Bitcoin Forum

...

A bankster at the Bank of England (Charles Goodhart) wants to ban 500 Euro notes as well as 1000 Swiss Franc (that would be some $1050) notes as well.  That will get tongues wagging in the USA to ban our $100...

The War on Cash is ramping up.  Another terrible idea as part of the campaign to destroy our privacy.  Read all about it:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-25/goodbye-100-bill-ex-central-banker-demands-all-high-denomination-banknotes-should-be

What war on cash?

First, comparing bills equal to $1000 or $500 is very different from the $100 bill.

Second, if inflation increases we'll only need higher denomination bills.

It all bodes well for bitcoin, which provides the anonymity and ease of cash.

This seems like the effects of the European economic
crisis and financial war between major countries

Have a read around.

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=call+to+ban+cash

There is a growing global effort underway to ban cash, notes and coins.

Banks then have 100% control of your wealth.
Every penny accounted for.
When the bank goes tits up next time you will be footing the bill (laws already in place in many countries!)
The upcoming negative interest rates will force people to spend to preserve buying power rather than be able to stuff the bed mattress with notes.

That's right saving cash at your account will be useless. It is useless already depending on where you live. So what people will do is to look for other options to invest if they can not spend or don't want to. Bitcoin might be one of the safe havens. Other will go into precious metals etc.
So let the negative interest rates come.
The same goes with banning cash. People will look for other opportunities to pay or trade with when they realize that with digital fiat,or state approved centralized crypto coin, they are completely monitored, controlled and slaved. And here comes Bitcoin into the game again.

...

This whole "War on Cash" meme is ominous and distressing.

Who wants .gov, the banks, etc. to know where you are spending your money, and what on?  Who would want .gov to have the power to cut you off from your electronic-only money?  CA$H (long green in your physical possession), BTC and gold are three reasonable, partial substitutes at least for now.

I started this thread because I have seen in a few places (not just Zero Hedge, LOL) more of this topic of the War on Cash being discussed.  The idea being floated now (banning large bills) is just upping the ante.  If we get more restrictions on cash, that would be very worrisome.

...

And this item just in (comment on the War on Cash):

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-26/gold-tightness-when-theres-no-more-sell-theres-no-more-buy-any-price#comment-6597322

This is the second report I have read that B of America wants photo ID when depositing CA$H into their accounts.  That is THEIR OWN ACCOUNTS, not just deposits into accounts of localbitcoins sellers...

Another tightening of the screw.

With cash out of the way the problem of bank runs will be a thing of the past.

Keeping your money in a bank nowadays is the same as keeping all your bitcoin in an exchange wallet/account. Its yours but the control you have over it can be taken away at the push of a button. 

You have to admit, those denominations are too high to have any practical everyday use. Shops don't have enough change to accept these notes. Banning these will not affect our lives at all. If these notes notes are makes it easy for criminals to hide and transport illegal money, banning them makes sense. This isn't about banning cash for all of us.

Yes now days it is quite risky and also it is not safe to keep money with us also because of two things. First we may spend all money faster because of easy access and secondly some one can take them all so I your country if you have a back which is backed by your government then that should be better option to keep the money instead choosing private banks

bitcoin isn't even close to being as anonymous as cash and will never ever be.
Get your facts right.
Oh and I don't need to spend a "transaction fee" to make sure someone takes my cash.
try that with bitcoin and see how long it takes before it confirms..

They are already enacting laws to ban purchases with sums larger than 5000€ in cash.

This is not so that they can track mobsters, this is capital control and banker takeover.

This is true, they can call it what they want to but its nothing more than a form of capital control. It will obviously be 'sold' to us with the line that it's for our own safety because this will help them to track terrorists and mobsters and by doing so make the 'world' a safer place for all of us.

Regulations like these are only good against law abiding citizen. Criminals and mafia don't care about it.
It is true that we don't have many of these control freak lunatics running around and paper money is safe for now.

Bank of England? Last time I checked Great Britain was not part of the Euro zone (and they were going to leave the EU at that), nor was it one of the cantons... What did I miss?

http://currencyguide.eu/gbp-en/british_old-banknote-50-pounds-sterling-obverse.jpg

Shouldn't they better ban the British pound first (some part of)?

They've already banned the big bills in the USA.  I guess too many people carrying suite cases full of 10 thousand dollar bills was too easy!  Well, look at us now...we don't even need a suitcase, just a flash drive!

500 euro note are mainly used in black markets, money laundering and other illegal activities that require huge amounts of cash to be moved anonymously.

