Media exposure, pundits, good examples of general awareness, current rhetoric

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This thread is to see well-known pundits think and get a general feel for media exposure, both to the public, the financial industry, and governments.

Typically there is no real news here, it's just getting people's take on it. Whether they think it's good or bad, should be regulated, or if they even understand it.

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Kudlow Calls Bitcoin "The Way Of The Future"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaKCM8myJ9I

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Here it is from their own perspective


American Banker is a daily trade newspaper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_journal) covering the financial services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_services) industry. Founded in 1836[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Banker#cite_note-2)[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Banker#cite_note-3)and based in New York, American Banker has approximately 50[4] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Banker#cite_note-4) reporters and editors in six U.S. cities who monitor developments and breaking news affecting banks. The newspaper has won praise for its coverage of important policy issues, including passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, congressional debates surrounding regulation of government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_National_Mortgage_Association) and Freddie Mac (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Home_Loan_Mortgage_Corporation), and the near-constant wave of mergers and acquisitions that affect banks.


vacuum comments: notice they compare the emergence of bitcoin with the event that sparked WWI. Apparently, in their banker minds, the two events are comparable.


Governments Must Co-Opt Bitcoin to Avert Disaster

Gideon Samid
APR 17, 2013 12:00pm ET

When the news spread that Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, few, if any, had the foresight to envision the colossal consequences that topped all previous global conflicts. But this spark ignited the horrific chapter in world history known as World War I.

Ninety-nine years later, on an island not too far from Sarajevo, the European Union pulled off a money grab against bank depositors. And within a week an obscure term "Bitcoin" has nearly become a household name, rising in value by a large multiplier. Digital money has made a grand entrance.

The events that will be unfolding from now on will relate to Cyprus (http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/178_53/cyprus-depositor-tax-could-it-happen-here-1057627-1.html) much as the events of 1914 to 1918 and beyond stemmed from Sarajevo.

Bitcoin, and digital money in general, are made up of a bit-string that carries value and identity intrinsically – just via the sequence of the bits, independent of any media these bits are expressed in.

"Hackers will have a field day," worried bank depositors. "It is too risky to keep money as 'bits' on your phone," they argued. But when the Cypriot banks unilaterally declared that a big chunk of all deposits accounts would be snatched, the premise of deposit security came up for re-evaluation; and not only in Cyprus and in Europe, but also in the U.S. and elsewhere.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insures American depositors, but banks can still limit withdrawals, replace money with IOUs – they hold the money!

The Sarajevo-like spark of Bitcoin is noteworthy because for the first time it occurred to a large number of people that bit-money (Bitcoin or otherwise) can be kept, stored, and safeguarded without handing it over to the banks. Unlike bricks of gold, or bundles of banknotes, bits are stored on tiny microchips, they flow through the air, and they swim smoothly in the new cross-continental ocean called the Internet.

And as for security – hello! Didn't the banks themselves tell us that modern encryption technology can keep hackers prying for hundreds of years before cracking the walls of modern crypto castles? Cryptography works everywhere it is used: In every bank, and in every phone. Its protection is not based on legions of sentries armed with guns, but on mathematical certainty, and on logical immutability. Bits are what cryptography works on. Bit money can be backed up multiple times, it can be encrypted for free, it can be stored on the fly, and it can be paid – cut and dried.

Before our eyes, technology reforms the institutions that have evolved linearly since the Medici family used benches (the original "banks") to disburse loans in the 15th century. Banks stand to lose their utility for security and convenience in favor of crypto-protected "bitted" money, and the only leg left for them to stand on is interest payment – which is how they started!

The technology is there. Bit money is ready to roll. The market has just opened: The meteoric rise in the exchange rate of Bitcoin (even after a sharp correction) is a shouting proof that people are eager for a means to store, guard and secure their financial wealth without using the banks as safe keepers.

