I can't even imagine to think what could potentially happen if one day bitcoin could be used in retail sales in USA.

A perfect example of killing the golden goose.

Why would you want to bankrupt your client who is giving you money and you profit from this to buy what will be left of his assets cheap when afterward you will have nobody to sell stuff to?
If the US economy would collapse the first that would go down after would be China as their exports would go down the drain, factories would have to close, people will go unemployed, so they would be switching from earning money to losing and then, they will buy stuff (with what money) to do what with it? Sell it to seagulls?

If you would be running a business, what would you want your clients to be, rich or poor as hell?

do you think Healthcare and College should be free for all in the US? If so, how do you recommend they find it?

I have a few questions on this topic, not sure if this is thread hijacking or not:

1. As someone from the UK we have free healthcare at the point of use, apparently we pay less tax than the US so I'm always curious what this money actually gets spent on?
2. How much is health insurance over there? I know private health insurance in Europe ranges from $200-$300 for a normal healthy person and on average the NHS in the UK is funded at a rate of £197 per person per month.

US spends more of its tax dollars on healthcare than any other developed nation, and people also have to pay astronomical insurance prices, and people still have to pay out of pocket, and people still go bankrupt from a single serious illness or accident, and for all this money, US citizens still get inferior care to every other developed nation on the planet. There is only one good reason why the US can't move to socialized healthcare, and it is because the insurance companies use their insane profits to lobby politicians and use the media to push the lie that socialized medicine is somehow evil. It's not a case of "needing to find the money for it", as OP suggests. It would be a massive cost saving.

Do you see a connection between the two events (a perhaps bio-engineered corona virus and the counterfeit operations)? Two covert methods of warfare?

Besides..
Why could china want to collapse the economy of the US?
So they don't have to whom they sell their merchandise anymore?
Not really a great plan, isn't it?

Right but I'm still trying to grasp the price of Tesla and in comparison to maybe a Ford stock. There's a huge difference between the two prices and seemingly there are probably more Fords on the road than Teslas. Any thoughts?

   
The real education are not taught at school!!

If you are looking for conspiracy theories Russia is accusing the US even for the new outbreak of Corona virus and they call it the new bio warfare to destabilize the economy which is already hammered by trade restrictions and sanctions and $900K seized is not a huge amount to destabilize the US economy and since they were able to identify counterfeit currencies they will be vigilant .

Why?  China has been counterfeiting everything the US produces for years, so why should its cash be any different?  

You can collapse a country's economy with this. It's considered as a major crime in my country, you can be jailed for up to 30 years, much more than if you had killed a child. And the motivation is a lot different than your counterfeit nike, it's not for the sake to make money.

People lose confidence in the currency and no longer accept it, companies can't trade anymore because their partners don't want to deal with them, banks refuse to lend money to countries and so on, it's a snowball effect. And I remember to read that just 1% is enough

Hitler used this method during world war 2 as a politico-military weapon (Operation Bernhard). He wanted to see the British economy collapsing so he created fake GBP notes in order to lower the value of its currency...
The UK did it too during the American Revolutionary War. Hungary, Germany, and Austria participated in a similar operation against France.

It could be the same case regarding China if 900k US banknotes have been found, who knows what haven't been?

INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. ― U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the International Falls Port of Entry seized $900,000 in counterfeit United States currency Friday that was discovered in a commercial rail shipment originating from China.


Due to the vigilance of CBP officers, a rail container was referred for a Customs Exam Station inspection on Dec. 14, 2019.

During the examination, CBP discovered 45 cartons of possible counterfeit currency in the form of $1 bills with a total face value of $900,000. The United States Secret Service was contacted determined the currency is counterfeit.

The counterfeit currency was seized and will be turned over to the Secret Service.

Stopping the flow of illicit goods is a priority trade issue for CBP. The importation of counterfeit merchandise ― including counterfeit currency ―  can damage the U.S. economy.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-officers-seize-900k-worth-counterfeit-us-currency

with more and more miners switching from coal-based power sources

New York lawmakers passed a bill that puts New York at the forefront of a national movement to ban cashless businesses.

From a cup of coffee to a car ride, mobile devices or plastic cards are becoming the preferred, and sometimes exclusive, methods of payment in many parts of the world.

But being forced to pay that way, rather than having the option of using cash, may soon be illegal in New York City.

The City Council approved legislation on Thursday that prohibits stores, restaurants and other retail outlets from refusing to accept hard currency.

The measure puts New York at the forefront of a national movement to rein in so-called cashless businesses: New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco all approved such bans last year, and several other cities are considering similar moves. Massachusetts has had a law requiring retailers to accept cash and credit since 1978.

But New York City officials have also targeted ride-sharing and meal-delivery apps, as well as facial recognition for building entries — all in an effort to blunt the impact of advancing technology on those who are unable to use it because of financial circumstances, unwilling to for philosophical reasons or vulnerable to its darker aspects.

“Consumers should have the right to choose if they want to pay in cash or not,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, the bill’s lead sponsor. “We are reining in the excesses of the digital economy.”

