to match products and services offered by its competitors, including technology companies.”
This competition could potentially “put downward pressure on prices and fees for JPMorgan Chase’s products and services or may cause JPMorgan Chase to lose market share.”
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had made waves back in September 2017, when he called Bitcoin (BTC) a “fraud” and threatened to fire any employee that traded BTC on company accounts. Since then, Dimon has backtracked slightly, telling a Cointelegraph reporter at the Davos World Economic Forum that he is not a “skeptic” on cryptocurrencies.
In the beginning of February, an alleged internal report from J.P. Morgan Chase referred to cryptocurrencies as “innovative” and “unlikely to disappear”, also noting cryptocurrency’s potential to be successfully applied to payment system areas that are traditionally problematic or slow, such as cross-border payments.
JPMorgan is not alone, as TruthInMedia.com’s Brendan Weber reports, in Bank of America’s new annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the corporation largely reflected internally about a number of economic, geopolitical, and operational risks faced.
One of those stated risks is surrounding the increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies, which could have negative effects on the corporation’s earning potential.
In addition, technological advances and the growth of e-commerce have made it easier for non-depository institutions to offer products and services that traditionally were banking products, and for financial institutions to compete with technology companies in providing electronic and internet-based financial solutions including electronic securities trading, marketplace lending and payment processing. Further, clients may choose to conduct business with other market participants who engage in business or offer products in areas we deem speculative or risky, such as cryptocurrencies. Increased competition may negatively affect our earnings by creating pressure to lower prices or credit standards on our products and services requiring additional investment to improve the quality and delivery of our technology and/or reducing our market share, or affecting the willingness of our clients to do business with us.
Increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies also had Bank of America admitting that it may need to make “substantial expenditures” to compete with these rising technologies:
In addition, the widespread adoption of new technologies, including internet services, cryptocurrencies and payment systems, could require substantial expenditures to modify or adapt our existing products and services as we grow and develop our internet banking and mobile banking channel strategies in addition to remote connectivity solutions.
Bank of America might have already taken action to help counter these technologies by banning cryptocurrency transactions on their credit cards.
Additionally, the document stated concerns besides those directly affecting earning potential; they noted that emerging cryptocurrencies could impact Bank of America’s compliance with anti-money laundering regulations:
In addition to non-U.S. legislation, our international operations are also subject to U.S. legal requirements. For example, our international operations are subject to U.S. laws on foreign corrupt practices, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, know-your-customer requirements and anti-money laundering regulations. Emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, could limit our ability to track the movement of funds. Our ability to comply with these laws is dependent on our ability to improve detection and reporting capabilities and reduce variation in control processes and oversight accountability.
Even though cryptocurrencies were a small mention within the entire report, its brief discussion indicated that the company is both aware of and reacting to the further potential impacts of cryptocurrency.
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Banks like to pretend that they’re so much more established and secure than the world of cryptocurrencies, but as anybody who pays close attention to the headlines would know…that’s just not the case…
Setting aside all of their rhetoric about embracing the blockchain, banks have mostly avoided or opposed cryptos (Goldman Sachs, sensing the opportunity for profit, is one notable exception), often citing their volatility and the ease with which they can be used to launder money as qualities that disqualify them from being taken seriously (though, as we recently witnessed with the US dollar, perhaps banks need to rework this volatility argument a bit). Even yesterday’s announcement of the first criminal charges against a cryptocurrency trader pales in comparison to the many, many crimes that banks (or even one bank) have settled allegations of. The real answer to why the banks’ dislike cryptocurrencies is probably because they feel threatened. The recent selloff notwithstanding, the rise of cryptocurrencies has continued unabated, despite the efforts of some of the most powerful governments on Earth, while the concept is still very young, it does have potential to shake up the aging fiat system. In order to understand the race between the banks and cryptocurrencies, we developed a visual to see just how “David” is comparing to “Goliath.”
