http://www.coindesk.com/boostbitcoin-event-draws-crowd-hong-kong/

Over a hundred people, including a large number of absolute beginners, turned up to an event in Hong Kong last week to promote the use of bitcoin for consumers and businesses in daily life.

Co-sponsored by Singapore-based payment processor startup CoinPip, the Hong Kong event, known as RISE:Bitcoin, featured its own mini trading desk (or ‘Satoshi Square’) to help newcomers set up wallets and make their first transactions with guidance from more experienced users.

Future similar events, like one in Kuala Lumpur near the end of March, will be called BOOST:Bitcoin.

There was also a “Bitcoin 101” talk for beginners. Helping bring everything together were two local bitcoin community enthusiasts, Jehan Chu and Leonhard A Weese.

Merchants such as pancake maker Mr. Bing and Coffee Alchemy were also there to accept bitcoins, offering both a Hong Kong dollar price and discounted price for people paying with bitcoin.

Growing phenomenon

Bitcoin meetups, Satoshi Squares and information sessions are fairly commonplace these days – with the Silicon Valley and Los Angeles events regularly drawing a large crowd. But the BOOST:Bitcoin meetup was notable for attracting over 100 for perhaps the first time in Asia, and being a special event mainly aimed at novice users.

So what’s a Singapore startup doing organizing bitcoin promotions in Hong Kong?

CoinPip co-founder and ‘Chief Crypto Enthusiast’ Anson Zeall says he “knows both Hong Kong and Singapore inside and out, but Hong Kong has a way bigger bitcoin market than Singapore does right now, looking at transactions on the exchanges.”

“Hong Kong has a stronger foothold in understanding bitcoin because of the problems of the pegged Hong Kong dollar/USD. People have been looking for alternatives. And Hong Kong people like to take risk, it’s just in their nature.”

“Unfortunately that startup scene there is not as friendly as Singapore. So working in Singapore, expanding in Hong Kong is the best combination.”

Template for future events

Zeall also said CoinPip now has an event template in place and the company is happy to help out if anyone elsewhere wants to host something similar.

Although his company provided the payment system for the BOOST:Bitcoin event, he said it’s not necessary for participating merchants at this event or any future ones to be CoinPip clients, as the company can accept payments and convert to local currency on the spot.

“The most fulfilling part is buying and spending bitcoins and newcomers that don’t have bitcoins will experience what it is like too,” Zeall said.

CoinPip helps out by suggesting the most suitable types of merchants should be approached for events, what financial logistics are necessary and how the day should be run in general.

Hong Kong bitcoin innovations

The Special Administrative Region of China is shaping up to be a bitcoin hub. Its autonomous government runs a low-tax jurisdiction aimed at easing financial services and attracting startup businesses from around the world, and authorities have also signalled they will not be interfering in bitcoin business.

The very night before the BOOST:Bitcoin event recorded another landmark as local exchange Asia Nexgen (ANXBTC) opened the world’s first ‘bitcoin shop’.

The 400 square-foot physical outlet has a walk-up counter where users can convert cash to bitcoins face-to-face, on condition they show photo ID and proof of address as Hong Kong residents.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1444786/hong-kong-ready-democracy-says-top-us-scholar

One of the world's leading academics on democracy has poured scorn on a top mainland official's warning that Hong Kong should not copy Western models of universal suffrage.

Professor Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University in the US, said: "It is ridiculous to argue that the generic system of democracy - in which the people can choose their leaders and replace their leaders in free and fair elections - is a Western model.

"Every country that adopted democracy for the first time was adopting a 'foreign' model."

Diamond was mentor to Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee when the lawmaker and executive councillor did her master's degree thesis at Stanford several years ago.

He was responding to remarks last week by Zhang Dejiang , head of the National People's Congress and the top official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, amid the city's consultation on the election method for choosing the chief executive in 2017.

The No 3 on the Politburo was quoted by a local NPC deputy as saying Hong Kong should not import an electoral system from abroad because the city would not "adapt" to it and it might become a "democracy trap" that causes a "disastrous result".

Diamond said: "Beijing has the power to impose constraints on the election process in Hong Kong. But it does not have the right to redefine what democracy is and is not."

Hong Kong was more "ready for democracy" than most of the some 60 countries that had installed democracy in the past few decades, he said, as the city already had the important elements intact: a mature economy, rule of law, civil society and experience with elections.

"No democracy has ever broken down in a society as rich as Hong Kong is today," he said, adding that other Confucian societies like South Korea and Taiwan had successfully implemented democratic systems, and democracy was even taking root in Mongolia.

"Honestly, if Mongolia, with much lower economic development and much less democratic experience, can institutionalise and sustain democracy, it is pretty ludicrous to argue that Hong Kong cannot," he said.

"It was predictable that Beijing would fear 'losing control' of Hong Kong … It would be refreshing if Beijing authorities would simply state these anxieties, rather than resorting to specious and patently false arguments that Hong Kong is 'not ready for democracy' or 'not suited for democracy'."

While pan-democrats regarded the ongoing political reform as the "final battle", Diamond argued otherwise as he believed the mainland itself was modernising.

"Eventually China will become a democracy … but the real issue is this: Hong Kong is ready for democracy now, and it has been for a long time," the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy said.

When asked if he supported Occupy Central - a civil disobedience movement which plans to mobilise over 10,000 people to block Central if the government fails to come up with a truly democratic proposal - Diamond did not comment directly but gave democrats his backing.

"I can only say … the rules as now conceived are not democratic rules. And it is entirely reasonable that democrats should protest the continued deferral of the promise of democracy."

50 BTC? That would allow us to hire 40 campaign staff for 1 month, or about 6 staff for half a year. That would go a long way for our campaign. We can only dream of that.

Ha! If you know those groups of scammers, please introduce them to us. We'd like to learn their skills.

Hong Kong is a rich place doesn't mean that everyone is equally rich. The money is in the hand of finance and property tycoons.

上天賦予眾生自由平等，若硬生生給所謂的政府搶奪，能不起來給爭取回來嗎？香港已經準備好了。

Hong Kong is entering a critical juncture in the Occupy Movement this year. We face suppression from authoritarian China. Social inequality is at its worst.  We will have large-scale protests to fight for democracy and justice.  Support us!

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