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Bitcoin Surges To 3-Month Highs After EU Tax Ruling
Bitcoin has recovered all the losses from the volatility surrounding China's currency devaluation and Black Monday equity weakness as implicit capital controls drive the Chinese into alternative currencies (as we warned would happen). However, the last few days have seen the cryptocurrency surge to $280 - the highest in 12 weeks - as The EU's top court ruled bitcoin and other virtual currencies can be exchanged tax-free, putting them on a more equal footing with traditional cash.
Value added tax -- a type of sales levy -- needn’t be applied because the business involves “the exchange of different means of payment,” the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled Thursday. The case was triggered by a dispute in Sweden, where David Hedqvist set up a service for the exchange of mainstream money for bitcoin and vice versa.
...
“Transactions to exchange traditional currencies for units of the bitcoin virtual currency (and vice versa) constitute the supply of services” under the bloc’s law “since they consist of the exchange of different means of payment,” the court ruled. As such they are exempt from value-added taxes, it said.
To exclude such transactions from the tax exemptions given to traditional exchanges “would deprive it of part of its effects,” given that the exemption’s aim is to counter “the difficulties connected with determining the taxable amount and the amount of VAT deductible” in cases of taxation of financial transactions, the court said.
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And the resulatant bid...
As we discussed previously, while China is doing everything in its power to not give the impression that it is panicking, the truth is that it is one viral capital outflow report away from an outright scramble to enforce the most draconian capital controls in its history, which - as every Cypriot and Greek knows by now - is a self-defeating exercise and assures an ever accelerating decline in the currency, which authorities are trying to both keep stable while also devaluing at a pace of their choosing. Said pace never quite works out.
So what happens then: well, China's propensity for gold is well-known. We would not be surprised to see a surge of gold imports into China, only instead of going to the traditional Commodity Financing Deals we have written extensively about before, where gold is merely a commodity used to fund domestic carry trades, it ends up in domestic households. However,
while gold has historically been the best store of value in history and has outlasted every currency known to man, it is problematic when it comes to transferring funds in and out of a nation - it tends to show up quite distinctly on X-rays.
Which is why we would not be surprised to see another push higher in the value of bitcoin: it was earlier this summer when the digital currency, which can bypass capital controls and national borders with the click of a button, surged on Grexit concerns and fears a Drachma return would crush the savings of an entire nation. Since then, BTC has dropped (in no small part as a result of the previously documented "forking" with Bitcoin XT), however if a few hundred million Chinese decide that the time has come to use bitcoin as the capital controls bypassing currency of choice, and decide to invest even a tiny fraction of the $22 trillion in Chinese deposits...
... in bitcoin (whose total market cap at last check was just over $3 billion), sit back and watch as we witness the second coming of the bitcoin bubble, one which could make the previous all time highs in the digital currency, seems like a low print.
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ALL HAIL NEINPAT
OMG SATOSHI WE LOVE YOU!!!
When it is revealed years from now that BitCoin was actually invented by the CIA there's gonna be a lot of pissed off people.
Non sequitur: when it is revealed years from now that Pythagoras was actually gay there's gonna be a lot of pissed off people.
Maybe bitcoin was invented by the CIA, but 15horses1donkey conceived of the Zero Hedge Coin 0, a digital fan cryptocurrency. Find out more here: http://zhc0.com
What is it? A bitcoin clone, just for Zero Hedge, created with a view to getting listed on typical exchanges. I have buckleys chance, but i'll try anyway!
The Fed and its "Bitcoin Bullion Banks" still haven't figured out a way to control BTC prices via paper futures?
That is the sort of question that one can only conclusively answer if they have experience with creating a currency from scratch. That is where we are with Zero Hedge Coin 0 http://zhc0.com
To be more specific, one ZHC0 gets off the ground, it will be trivial to pump and dump it and wreak general havoc, to manipulate it, and control the price. But time will tell, i probably won't get volume or enough users, to have a coin worthy of a pump and dump or manipulation and control.
I'm holding out for BitCoin at $2.43. Even then it's still a big risk but I'll buy some.
So it means never. I respect your decision.
Bitcoin has already been given the "bubble up, slap down" treatment.
The only possible use of Bitcoin is as a very temporary means of avoiding capital controls. Even that is dicey.
I understand your knowledge situation on Bitcoin.
The trick is bitcoin trade clears much faster than paper derivative trade and taking delivery costs nothing. By attempting to corner the bitcoin market the way of gold and silver "market" they would shot themselves in a foot with bazooka.
