Rep. Jerrold Nadler has an admittedly "out of the ordinary" solution to the coming fight over the debt ceiling.

"There is specific statutory authority that says that the Federal Reserve can mint any non-gold or -silver coin in any denomination, so all you do is you tell the Federal Reserve to make a platinum coin for one trillion dollars, and then you deposit it in the Treasury account, and you pay your bills," Nadler said in a telephone interview this afternoon.

I asked whether he was serious.

"I'm being absolutely serious," he said. "It sounds silly but it's absolutely legal. And it would normally not be proper to consider such a thing, except when you're faced with blackmail to destroy the country's economy, you have to consider things."

Michael Hajduk had sunk one year and about $20,000 into developing his online poker site, Infiniti Poker, when the U.S. online gambling market imploded. On April 15, 2011, a day now known in the industry as Black Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down the three biggest poker sites accessible to players in the U.S., indicting 11 people on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. Player accounts were frozen, leaving thousands of Americans without access to their funds. “It was like a bomb went off,” Hajduk says. To continue gambling, “U.S. players were uprooting their families and moving to Malta. Crazy stuff was happening.”

Hajduk, though, was barely fazed. Calgary-based Infiniti Poker, like several other new online gambling sites, plans to accept Bitcoin when it launches later this month. The online currency may allow American gamblers to avoid running afoul of complex U.S. laws that prevent businesses from knowingly accepting money transfers for Internet gambling purposes. “Because we’re using Bitcoin, we’re not using U.S. banks—it’s all peer-to-peer,” Hajduk says. “I don’t believe we’ll be doing anything wrong.”

...(general Bitcoin explanation)...

Hajduk says Infiniti Poker will accept credit cards, wire transfers, and other payment options, but players in the U.S. will be able to play only using Bitcoins. He originally included the currency not to get around U.S. law but to reduce the time it takes to cash players out. Bank transactions can take up to 12 weeks; players who use Bitcoin can get a payout in a matter of hours, he says...

In recent months hackers have pulled off several Bitcoin heists, and this summer Bitcoin Savings & Trust, billed as a “Bitcoin hedge fund,” made off with more than $5 million entrusted to the site by investors, in what appears to be a Ponzi scheme. Also, Bitcoin wallets can vanish as a result of hard-drive crashes or other computer problems. That’s how at least one user lost 50,000 Bitcoins, according to Peter Vessenes, chairman of Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that helps develop and promote the virtual currency.

The bottom line: Bitcoins may help satisfy Americans’ appetite for online gambling—if using the online currency to place bets remains legal.

Uh no it's spaceman spiff.

Me neither 

The future looks bleak. Government grows bigger, debt grows, and politicians constantly pass new regulations.

But there is good news. Technology helps us avoid clumsy government. Developments like the Internet bring us what I call "Freedom 2.0."

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales - who cites Hayek as an inspiration for creating Wikipedia - tells me about how the fewer rules he imposed on the site, the better it did. Economist Ed Stringham argues that the Internet proves we don't need much government regulation.

The Internet will also make it easier for us to keep an eye on what government does, although Chris Horner says that our government uses every trick it can to avoid scrutiny.

"Hating Breitbart" producers Maura Flynn and Evan Coyne Maloney say cell phone cameras create "Freedom 2.0" by empowering citizen journalists to expose groups like ACORN. And Instapundit.com blogger Glenn Reynolds discusses scandals exposed by what he calls "An Army of Davids" on the internet.

And what if there were also a website that helped you buy illegal things, without government being able to stop you? Actually, there is, and it uses a nearly-anonymous online currency called Bitcoin to shield users' identities. Katherine Mangu-Ward explains.

What will the future bring? Economist Jim Miller, the author of "Singularity Rising", says that genetics and smart robots could make us beautiful and wealthy - or lead to robots that destroy humanity.

Freedom 2.0 starts tonight at 9pm on the Fox Business Network.

Incidentally, Akka, to prevent confusion over how a date is displayed, the YYYY-MM-DD is the convention to use for showing date in the thread titles here in the Press forum.

Thank you, psy. I've updated the list in the OP and soon Rassah will adjust his ledger.

We are still shy, thus needing a few more donations for MY Refuge House.

At least take a look at the page I linked to and see how easy BitPay has made it for NPOs to donate for all those who've implemented a Bitcoin donation option onto their websites. Smooth!

~Bruno K~

...I should try filling my wallet with Bitcoins anyway.

This turns out to be a mistake.