In the majority of countries that's what they are used for, I never had even one of those notes, I've seen a few.

The minimum wage in my country is 505 euros, so there's not much use for such notes and I always assumed they were created to facilitate high profitable illegal markets, considering 1 million euros in 500 euro notes weights only 1.6 kg.

http://s12.postimg.org/ql9pvn2t9/100000_dollar_bill_green.gif

These are still in existence today, since the federal reserve is known to hold billions of dollars in gold certificates, which these bills had been used for (as payments between federal reserve banks and the US Treasury)...

This is roughly some 400 bitcoins

People are crazy to many ideologies are spread accross the wirld ... i bet if the chinese governament decides to take all its rightful debt from USA - it will be the end of the american population

Yes, the central banksters want to ban big cash notes (and even cash at all). The reason is, that they want to trap you into the bank when the system crashes like in Greece.

When the inflation arrives the normal citizen we need 10000$ bills in cash or even more.

I can't see I would mind them banning these bills. When do you ever use them nowadays? Any big purchase will be done through a bank transfer anyway.

I hardly carry cash with me anymore, just use the card.

To me it's completely the opposite.I pay as much as I can with cash. And on my bank account I only have the amount of money deposited which I need to pay my monthly fixed bill with (rent, telephone, insurance).

Start with the big bills, then the medium, then all the others.

The banks will own your ass and you wont be able to fuck all about it.

Therefore we're having crypto currencies.People who know how things work will have ways to mave around the banks.I'm not really worried about that to be honest.

If they come up with the ban on big notes, and people have to resort to using huge stacks of smaller notes and the banks are charging negative interest rate for keeping your money there, what would that mean? Eventually people would be left with limited option but to turn to banks. Not sure how would that help.

The biggest note in the UK is the £50 note. In my entire life I have handled one three times. Each time not a single business would accept them and I had to go to a bank to deposit it instead. Looks like it's a voluntary ban to me.

Bank of England is a shareholder of the ECB and has 13.6743% share of the ECB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Central_Bank#Shareholders

What about Swiss frank? Do they have a hand in it too?

It is simple. When the inflation is coming, and it will come in 3-5 years, we will see banknotes with increasing numbers. :(

Quoting from wikipedia:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_National_Bank



So probably all central banks have a share in eachother. They are all private.

I think having 1000 notes is a bix extreme and they must be a big target for counterfeiters but I can't imagine many places accept them. In my country most shops wont accept 50 notes because of the chance of them being counterfeit. In fact it is very rare to see them at all and I have only ever see a couple in my lifetime. Trying to ban them just because criminals use them is sill though but maybe we should ban banks too since they're the biggest criminals.

I agree, that may be a bit extreme.

In the Netherlands it is quite the same actually. 100 euro notes and up are mostly not accepted by shops, just because of the risk of running into counterfeit notes.

Granted it allows for easier money laundering, but this is a doubled edged sword argument. It's like saying, oh okay let's ban Bitcoin because it allows for easier money laundering, ignoring the positives.
If you were healthy wealthy and you wanted to move money legally, you would save space if you had 500 euro notes available.

Anyway, the thing it's clear. Cash is going to disappear in the next couple of decades. I can't be the only one here that sees this as very obvious.

I feel you are right. This is part of a bigger plan to eliminate 'analog' money from our lives and leave only digitalized currencies.
But don't be fooled it is one of the most dangeous things that could happen, there won't be freedom anymore. Banks/governments will know everything about you. It is Big Brother's dream.

Above commentators

Hey, I LIKE cash!  And large denominations are taken at banks, foreign exchange places, local coin shops (hint, hint).  If the USA's $10,000 notes were there in the 1930s, those would be worth some $50,000 each now... 

And it's NOBODY'S business how I keep and transport my own wealth.

The Swiss 1000 Franc note.  These are hard to find now, at least in the part of the USA where I am from.

http://gfoix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/20131112_1000-swiss-franc-2.jpg

I once owned one.  The bill is chock full of interesting anti-counterfeiting features.

From the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Swiss_franc) on the Swiss franc:


Given that the British pound is by far the most counterfeited money among the four major currencies (CHF, EUR, USD and GBP), I strongly advise the Bank of England to leave the Euro alone and finally get themselves busy with strengthening the anti-counterfeiting measures for the sake of the Pound...

Those numbers are quite scary... I thought it would be the 100 dollar bill that was the most counterfeited..

How can you trust the pounds nowadays with 1 in 3,333 being fake?