Under the bill, businesses that refuse cash face fines of $1,000 for a first violation and $1,500 for each subsequent offense. Businesses with devices that convert cash to cards, like those found in many laundromats, are exempt under certain conditions, including a provision that there be no fee for such cards.

One large New York business that provides cash-conversion machines and would therefore be exempt is the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where many, though not all, concession stands do not accept cash.

With 23 of Mr. Torres’s colleagues signing on as sponsors, the bill, which he first introduced in 2018, passed the City Council by a 43-3 margin on Thursday. A spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday that he supported “the intent” of the legislation, but that his administration still planned to review it.

Kalman Yeger, a Democratic councilman from Brooklyn, criticized those who voted for the measure of “overreaching.”

“We are inserting ourselves in the business of business in a way that we don’t have the right to,” he said.

The move to protect the use of cash comes amid a worldwide trend toward electronic payments that is being driven by various factors.

For many people, it is simply more convenient to buy something with a swipe or a tap. Businesses that refuse cash say it is faster and easier for workers to process digital payments and keep customer lines moving. Fans of the cashless approach also say it spares employees from mundane tasks like counting money and limits the danger of robbery and theft.

But critics of cashless businesses say they discriminate against people who lack bank accounts and credit cards, while also raising the specter of hackers stealing personal data tied to digital transactions.

The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs said last year that one in nine New York households did not have a bank account, and that one in five were “underbanked,” meaning they had a checking or savings account but relied on something other than a bank to cash a check. Bronx households, the agency said, were around twice as likely not to have a bank account.

“I worry about the real-world discriminatory effect that cashless business can have on New Yorkers, especially in communities of color,” Mr. Torres, a Bronx Democrat, said.

The prospect of the Council prohibiting businesses from refusing cash appeared to go over well with Maren Berthelsen and Lucia Burns, two friends who were having lunch on Thursday at Mulberry & Vine on Warren Street in Manhattan. A sign near the restaurant’s register informed customers that cash was not accepted, and neither woman was happy about it.

“I think it’s incredibly discriminatory not to accept cash because some people can’t get credit,” said Ms. Berthelsen, a teaching artist.

Ms. Burns, a program coordinator, agreed.

“It is exclusionary,” she said, “because people without means are less likely to have a credit card.”

The National Retail Federation, a trade group, has taken the position that “retailers should have the right to choose which payments to accept and to decide for themselves whether going cashless makes sense for their businesses,” according to a statement by Stephanie Martz, the group’s general counsel.

Beyond that, Ms. Martz said, measures like the one to be voted on in New York City were “a solution in search of a problem since cashless stores are fairly uncommon.” Still, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco cited by the federation showed the portion of transactions made in cash falling to 30 percent in 2017 from 40 percent in 2012.

The salad chain Sweetgreen was among the businesses with New York City outlets that had gone cashless. The company reversed course last year, saying that limiting how customers could pay “had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can pay only with cash.”

Another restaurant chain that operates in New York City and does not accept cash, Dos Toros Taqueria, declined to comment on the passage of the cashless-store ban.

In City Council testimony last year, Leo Kremer, a Dos Toros founder, expressed opposition to the prohibition. He said that since moving entirely to electronic payments, the company had, among other things, cut down on firing or otherwise punishing workers over cash discrepancies.

Mr. Kremer also said that in considering expanding beyond New York, Dos Toros had picked Chicago over Boston in part because of the Massachusetts law.

Chicago is among the cities that are now considering their own bans on cashless businesses.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/nyregion/nyc-cashless-ban.html

The second part came with a SOC2 security audit carried out by Deloitte, which enabled Gemini to attain hot wallet cover for funds held on the exchange, a deal also brokered by Marsh.

Hussain said Gemini managed to acquire coverage for its hot wallets back in 2018 – when underwriters had very little appetite for that kind of risk – because of the audit and the ability to show it had no single point of failure.

Coinbase has said it has $255 million in coverage of assets held in online, or hot, wallets, whereas the new Gemini policy is for cold storage. Other large crypto insurance offerings were previously reported by insurance brokerage Marsh’s Blue Vault, which provided $150 million for coins kept in cold storage.

Some in the crypto space have suggested that operating a captive is really the same as self-insuring. However, Hussain said Gemini’s belt-and-braces approach to regulation (the exchange holds a Trust License from the New York Department of Financial Services) is carried on in the captive model, and that the two insurance approaches are “vastly different."

“The capital reserve requirements required by a regulated jurisdiction like Bermuda bring regulatory oversight to the captive,” he said.

By contrast, “with self-insurance, an exchange can set aside $100 million and if things get tight, they can go ahead and repurpose that $100 million without notifying anybody and saying, ‘Hey, we need to go invest this elsewhere.’”

Do you guys agree that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will serve as hedges to this situation? Or is it not necessary at all? Would like to hear about your thoughts or reactions about this one.

It will get adopted in rich countries - rich regulated countries.

I have this worry about cryptocurrencies from all the time. If there is a situation in a country then the first thing they stop is either Internet or electricity, it will be harder to use a crypto in that moment. Was there any solution for this in crypto.? Has anyone thought of something to solve this issue..?