David Woo, global rates head at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, discusses the volatility of Bitcoin and why he views it as a payment system and not something to invest in. He speaks on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”
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"Bitcoin can become a major means of payment and may emerge as a serious competitor to traditional money transfer providers.  As a medium of exchange, Bitcoin has clear potential for growth."

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"Have to separate bitcoin as a payment system vs an investment."
"Think about the number of companies adopting bitcoin."
"...has become less volatile this year."

Also it has a few quotes from Ben Lawsky praising parts of bitcoin.

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/bitcoin-is-a-payment-system-not-an-investment-woo-vkLZekoCRc2yZu4Pr~2Ptw.html?cmpid=yhoo

and Danny Hamilton hasn't been on since Oct 12.

DeathAndTaxes vanished from here almost exactly a month ago (Oct 7).  Anyone know what is up?

Bitsimple is still around.  Just curious if he is okay.

In the year 2000, Bill Clinton famously quipped that trying to control the internet in China would be like "trying to nail Jello to a wall".

Fourteen years later and, for the most part at least , the Chinese government has managed to pull off what was then deemed impossible and make it stick.

The same phenomenon is repeating itself with the latest digital disruptor de jour, the crypto-currency bitcoin.

Many analysts believe bitcoin is at around the same level of development and recognition as the internet was when Clinton made those remarks.

Recognising the game-changing economic upside to the internet, the Chinese government accepted it, but on its own terms. Bitcoin has followed a similar logic.

... read more:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/10/30/china/china-has-nipped-bitcoin-bud

2014-10-28 Straits Times - Blackmailers Threaten Czech Republic with Ebola Outbreak if not paid in bitcoin

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/blackmailers-threaten-czech-republic-ebola-outbreak-bitcoin-currency-2014102

http://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2014/10/53980-polands-inpay-allows-backers-buy-equity-using-bitcoin/

You can buy your yogurt and Smirnoff ice with Bitcoin:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2014/10/27/mr-yogato-and-thomas-foolery-accept-bitcoin/

Independent Reserve launches Sydney exchange.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-27/new-bitcoin-exchange-launched-in-sydney/5845342

An island in Micronesia. A gold mine in Canada's Yukon Territory. Tickets to the 2014 Victoria's Secret fashion show in London. Those are just a few of the assets on offer at BitPremier, a website targeting bitcoin holders looking to unload some of their digital hoard.
...
Silbert started buying bitcoins in February 2013, when the price was about $22, at the urging of his younger brother Barry, chairman of SecondMarket Inc., a New York–based brokerage specializing in hard-to-trade assets.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but good publicity from Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-18/how-to-buy-islands-gold-mines-and-villas-with-bitcoin.html

This article doesn't mention bitcoin, but it does emphasize a huge market opportunity there:

Large financial institutions like Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), HSBC (NYSE:HSBC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) have dealt an expensive blow to immigrants and their families. As regulators crack down on money laundering and illicit international transfers of wealth, the world’s largest money movers have scaled back their cash transfer businesses. Most affected has been Mexico, as about half of the total remittances sent from the U.S. go there.

So why did banks decide to pull the plug on this business, which The New York Times calls the “the largest and arguably most effective antipoverty effort in the world”?

For banks, it is regulatory paranoia, among other reasons.
...

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/business/why-are-banks-refusing-to-transfer-your-money-abroad.html/2/

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/a-revolution-in-money/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&src=twr&_r=1&

[about $50 million of investments]

I didn't see this one posted yet:

Original:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304026304579453501821936252?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories&mg=reno64-wsj

Google Cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tqykiaJ9qhQJ:online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304026304579453501821936252+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Marc Andreessen Is Betting on Wide Adoption of Digital Currency Bitcoin

Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen is doubling down on bitcoin amid turbulence in the virtual-currency world, in a bet that widespread adoption of the currency will fuel the growth of new businesses and technologies.

Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where Mr. Andreessen is a co-founder and partner, has made about $50 million of investments in the area—believed to be more than any other firm—from a $1.5 billion fund, the firm says. The Palo Alto, Calif., firm plans to invest hundreds of millions of additional dollars over the next few years from other funds, people familiar with the firm say.

Mr. Andreessen says he is convinced of the bright outlook for digital currencies despite setbacks such as the collapse last month of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, one of the most prominent bitcoin exchanges, which said it lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency. "I'm completely unfazed and plan to invest more," he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

...

Deleted

Auroracoin has been added to P2Pool.com pooled mining, if you are interested in the coin.

Greece Is Back: Germany, France, Creditors Hold Secret Meeting Due To Greek Bailout "Mounting Concerns"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/greece-back-germany-france-creditors-hold-secret-meeting-due-greek-bailout-mounting-

(reported in WSJ too).