This pretty much speaks for itself

I mean the biggest denomination of the British pound is 50£, which is roughly 7 times less that the 500 Euro banknote in terms of purchasing power, but this doesn't in the least prevent it from being 6 times more prone to counterfeiting, lol...

The most valuable single banknotes in the world are the S$10,000 note from Singapore (worth around $8,000) and the B$10,000 note from Brunei. Counterfeiting is very very rare in these countries, as the punishments for doing it are extremely harsh. And the S$10,000 note is very frequently used by the Singaporeans, in day to day life.

http://www.therakyatpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/singapore-money-m-10.jpg

Hahaha they are the ones that are counterfeiting it by printing bunch of them  :D :D :D :D :D :D

It's like asking your local bicycle thief to install the locks on your bicycle.

I think that's not the point how useful the 500 Euro note is. The point is that the governments - in very much in line with Marty Arsmtrong's projections - are moving to gain total control over the finances of citizens, and therefore trying to implement the electronic money system in which everything is traceable and consequently taxable. The issue is that they want to have full control in order to keep in place an unsustainable financial system.

Eventually, this matter and the electronic money is about freedom and how totalitarian governments try to take away our freedom by controlling the financial system. (Electronic money has nothing to do with crypto currency, just in case someone is confused by that).

The 1,000 CHF banknote is very rarely used for money laundering, and it is much more valuable than the Euro 500 banknote. Approximately 60% of the entire value of all the Swiss banknotes in circulation are made up of CHF 1,000 notes. So the issue with the Euro 500 banknote is not its denomination, but lack of law enforcement.

I admit it's difficult to spend £50 note, but it's not that bad. Supermarkets and restaurants accepts them all the time, as long as you are not using it to settle a £5 bill.


It's not often you run into a fake. I withdraw money from cash machines and usually change are in coins. Shops can be hit pretty bad with fakes though.

If we calculate the "pound-for-pound" ratio of currency counterfeiting (pardon the pun) in terms of purchasing power, we will get that the British pound is about 45 (sic) times more likely to be counterfeited than the Euro "pound"...

You mean that because 50 pounds is the largest denomination, there needs to be more notes counterfeited to counterfeit the same value?

That makes sense :)

Yeah, since the largest denominations are the ones to be counterfeited most often, we can safely ignore the possible discrepancy in the ratio of lower denominations counterfeiting attempts (which could potentially make the result somewhat less dramatic and traumatic for the British pound, lol)...

That was interesting, thanks for posting.

$10,000 Singaporean dollars on one little piece of paper.  THAT is efficient wealth density!

I need to get me one...

:)

I think it's way, way higher than that figure for pound coins, something ridiculous like 1 in 40 or more. I certainly handle coins that feel dodgy on a near weekly basis.

As for forged notes I've never been caught out by one.

A mate of mine used to be paid exclusively in forged £20s. He said they were the best he'd ever seen. I thought they were total dogshit and if you didn't know just by looking, you definitely knew by touching them.

Every single cashier he handed them over to instantly knew they were crap but most don't care so they shoved it in the cash register anyway.

I wonder what the Singaporeans buy with those huge bills? who in hell spends that much amount of money in a "day to day life"? It must be only a 1% of rich people over there moving that kind of money daily, that's near an entire year salary in some European countries.

Probably a savings currency unit, or used to pay for houses or larger assets.

I dont think necesarly the 1% is using it, business could use it too.

If you have read the posts after your reply, you might have already seen that this contention is quite dubious and shaky. It may indeed be true that counterfeiters aim for the larger denominations of the same currency, but, as it has been revealed, this can be easily overcome by implementing state of the art anti-counterfeiting measures. The 1,000 Swiss frank banknote has the largest denomination as well as purchasing power among major monies out there, but it is 5 times less likely to be counterfeited than the 500 Euro banknote, second in purchasing power. The latter is still less likely to be faked than the 100 US dollar bill, which comes next in purchasing power...

Thereby, given the global nature of today's world, counterfeiters should necessarily aim for the weakest currency (in terms of protection), not the largest denomination (purchasing power) between monies

Gold is much easier to counterfeit. You can have wolfram-lead bars coated with a thin gold outer layer, by weight they would be the same if mixed correctly.

Only a specialist with ultrasound can detect the scam. Of course if you buy the gold from a reputable dealer the chances of getting scammer is low.

But if you buy it from a shady local dealer, then it might happen. Thousands of people get scammed by this worldwide.

You seem to be very unfamiliar with the gold trade. If you buy gold in "bulk", i.e. non-standardized gold bars, and from a shady source, you can always drill the gold ingot. Gold is soft while tungsten is one of the hardest metals out there (twice as hard as steel), and you would need a special drill bit to do the trick (that is, to drill through a tungsten bar)...