Using data from Yahoo Finance and CoinMarketCap.com, HowMuch.com‘s data team developed a visual that compares the market caps between some of the world’s largest banks and the largest cryptocurrencies. On the left blue column, there are four banks listed from largest to smallest market caps: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of China, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Conversely, the right red column features the total cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, NEO, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, and Stellar. The larger the circle, the bigger the market cap.
Total Crypto Market Exceeds Size Of JPMorgan; Banks Fight Back In Attempt To Slow Growth
After an extraordinarily volatile (even for bitcoin) start to the year, cryptocurrencies are rallying once again, with bitcoin breaking above $10,000. As of Feb. 16, 2018, the crypto market had a market cap of $470 billion – larger than the size of the United States’ largest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
Bitcoin’s market cap alone is comparable to Bank of China’s. The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum, is comparable in size to Morgan Stanley. It is stats like these that have the global banking sector worried that cryptocurrencies are on track to make a serious impact on their operations.
One of the most recent efforts to help slow the pace of crypto growth were announcements from several banks saying that customers could no longer purchase digital currency with their credit cards. Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger has called Bitcoin “totally asinine” and Warren Buffet has said he would “buy a five-year put on every cryptocurrency.”
Overall, cryptocurrencies are seeing their size and value top even some of the largest financial institutions in the world. This has caused banks to fight back and attempt to slow their growth. However, even banks clearly don’t know what they really want. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon famously declared Bitcoin a “fraud”, it is interesting to now see a report published by the investment bank that calls Bitcoin-based ETFs the “holy grail for owners and investors.”
And should the bitcoin ETF become a reality, do you really think banks will turn down those lucrative fees?
What do you think?
By Vin Armani
WATCH livestream at 10am PST (1pm EST) below. This week we welcome Rick Falkvinge to the show to talk about the current state of Bitcoin after the Bitcoin Cash fork.
Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a campaigner for next-generation civil liberties and sensible information policy. In particular, he stresses how the copyright industries work in collusion with Big Brother hawks to erode or eliminate the parts of Internet that guarantee our civil liberties. Rick recently dubbed himself “Bitcoin Cash CEO” and has been an outspoken thought-leader during the tumultuous Bitcoin schism of this last year.
Visit Rick’s blog, subscribe to his YouTube channel, follow him on Twitter.
Live free and succeed outside the rigged system at Counter Markets.
Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show, CTO of CoinText, author of Self Ownership, founder of Bebi Vodka and co-founder Counter Markets. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Available for interviews at email – Vin (at) VinArmani.com.
A revolutionary bill has just passed the Arizona Senate that will officially recognize bitcoin, litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies as money by accepting them as payment for income tax.
The post Crypto Revolution: AZ Senate Passes Bill Officially Recognizing Bitcoin as Money appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
This article was originally published by Adam Taggart at PeakProsperity.com
Today saw Jerome Powell sworn into office as the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, replacing Janet Yellen. Looking at the sea of red across Monday’s financial markets, Mr. Powell is very likely *not* having the sort of first day on the job he was hoping for…
Also having a rough start to the week is anyone with a long stock position or a cryptocurrency portfolio.
The Dow Jones closed down over 1,200 points today, building off of Friday’s plunge of 666 points. The relentless ascension of stock prices has suddenly jolted into reverse, delivering the biggest 2-day drop stocks have seen in years.
But that’s nothing compared to the bloodletting we’re seeing in the cryptocurrency space. The price of Bitcoin just broke below $7,000 moments ago, now nearly two-thirds lower from its $19,500 high reached in mid-December. Other coins, like Ripple, are seeing losses of closer to 80% over the same time period. That’s a tremendous amount of carnage in such a short window of time.
And while stocks and cryptos are very different asset classes, the underlying force driving their price corrections is the same — a change in sentiment.
Both markets had entered bubble territory (stocks much longer ago than the cryptos), and once they did, their continued price action became dependent on sentiment much more so than any underlying fundaments.
The Anatomy Of A Price Bubble
History is quite clear on how bubble markets behave.
On the way up, a virtuous cycle is created where quick, outsized gains become the rationale that attracts more capital into the market, driving prices up further and even faster. A mania ensues where everyone who missed out on the earlier gains jumps in to buy regardless of the price, desperate not to be left behind (this is called fear of missing out, or “FOMO”).
