Free Republic

Check out Mt. Gox, the site of what was the largest bitcoin exchange at one point, and you'll find a blank page. The site is now unavailable, and the exchange appears to be on the verge of collapse -- a number of Bitcoin companies announced Mt. Gox was planning to file for bankruptcy after technical problems and an apparent major theft. Customers have been unable to withdraw their money since Feb. 7. An alleged Mt. Gox document circulating on the Internet that can't be confirmed said the company had lost more than 744,00 Bitcoins in a theft that had gone unnoticed...

Concerns about high debt and an overvalued currency are sucking gold imports into China, according to a new report from Lombard Street Research. It adds that the authorities may possibly be moving in the direction of using gold in a plan to make the yuan an international currency. China's official reserves of gold stand at 1,054 metric tons, that's worth about $45 billion. This figure has not been updated since 2009 and Lombard says the number may not be accurate because since that last update imports of gold and domestic production amount to over 4,500 metric tons.

I had come to you once before, my Free Republic good guy friends, for advice on what penny stocks are all about. In doing further research, I keep running across the concept of bitcoin. Somehow, I cannot find a place to start about learning what bitcoin is. It used to be simple. You read the cereal box where is said, "Send three Cornies Box Tops with check, cash, or money order for $2.95 to order your own see-into-the-future goggles. Be sure to specify whether you want the red or blue model." There's no such place on the internet. If you...

Chronic problems have been flaring up in financial markets lately, and some of them may emanate from the United States. Yet none of these issues have seriously damaged the exalted status of what Washington Irving once called “the almighty dollar.” In fact, a familiar pattern has been emerging: When the world’s financial system runs into trouble, the position of the dollar as the world’s crucial currency becomes more formidable. Eswar S. Prasad, a Cornell economics professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has written a thoughtful new book that clarifies this counterintuitive phenomenon. Its title is “The Dollar Trap:...

The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an...

SocGen: An Economic 'Perfect Storm' Is Brewing Rob WileFeb. 2, 2014, 8:46 PM    Last weekend at Davos, Nouriel Roubini told BI's Joe Weisenthal that it seemed markets had sailing into a perfect storm, resulting in lots of volatility. "...Between Chinese PMI of 50, Argentina letting its currency go, noises coming politically from Ukraine, Turkey, and Thailand … [the] contagion is not just within emerging markets but also affects advanced economies' equity markets. This evening Société Générale says, that, indeed it sure looks like we have. In a note to clients titled "Perfect Storm Brewing As Policy Turns,"...

A person begins heavy drinking in order to get drunk and stay drunk. Eventually, unless he stops and deals with reality, he drinks just to stay sane—until his health collapses. Likewise, a person may get high from heroin but later need the drug just to stay functional. Creating continual flows of new currency “stimulus” works in a similar fashion on the economy. Thus far, the Fed’s (now slightly reduced) monetary stimulus has kept the stock market rising. But there are signs that the drug may no longer work to get Wall Street high. According to the Financial Times, “Stocks suffer...

Celente isn’t suggesting that a massive collapse is going to happen in the future. He says we’re already in it – and it’s taking hold right before our eyes across the entirety of the globe:

Venezuela And Argentina: The Party Is Over Latin America’s weakest economies are reaching breaking-pointThe Economist Feb 1st 2014 WHEN the euro crisis was at its height it became commonplace for struggling European economies to insist that they were not outliers like Greece. Whatever their woes, they declared, Greece’s were in a class of their own. In Latin America, by contrast, the unwanted title of outlier has two contenders: Argentina and Venezuela. Both have been living high on the hog for years, blithely dishing out the proceeds of an unrepeatable commodities boom (oil in Venezuela; soya in Argentina). Both have been...

The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published two new rulings on 30th January that aim to bring clarity as to which players in the virtual currency space will fall under the Bank Secrecy Act’s (BSA) definition of a money transmitter. FinCEN said that miners who mine virtual currency for their own use, as well as companies that purchase and sell convertible virtual currency solely as an investment aren’t subject to this law.