Banks will need to adapt to having to offer threshold interest to attract depositors – sufficient interest to counter the perception of Cyprus-risk. In return, banks would need to lend money at higher rates. As money becomes more expensive, economic activity chokes... the ball is rolling, the Cyprus-Sarajevo spark is catching fire.

Bitcoin is bad news on many levels. The most obvious concern was proven after the Cyprus crisis erupted: stability. What if people start lending and borrowing bitcoins? If your debt is denominated in the digital currency, and then its price soars, your burden in dollars will be off the chart. How would the debtors ever pay back their debt if overnight it multiplies by a factor of three?

And let's remind ourselves that credit extension and repayment is the mechanism for societal growth. Bitcoin is rogue. It offers no recourse to those whose accounts are hacked or who lose their shirts investing in the currency or simply misplace their passwords. There is no central authority to lay blame to, and its cryptography is too deep for most traders to follow. Thus most Bitcoin traders are not aware that its crypto foundation erodes at a pace which accelerates the greater the success of this currency.

Like all other mainstay ciphers and crypto products, Bitcoin relies on assumed "mathematical intractability" – the believed difficulty to solve a certain mathematical problem. There is no proof of such intractability, just an assumption that since academic cryptographers haven't easily cracked the code, nobody can. Remember the Enigma in World War II: the German cryptographers were sure that no one would be smart enough to crack it. But Alan Turing and his team eroded the crypto defense and shortened the war by about two years. The more valuable Bitcoin becomes, the richer a target it is for crypto hackers and the harder and longer they will work at it.

The powers that be have two options on the table: one is to try to roll back history, to uninvent digital currency, to scare people from what technology brings about, and re-fit the genie into the bottle. Good luck on that route.

The other option is to ride the tide. Bitcoin has flushed out the public readiness to deal with bits as carriers of tradable currency.

The policy conclusion is clear. Bitcoin should be disqualified as a functional tradable currency. However, a properly regulated, digitized option for the prevailing currency should be rushed to market. If not, Bitcoin will reign, suck in an enormous amount of wealth, and eventually implode, unleashing a financial tsunami of unimagined proportions.

Central banks and national treasuries should come forth with a requirements definition, or spec sheet, for a robust, trustworthy, durable and stable solution to digitize the national currency.

The benefits are enormous: for one, paying with a digital coin is much more secure than paying, like today, by exposing both the payer and the payee account. All payments today are account-based: what flows between payer and payee is not money per se, but a software instruction that increases the figure representing the payee's money by the transacted amount while the figure that represents the payer's money is reduced by the same amount. The two accounts are hacking targets, regardless of how small the transaction. With digital money, the most that can happen is that the transacted sum is stolen. No accounts are exposed for further hacking.

Digital money can be paid as an email attachment. It could be tethered to an intended purpose by means of "terms of payment" embedded in the bit string. So, for example, aid disbursed to developing countries need not end up in some corrupt bureaucrat's offshore bank account. And of course, digital money may be safeguarded with greater security than ever before.

Let commercial interests compete against one another, following the guidance set by central banks, and offer the public the advantage of digitized fiat currency to stave off the rogue alternatives.

Gideon Samid (gideon.samid@case.edu) is an adjust assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University.

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/governments-must-co-opt-bitcoin-to-avert-disaster-1058380-1.html

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http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/04/17/why-bitcoin-is-here-to-stay