This mania produces a last, magnificent spike in price — called a “blow-off” top — which is then immediately followed by an equally sharp reversal. The reversal occurs because there are simply no remaining new desperate investors left to sell to. The marginal buyer has suddenly switched from the “greater fool” to the increasingly cautious investor.
Those sitting on early gains and looking to cash out near the top start selling. They don’t mind dropping the price a bit to get out. So the price continues downwards, spooking more and more folks to start selling what they have. Suddenly, the virtuous cycle that drove prices to their zenith has now metastasized into a vicious cycle of selling, driving prices lower and lower as panicking investors give up on their dreams of easy riches and increasingly scramble to limit their mounting losses.
In the end, the market price retraces nearly all of the gains made, leaving a small cadre of now-rich early investors who managed to get out near the top, and a large despondent pool of ‘everyone else’.
We’ve seen this same compressed bell-curve shape in every major asset bubble in financial history:
And we’re seeing it play out in real-time now in both stocks and cryptos.
The Bursting Crypto Bubble
It’s amazing how fast asset price bubbles can pop.
Just a month ago, the Internet was replete with articles proclaiming the new age of cryptocurrencies. Every day, fresh stories were circulated of individuals and companies making overnight fortunes on their crypto bets, shaking their heads at all the rubes who simply “didn’t get” why It’s different this time.
Here at PeakProsperity.com the demand for educational content on cryptocurrencies from our audience rose to a loud crescendo.
We did our best to provide answers as factually as we could through articles and webinars, though we tried very hard not to be seen as encouraging folks to pile in wantonly. A big reason for this is we’re more experienced than most in identifying what asset bubbles look like.
After all, we *are* the ones who produced Chapter 17 of the The Crash Course: Understanding Asset Bubbles:
To us, the run-up in the cryptocurrencies seen over 2017 had all the classic hallmarks of an asset price bubble — irrespective of the blockchain’s potential to unlock tremendous long-term economic value. Prices had simply risen way too far way too fast. Which is why we issued a cautionary warning in early December that concluded:
So, if you’ve been feeling like the loser who missed the Bitcoin party bus, you’ve likely done yourself a favor by not buying in over the past few weeks. It is highly, highly likely for the reasons mentioned above that a painful downwards price correction is imminent. One that will end in tears for all the recent FOMO-driven panic buyers.
And now that time has shown this warning to have been prescient in both its accuracy and timeliness, we can clearly see that Bitcoin is following the classic price trajectory of the asset price bubble curve. The chart below compares Bitcoin’s current price to that of several of history’s most notorious bubbles:
This chart (which is from Feb 2, so it doesn’t capture Bitcoin’s further decline below $7k) shows that Bitcoin is now about 2/3 of its way through the bubble life-cycle, and about half-way through its fall from its apex.
Projecting from the paths of previous bubbles, we shouldn’t be surprised if Bitcoin’s price ends up somewhere in the vicinity of $2,500-$3,000 by the time the dust settles.
Did The Stock Market Bubble Just “Pop”?
Despite the extreme drop in the stock market over the past two days, any sort of material bubble retracement has yet to begin — which should give you an appreciation of how overstretched its current valuation is.
Look at this chart of the S&P 500 index. Today’s height dwarfs those of the previous two bubbles the index has experienced this century.
The period from 2017 on sure looks like the acceleration seen during a blow-off top. If indeed so, does the 6% drop we’ve just seen over the past two trading days signify the turning point has now arrived?
Crazily, the carnage we’ve seen in the stock market over the past two days is just barely visible in this chart. If indeed the top is in and we begin retracing the classic bubble curve, the absolute value of the losses that will ensue will be gargantuan.
If the S&P only retraces down to the HIGHS of its previous two bubbles (around 1,500), it would need to fall over 43% from where it just closed today. And history suggests a full retracement would put the index closer to 750-1,000 — at least two-thirds lower than its current valuation.