As two days of hearings on the future of digital currencies – think Bitcoin – wrapped up Wednesday in the New York State Legislature, fans of the cyber-cash were getting both bad and good news. Supporters who are drawn to Bitcoin because it largely functions outside governmental control may have been dismayed at the attempt to corral the currency inside state guidelines for the handling of money. But, at the same time, say experts, the simple act of enacting regulations bestows the legitimacy the digital currency needs to become widely used. “Most of the folks in this market who are...

I ran into this new $100 bill in Las Vegas.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's central bank hiked all of its main interest rates in dramatic fashion at an emergency policy meeting, ignoring opposition from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as it battles to defend a crumbling lira. The bank raised its overnight lending rate to 12 percent from 7.75 percent, its one-week repo rate to 10 percent from 4.5, and its overnight borrowing rate to 8 percent from 3.5, much sharper moves than economists had forecast. The lira strengthened to 2.18 against the dollar after the decision from 2.25 late on Tuesday, having hit a record low of 2.3900 early on...

UPDATE (29th January, 13:14 GMT): Read CoinDesk’s report on yesterday’s hearing here. You can watch the full video here. Stay tuned to CoinDesk for more updates on today’s hearing, and be sure to follow us on Twitter for live tweets on the proceedings.

The United States has become more and more defensive against China because of its rapid development and the change of the comparison of strength between the two countries. "China Threat" theory increasingly attracts much more attention from the US media. Chinese political and economics author Lei Sihai believes that the United States is actively pursuing a "currency war" against China through a puppetry of elaborate political, military and media maneuvering. Using financial instruments as "direct weapons," Lei claims that the United States is gearing up to engage China in a currency battle come 2015 in his new book The Decisive...

The New York Department of Financial Services is shortly to begin its hearing about bitcoin and other digital currencies. Taking place in the 4th Floor Boardroom of 90 Church Street, New York, the hearing is set to begin at 11:30 (EST) today (28th January) and the second session will begin tomorrow at 10:00. A live webcast of the hearings can be found here.

Day Two of the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami was packed full of speakers and panels. The two halls at the Miami Beach Convention Center kept attendees on the move. In the promenade areas, a number of bitcoin and cryptocurrency-related businesses were showing off their product and services. In turn, the Miami Beach area served as a vacation-like backdrop for the event, with parties held on the rooftop of the Clevelander Hotel on both Friday and Saturday night. Even so, the conference schedule of the second day seemed to move at a frenetic pace, with few breaks in between....

The temperate winter climate of Miami, Florida is serving as a pleasing backdrop for the numerous attendees of the North American Bitcoin Conference. The symposium, being held at the Miami Beach Convention Center this weekend, brought a huge crowd. Many of the talks were held with all seats full. In the afternoon, the second hall, used in the morning for merchant vendor workshops, was used as an additional seating area with the speakers being broadcasted on a large video screen.

Currency Massacre In Emerging Markets Jan. 24, 2014 12:40 PM ET Seeking Alpha Both Venezuela (socialist worker's paradise) and Argentina (nationalist socialist paradise) have a problem with their foreign exchange reserves. In both cases it stems from trying to keep up the pretense that their currencies are worth more than they really are. The central banks of both countries are (and have been for some time) printing money like crazy, and inflation is galloping with gay abandon. Their governments publish misleading economic statistics, that inter alia attempt to hide the true extent of the monetary debasement – in short,...

In a recent New York Times Dealbook post, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argued that Bitcoin is here to stay because it provides a payment system better than the one we have now, particularly for online merchants and international transfers. He likened Bitcoin to other disruptive technologies such as the personal computer and the Internet. These are great analogies. The personal computer has revolutionized the world, but Altair was not one of the winners. (Remember Altair? It was one of the many pioneers.) The Internet was not the first or even the only network for connecting computers. There were several other...