VIDEO — Engineers vs. Thugs: the Power of Bitcoin, Cryptography & Tech
Activist Post
Sept 23, 2014
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Russia to ban Bitcoin by next spring
Red Ice Creations
Sept 19, 2014
From: coinreport.net
RT, an English-language news outlet in Russia, reports that a top official with the Russian government has announced that a law will be passed banning Bitcoin’s exchange into real money by next spring because of Bitcoin’s use by criminals and terrorists.
Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev said to journalists in Moscow:
“People can play with their chips, and they can call them money, but they can’t use these surrogate currencies as tender. We will discuss this law in the current session of parliament, and possibly even pass it then, or at the very latest by spring next year. We are currently dealing with comments from the law enforcement agencies, about the specifics of legal measures, and we will take their remarks into account. But the overall concept of the law is set in stone.”
While the draft of the proposed legislation has not been published, officials state they will open criminal proceedings against people who mint digital currency as well as those who use it for transactions. Russia’s financial ministry has also asked regulators to ban access to exchanges and online shops that accept Bitcoin, reports RT.
Bangladesh Central Bank: Cryptocurrency Use is a ‘Punishable Offense’
CoinDesk
Sept 16, 2014
Update (17th September 3:00 BST): A full translation of the statement from the Bangladesh Bank has been added to the piece.
The central bank of Bangladesh has issued a new statement suggesting that the use of digital currency is now illegal in the country.
The Bangladesh Bank, as originally reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), has said that the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is unlawful under existing anti-money laundering (AML) statutes.
The Bangladesh Bank noted in its advisory that harsh penalties could be imposed on those who use digital currencies, saying:
“Bitcoin is not a legal tender of any country. Any transaction through bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency is a punishable offense.”
AFP also reportedly spoke to a representative from the bank, who said that the act of using a digital currency could be punishable by as much as 12 years in prison.
Bangladesh recently enacted Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012, a revision of a 2009 law that aimed to bring the country’s AML policies up to global standards.
Popularity leads to announcement
Notably, the bank’s decision to outlaw digital currency transactions derived from increasing reports in the local media regarding the use of bitcoin by domestic residents.
VIDEO — Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Crash Course with Andreas Antonopoulos – Jefferson Club Dinner Meetup
Jefferson Club Silicon Valley
Sept 23, 2013
PayPal’s Support Is the Best Thing That Could Happen to Bitcoin
by Marcus Wohlsen
WIRED
Sept 9, 2014
Casascius/CC
Fairly or not, bitcoin still has an image problem. For every VC who extols the innovative power of the digital currency, pop culture still sees it as a way for the paranoid cyber-libertarian to shop for black-tar heroin on the Silk Road. All the more reason, then, that bitcoin fans should rejoice that, in a move announced Monday at Techcrunch’s Disrupt conference, PayPal is supporting the crypto-currency on its Braintree payments platform. When the internet’s most mainstream brand for moving money embraces a technology, it’s hard to see that system as a fringe operation.
Not that you’ll be buying Beanie Babies on eBay with bitcoin just yet. For non-financial tech nerds, Braintree is a startup bought by PayPal last year that creates tools for software developers to easily integrate payments into apps and websites. Instead of being shuttled off-site or out-of-app in the manner of the traditional PayPal payment flow, everything happens in-app, in exactly the way individual developers want. In supporting bitcoin—an increasingly popular currency driven by open source software running across a worldwide network of machines—Braintree is allowing developers on its platform to effectively flip a switch and add bitcoin to the payment methods they accept.
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[hat tip: World Crypto Network]
Yes to What? – The Scottish Conundrum
by James Corbett
The Corbett Report
Sept 17, 2014
This article originally appeared in The Corbett Report Subscriber newsletter on September 13, 2014. To subscribe to the newsletter and become a member of The Corbett Report website, please sign up for a monthly or annual membership here.
This week the Scots will go to the polls to answer a deceptively simple question:
“Should Scotland be an independent country?”
The question’s simplicity belies the enormity of what is being asked. In centuries past, such a sovereignty proclamation would only have been delivered at the end of a sword after the spilling of much blood. Today the fates of nations are decided by referendum…sort of.
You see, the question is extremely simple, and, in the words of at least one Canadian commentator who finds its precision refreshing after the convoluted tangle of Quebec’s sovereignty referendum questions, “crystal clear.” But is it really? After all, what does it mean to be an “independent country?” Does that mean passport sharing with the UK? Military association? An independent currency? EU membership? NATO membership? Will Scotland keep an allegiance to the crown? Will it become a commonwealth nation? There are no answers to these questions because none of those details have been worked out yet. For now, nationalist politicians are content to leave voters to fill in the blanks.
But these are not trivial questions to be asking. In fact, they go to the very heart of what is meant by “sovereignty” and “independence.” What’s more, Scotland, insofar as it is fast becoming the envy (and the role model) for independence movements around the globe, could potentially be setting precedents for future events in Catalonia or Veneto or elsewhere. In effect, they are setting down the definition of freedom for others to strive toward, so their answer to this string of questions might make the difference between true independence and what could very easily be just another form of dependence.
To see how this is the case, let’s examine some of these questions.
VIDEO — Scottish Independence or Scotland In Dependence? – Geneva Business Insider
Geneva Business Insider
Sept 10, 2014
This month on the Geneva Business Insider, James and David preview next week’s Scottish independence vote and the various political forces that are clashing as the Scottish people go to the polls. We discuss the push for NATO membership, EU membership and a central bank for “free” Scotland and how it undermines the entire push for independence. We also examine the latest on the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine and the specter of a cyber-hacking bank bailout.
PN 