In other words the day they offer $100 paper derivative price for bitcoin I'm buying it all on margin and take immediate delivery, then do some nice arb on actual btc exchange.
I'm sure the Tylers will want their cut from that since you've violated their trademark name. Have fun with that.
Copyright ©2009-2015 ZeroHedge.com/ABC Media, LTD; All Rights Reserved.
Crypto currency is just a fancy name for digital fractional reserve banking - without the reserve, or the bank.Well, you get an A for being the idiot reincarnation of Fonestar, anyway.
By now everyone should be aware that bitcoin transactions are traced and monitored by all the major government agencies. Coins tainted by criminal use can be seized. Buying bitcoin is this very risky. When folks get tired of being sent to prison, they will inevitably switch to an anonymous and hence fungible currency. XMR is the only working alternative right now.
Gold Bars work for me?
Tell us about XMR.
It's just another shitcoin (shitcoin's are otherwise know as 'Alt-coins' which are pathetic attempt's to try to somehow re-invent the bitcoin wheel)
Au contraire. Unlike bitcoin, XMR transactions are untracable, unlinkable. That means XMR is fungible. Your children can't be kidnapped to extort what no one knows you have. XMR is simply, electronic, untracable cash. What everyone hoped bitcoin would be, but is not. As prisons fill with people who thought they were free because bitcoin, XMR will inevitably take its place. Math. It works.
Au contraire. Whatever. Just shows your ignoarnce in that you think bitcoin blockchain can only act as a currency ledger ? Sorry to announce that bitcoin " the currency" is just one app. of it's blockchan. Good luck with your "single application" blockchain. Bitcoin's blockchain , like TCP/IP has an unlimited amount of app's. Good luck trading stocks , bonds , FX and title deeds over an unlinkable blockchain.
He might be on to something. As long as you can source fuel, the Can-Am Outlander XMR 1000 will get you through anything post-infrastructure.
Doesn't matter because the brilliance is in the BlockChain. Applied to governmental budgets could bring a true democracy, dare I call socialocracy.
Let's say it comes out tomorrow that the CIA invented email. So what? Get a clue.
If you are using BitCoin, believing it to be secure and untracable you don't think it would be worthwhile to know that it's NOT? Really?
There are a lot of people on ZH who are speculating via BitCoin. You're pissing them off...
Of course they would NEVER speculate in rigged stock markets.
No one thinks it's untraceable. It's you that naively believes that others think that, and that that's why its popular. The issue is that its secure and unstoppable, and takes monetary policy out of the hands of the gov/fed and makes it hard coded. What makes it immune to malicious changes? It runs on computers controlled by users.
I've been making plans for bugging out of the US when things get all concentration camp in a hurry. How do I travel with my physical billion? Sure I could have accounts abroad, but those are by definition not secure bc I don't hold them. Bitcoin is very attractive for that scenario.
Once you get over the grieving process that your team (the bullion team, which I'm still a part of) is not the only answer anymore, you'll be better off. How many hours, days, months, years have you spent reading about gold and silver, sound money, etc? Maybe give bitcoin just an honest couple of days of research, and a couple minutes a week of following.
Good luck.
Amen. As for those who criticize bitcoin because it's merely pseudonymous rather than anonymous, let's see how anonymous or pseudonymous they are when crossing a national border with bullion.
Gold is fantastic and easier for doing business with others physically in front of your face. For trading with everyone who is any distance away from you, i.e. 99% of other potential trading partners, you are unable to conduct business at all using physical gold. Need any more be said about the value bitcoin adds to those who choose to use it as a medium of exchange?
But such anti-bitcoin prejudice is great for those who use gold and bitcoin. Such bitcoin users will be able to tap both local and distant markets for buying and selling thus commanding much more favorable prices. They will have access to a broader pool of more specialized labor and be able to arbitrage distant and local productive advantages and disadvantages.
Gold-only users confining themselves to just local markets with lower quality and worse prices will self-exclude from this broader market, keeping its prices lower. The bitcoin users can then buy at those lower prices and sell locally at a handsome markup to the gold-only users with very limited choices.
So, um, sure....yeah....bitcoin is a fiat ponzi scheme created by the CIA according to Obama's secret Vatican-written plan. Definitely stay away from it! :)
Um why? The entire internet is a DARPA project...
Not even to mention Wikipedia?? Or Google?
Everyone knows that the internet is not secure. So they dangle this little thing call BitCoin in front of you, tell you this awesome story about how secure, anonymous and untraceable it is....
