Bitcoin Forum

OK, I don't want to be nationalistic, but what about a little competition between countries in bitcoin adoption metrics?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitpay-exceeds-1-000-merchants-130000458.html

"As a result of the secretary of the Central Bank of Finland publicizing that bitcoin is legal to use in Finland, many businesses have seized the opportunity to accept bitcoin. Some of the rather unique merchants in Finland include a dentist office, a veggieburger restaurant chain, and a funeral service."

http://static4.fjcdn.com/comments/what+_7bec2c77038d94a5e5a33b3e177d4101.jpg

Makes sense. A Finn gave Linux to the world, after all.

And additionally you can buy silver and gold with bitcoins from an actual store in Finland as well: http://hopea.fi/ (sorry, only in finnish).

Over-the-counter bitcoins coming soon...

Everything with bitcoins coming soon.

At least that's the plan.

Someone should open a stats page :)
Let's see which is the next country with more services on next months ( and let's bet ;D )

this just needs to be said:

FUCKING AWESOME!

Really?  ::)

This seems to be just a press release.

Wow great news!

  ::) +1

i think this could have great value for bitcoin, since they have lots of timber and the best javelin throwers in the world.



(also good education, high per capita income, a thriving it sector, free press and stuff)

I follow Bitcoin news pretty closely and I didn't hear any news coming from the Finland Central Bank. When did that happen? Do we have any more information on this?

How is Norway coming along with Bitcoin adoption?

I wonder what smartphone adoption is like in Finland.  Or do they all use Nokias?

I had the same reaction to this news. Can anyone verify this? Source? Reference?

Love Finland!  You Fins know how to sauna! e.g. Avantouinti  ;D

That great news.
I think so that Finland might be the first country for widespread Bitcoin adoption!

Can't find the thread right now, but there was one about Finland declaring, somewhat officially, that there was nothing wrong with Bitcoin in principle.

Edit: here it is... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100924.msg1104056#msg1104056

Here is the video of a TV program aired to 500,000 citizens on a national YLE2 channel, where Finnish Central Bank representative admits that Bitcoins are perfectly legal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjo_w9gPch0
It's in Finnish though.

Here is the related thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100924.0

It isn't exactly an official announcement but their representative did say that in an interview for the biggest TV channel in Finland. So it is fairly legitimate.

Cool, thanks.  So do we think that there is any relationship between this and Gavin's September announcement? :)

At this point it would be hard to make anything official, because frankly nobody knows what bitcoins really are.
The only thing that exists in any tangible form is a distributed database with transactions which represent transfer of ownership of bitcoins, but it doesn't specify what they are and where they are stored.

There is simply a cryptographically signed record that says "address A now owns X", technically it doesn't even mention bitcoins at all so we can call them whatever we want and interpret them however we see fit.

EDIT: I guess that Finnish Central Bank representative's statement was simply an acknowledgement of the fact that there is nothing in the current laws that would prohibit individuals to have private keys and have the ability to send and receive specifically formatted messages signed with those keys and eventually stored in a public database.
That's the gist of Bitcoin. Any legislation aiming to prohibit that would need to deny any individual the ability to have privacy and keep secrets. That won't go easy.

By default trading anything is legal. The representative also pointed that it is legal to use barter or "squirrel skins" (used to be money in history of Finland) for trade, and "this is a free country". They have to make separate laws if they wish to make bitcoins illegal.

Here is the TV report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjo_w9gPch0

The reporter went to go interview the Secretary of the Finnish Central Bank.  The guys at Technomage were involved in this, they can give you a better translation

LOOT AT GOOGLE TRENDS in the last 30 days since this aired!

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

https://i.imgur.com/PZtue.png

... and a fucking funeral service. Beat that  ;D

I'd love to buy my coffin with bitcoins.

nice production. funny commando music.

Czech seem to be closing the gap rapidly, wonder what's causing this...

I guess they don't trust eubles that much - or even Czech koruna. I can hardly say I blame them.

Awesome, go Finland! Has always been on my list of places to go when I get to that side of the world.

Sweden Rocks, ffs ... there just pissed we did not join in the euro and are looking for a way out.
That said, can't wait to drive 25 miles to cross the border and spend some bitcoins :)

They do trust koruna. At least more than euro.
Ironically, if euro falls, koruna goes to shit as well.

