"After bitcoin’s frenzied rally last year, prices have lost about two-thirds of their value from a December high. The cryptocurrency had been trading around $7,000 in recent days, although a sharp jump Thursday morning briefly lifted the price above $7,900, according to CoinDesk,” writes Steven Russolillo in the WSJ. “Nonetheless,” he continues, “in the past few months, bitcoin has faded off the front pages of newspapers and it no longer dominates people’s social-media feeds. Global internet searches for the word “bitcoin” have fallen by over 80% from December, according to Google … [Read more...]

Originally posted on December 1, 2017. Bitcoin is being considered by some as their emergency stash. For me, when the power goes out, I prefer having dollars on hand. ATMs will be out of commission, and depending on road conditions, even if my bank is open, I’m not sure I’ll be hitting the streets to make a withdrawal. One of the many hurdles bitcoin faces is frictionless exchange. It doesn’t have the general acceptance by society yet like the dollar, and to achieve that acceptance will be a monumental task. In an emergency situation, I want to be able to have cold hard cash on hand … [Read more...]

When you consider good governance vs bad governance, Sweden typically falls into the good camp. Life is pretty good if you’re a Swede. But a recent push by central banks to adopt a cash-free-society has put many on edge. Riskbank governor, Stefan Ingves, says going cash-less is for the “collective good” of society. “Most citizens would feel uncomfortable to surrender these social functions to private companies,” he said. “It should be obvious that Sweden’s preparedness would be weakened if, in a serious crisis or war, we had not decided in advance how households and companies would pay for … [Read more...]

After raking in some profits on bitcoin (if they were lucky enough to find a greater fool) investors are now being targeted by the IRS. Apparently few bitcoin investors seem to be paying taxes on their gains. Most of them probably thought the anonymous currency wouldn't be on the radar of the IRS. Turns out however, that the IRS has forced Coinbase, one of the largest "digital-currency wallets" to give the government its customers' information. Laura Saunders reports in The Wall Street Journal: By March 16, the IRS will have data on about 13,000 Coinbase account holders who bought, … [Read more...]

Crypto currencies are getting hammered once again in markets this week. CNBC reports: Prices of major cryptocurrencies saw a sharp downward slide Thursday, amid closer regulatory scrutiny on the space and after Google announced plans to ban advertising related to the sector. The market capitalization or value of all the world's digital coins stood at $310.4 billion early on Thursday morning, down from $372.9 billion a day before, according to Coinmarketcap.com, which tracks prices based on different exchanges. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap, traded as low as … [Read more...]

The FT comments today (quoted below) on an upcoming meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers on bitcoin. One of the benefits of bitcoin, according to some of its proponents, is that it is a currency not controlled by government. That is indeed a benefit, and in a perfect world, bitcoin would supplant fiat money and we would all again have a hard currency to preserve purchasing power. But perfect isn't the world we live in. The primary purpose of the Fed is to manipulate the value of the currency. Take away the government's power to print money and you also takeaway their power … [Read more...]

“Everyone understands the basic need for fixed weights and measures in daily life: the amount of liquid in a gallon, the number of ounces in a pound, the number of minutes in an hour. None of these amounts fluctuate; they are unchanging,” writes Steve Forbes. Here’s his latest Fact & Comment on the greenback. The dollar. Markets are finally waking up to the implications of the weak dollar, which has been declining for months. The greenback’s slide has been nowhere as bad as it was in the early 2000s, but the trend isn’t good. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin let the cat out of the bag a … [Read more...]

You can count hedge fund manager Paul Singer as among the bitcoin skeptics. He recently savaged bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a form of investment saying: “When the history is written, cryptocurrencies will likely be described as one of the most brilliant scams in history....It is not just a fraud. It is perhaps the outer limit, the ultimate expression, of the ability of humans to seize upon ether and hope to ride it to the stars....But is it not glorious that when the equivalent of nothing attracts priests and parishioners who run up the price, the very willingness of the mob to buy it … [Read more...]

When Bioptix Inc. changed its name to Riot Blockchain Inc., investors flooded in to the company they thought was working on blockchain technologies. CNBC says the change may have been made simply to enrich Bioptix's founders. Bloomberg reports: The shares had more than quadrupled to as high as $46.20 after the company changed its name from Bioptix Inc. in October and said it would focus on cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. But the euphoria didn’t last long and the stock has lost more than half of its value since Bitcoin’s Dec. 18 peak, on concern the company isn’t doing much more than … [Read more...]

Bitcoin is a “combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster,” a top central-banking official recently cautioned, referring to the large amount of electricity needed to create bitcoin. You don’t have to tell that to the residents in Wenatchee, Washington, where a bitcoin invasion is under way. Why? Because the electricity is cheap. “Home to hydroelectric dams that harness the flow of the Columbia River, north central Washington has some of the cheapest power in the U.S. That has made the largely rural area best known for its apple orchards a magnet for bitcoin … [Read more...]