Yes.

I buy 1 oz gold coins (US Eagles).  Au Eagles have 1 toz of (24 kt) gold as well as some Cu and Ag to make them sturdier.  Still there are fake 1 oz Eagles out there made of tungsten, I recently watched a YouTube video on some fakes that fooled the buyer at a coin store (until the owner or expert got a GOOD look at them).  One oz Eagles are also less "profitable" to fake, but apparently they ARE out there.  I have never seen one.

Also, Gold Eagles have a very clear & beautiful "ring" to them, balance one on your fingertip and strike it lightly along the rim with a quarter.  The ring goes on and on, very satisfying.

Tungsten just makes a click/thud kind of sound.

The above "ring test", along with a scale that weighs to 0.1 gm (so a Gold Eagle weighs about 33.9 gm) is enough to catch them all.

Well you dont wanna drill a hole in all bars, especially not before you buy them, nobody will drill a hole in their bars just for demonstration, to ruin it.

Its easier with an ultrasound machine to check its density, but not many people come equipped with that, especially if you buy a "gold" ring that is actually some cheap mix coated with gold.

There are factors that inhibit this request. Not only this. But request bigger banknotes while the time goes on. One of those factors is inflation. The inflation make that if today I buy the bread 1 dollar after ten years I will buy it 10 dollars. If we make comparisons with other goods which cost more and if we will accept the request of this banker to buy something which today cost 1 000 us dollar and after ten years 10 000 us dollars. in the day of shopping we must have a big sack with us full with banknotes with low value and two police man which must guard me from the thieves.

It is another think if it will be "invented" a deflationary economy. In that case the proposition is totally possible. I want to make a parenthesis here: This could be possible if every country in the world (or even one) adopt a currency similar with bitcoin. That economy could be (have the possibility) to be deflationary.

But with our situation I think that the future will deserve always banknotes with bigger value and not abolish they that actually have the biggest value.

Maybe you're not British. I'm not, and British weather is doing all it can to prevent me from spending time in the UK, and yet, I have more experience with £50 notes than you have. I haven't used a credit card this week, nor the week before.

Yes, there's a war on cash, and I'm proud to be in the resistance. I once had 8 1,000 CHF notes in my hand (only for a few minutes, though), and let me tell you something: it's a really great feeling.

I am indeed. Perhaps they're handed over more readily by foreign exchange bureaus. If I were to be given a wad of them I'd be looking to change them going on my own experiences. Twenties are ubiquitous. A fist full of fifties will invoke wonder in most Brits and they'll assume you're a scrap merchant or drug dealer.

In Japan everybody is using the 10 000 yens bill (the biggest available). But personally I like the 1000 yens bill for everyday purchases.
Japan is still using cash pretty much everywhere. There are even places like chain restaurants that will only accept cash because they are using tickets vending machines. You can even pay "cash on delivery" if you order anything on the internet, or just buy a gift card from a conbini (convenience store open 24/24) near by.

In Schweden they banned now all banknotes.
  >:(

They want to tax you more and more until nobody is left to tax.

The idea is good, big  transactions can be done easily by a bank transfer/creditcard. And so criminials need to do more effort.

However paying for smart television with 100 bills is not something we should want either.

Your argument is good but you make a thinking error. If a politician wants something (even it is not good for their civilians), it will be done.

Politics is no democracy these days, but egocentric maniacs paid by big firms.

The only reason they do this is so they know what civilians are doing. it's just a step closer to Big Brother, where everything we do is being monitored.

Forget it. I won't happen. People need to buy bigger wallets for simple purchases.

Some idiot politician looking for some attention, we are giving him..

When people are gonna understand that banning everything is not the best option to solve problems, and in fact encourage complete opposite actions almost every time.
Look what happened in US when alcohol were banned - total corruption, rise of mafia, look what is happening with drug business and illegal sex business now.

The banning  to prevent misuse is just wrong. When people become desperate they try to implement desperate measures.

This measure is just one of them. It will not prevent anything at all

The Scot's still have the £100 note.
But it's kind of puny compared to a Giant(£1 million) or a Titan(£100 million). :-[
Check these notes out.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21145103

Let our governments keep their paper.  We have the good stuff and its only getting better.  The more small bills they take away from us the more valuable our hash will be....smile....they can't stop the cash flow by burning paper anymore because it would only strengthen the crypto-movement.  Let them them do it!!!!