The finnish TV spot with english subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYH1JH73pw

Starring:

- sirious, the 2nd bitcoin developer after Satoshi
- Vili Lehdonvirta, suspected Satoshi (NY Times)
- Head Secreatery (or something) of finnish central bank
- Some police official
- Random finnish bitcoiners

I want to thank the bittiraha.fi guys for making bitcoin in Finland a great success.

this

Not much happening here. I don't know of any bitcoin services or merchants accepting bitcoin in Norway, but we are buying coins  :D

Not many places you can use bitcoins in Norway, not any places that I know of.

I noticed in the video where the lady from the Finnish Bank said: "Anyone can do what they want, it's a free country after all".

In Norway it would be all bitching and moaning about tax evasion, money laundering and so on. The climate for new things are in Norway not that great most of the time.

But Norway is a rather small country, with only a few millions of inhabitants, so the countries with larger populations are far more interesting.

Anyway, there's a few miners and users in Norway though. I even met one of them and paid a lunch in bitcoins.

Nokia makes smartphones too.

i live in a small place on the edge of akershus / østfold, and ive gotten a few of the shop owners interested in bitcoin :)
hopefully i can go buy groceries etc with bitcoins in a few months :P

Best of luck!

It's pretty great, 42% of the whole population at the end of 2011: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/12/smartphone-penetration-rates-by-country-we-have-good-data-finally.html

I'm very much looking forward to going to Finland for new year's and buying a souvenir for Bitcoins!

will do :)

It would be nice to know Exactly how they achieved this.

I want to do the same in Canada!

That gives me an idea. Instead of having the Bitcoin conferences in big cities like London, New York, Prague where we are not noticed, we should have the conference in a small town where it makes a much bigger impression.

In most countries, there are regional Tourist Authorities that try to attract conferences to their resorts, especially in the low season. This can be used as a leverage for bitcoin adoption. So we say to a big hotel/resort that we will take 200 hotel rooms if they agree to accept bitcoin for payment. And simultaneously we say to the local chamber of commerce that we will bring 300 conference attendees to their town if the local businesses add bitcoin to their payment options.

If I remember correctly, TV reporters asked a representative of the Central Bank and she just answered.

I guess people just being normal, and not some stuck upp assfuck like most governmental employees. I talked to the financial supervisor dept. in Norway about bitcoin, and they told me I would be held responsible for any possible money laundering of a service of mine, even if bitcoin was not covered by any current law. Didn't seem they were too comfortable with the subject.

That seems like a decent plan. I bet a lot of bitcoiners would be willing to trek to a more out of the way destination for a goal like that.

I doubt that "If your local businesses accept bitcoin then we'll come" is the way to go, but more like "We're coming, tell your local businesses we have bitcoins to spend and we're going to buy where they are accepted." With the exception of the venue itself perhaps. Shop around until you find a satisfactory venue that will accept coin then go tell chamber of commerce, local media etc.

Might work even better for like a week long bitcoin party/vacation/conference.

great idea. Perhaps a low cost area as well ? Poland, Latvia ? Thailand, Phillipines ?

That is a wonderful idea!

Bitcoin2013 in Thailand and 2014 again in Europe... and in Finland of course (by then every business accepts bitcoins here). 8)

A week long bitcoin party in Thailand. Well, count me in.

yeah bitcoin doesn't have enough of an image problem as it is, lets get the human traffickers on board

i think the image just needs to keep getting dirtier and dirtier

the more it is associated with and used by the underground, the better it is for its own validation as a currency or store of value.

much worse is coming!

Yes, let's collectivize and slander an entire beautiful country.

Thailand is amazing, btw.

Nothing wrong with Thailand, a conference need not be held in a city like pattaya, like the infamous Bruce once suggested..

What about Island  ?

It has a tradition for supporting free spech.

http://www.europe-trips.eu/Iceland/Iceland-Geysers.jpg

http://www.europe-trips.eu/Iceland/Iceland-Waterfall.jpg
Imaginary title: "Core dev team bath"

I think there's natural heated pools as well! :)

+100 :D
from iceland hehe :D

i'm sure it is a beautiful place in many ways

but it's not slander if it's true: thailand has a serious human trafficking issue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Thailand

US has it problems too... only Canada and Finland is truly without sin  :D

lol

week long party, sounds gr8!

we should plan a trip

The Bitcoin Euro Trip, I'd join in on the fun!

we'll just wait a few months for are wallets start feeling "the bitcoin effect"  ;)

On the downside, this would most likely end with Thailand's barkeepers having >80% of all Bitcoins.

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