Tag: BitcoinMagazine

MONEY: Is the E-Krona money or, like the CCP, a method of social control by Sweden?

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/sweden-cbdc-for-financial-surveillance?utm_source=Bitcoin%20Magazine&utm_campaign=b4c3ecc573-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_05_11_08_21&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7d45fbb67-b4c3ecc573-357073741&mc_cid=b4c3ecc573

With The E-Krona, Sweden Is Attacking The Virtues Bitcoin Is Built To Protect

  • As they increase financial surveillance and control, Swedish authorities are inadvertently making the case for Bitcoin as an alternative.

Peter Bistoletti  —     May 11, 2023

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E-krona is, at present, a pilot project, testing the technical platform and the cooperation of banks, companies and end users. The e-krona will preserve several functions of cash but not anonymity. The volume of e-krona created will not be determined by mining (like it is for Bitcoin), but by the central bank. Positive or negative interest rates will also be determined by the central bank. In a deeper sense, the e-krona without a function like Bitcoin mining is merely a central database controlled by the central bank. 

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IMHO, it’s the worst of all worlds.

Grab the popcorn and settle in for the show.

Where bitcoin allowed people to avoid capital controls and escape with their wealth, this will not!

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BITCOIN: Bulgaria’s Golden Ticket = Seized Bitcoin

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-future-for-bulgaria-seized-bitcoin?utm_source=Bitcoin%20Magazine&utm_campaign=67e3e40384-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_04_24_09_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7d45fbb67-67e3e40384-357073741&mc_cid=67e3e40384

A Seized Bitcoin Stack Could Be Bulgaria’s Golden Ticket

  • After seizing 213,000 bitcoin in 2017, Bulgaria now has an opportunity to become one of the wealthiest countries on earth.

Ahmed Botan  —  Apr 24, 2023

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The reason for this is its possession of 213,000 bitcoin, which its authorities seized from a group they labeled as criminals in 2017. According to the South East European Law Enforcement Center (SELC), the group hacked the Bulgarian customs agency’s computers and made changes to the system so that their partner companies could import goods while avoiding paying taxes on them.

Immediately following the crackdown, the bitcoin seized was worth about $500,000, however, it would now be worth closer to $6 billion dollars, as of April 2023. While the details around the BTC seizure are unclear, and it is not totally clear whether the country still holds that bitcoin or what it plans to do with the stack if it does, the potential of a nation like Bulgaria holding this much BTC is worth exploring.

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Well, one can only hope they held on to it.  That’s a neat nest egg for the people and Taxpayers of Bulgaria.

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BITCOIN: Nigeria is an exemplarfor what could happen here

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-can-help-nigeria-fight-for-money?utm_source=Bitcoin%20Magazine&utm_campaign=60be7f380b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_02_08_06_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7d45fbb67-60be7f380b-357073741&mc_cid=60be7f380b&mc_eid=386b7b0895

Nigerians Are Fighting For Their Own Money And Bitcoin Can Help

  • As Nigerians have been cut off from access to their own money amid a banknote redesign, Bitcoin is the best chance to reinvent the system.

Ray Youssef  —     Feb 7, 2023

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This is an opinion editorial by Ray Youssef, a founder and CEO of Paxful and a founder of the Built With Bitcoin Foundation.

Imagine standing in endless lines, fighting to get ahold of your own money. Read that again and try to make sense of it. This is life for millions of Nigerians right now, who face a redesign of their banknotes, the naira, which means old naira bank notes will be useless after February 10. This is a problem because while Nigeria hopes to move closer to a digital-cash economy, the country is still heavily cash dependent. The policy is causing a flood of people at bank offices and ATMs, desperate to swap their old bank notes for the new redesign.

Adding fuel to the fire, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has imposed a weekly cash withdrawal limit which, as of January 9, was 500,000 naira for individuals (around $1,087) and 5,000,000 naira (around $10,087) for organizations. While these weekly limits already seem insane, the actual amount Nigerians can pull out depends on what’s available at each location.

What’s Unfolding On The Ground In Nigeria

My team in Nigeria is witnessing all-day queues — with many people walking away empty handed. Some bank offices and ATMs do not even have cash to dispense. Nigerians are bringing mattresses to ATMs and others are arriving at ATMs at 4:00 a.m. to be 115th in line for when they open at 8:00 a.m. Scarcity is an even bigger issue in some rural areas and individuals have not been able to access any new notes. I’m hearing that, after returning the old notes to the banks through their kids or agents because most are unbanked, they are unable to get new notes. This puts a halt to their day-to-day transactions and livelihoods. And for the individuals who are able to get naira, point-of-sale (PoS) transaction charges skyrocketed by 400% in most cities across the country. This is causing a lot of fear as inflation is already over 20% and Nigerians are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. 

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While inflation in the USA is not near as bad as in Nigeria, it’s still bad if you’re on a fixed income, a wage slave, or just trying to get by.

Unlike fiat currency, ₿ bitcoin has a mathematical enforced scarcity.  While probably not a good as bullion, it is transportable with the memorized word list.  

And it frees you from Gooferment and its clutches.

Forewarned is forearmed!

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BITCOIN: Try and wrap your head around this paradigm shift

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/stage-is-set-for-bitcoin-to-replace-fiat?utm_source=Bitcoin+Magazine&utm_campaign=31a110c8e6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_12_16_08_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7d45fbb67-31a110c8e6-357073741&mc_cid=31a110c8e6&mc_eid=386b7b0895

The Stage Is Now Set: Bitcoin Will Replace Fiat

  • Bitcoin represents an unprecedented paradigm shift, and while the world may not be ready to replace fiat, that change is inevitable.

Beautyon
Dec 15, 2022

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Bitcoin, which will transform the way you transfer money, needs to be understood on its own terms, and not just as an online form of money. Thinking about bitcoin as money is as absurd as thinking about email as another form of sending letters by post; one not only replaces the other but it profoundly changes the way people send and consume messages. It is not a simple substitution or one-dimensional improvement of an existing idea or service.

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This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. — Morpheus in the Matrix (1999)

In this case, it’s the “orange pill”.

I wrote about how “job search” changed in the 80’s from the “gold watch” to “everyone is an entrepreneur”.  I used to say there was no K-Mart Blue Light announcing that there was a “special” in Aisle 7.  There was now announcement that the rules of employment had changed.  But they had and those that failed to adapt were left flopping on the beach like soon to be dead fish when the tide went out.

This “orange pill” tell a similar tale.  The Financial “rules of the game” are changing silently

VOCABULARY: “The Overton window”

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https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/overton-window-bitcoin

The Overton Window & Bitcoin
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, FEB 12, 2022 – 09:00 PM
Authored by ‘DON’ via BitcoinMagazine.com,

As Bitcoin enters the mainstream conversation, it is becoming increasingly common for politicians to embrace or disparage the technology…

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“The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse.

“The term is named after American policy analyst Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea’s political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians’ individual preferences. According to Overton, the window frames the range of policies that a politician can recommend without appearing too extreme to gain or keep public office given the climate of public opinion at that time.”

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Can’t stop BITCOIN because it fulfills a basic human need — the ability to save financial wealth from the rapacious of seizure by central Gooferments!

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