How Spooked Is The Herd?
As a reminder, bubbles are psychological phenomena. They are created when perception clouds judgment to the point where it concludes “Fundamentals don’t matter”.
And they don’t. At least, not while the mania phase is playing out.
But once the last manic buyer (the “greatest” fool) has joined the party, there’s no one left to dupe. And as the meteoric price increase stops and then reverses, the herd becomes increasingly skittish until a full-blown stampede occurs.
We’ve been watching that stampede happen in the crypto space over the past 4 weeks. We may have just seen it start in the stock markets.
How much farther may prices fall from here? And how quickly?
History gives us a good guide for estimating, as we’ve done above. But the actual trajectory will be determined by how spooked the herd is.
For a market that has known no fear for nearly eight years now, a little panic can quickly escalate to an out-of-control selling frenzy.
Want proof? We saw it late today in the complete collapse in XIV, the inverse-VIX (i.e. short volatility) ETN that has been one of Wall Street’s most crowded trades of late. It lost over 90% of its value at the market close:
The repercussions of this are going to send seismic shockwaves through the markets as a tsunami of margin calls erupts. A cascading wave of sell-orders that pushes the market further into the red at an accelerating pace from here is a real possibility that can not be dismissed at this point.
Those concerned about what may happen next should read our premium report Is This It? issued over the past weekend.
In it, we examine the congregating perfect storm of crash triggers — rising interest rates, a fast-weakening dollar, a sudden return of volatility to the markets after a decade of absence, rising oil prices — and calculate whether the S&P’s sudden 6% rout is the start of a 2008-style market melt-down (or worse).
Make no mistake: these are sick, distorted, deformed and liquidity-addicted bubble markets. They’ve gotten entirely too dependent on continued largess from the central banks.
That is now ending.
After so many years of such extreme market manipulation finally gives way, the coming losses will be staggeringly enormous.
The chief concern of any prudent investor right now should be: How do I avoid being collateral damage in the coming reckoning?
Click here to read ‘Is This It?’, Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)
Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous and they are not decentralized, period. This is to say nothing of the dangers they pose as being “pirate money” that can create real world problems for a persons life. If you don’t believe me simply ask Randall Lord, Ross Ulbricht or anyone that has had their “wallet” hacked or stolen on any number of exchanges where cryptocurrencies are bought and sold. Whom can they turn when the wallet is drained of 100% of it’s contents?
I am all for free markets and free market innovations. I have been and will continue to be skeptical of a technology that was introduced to the world by a ghost. A ghost is something that comes out of the ether, has no material being and is not part of this world. Well, that perfectly describes Satoshi Nakamoto. Is it a little suspicious the “bitcoin” white paper was introduced to the world on Halloween 2008 at the very height of the financial meltdown or is it just me that sees this through a lens of skepticism?
Is it a little suspicious the foundation for Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper was actually developed by the NSA and MIT in 1996 and now we learn the all important SHA-256 technology was also developed by the NSA.
The piece of the Bitcoin code created by the NSA is a hash function called SHA-256. SHA stands for Secure Hashing Algorithm. The hash is the expected outcome. An algorithm can be executed on a piece of data, and the output of that algorithm should match the hash. But you can’t figure out what the data was with just the hash. It only works in one direction. And there are enough different combinations that it is virtually impossible for any two pieces of data to create the same hash. Source
The evidence continues to mount that shows these cryptocurrencies are part of a beast system intent on enslaving the masses. The evidence is coming not only from governments and bankers but more importantly from the cryptocurrency experts themselves. The more that I know the more terrifying cryptocurrencies become.
I have been told time and again that I just don’t understand and I just need to research and study how cryptocurrencies work. Well, I have been studying and researching, but I am not interested in what the “charts” are telling me or “how rich I’m going to be” or how cryptocurrencies are going to revolutionize the currency system. No, let’s research what the policy makers are saying and, more importantly, what the policy makers are doing. Well, come to find out, they are saying and doing a lot about a handful of “pirates” attacking their source of power and control. Seems as if no one, with the exception of myself and Ken Schortgen and Chris Duane are actually looking behind the curtain to see what the developers are doing and ask who are these developers. It doesn’t matter what the crypto-crowd says, or doesn’t say, and it doesn’t change the facts.