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxNX3eub6lk


Jerry Brito is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and director of its Technology Policy Program. He also serves as adjunct professor of law at George Mason University. His research focuses on technology and Internet policy, government transparency and accountability, and the regulatory process. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife Kathleen O’Hearn.
Brito received his J.D. from George Mason University School of Law and his B.A. in political science from Florida International University. His op-eds have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and elsewhere. He is the co-author, with Susan Dudley, of Regulation: A Primer (http://mercatus.org/publication/regulation-primer), and the editor of Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess (http://mercatus.org/publication/copyright-unbalanced-incentive-excess).
Brito is the host of Surprisingly Free (http://surprisinglyfree.com/), a weekly half-hour podcast featuring in-depth discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, academics, and entrepreneurs at the intersection of technology, policy, and economics. He is also a contributor to the Technology Liberation Front (http://techliberation.com/), a leading tech policy group blog.
Brito is the creator of OpenRegs.com (http://openregs.com/), an alternative interface to the federal government's regulatory docketing system, and the co-creator of the ITU transparency site WCITLeaks.org. (http://wcitleaks.org/)

http://mercatus.org/jerry-brito

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lol


One of the first shareholder questions asked at Discover Financial Services (http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=DFS)' DFS -1.16% (http://blogs.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=DFS?mod=inlineTicker) annual meeting was how Bitcoin could affect it. CEO David Nelms says the credit card company is following it but “we at this time don’t see significant impact.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/04/17/bitcoin-doesnt-scare-discover/

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Bitcoins may be the libertarian tax solution


Anonymous trading, cloud-based holdings and limited Treasury regulation could make the online currency virtually tax-free.


By Jason Notte (http://money.msn.com/keyword.aspx?author=x94f695c806bf4f4a23f1bd5b7f44d 213d650989426e1c38f) 1 hour ago

To libertarians wondering whether they can use bitcoins to avoid taxes, the IRS has a short, sweet answer for you: We're not sure.


Back in March, the Treasury Department issued a series of guidelines (http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=9292a89875833d3830a2d19c626b7012&loc=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/bitcoin-taxes_n_3093182.html?utm_hp_ref=business&v=1&libid=1366209066338&out=http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html&ref=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/business/&title=Bitcoin%20Celebrated%20As%20Way%20To%20Avoid %20Taxes&txt=the%20Treasury%20department%20issued%20guideli nes&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13662176362814) for bitcoin brokers. That guidance was more about registration requirements for brokers and money-laundering laws than it was about the tax implications of holding online currency.


But IRS spokesperson Anthony Burke told The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/bitcoin-taxes_n_3093182.html?utm_hp_ref=business) that the agency hasn't yet clarified whether payments received in bitcoins should be considered barter, in-kind payments or payments in a foreign currency. Those aren't small distinctions, because each is treated differently under the tax code. There's also no sign of whether bitcoin donations to nonprofit organizations are deductible in U.S. dollars.


Since their inception as an idea put forward by Japanese cryptologists, bitcoins have existed largely outside the realm of nation states and their tax laws. They are traded anonymously and live on computer servers outside the global financial system, which makes them ideal for people who want out of the U.S. tax structure.

Libertarians are far from the only ones who see the value in bitcoins, though. MoneyNow has been covering the alt-currency extensively and has noted that Europeans embraced bitcoins (http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=e4b7b525-bf39-42f5-a1a7-c1366d9e797d) after watching the euro swoon, banks in Cyprus shut down and governments raid bank accounts.

Entrepreneurs talked about making ATMs (http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=dfcdecc4-d2a1-4b76-8685-23876f878e97) that converted other currencies to bitcoins, and even the Winklevoss twins traded their Facebook (FB -1.10% (http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-price?symbol=FB)) dreams for bitcoin investment (http://money.msn.com/now/facebook-who-winklevoss-twins-move-to-bitcoin). As buyers discovered last week, though, bitcoins can be extremely volatile (http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=c8c8784f-57b4-4e98-9b82-0d0bb993074f) and can have their value crash almost instantly.

From the libertarian perspective, that still beats paying taxes. Huffington Post points to a thread on the online forum Bitcoin Talk (http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=9292a89875833d3830a2d19c626b7012&loc=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/bitcoin-taxes_n_3093182.html?utm_hp_ref=business&v=1&libid=1366209066338&out=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12792.80&ref=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/business/&title=Bitcoin%20Celebrated%20As%20Way%20To%20Avoid %20Taxes&txt=2011%20thread&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp_13662187215908) from 2011 in which most early bitcoin users noted they would report any amount of the virtual currency traded into U.S. dollars as income. Many others, however, said they would use bitcoins to barter online without reporting their take, a practice that's unlawful in the U.S.


