Bitcoin Forum

... and the beat goes on.  Leave your friendly bitcoin comments here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-markets-forex-idUSBRE9070IW20130122

Bitcoin Coming To JAPAN!

I don't understand why a country would deliberately rob their people of savings like that. Do they tuly think this will be better for them?

Nope. Their economy like the US economy is based on credit(debt). So to encourage people to spend they discourage people from saving through the hidden inflation tax. Debt greater than previous debt is needed to sustain the economy. Cash for clunkers anyone?

I still don't understand, artificially stimulating demand is inefficient and leads to so much waste, is that not so plainly seen? Where does most of our consumption lay? Imports?

and what's with our obsession with the status quo. "Oh, DJIA is slipping, let's borrow into infinity and hopefully that solves our debt problem! Oh bush added 4 trillion? Lets do that in one term! Better yet, let's best that and add another 2T!"

The people in charge are sociopaths. They don't give a shit about people, the country, the economy, human society. they only care about increasing their own power and wealth. They can only do this using state apparatus, which has the socially sanctioned right to use violence.

Understand this primary motive and it's easier make sense of the insanity that comes from the government.

It's not about fixing anything. It's about those in power holding onto power and expanding that power. They'll drive us right off the cliff, blame it on anyone but themselves, and then offer up a solution that benefits them. This playbook is used so often in politics it should be obvious to everyone by now. Create a crisis and then confiscate more money & power to "fix it".

I wonder how many Japanese know bitcoin, and their country has the biggest bitcoin market in the world. We don't even have a Japanese forum here

Agree fully. Down with all governments everywhere, long live the bitcoin.

Well said.

But for how long if the Japanese en masse clamoured for Bitcoin?

I'd be reluctant to instigate a drive to publicise Bitcoin in Japan right now if the consequence would lead to the Japanese inflation plan being scuppered by their people saying 'no thanks'.  How long would they be likely to turn a blind eye to it with MtGox under their very nose!

Then again maybe it would be good for Bitcoin if sooner rather than later MtGox disappeared because I'm not convinced having as many products and services as there are priced in Bitcoin based on current MtGox prices is so healthy?

With me as undecided as I am maybe it's a good job the spread of Bitcoin in Japan is almost entirely out of my hands :)  My guess is MtGox keeps a fairly low profile in Japan?

Yes.  I can add my data point here; there is very, very, little knowledge of Bitcoin in Japan, even among tech-minded types.

In my case, I had held a lot of JPY which had done fairly well for me (vs for example USD) but that seems to have ended.  Should have bought more BTC before Abe-kun came in.

The debt expansion / QE / printing / whatever you call it is on the news here.  There was also an NHK peice a few days ago where they talked to grandmas in line to buy gold bars / coins at some dealer in Tokyo.  Apparently there's that, and also people going into stocks.

So that's what's on TV.  Who knows what's actually happening.

I can get from JPY physical cash to an MTGox accoount at well under 0.1% transfer fee here.  Takes like an hour.  I Bet if I opened a Suitomo account I could get that even lower, to maybe a flat 200 JPY fee or so.  Non-anonymous bank transfer, but still, very, very easy.

So in that sense Japan is quite well set up for Bitcoin adoption.

I sort of worry that the whole reason MTGox is in Japan though is that Japanese regulators have no idea what MTGox is doing, in fact no regulator has ever even heard of it... in fact likely the bank MTGox uses probably has no idea either... and for all involved, trying to find out or ask is not in their job description.  We'll see how long this situation lasts.

I wish you the best in getting the word out to those who want to hear but don't realise it yet!  I guess the exchange rates won't be so good on MtGox with volume being so low if there were suddenly a rush to Bitcoin but then that creates opportunities on p2p trading such as through localbitcoins (where I see rogermemorydealers is already selling BTC for JPY).  Sounds to me like Japan is a place whose people right now have much to gain by jumping onto the Bitcoin bandwagon.

I was thinking that was doubtful given that a visit to https://mtgox.com/ is all that it takes, but then it occurred to me, they're registered as KK Tibanne Ltd, aren't they?