We have reported what Andreas Antanoppolis stated a couple of years ago when ask the question – “do you have a totalitarian government? because I don’t want to live under that type of government.” Well, Andreas you already do. You just haven’t bothered to look around, earnestly, to see the walls closing in on your life, property and wealth.
It’s no secret that governments around the world are being strangled with unplayable debt. It is no secret the banking system, the too big to fail banks, became insolvent in 2008. These corrupt enterprises need a new “game” to continue the ponzi scheme charade and continue tricking the people into believing that government has all the answers and banks are how you conduct financial transactions. Neither of which is true but the mass of people do not understand this and, therefore, continue to allow these corrupt enterprises to dictate their lives.
Enter a “way out” of the banking system and way around government control – a new currency called cryptocurrency. The magic bean has been discovered! There is just one problem – it’s not magic and it doesn’t work as purported by 99% of the people telling you how great cryptocurrencies are and how freeing cryptocurrency are for the masses.
We recently reported on a debate between Peter Schiff and Peter van Velckenberg. Peter V, is a bitcoin advocate and was debating the virtues of bitcoin with Peter S. Only one problem. Peter V told the truth about bitcoin and spoiled his own party.
Now the non-traceable is the other aspect I wanted to address. We talked about the fundamental innovation as to how this thing (bitcoin) works. It works because there’s a ledger. Not only is that ledger traceable, with perfect fidelity, and there’s only one version of it; not a bunch of records kept by five different international correspondent banks that don’t record beneficial ownership of shell companies that open accounts. There’s one ledger it’s called the blockchain. If you know that someone received a payment at an address on that blockchain you see with perfect fidelity every transaction into and out of that address and this is exactly the type of technological tool that law enforcement has used to apprehend the people that have used these networks for bad purposes. Ross Ulbrecht, the guy that created the Silk Road he was caught with his laptop in front of him. They opened it up, they found the public address where he was receiving payments from the Silk Road drug market and that’s unimpeachable evidence that he benefited from every single atomistic transaction for drugs or heroin that happened on that website. Source
You see Peter V simply explains, in plain english, how perfectly well the blockchain tracks 100% of your transactions and ties 100% of your transactions together with ALL transactions – that’s right, 100% of every transaction, one ever makes! Every time funds come into your account the blockchain ties 100% of the transactions leading up to you receiving those funds back to all those transactions associated with those funds and every time your account sends funds out it tracks all those transactions and ties it back to you regardless of where those funds came from or where they go or how they are used – it is now tied directly to you as well!
Let’s say you receive funds from someone on the blockchain and 47 transactions prior to you receiving those funds someone used some of those funds to commit an act of fraud or embezzlement. The funds in your account are tied directly to that illegal transaction. Not only did you not know anything about the situation you don’t know any of the people involved. Then you send some of those funds out and 138 transactions later someone uses some of the funds in an an illegal drug deal. You are now associated with both acts and it doesn’t matter that you don’t know 99.9% of the people before or after the funds arrived/leave your wallet as you are still associated with those illicit transactions. Pretty cool, aye? This is exactly what Peter V explains above – please re-read what Peter V said and let me know what I missed.
Now, we learn from one of the smartest people in the alternative media space, James Corbett, that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, are not all what we have been told they are. If someone would like to have a battle of wits with Mr. Corbett on this subject you would do well to have all your information gathered properly as I can assure you he has done the deep research and has all the tools necessary to present his side of the debate.
To use cryptocurrencies in the way it was intended or at least in the way some people have intended it for, is a type of “pirate money” is the best way to describe it.
Is it possible, more or less, to use cryptocurrencies sudnonymously (sp?) there is no anonymous use of cryptocurrencies at this point precisely, because as we know, the NSA, GCHQ and other agencies like that do have access to the trunk line of the internet. So it would be rather naive to think that we are able to mask internet traffic and really baffle them with that. But at any rate. Transactions can remain sudnonymous(sp?) and If they are handled the right way they can be done directly, peer to peer, without the influence of third party middle men. Including across international state boundaries and that can enable a new type of market. A cryptocurrency market internationally.