It's still a long way off, but Tax Day 2014 could get really interesting if a whole tax-averse portion of Americans uses bitcoins to opt out -- and the Treasury finds its hands tied.

http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=62d34ed1-83f8-4c3d-b30e-1271c1d5cb46

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The Bitcoin Money Myth Mises Daily: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 by Frank Shostak (https://mises.org/daily/author/115/Frank-Shostak)


Many economists and financial commentators believe that in the unregulated market of the internet economy, new forms of money can be created that bypass central-bank and government supervision. The latest development is the emergence of a new electronic means of exchange, Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin was launched on January 3 2009 by its inventor, a programmer called Satoshi Nakamote.


The basic idea behind Bitcoin is to create, by means of a mathematical algorithm, a digital good that is scarce and fungible.


Nakamote devised a software system that enabled people to obtain bitcoins as a reward for solving complex mathematical puzzles. The resulting coins are then used for online trading. Nakamote also arranged that the number of bitcoins can never exceed 21 million.


Some experts maintain that Bitcoin will displace the existent fiat money and will usher in a new era of free banking, which will finally put to rest the menace of inflation.
Unfortunately, this is a pipe dream. Electronic money will not replace fiat paper money. The belief that it can stems from a failure to understand the nature and function of money and how it emerges on the market.

Read more:
https://mises.org/daily/6411/The-Bitcoin-Money-Myth

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lol, they don't understand that bitfloor =/= bitcoin

http://i.imgur.com/gn71KrJ.jpg




But they did fix it eventually:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/biztech/bitcoin-exchange-bitfloor-shuts-down-trading/story-fn5lic6c-1226623544108

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wow, Western Union is saying they may be open to accepting bitcoin.


Bitcoin Buzz Draws Western Union, MoneyGram Published April 18, 2013
Dow Jones Newswires



The fervor over the digital currency bitcoin has drawn interest from two of the world's largest movers of money.


Western Union Co. (WU) and MoneyGram International Inc. (MGI) are studying ways their customers could use their services to send and receive money transfers denominated in bitcoins, the companies' executives say.


Both companies run remittance networks commonly used by immigrants to send money to friends and family members in foreign countries. Western Union also operates a business-solutions unit that sells services to companies for sending payments to other businesses.


The firms have no immediate plans to add bitcoins as a currency option for customers, though both say the increasing popularity of the virtual money has prompted them to consider whether they should make it available in the future.


"If bitcoin continues to grow and the value is defined more internationally, we may find an opportunity for bitcoin to be used to pay for commerce transactions through a Western Union business solution," David Thompson, an executive vice president and chief information officer of Western Union, said in an interview this week.

Read more:
http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2013/04/18/bitcoin-buzz-draws-western-union-moneygram/

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It's impressive that the price of bitcoin is steadily rising amid all the exchanges being shut down and mtgox getting DDoSed. Oh yeah, blockchain.info, the most widely used wallet service, was knocked offline for a while too.


Tough Day For Bitcoin Exchanges: Gox DDOS’d, Bitcoin-24 Halted, BitFloor Shuts Down Permanently Posted in General (http://thegenesisblock.com/category/general/) By Jonathan Stacke (http://thegenesisblock.com/author/greg/) On April 18, 2013 Quite a day already for Bitcoin exchanges, but I want to remind anyone reading this: exchanges and other private companies are not bitcoin. We are in the infancy of what may be the greatest fundamental shift for human society of the 21st century. There are going to be hiccups as the market develops, that does make the underlying bitcoin protocol any less viable. In fact, there are even some glimmers of hope in the darkness. See below for an analysis of today's developments:

more
http://thegenesisblock.com/tough-day-for-bitcoin-exchanges-gox-ddosd-bitcoin24-halted-bitfloor-shuts-down-permanently/

