“In this episode we interview Jeff Berwick of The Dollar Vigilante and Anarchast. We cover lots of interesting topics from; moving to South America, making your own start-up, protecting your wealth with Bitcoin and others.”
“Perception of Bitcoin now is like of the Internet in 1993. Mt Gox, Tesla and the free market. US government pressuring foreign governments making it harder to get foreign citizenship. Staggering fraud in the banking sector and banker suicides. Crazy Keynsian thinking. Russia and China more free market than the West. Disaster brewing for the West. The move into precious metals stocks.”
“Massachusetts regulators issued a strongly worded warning Tuesday about the risks of the virtual currency known as bitcoin after the opening of the second ATM-like kiosk in the Boston area that make it easier for people to buy it. On Monday, the second bitcoin ATM in Massachusetts — and apparently just the fourth in the country — opened at the Clover Food Lab restaurant in Harvard Square. The company that installed and operates the machine, Liberty Teller of Boston, placed its first kiosk at South Station in Boston in February. So far, a handful of Boston-area restaurants and retailers accept the currency, whose value is determined by supply and demand.”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/18/bitcoin/5G7ygVFrSQFdyaAhXJpn1J/story.html
“‘Terrorists generally need ‘real’ currency, not virtual currency, to pay their expenses -– such as salaries, bribes, weapons, travel, and safe houses,’ David S. Cohen, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Cohen said that some virtual currency companies haven’t registered with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a requirement established in March 2013, and aren’t following record keeping and reporting requirements. The Treasury Department’s Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group will include a member of the virtual-currency community to help make regulations ‘better informed and more effective,’ Cohen said, without saying who it will be.”
“Bitcoin startups in North America have received the lion’s share of the digital currency’s venture-capital investments, drawing $98.6 million to date, according to a report from researcher Aite Group LLC. Investors have funded 19 Bitcoin startups in the region, compared with nine in Asia totaling $13.3 million and three in Europe with $5.6 million, according to the report by Boston-based Aite, which surveyed merchants, banks, regulators and Bitcoin companies. Bitcoin, the most popular digital currency, is drawing attention from institutional investors after evolving over five years from an intellectual novelty into a global financial network.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-20/bitcoin-venture-investments-reach-100-million.html
“Bitcoin fans can use the virtual currency to buy a Subway sandwich in Allentown, Pa., get their teeth cleaned in Los Angeles or find a date on OKCupid. Now one bitcoin enthusiast has handed over more than 800 bitcoins to buy a two-bedroom luxury villa in Bali, Indonesia. The sale took place on Feb. 19 via BitPremier, a website that calls itself ‘the bitcoin luxury marketplace.’ Sellers list properties and other goods on the site, which prices them in bitcoins as well as traditional currencies. When an item sells, the site takes a 5% commission, paid in bitcoins. The villa’s buyer is an ‘early bitcoin adopter’ who has chosen to remain anonymous, said Alan Silbert, chief executive of BitPremier.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304026304579449710288367366
“The questions were issued by two Dutch politicians, Peter Oskam and Eddy van Hijum, both members of the Christian Democratic Appeal party, who stressed the importance of scrutinizing the issue in the wake of this arrest, as well as the suicide of a Dutch teenager who purchased a firearm online. The lawmakers were seeking to address the steps being taken by Opstelten and his agency to limit the purchase of firearms online. The correspondence suggested potential bans on bitcoin and the anonymous software system Tor as solutions to the stated concerns. Opstelten’s full remarks also indicated that international cooperation, for now, remains the best possible defense against bitcoin.”
http://www.coindesk.com/dutch-official-downplays-need-for-bitcoin-ban-despite-criminal-use/
“The letter asserts that a meeting of top Russian financial authorities in February did not result in a bitcoin ban, but rather was devoted to ‘combating crimes in the sphere of the economy devoted to the use of anonymous payment systems and cryptocurrencies on the territory of Russia’. Translations of the posted letter indicate that the goal of the meeting was also to ‘develop a unified approach to the determination of the legal status of cryptocurrencies’. Meeting attendees ‘discussed future directions for the legal regulation of the sphere of cryptocurrencies’, including establishing property rights for citizens and organisations in the field and introducing regulation for their use.”
http://www.coindesk.com/russias-anti-bitcoin-stance-may-softening-reports-say/
“I have sworn not to write the name of the island where Roger Ver is currently residing, the reason being that he fears for his life. Ver and his his partner of two years, Ayaka, have been lingering down in the Caribbean for several weeks now, ever since he first began to seek economic citizenship, on one of the islands (a maneuver necessary before obtaining full citizenship). That was granted weeks ago, and now he wants to renounce his U.S. citizenship as well. Ver is a legend in the Bitcoin community, known as the ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ for his tireless evangelism of the virtual currency.”
“Ireland’s first bitcoin ATM company suffered a setback yesterday as the Bank of Ireland rejected their application for a bank account. Dolan clarified: ‘[The bank] informed me that: ‘Your account application has been rejected due to the nature of your business. We’re not comfortable with it.’’ Dolan says their business advisor at the Bank of Ireland claimed instructions came from on high.”
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-atm-company-refused-account-bank-ireland/