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http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/into-the-bitcoin-mines/On the flat lava plain of Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, near the Arctic Circle, you can find the mines of Bitcoin.
To get there, you pass through a fortified gate and enter a featureless yellow building. After checking in with a guard behind bulletproof glass, you face four more security checkpoints, including a so-called man trap that allows passage only after the door behind you has shut. This brings you to the center of the operation, a fluorescent-lit room with more than 100 whirring silver computers, each in a locked cabinet and each cooled by blasts of Arctic air shot up from vents in the floor.
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At the end of each day, the spoils are divided up and sent to Cloud Hashing’s customers. Last Wednesday, for example, the entire operation unlocked 225 Bitcoins, valued at around $160,000 at recent prices. Cloud Hashing keeps about 20 percent of the capacity for its own mining.
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Yet another reason to have a public ledger: A White House review panel report into the activities of the NSA suggested that the government was using the spy agency to launch cyber attacks against financial institutions and change the amounts held in bank accounts.
The 300 page report prepared for President Barack Obama by the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology called for the NSA to be stripped of its power to obtain bulk collections of telephone records. Page 221 of the panel’s report states;
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(2) Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate the financial systems.
...MUCH MORE BELOW... http://www.infowars.com/government-using-nsa-to-change-amount-in-bank-accounts-warns-panel/ |
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-15/jpmorgans-bitcoin-alternative-patent-rejected-175-times Earlier in the week, we detailed JPMorgan's attempt to create their own "web cash" alternative to Bitcoin (and Sberbank's talk of doing the same). However, as M-Cam details, following the failure of the first 154 'claims', JPMorgan issued a further 20 claims - which were summarily rejected (making JPMorgan 0-175 for approved claims). As they note, The United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)’s handling of applications like JPMorgan’s ‘984 application ("Bitcoin Alternative") highlights the need to fix a broken system - patent applications of existing inventions need to be finally rejected and not be resurrected as zombies (no matter how powerful the claimant). ...
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I have been seeing this other places, such as DailyKos (I know), but this seems to be the best summary. In short it hasn't been widely reported yet, and it should seem obvious but the NSA gets access to all financial records from major financial institutions. This is supposedly in the remaining 99% of Snowden's documents. Dark Wallet, CoinJoin etc anyone? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37098.htm |
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57615080-93/paypal-president-david-marcus-bitcoin-is-good-nfc-is-bad/The leader of eBay's online payment division, paying close attention to his industry's future, thinks Bitcoin is a good idea -- even though it's not yet actually a currency. Tap-to-pay, though, is a dud. Edit: And: " I really like Bitcoin. I own bitcoins," Marcus said at the LeWeb conference here. However, he believes people don't correctly understand what bitcoins actually are today, and he's yet ready to let people link their bitcoin wallets with their PayPal accounts.
People are confused. They think because it's called cryptocurrency it's a currency. I don't think it is a currency. It's a store of value, a distributed ledger. It's a great place to put assets, especially in places like Argentina with 40 percent inflation, where $1 today is worth 60 cents in a year, and a government's currency does not hold value. It's also a good investment vehicle if you have an appetite for risk. But it won't be a currency until volatility slows down. Whenever the regulatory framework is clearer, and the volatility comes down, then we'll consider it.
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ZeroHedge: Greenspan Baffled Over Bitcoin 'Bubble': "To Be Worth Something, It Must Be Backed By Something" In order for currencies to be 'exchangeable' they have to be backed by something ... when we were on the gold standard, [currencies] had intrinisc value which made people willing to exchange their goods and services with no question. ... Alternatively, when we went into "currencies", it was the "backing" of the issuer of the currencies... whose "great credit-standing meant his checks could circulate as money.
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I do not understand where the backing of Bitcoin is coming from. There is no fundamental means of "repaying' it by any means that is universally accepted.
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I haven't been able to identfy the intrinsic value of Bitcoin - maybe someone else can...but if you ask me if this is a bubble in bitcoin... yeah it's a bubble.
when asked about the "bubble in bitcoin," by Bloomberg TV's Trish Regan. Alan Greenspan was former head of the US Federal Reserve. He is clearly not up to speed on bitcoin. EDIT: Link to video: http://www.bloomberg.com/video/greenspan-on-bitcoin-i-guess-it-s-a-bubble-Mu~7aDC9Q8i_b0hSa4i6XA.html |
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Ideas like a global wealth tax - kind of like the bail-in, in Cyprus, are being floated by the IMF. This type of news should only be a boon for bitcoin as people find out about it and consider the implications. The article is not an approving one, by the way. The Coming Global Wealth Tax - WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304355104579232480552517224?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinionBetween ObamaCare, Iran and last quarter's uptick in U.S. economic growth, taxpayers these days may be distracted from several dangers to come. But households from the United States to Europe and Japan may soon face fiscal shocks worse than any market crash.
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Of course these measures won't return the world's top economies to sustainable levels of debt. That could be achieved only through significant economic growth (the good way) or, as the IMF puts it, "by repudiating public debt or inflating it away" (the bad way). In October the IMF floated a bold idea that didn't get the attention it deserved: lowering sovereign debt levels through a one-off tax on private wealth.
As applied to the euro zone, the IMF claims that a 10% levy on households' positive net worth would bring public debt levels back to pre-financial crisis levels. Such a tax sounds crazy, but recall what happened in euro-zone country Cyprus this year: Holders of bank accounts larger than 100,000 euros had to incur losses of up to 100% on their savings above that threshold, in order to "bail-in" the bankrupt Mediterranean state. Japanese households, sitting on one of the world's largest pools of savings, have particular reason to worry about their assets: At 240% of GDP, their country's public debt ratio is more than twice that of Cyprus when it defaulted.
From New York to London, Paris and beyond, powerful economic players are deciding that with an ever-deteriorating global fiscal outlook, conventional levels and methods of taxation will no longer suffice. That makes weapons of mass wealth destruction—such as the IMF's one-off capital levy, Cyprus's bank deposit confiscation, or outright sovereign defaults—likelier by the day.
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http://www.cnbc.com/id/101235052Faber also referred to the rapid rise of bitcoin, the digital currency that crossed $1,200 early Friday, as an area affected by excess liquidity.
"Farmland is up 10 times over the last 10 years," Faber said. "And bitcoins are up now and who knows what next will go up."
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A lot of places are linking here now, but this is worrisome assuming it is true: http://www.infowars.com/chase-bank-limits-cash-withdrawals-bans-international-wire-transfers/There are several mentions of bitcoin in the comments, if it had been mentioned in the article, I would have put it in the Press section. They are (of course) talking about international from a US centric view. If true, smart money would be taking steps to protect themselves and I speculate that it should involve some bitcoin. |
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