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Opinion piece in Zimbabwe newspaper


Virtual currency: new frontier in booming digital economy



18/04/2013 00:00:00


http://www.newzimbabwe.com/images/byline.gif
by Natalie Paida Jabangwe



http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news/images/news_bAspire-woman-250.jpg

LATELY, I have been investigating the topical world of virtual currency within the realms of a digital economy. A difficult task, because I have deliberately tried to steer away from this cashless world for the simple reason that it is an ambiguous, fictitious and complex proposition.


Whereas, cash, chip and pin cards and some time, mobile money are seemingly more realistic and practical, if one is to think futurist, then maybe it is worth exploring this world. For oblivion is the greatest enemy of innovation.



The ability to use virtual currencies to facilitate commodity broking and various other transactions is the skeleton in the closet that many (consumers and businesses alike) would rather avoid. But given the rate at which the technological trajectory is shifting, in parallel with the downward spiral of global financial systems, it would be naive to put off the world of virtual currencies.



For example, let’s consider ‘Bitcoin’, the newly innovative decentralised, unblockable and unregulated digital form of money that circumvents the banking system. It has no cumbersome legal bearing system and now worth over US$1 billion in market value and worth over 20 exchanges in the world. An entirely independent form of money that is not tied to debt and taxes, today, one can buy specific merchandise on the web facilitated by specific ‘Bitcoin’ merchants.


read more:
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/opinion-10878-Virtual+currency+in+the+digital+economy/opinion.aspx

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Bitcoin bubble re-inflates By Aaron Smith @CNNMoneyInvest (https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=cnnmoneyinvest) April 19, 2013: 12:08 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Bitcoin prices are back in rally mode, just one week after it looked like the bubble had started to burst. Early Friday, Bitcoin prices traded as high as $136.43 before pulling back to $119.36. That's more than double this week's low of $50.

Trading volume doubled in just two hours.


The price of the virtual currency, which was created by an anonymous hacker just four years ago, has increased almost 20-fold this year. It gained particular attention in the wake of a mini-bank run in Cyprus (http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/28/investing/bitcoin-cyprus/index.html?iid=EL), which had raised concerns about the health of government-backed paper currencies like the euro and the U.S. dollar.
As traders and investors jumped on the bandwagon, prices spiked to $266.


The rush of activity led Mt. Gox, a Japan-based exchange that claims to handle 80% of Bitcoin trade worldwide, to halt trading.


Prices came down sharply when trading resumed, leading to speculation about whether the Bitcoin bubble (http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/12/investing/bitcoin-bubble/index.html?iid=EL) had finally burst.


Societe Generale currency analyst Sebastien Galy said the limited supply of Bitcoins is largely responsible for its wild price swings, which he says are subject to the whims of demand.
"It's a bubble which unfortunately pops and pops and pops until one day it either loses credibility or the supply reaches the total maximum they predicted, which is 21 million," he said.


-- CNNMoney's Hibah Yousuf contributed http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/images/bug.gif (http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/19/investing/bitcoin-prices-rally/index.html?iid=EL#TOP)


First Published: April 19, 2013: 8:03 AM ET

[Shami-Amourae]

lol, they don't understand that bitfloor =/= bitcoin
But they did fix it eventually:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/biztech/bitcoin-exchange-bitfloor-shuts-down-trading/story-fn5lic6c-1226623544108

Usually whenever you see an someone spell it "BitCoin" instead of "Bitcoin" it's a negative article, and the writer doesn't know WTF they are talking about. Fucking retards.

At this point I'm believing if you don't like Bitcoin you are either ignorant of how it actually works, or work for (or part of) the oligarchy.