This is where James really digs in and explains the value of bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies in a way that is undeniable. This has been part of my argument as well. Chris Duane has been the most vocal about this aspect of cryptocurrencies as they are nothing more than, literally, blips on a screen.
Right now everyone is focused on what is the price of bitcoin in dollars. Which is precisely the wrong question to be asking if you are looking at this as truly disruptive technology. The real question would be “what can I actually get with these bitcoin” without having to change anything to dollars; without having to buy any bitcoins with dollars. Can I earn bitcoin, can I sell things for bitcoin? OR not bitcoin in particular because there are many, many different cryptocurrencies. But the point would be to try to create a cryptocurrency economy that is not dependent on that interface with fiat currency.
The video below begins at the 13:00 mark where Mr. Corbett over the next five minutes will explain everything one needs to understand about bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and the lack of value these digital-illusions bring to the market.
The post James Corbett: “What is The Price of Bitcoin in Dollars – Precisely the Wrong Question” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
(ANTIMEDIA) — Internet giant eBay made headlines this week over its decision to drop Paypal as a payment processor on its site. While this was news in itself as Paypal’s stock price took a dive, perhaps more interesting are the potential options that come with eBay’s new processor, a Dutch company called Adyen.
Adyen, which processed roughly $25 billion worth of payments in 2014 and $50 billion the follower year, is unique because it has partnered with BitPay since the end of 2015. Bitpay is a popular payment platform that allows consumers and businesses to conduct transactions with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Announcing the partnership at the time, Bitpay noted their union would allow “some of the biggest companies in the world the ability to begin accepting bitcoin payments.”
Boasting that Adyen works with “over 180 currencies and over 250 payment methods to process their payments,” Bitpay added that “Adyen’s merchants can now easily accept bitcoin as a payment method from their e-commerce stores.”
Now that Adyen is partnering with eBay, it’s possible the e-commerce giant will be able to accept bitcoin for payments. As Fortune pointed out, “buyers will have a wider choice of options on the new, more open eBay payments platform (bitcoin, anyone?).”
If that’s the case, there will likely be a variety of crypto payment options considering BitPay started working with other coins at the end of last year.
Still, Fortune notes that eBay “is still somewhat restricted in what it can offer in the financial realm under its original agreement with PayPal but that deal expires in June, 2020.” Regardless, the developing relationship between Adyen and eBay will be one to watch in the coming years.
In a 2015 “buying guide,” eBay published a list of merchants that accept crypto, either directly or through third parties like Gyft. A mounting number of retailers are moving to expand their abilities to accept cryptocurrencies, which continue to grow in popularity. Even Craigslist.org now has a crypto option now.
The potential for eBay to grow the pervasiveness of cryptocurrency use is huge considering that in 2015, the site was hosting two billion transactions per day.
Anti-Media has emailed both eBay and Adyen regarding if and when the retailer will integrate bitcoin and other cryptocurrency options. This article will be updated with their statements should they respond.
(ANTIMEDIA) Switzerland — Cryptocurrencies were a hot topic at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the world’s financial elite essentially split on how to view a technology that’s still less than a decade old.
One market player in attendance, however, George Soros — who, as of December 2017, is worth $8 billion — appeared far more confident in his assessment.
“Cryptocurrency is a misnomer and is a typical bubble, which is always based on some kind of misunderstanding,” the 87-year-old Soros said in a speech in Davos on Thursday.
“Bitcoin is not a currency because a currency is supposed to be a stable store of value and the currency that can fluctuate 25 percent in a day can’t be used for instance to pay wages because wages drop by 25 percent in a day,” Soros said. “It’s a speculation. Based on a misunderstanding.”
On the subject of usability, the business magnate claimed that at the present date, cryptocurrencies are primarily a tool of the criminal element:
“Currently it’s used mostly for tax evasion and for people and the rulers and dictatorships to build a nest egg abroad.”