They might as well be ringing the dinner bell.
You're arguing for ignorance. You're literally arguing that everyone who uses and invests time and money in bitcoin is just an ignorant moron who has never considered the innovation of lack thereof in the protocol. You should spend some time to understand the technology before commenting like that. It doesn't matter if the CIA or NSA invented it, the security in the protocol is in the distributed ledger and the literal impossibility at forging ledger entries without more computing power and network speed than the collective of humanity has.
I know that the internet is as secure as you are smart . Dumb fools will have no security , however the more savvy you are the more secure you are.
You are right when considering only those commercial backdor OSs.
ARPA net was a mere shadow of what became TCP/IP, HTTP, etc... Saying DARPA invented the internet is a bit of a stretch. They initiated the idea of a distributed common network but the reality is that open standards created the internet.
CIA, eh? You really think it's as legit as all that? I suppose that would explain these laughable tax court rulings. I contacted my Maine state sales tax department some time back, and had an interesting discussion with them about how BitCoin sales are not sales tax liable. The end of the story made it look like the roadway had been cleared for this non-government aligned digital fiat.
I'm leaning toward P.T. Barnum as the inventer of the BitCoin, a digital bag of digital wind being sold for nearly $300 a pop? LoL. It's Internet fiat for the purported adults who grew up dreaming about SuperMario and Zelda.
Reality, our individual conception of it, is highly personalized. And getting gaffed by such an idiotic scheme seems incredible to me. But then again, I grew up when real silver coins were all there were in circulation.
I thought the "bitcoin is a digital fiat" ignorance died out in late 2011 , FFS get upto speed old chap , the last I heard in 2012 it was actually a ponzi scheme until that was debunked.
When it is seen years from now that bitcoin is $200,000, and gold mines and physical in allocated accounts have been seized while there is no published market price, there's gonna be a lot of pissed off people.
TRUSTING A CRYPTO CURRENCY IS LIKE BEING IN JAIL, STRIPPING NAKED, LUBING UP YOUR BUNG HOLE, AND TELLING YOUR CELL MATE YOU TRUST HIM TO NOT TOUCH YOU.
Bitcoin wannabe's are like fractional reserve banking, without the fractional reserve, the bank, the currency, or the promise of delivery. Someone's gonna get fucked.
@NoDebt - it does not matter at all who invented Bitcoin - it is open source.
Beside, we give too much credit the the Criminals In Action network. They are too busy importing cocaine, heroin and stoop and exporting kids for the Royals and other blood suckers to bother with any real innovation.
Apparently the difficulty level for bitcoin miners is also set to roll over, where before one would get 25 coins for solving an algo now one will get only 12.5. Price has to rise or miners are in trouble. Sound like a familiar theme?
Checkout bitcoinclock.com the reward halfing for the miners happens in 39 weeks time although it should be priced in before then. This happens every 4 years and the last time it happened price went up several hundred percent.
The miners don't determine the price of bitcoins, they are SELLERS. The BUYERS of bitcoins determine the price.
And when buyers can't find any, what happens?
Ahhhhh Bitcoin! All you need is a functioning internet free from any corporate road blocks......................................
No. I wrote about it some time ago: for bitcoin working internet is a convenience, not a necessity. Get your facts right.
Lol. For internet you need working internet. It is a necessity. Bitcoin sits on top of the internet....
Nope. Internet is not a requirement for bitcoin. Any communication medium will do, even smoke signals. Bitcoin is transport layer agnostic.
Yeah it has been demonstrated running over AM CB radio's hooked into modems so yeah it could use many other transport layers . Using smoke signals would be fucking slow though.
For any crypto currency, all you need are some greedy sheep to feed bullshit to while you shear them.
Then, when you completely fleece them, they think it is situation normal.
Crypto currency is for muppets. And, Goldman Sachs account holders.
So???
I'm still waiting on my Butterfly Labs Jalepenos, they said they'd ship any day now!@$$!#@
This is related to Bitcoin like a shovel-scam is related to gold.
Comr on, baby.
Let's wait for the Vatican (the scarlet whore) to announce it is going to adopt Bitcoin as its official currency (mark of the beast).
No grid, no Bitcoins.
Bitcoins will be useless in Thunderdome.
Prepare accordingly.
Plenty of nodes are off the grid working on batteries and a solar panel. They can connect using whatever infrastructure is available , WiFi , land line or cellular. Unlikely that all 3 will go down at once. Some also have satellite backup.