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IEEE spectrum infographic. Right-click and select view to see full sized.


http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/06Bitcoin-1338412974774.jpg

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Lots of news and hype today (4/29):

Paul Buchheit, inventor of Gmail, tweets how "Bitcoin may be the TCP/IP of money". (https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/328969714283995136)
Europe's biggest electronic shop for bitcoins just opened up. More than 80 000 high quality products (http://e4btc.com/)
(CNET:) Here's why Bitcoin is the future of money (http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-57581952-256/heres-why-bitcoin-is-the-future-of-money/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title)
BitcoinATM Press Demonstration announced for May 2nd (https://bitcoinatm.com/)
[Video] Chamath Palihapitiya "Bitcoin Is Gold 2.0. It's a Huge, Huge, Huge Deal" - [20:54] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59uTUpO8Dzw&feature=youtu.be&t=19m14s)
Big VC Says Bitcoin Is 'Gold 2.0. It's a Huge, Huge, Huge Deal' (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/04/29/big-vc-says-bitcoin-is-gold-2-0-its-a-huge-huge-huge-deal/)
Fetish porn vendor "meanclips" the latest in a number of large porn houses now accepting it....his is how vhs became mainstream
Houston DWI Attorney Jay Cohen Now Accepting Bitcoins as Payment (http://www.prleap.com/pr/202639/)
BitcoinATM Goes Live in California (http://maxkeiser.com/2013/04/29/bitcoinatm-goes-live-in-california/)
Chris Dixon Plans On Investing In More Bitcoin Startups, Says More Entrepreneurs Are Getting Involved (http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/29/chris-dixon-plans-on-investing-in-more-bitcoin-startups-says-more-entrepreneurs-are-getting-involved/)
Chris Dixon: Why Silicon Valley Is Obsessed With The Bitcoin (http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-dixon-why-silicon-valley-is-obsessed-with-the-bitcoin-2013-4)
Bitcoin-Qt download stats: 2.9 M all time, 1 M this year, half million this month (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dc5bt/bitcoinqt_download_stats_29_m_all_time_1_m_this/)
"Darryl W. Perry says he's running for president in 2016 as a libertarian, and he's pledging to be the first White House hopeful to accept Bitcoin" (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/libertarian-presidential-hopeful-bitcoin-donations-fec)
(American banker) The Elephant in the Payments Room - Bank Think Article (http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/the-elephant-in-the-payments-room-bitcoin-1058703-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1)
Roger Ver: For the first time in history, anyone can transact with anyone else, anywhere in the world (interview) (http://bitcoinmagazine.com/roger-ver-bitcoin-is-different/)
Why Now May Be A Great Time To Get Into Bitcoin (http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/04/29/why-now-may-be-a-great-time-to-get-into-bitcoin/)
Canada to Bitcoin Miners: "Pay Yer Taxes" (http://www.dailytech.com/Canada+to+Bitcoin+Miners+Pay+Yer+Taxes/article30445.htm)
BILD (Germany): More and more shops in Berlin accept the virtual currency Bitcoin (http://www.bild.de/regional/berlin/berlin/internet-geld-bitcoins-was-ist-das-fuer-eine-neue-waehrung-30189560.bild.html)
Promising new figures: Peak Google Interest, Small Business Acceptance, Major News Interests (http://www.bitcoinplan.com/2013/04/promising-new-figures-peak-google.html)
Donate to the WikiLeaks Party with Bitcoin! (https://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/forms/credit-card-payment.html)

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Lenders May Create Bitcoin Rivals, Says New Zealand Bank Group

By David Fickling - May 4, 2013 9:57 PM PT

Commercial banks may create digital currencies to rival Bitcoin, the virtual money whose U.S. dollar value collapsed by 46 percent in 24 hours last month, the head of New Zealand’s banking lobby said today.