This sentiment echoes that of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who also spoke on the subject while in Davos.
“In areas like cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, we should be looking at these very seriously,” May said in a television interview with Bloomberg, adding that action on cryptocurrencies may be needed “precisely because of the way they are used, particularly by criminals.”
However, research published earlier this month found only one percent of Bitcoin transactions were actually linked to suspected criminal activity.
Other financial experts, however, appeared less eager to denounce the technology. Speaking at a panel discussion on Thursday, Index Ventures general partner and co-founder Neil Rimer said it’s simply too early to make a judgment call:
“We’re nine years into this experiment. It’s gone well at times and quite poorly. It could fail completely and go to zero, but it has accomplished a number of things I think are remarkable.”
Jennifer Zhu Scott, deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, appeared to agree. She noted that the fact that so many of the world’s financial heavyweights are being forced to address the issue of cryptocurrencies is evidence of the technology’s power:
“The fact that people keep talking today that bitcoin is below 10,000, it’s a disaster, or bitcoin is above 10,000 and that’s crazy. I think the fact that bitcoin is still alive, and attracting so much attention, the fact that we’re talking about bitcoin in Davos with a Nobel Prize winner, a central bank governor and a seasoned investor, I think that’s a powerful tool.”
Robert Shiller, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, was also on the panel.
Thanks to the wealth created by cryptocurrency, breakthrough studies involving MDMA in the treatment of PTSD will soon be taking place.
This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Back in September 2015, when we first predicted that Bitcoin would enjoy an exponential price increase as first the Chinese and then everyone else realized that the cryptocurrency is nothing less than the digital equivalent of borderless Swiss account, bypassing capital controls with ease and enabling money laundering anywhere and everywhere, its market cap was $3 billion. It is now $230 billion.
Today, a little over two years later, the US Treasury has finally this figured out, and on Friday Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will work with the Group of 20 nations to prevent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin from becoming the digital equivalent of an anonymous Swiss bank account.
“We are very focused on cryptocurrencies,” Mnuchin explained, pointing to discussions with other regulators within the U.S. government and later stating: “We want to make sure that bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things.”
Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Mnuchin said that the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a government body that assesses financial system risks, has formed a working group focused on cryptocurrencies, and explained that “In the United States — and people may not realize this — under our laws, if you have a wallet to own bitcoins, that company has the same obligation as a bank to Know Your Customer. So, in the United States, we have rules for anti-money-laundering, for all different types of entities, we can track those types of [transactions]. The rest of the world doesn’t have that. So one of the things we are working very closely with the G-20 on is making sure that this doesn’t become the Swiss numbered bank account.”
During the remarks, Mnuchin also suggested that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to develop its own digital version of fiat currency – a topic under discussion at a number of central banks worldwide – in the near future.
“The Fed and we don’t think there’s a need for that at this point,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin added that he was worried about heightened levels of speculation in the bitcoin market. “The other concern I have is, there’s a lot of speculation in this, and I want to make sure that consumers who are trading this understand the risks,” Mnuchin said. “I am concerned that consumers may get hurt.”
Apparently he was far less concerned about consumers buying the S&P at all time high valuations.
More to the point, yes the US will gladly tax crypto trading now that the total market cap of all “coins” is $700 billion, and no, it has no intention of cracking down on Bitcoin or other cryptos.
Mnuchin also said that he is “not at all” worried that Russia may use cryptocurrencies to help its banks avoid international sanctions. An adviser to President Vladimir Putin is reported to have said that sanctions against Russia have created a need for digital currencies as officials there fear expansions in 2018.
As we reported in December, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree allowing the government to classify purchases by the Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service as state secrets.
“This idea that Russia or Venezuela can thwart the pressure from sanctions just by developing their own cryptocurrency is silly,” lawyer Erich Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates told Bloomberg. “It’s like trying to do it by using cash. Yes you can do it more easily with cash, but it doesn’t mean you’re evading. It’s harder to get caught.”
Full remarks below