Are those nodes PROCESSING/MINING bitcoin payments? Becasue if they aren't, then no bitcoin.
Most nodes are just propagating (forwarding) transaction data. Many are also mining , plus there are many miners that are not acting as nodes. The system is totally decentralised so no failure points , anywhere.
Has anyone tried powering a Bitcoin Miner using a Keshe (free energy) device?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jkzsi3Kuk4&list=PL6S-6M93qaWbh3dMytwWDU...
Global FX trading volume: roughly $5 Trillion . . . . . . . . per day.
1% of that is $50B.
Bitcoin daily trading volume needs to increase by a factor of 1500x to reach 1% of daily FX trading volume. I realize the price of BTC could remain flat and trading volume can rise but the reality is IF it takes on a bigger role liquidity must increase and more players need to participate.
That is merely one angle to consider. Nope, no opportunity here move along, nothing to see. Much better bet to margin your nuts off to the Banksters thinking Fraudbook will go from almost $300B to what the heck why not a few T in market cap.
Ghostzapper, I can beat that. A coin with zero trading volume.
The Zero Hedge Coin 0 hasn't even had it's code compiled yet. Not even a blockchain. Yet it is coming... http://zhc0.com
Very cute.
In general I am very skeptical of altcoins going head to head with the leader around which an entire ecosystem is being built. I don't see the driving value proposition but I try to always be open minded.
What I do find interesting is something such as Factoids from Factom (disclosure: I have NO relation with the company). They are creating a "colored coin" essentially that clients will use to pay for their services in an intriguing manner in my view.
The entire bitcoin system has only a few million dollars of liquidity, what's in the bank accounts of exchanges, for 3+ billion in market cap. The only way exchanges pay out, is by selling bitcoin to others to get the money. The entire system is a house of cards and can collapse in a day because there is zero backing.
Unlike the stock market where everyone can sell ter stock at face value and retire the next day ? Tell me more...
If there is a crash on stocks you wont be able to sell or buy for that matter, while in bitcoin there is no central point of exchange that can be stopped and even if all the people in one country wanted to sell there are still other markets like china available 24/7 .
Unlike stocks no more bitcoins can be created on a whim of a CEO and no banks, yet, own any bitcoin.
Blythe Masters at work.
http://www.coindesk.com/former-jp-morgan-exec-blythe-masters-swaps-wall-...
I liked BitCoin until I started to realize in move opposite of Gold Price. To me , that was the tell sign.
There are so many types of cancer, physically.
But there is just one type of cancer, spiritually.
And this spiritual cancer that inflicts the human race is the Vatican Jesuits.
You're forgetting the Chosenite Pharisees.
Although they're in cahoots.
I put $200 into a Bitoin ATM during the flash crash in August and got $1,400 in Bitcoin.
From what I could tell, my transaction was processed 7 times.
I bought an ounce of gold that night from Provident and never looked back!
Thinking of Bitcoin as just a currency is like thinking the Internet is only web pages.
Bitcoin has the capability to make the SWIFT network obsolete. In fact, a few days ago it was recorded evidence of a trader borrowing 10 million dollars in compliance with SEC SHO regulation before he could engage in a short sale in the stock market.
What will the future bring? Nobody knows for sure, but ignore Bitcoin at your own peril.
I think one of the bigger mis-steps that bitcoin's founders made was not inserting a legal clause that discouraged or blocked anyone from using the same code to create an alt coin. There's no value add, just extra distraction, confusion and noise that delayed critical mass during a critical period in its development. It's perfectly ok for the code to be available for review or just to anyone learning about cryptocurrenices in general, but the myriad alt coins out there have been one of the most negative developments imo. All of those coding hours could instead have gone into improving other aspects of the bitcoin/blockchain eco-system.
Actually the Alt-Coins are an experimental playground. If any of them did actually come up with something worth integrating into bitcoin then it would be assimilated into the bitcoin code. But whoever created bitcoin must have been working on it for a very, very long time , in my mind it is nothing short of absolute genius , I cannot see how any forks of the bitcoin code could hope to make any improvements over the original , but it's still healthy to see competition that is the very definition of free market capitalism. Putting some kind of patent on it may destroy it's credibility plus we would know exactly who created it.
The maximum transaction rate capacity of bitcoin is way too low.
That is incorrect. Bitcoin has no maximum transaction limit. Currenly it's block size is limited to 1MB , however that is an temporary / arbtrary limit which will be increased as greater useage occurrs.