Banks noticed the low cost of international Bitcoin transfers, and some may look to introduce competitors as a cap on issuance constrains the digital currency’s supply, Kirk Hope, chief executive officer of the New Zealand Bankers’ Association, said according to the e-mailed transcript of an interview with TVNZ television.

“If it’s not Bitcoin it might be some other type of digital currency that could come into play,” Hope said. The cap on Bitcoin issuance, which limits supply to about 21 million units, “doesn’t mean that some other player couldn’t come into the market, and, you know, that might be a bank.”

Created four years ago by a person or group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to buy and sell a broad range of items -- from cupcakes to electronics to illegal narcotics. The surge in a Bitcoin’s value has made millionaires out of people who loaded up on them early on, many of them self-described libertarians drawn by the idea of a currency that exists outside government control.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) (http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BRK/A:US), the investment company founded by Warren Buffett (http://topics.bloomberg.com/warren-buffett/), hadn’t moved any of its $49 billion in assets into Bitcoins, the New York (http://topics.bloomberg.com/new-york/) Times reported May 5, citing Buffett’s comments at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha.

The currency still faces problems around legitimacy, Hope said. “They are being used to buy things like arms and drugs,” he said. “I suspect tax isn’t being paid on Bitcoin transactions.”

To contact the reporter on this story: David Fickling in Sydney at dfickling@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim McDonald at jmcdonald8@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-05/lenders-may-create-bitcoin-rivals-says-new-zealand-bank-group.html

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May 6, 2013 7:30 pm
US regulators eye Bitcoin supervision By Tracy Alloway, Gregory Meyer and Stephen Foley in New York



Senior officials at a top US financial regulator are discussing whether Bitcoin, the controversial cyber-currency, might fall under their regulatory remit.

Bitcoin “is for sure something we need to explore”, Bart Chilton, one of the five commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) told the Financial Times. A person familiar with the CFTC’s thinking said that the regulator is “seriously” examining the issue.



Said Mr Chilton: “It’s not monopoly money we’re talking about here – real people can have real risk in these instruments, and we need to ensure that we protect markets and consumers, even in what at first blush appear to be ‘out there’ transactions.”


Four-year-old Bitcoin is attracting the interest of regulators amid volatile booms and busts in the value of the cyber-currency and fresh media interest. Intensified regulatory scrutiny (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/55733b80-addf-11e2-a2c7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SWAVYICw) could pose challenges for proponents of Bitcoin, who have praised the currency for its independence from traditional authorities (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2011/06/06/585756/virtual-money-from-real-central-bank-mistrust/).
In March, a branch of the US Treasury department said that all firms that exchange or transfer the virtual currency will be considered “money services businesses”.


That means they must provide information to the government and introduce policies to prevent money laundering. It could also make it risky for other financial institutions to do business with firms that are not in compliance.


Since the ruling, at least three companies in North America have reported having their business accounts closed by their banks. Bitfloor, a New York-based Bitcoin exchange, said it was shutting down entirely, and it has not yet been able to return funds to customers.


Roger Ver, founder of Bitcoinstore.com and an angel investor in Bitcoin start-ups, said that he knew of some entrepreneurs who had moved to Panama to explore setting up operations outside of the US.


“Even if US regulations make it hard for Bitcoin businesses to operate in the US, that doesn’t mean it will make it difficult for people to use Bitcoin as a currency in the US. Bitcoin is a world currency,” he said.


The CFTC regulates derivatives contracts and, under Dodd-Frank financial reform, has sweeping authority to oversee retail foreign exchange dealers (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6d881a1a-c9c6-11df-b3d6-00144feab49a.html#axzz2SWAVYICw).
CFTC jurisdiction generally does not extend to cash markets unless exchanges list derivatives contracts based on them. For example, the agency monitors physical oil transactions insofar as they influence crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


One person familiar with the discussions said Bitcoin would not become subject to CFTC jurisdiction unless it becomes the basis for a derivatives contract. The use of Bitcoin to pay for ordinary goods is outside the commission’s bailiwick.


