Free Republic

The U.S. Federal Reserve will not only issue its own cryptocurrency but will also make sure Americans use it, according to Doug Casey. “To start with, I suspect it’s going to be a parallel currency. Perhaps usable just within the U.S. which, in effect, would be a form of foreign exchange controls even more effective than the inability of Americans to open up foreign bank and brokerage accounts today [due to monetary control through FATCA]…I think it’s a near certainty that they’re going to do something like this and soon.” They will call it Fedcoin. David Andolfatto, vice president at...

Analysis Why does Bitcoin work? Fraudsters should have left it in cinders years ago, and might have done, if it wasn’t for two things: spam and the Byzantine Empire. A Bitcoin is basically an entry in a ledger that is distributed across a network of computers. Bitcoins are transferred between parties by noting the transaction in the ledger. This might sound just like any other banking system except there’s a crucial difference: no one is in charge of the ledger. It’s held across a network of computers and anyone can add their computer to the network when they wish -...