There was a time - roughly between May 2010 and the spring fall of 2011 - when all the world had to worry about was Greece. Then the realization finally dawned that since a Grexit from the Eurozone would kill the EUR and the European integration dream with so much "political capital" invested, crush Deutsche Bank, and bring back the much dreaded (by German exporters) Deutsche Mark, it became clear that there is no fear that Greece, which is now a decrepit shell of a country with a collapsed economy and society in shambles, has now become a slave state to European bureaucrats, business and banks (in Nigel Farage's words), will never be formally kicked out of Europe and only an internal coup would allow it to finally break free from the clutches of unelected European tyrants. And then the world moved on to more important things: like Japan, China Emerging Markets and how they are all enjoying the Fed's taper. Sadly, we have to report, that Greece is once again baaaaack.  ...
continued....

No mention of bitcoin, but that seems not to matter anymore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/business/international/stress-on-turkish-currency-eases-before-central-banks-emergency-session.html?_r=0

FRANKFURT — Turkey’s central bank aggressively raised rates late Tuesday, in a drastic move designed to bolster the currency. But it is unclear whether the move will be enough to satisfy international investors and repair the central bank’s reputation.

The decision comes as Turkey faces increased political and economic pressure to take action. The Turkish lira has been among the most battered of developing-market currencies in recent weeks. Following the central bank’s decision, the lira strengthened in after-hours trading.

...

Since the middle of last year, when the Federal Reserve sent tremors through international financial markets by announcing that it would pull back from its bond-buying program, Turkey has become a charter member of the “fragile five” — the finance industry’s recently minted nickname for emerging economies with vulnerable currencies.

Other countries in this club include Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and India. Such countries are highly dependent on skittish foreign investors to finance their growth ambitions. The Fed’s plans, which portended higher interest rates in the United States, made dollar-denominated debt seem more attractive compared with the higher-yield, higher-risk debt of the fragile five.

...

[Much of the Western world will require defaults, a savings tax and higher inflation]

And more reasons to own something that is difficult to confiscate:
IMF paper warns of 'savings tax' and mass write-offs as West's debt hits 200-year high  --- UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10548104/IMF-paper-warns-of-savings-tax-and-mass-write-offs-as-Wests-debt-hits-200-year-high.html

Much of the Western world will require defaults, a savings tax and higher inflation to clear the way for recovery as debt levels reach a 200-year high, according to a new report by the International Monetary Fund.
...
The paper says the Western debt burden is now so big that rich states will need same tonic of debt haircuts, higher inflation and financial repression - defined as an “opaque tax on savers” - as used in countless IMF rescues for emerging markets.
...

Most advanced states wrote off debt in the 1930s, though in different ways. First World War loans to the US were forgiven when the Hoover Moratorium expired in 1934, giving debt relief worth 24pc of GDP to France, 22pc to Britain and 19pc to Italy.

This occurred as part of a bigger shake-up following the collapse of the war reparations regime on Germany under the Versailles Treaty. The US itself imposed haircuts on its own creditors worth 16pc of GDP in April 1933 when it abandoned the Gold Standard.

Financial repression can take many forms, including capital controls, interest rate caps or the force-feeding of government debt to captive pension funds and insurance companies. Some of these methods are already in use but not yet on the scale seen in the late 1940s and early 1950s as countries resorted to every trick to tackle their war debts.
...

Doesn't belong on the Press section, but interesting:

2013-12-30 How The NSA Hacks Your iPhone (and probably your Blackberry, Android etc) (Presenting DROPOUT JEEP)

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-30/how-nsa-hacks-your-iphone-presenting-dropout-jeep

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business/131220/currency-the-year-bitcoin

...
That's all changed. Bitcoin has emerged as functional currency and has spawned a speculative investment market.

There were lots of reasons to get excited about Bitcoin in 2013. For people concerned about the state of surveillance, it offered anonymity. For people who looked around the world and saw fragile nation-states and failing economies, it promised an alternative means of exchange unbound by borders, regulations, or monetary policies. And for people looking for to make investments in a time of massive technological change, it seemed like the currency of the future: Commercial transactions increasingly happen online. Physical cash and the currencies based in it were starting to seem like outmoded relics.

Forget central banks and ineffective governments. Forget the National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Let’s just meet online and use Bitcoin, right?
...

From the New York Post:
http://nypost.com/2013/12/23/government-robbed-me-of-33m-in-bitcoins-silk-road-pirate/

The Internet “pirate” accused of running the notorious illegal-drug-peddling Web site Silk Road claims that the feds are the real buccaneers — robbing him to the tune of $33.6 million worth of the encrypted, virtual currency bitcoin.

Ross Ulbricht — who was arrested in October for allegedly masterminding the mysterious “deep Web” site — recently filed legal papers in Manhattan federal court admitting he “has an interest as owner” of the more than 173,000 bitcoins the government seized through forfeiture from Silk Road.

...