Leveraged Bitcoin transactions that settled in more than two days – so-called “rolling spot” transactions – would also fall under CFTC jurisdiction, the person said.


Said Mr Chilton, the commissioner: “In essence, we’re talking about a type of shadow currency, and there is more than a colourable argument to be made that derivative products relating to Bitcoin falls squarely in our jurisdiction.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b810157c-b651-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html

[Ares]

May 6, 2013 7:30 pm
US regulators eye Bitcoin supervision By Tracy Alloway, Gregory Meyer and Stephen Foley in New York



Senior officials at a top US financial regulator are discussing whether Bitcoin, the controversial cyber-currency, might fall under their regulatory remit.

Bitcoin “is for sure something we need to explore”, Bart Chilton, one of the five commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) told the Financial Times. A person familiar with the CFTC’s thinking said that the regulator is “seriously” examining the issue.



Said Mr Chilton: “It’s not monopoly money we’re talking about here – real people can have real risk in these instruments, and we need to ensure that we protect markets and consumers, even in what at first blush appear to be ‘out there’ transactions.”


Four-year-old Bitcoin is attracting the interest of regulators amid volatile booms and busts in the value of the cyber-currency and fresh media interest. Intensified regulatory scrutiny (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/55733b80-addf-11e2-a2c7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SWAVYICw) could pose challenges for proponents of Bitcoin, who have praised the currency for its independence from traditional authorities (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2011/06/06/585756/virtual-money-from-real-central-bank-mistrust/).
In March, a branch of the US Treasury department said that all firms that exchange or transfer the virtual currency will be considered “money services businesses”.


That means they must provide information to the government and introduce policies to prevent money laundering. It could also make it risky for other financial institutions to do business with firms that are not in compliance.


Since the ruling, at least three companies in North America have reported having their business accounts closed by their banks. Bitfloor, a New York-based Bitcoin exchange, said it was shutting down entirely, and it has not yet been able to return funds to customers.


Roger Ver, founder of Bitcoinstore.com and an angel investor in Bitcoin start-ups, said that he knew of some entrepreneurs who had moved to Panama to explore setting up operations outside of the US.


“Even if US regulations make it hard for Bitcoin businesses to operate in the US, that doesn’t mean it will make it difficult for people to use Bitcoin as a currency in the US. Bitcoin is a world currency,” he said.


The CFTC regulates derivatives contracts and, under Dodd-Frank financial reform, has sweeping authority to oversee retail foreign exchange dealers (http://web.archive.org/web/20130506191041/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6d881a1a-c9c6-11df-b3d6-00144feab49a.html#axzz2SWAVYICw).
CFTC jurisdiction generally does not extend to cash markets unless exchanges list derivatives contracts based on them. For example, the agency monitors physical oil transactions insofar as they influence crude futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.


One person familiar with the discussions said Bitcoin would not become subject to CFTC jurisdiction unless it becomes the basis for a derivatives contract. The use of Bitcoin to pay for ordinary goods is outside the commission’s bailiwick.


Leveraged Bitcoin transactions that settled in more than two days – so-called “rolling spot” transactions – would also fall under CFTC jurisdiction, the person said.


Said Mr Chilton, the commissioner: “In essence, we’re talking about a type of shadow currency, and there is more than a colourable argument to be made that derivative products relating to Bitcoin falls squarely in our jurisdiction.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b810157c-b651-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html

Under who's authority? If the BTC was mined from a European miner, is that BTC now somehow follow under CFTC regulations? Bullshit, you can't regulate BTC's CFTC morons. It will end up like Silver and Gold, manipulated to no end with a wink and a nod from the CFTC "investigators".

[vacuum]

Bill Gates: "[Bitcoin] is a techno tour de force." Charlie Munger: "I think it's rat poison." Warren Buffett: "I think either Charlie or Bill is right." (http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2359385547001/)