Bitcoins, despite being a currency built on the Internet, are nearly impossible to obtain in a timely fashion. Due to fear of chargeback fraud, most reputable Bitcoin sites won't take PayPal or credit cards, which leaves the option of bank wiring or a deposit system such as Moneygram. I decide to use Moneygram and compound my mistake. I deposit $20, am charged an additional $7 in conversion fees, and end up with $18.57 worth of Bitcoins, according to the online "wallet" where I'm storing the currency (I don't know where the extra $1.43 went). For a system that claims it should eliminate the middleman and hidden fees, Bitcoin...doesn't.

By the time I get my Bitcoin, the Calvin & Hobbes anthology is gone. I probe the Silk Road forums for other non-illegal purchases I can make with Bitcoin and find a Baklava shop and a Mexican restaurant....

About this time last year I wrote an instablog about the best performing currency of the year 2011. There was one currency, which gained 1400% against the USD last year - and this same currency is again - by far - the best performing currency this year gaining another roughly 220% against the FEDs USD . .

That is a two-year yield of 4400% vs. USD (from 0.3 USD/BTC to 13.4 USD/BTC). In gold terms, bitcoin is also doing well.

But why does bitcoin keep going up?

1) Bitcoin has in November reached block 210.000.
...

2) The "bitcoin economy" finally started to gain serious traction 2012.
...

3) Attention from big players.
...

4) The bitcoin business space has also started to attract venture capital in 2012.
...

5) Many, many more developments in 2012. Partial list:

Bitcoin magazine started shipping;

Launch of The Bitcoin Foundation;

Blockchain.info launched an excellent hybrid ewallet service;

The Bitcoin conference in London was a success;

The birth of provably fair gambling and Satoshidice, Bitzino and others;

bitcoin-2-email service Coinapult;

in-game item exchange is rising;

Explosive growth in the bitcoin reddit forum; ...

#5: Bitcoin goes mainstream

If 2011 was the year that Bitcoin first appeared on many people's radars (including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)), then 2012 was the year that the cryptocurrency began to, slowly, but surely, move into the mainstream. Ok, your non-techy friends aren't going to be ditching their greenbacks anytime soon—but there were some signs that the digital cash may be strengthening and headed towards more ease-of-use.

First, the currency's exchange rate is on the rise. In April 2012, a Bitcoin was worth just $4.50. By July it had nearly doubled. Today, one Bitcoin is worth about $13.50. That's a massive increase by any measure. Second, in August, a company announced that it would be creating Bitcoin-based debit cards for all to use. Then, the Bitcoin Foundation threw open its doors hoping to spread the currency's gospel far and wide. WordPress started accepting Bitcoins, too.

Finally, perhaps the most exciting development is that Bitcoin Central, which operates in France, has been authorized by local authorities to operate as a bank under French law. As we reported in December, "The accounts will also be integrated with the French banking system, so users can have their paychecks automatically deposited into their accounts and converted to bitcoins."

Still, Bitcoin isn't perfect and definitely has some hurdles to overcome. In March, the lack of "chargebacks" prompted a lawsuit between two Bitcoin-related companies. In September, a Bitcoin company sustained a theft worth $250,000. And worse still, an August 2012 academic study on Bitcoin found that it had helped fuel $2 million per month in illegal drug sales online. So don't liquidate your Uncle Sam-backed bucks just yet.

The table below shows the world's top performing currencies against the dollar. Poland, which was somewhat shielded from the Eurozone by its ties with the big neighbor to the east has been the best performer among the mainstream currencies. In fact Poland, together with other EU nations who stayed out of the euro area - such as as Norway, Sweden, and the UK - have seen their currencies appreciate.


There is one currency however that has outperformed all of these by a long shot, but you won't find it on the list. The currency is called Bitcoin (ticker symbol BTC) and it more than tripled this year.


It's not issued by a country, nor is it a precious metal or a rare-earth. Bitcoin is an electronic currency that can be exchanged for some goods and services, particularly online. The currency is not controlled by a central bank. Instead it is maintained by a global registrar and managed via a private network of participants who get paid to "rent" their computing power to the network. The "rented" machines are used to maintain the integrity of Bitcoin transactions and act as a virtual decentralized registrar.....

....

....So why has the currency tripled this year? A number of rumors have been circulating in the online forums trying to explain the rally. Unfortunately one explanation that stands out is the increased demand for illicit drugs online. Quite sad actually.

Nevertheless Bitcoin is the 2012 winner for the best performing currency against the dollar.