Federal Reserve

Bitcoin Startup Coinbase Raises $5 Million…Major Venture Capital Players Getting Involved

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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Coinbase has raised $5 million, which represents the largest funding round to date for a Bitcoin startup.  The funding is being led by the highly respected Union Square Ventures, and despite the fact that 90% of financial “journalists” and mainstream “economists” continue to bash Bitcoin as a bubble and a ponzi scheme, some of the brightest minds in venture capital are getting involved.  From the Wall Street Journal:

Eleven-month-old startup Coinbase announced Tuesday the largest funding round to date for a Bitcoin startup, a $5 million investment led by Union Square Ventures.

Coinbase is an online platform that allows users to buy Bitcoin, the virtual currency taking the tech world by storm. Users can also store Bitcoin in a digital wallet and pay merchants for goods or services with it. About 300 merchants have signed up with Coinbase so far, including content-aggregation site Reddit.com and dating siteOKCupid.com.

In April, Coinbase’s co-founders said the company claimed about 116,000 members who converted $15 million of real money into Bitcoin, up from $1 million in January. Ehrsam said the volume of dollars it’s converting to Bitcoin is increasing at a rate of about 15% a week, and its user base is growing at a weekly rate of about 12%.

Bubble!  Stay away!

He added that he thinks Bitcoin is poised to be a true game-changer for the business world, and the tech community in particular. “Hackers are the animals that can detect a storm coming or an earthquake,” he said. “They just know, even though they don’t know why, and there are two big things hackers are excited about now and can’t articulate why–Bitcoin and 3D printing.”

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Welcome to Kreuzberg, Berlin: The Neighborhood with the Highest Bitcoin Concentration on Earth

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Fascinating article out today from the Guardian about the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, which has the highest density of businesses accepting Bitcoin in the world.  The associated video at the top of the article is also a must watch, as it becomes readily apparent how excited both the merchants and the customers are about using this free market currency.  I am completely convinced that the more people learn about Bitcoin and use it, the more exponential its adoption will become.  My favorite line from the video comes at the very end from Joerg Platzer, owner of the bar Room 77:

“Every day we do not start using a free currency like Bitcoin, we actually actively vote for the current system to continue.”

From the Guardian:

Like Chebli, Martens, whose Kersenvlaai (cherry cake) from her native Maastricht is rated as one of the best culinary offerings of the area, says she decided to accept Bitcoins because of the ease, cheapness and transparency of its payment system.

“It’s an easier way of digital payment than credit cards, which cost me a lot of money as a business and to which I’m forced to sign up for years,” she says.

These two tradespeople are among around a dozen in the Graefekiez, a cosy neighborhood established in the 19th century in the southern Berlin district of Kreuzberg, which currently boasts the highest density of businesses accepting the currency in the world. Its growing list of Bitcoin establishments includes a restaurant, a printing shop, a bar and boutique.

“Kreuzberg is traditionally an area in which people are very politically aware, critical towards existing systems and are constantly discussing and looking for alternatives to them, which makes it the perfect breeding ground for Bitcoin,” says Joerg Platzer, a staunch Bitcoin advocate who roams the neighborhood with a missionary zeal in search of new recruits.

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Picture of the Day: Modern Monopoly!

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Wow, I hadn’t seen the modern version of the board game Monopoly in a while.  The one with the “All-New Electronic Banking Unit!”  Gotta get em young I suppose… Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

Chart of the Day: Inflation Since the American Revolution

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As is clear by this chart, inflation was virtually unheard of until the Creature from Jekyll Island (the Federal Reserve) took over.  However, more importantly, things didn’t really start to get bad until the 1970’s right after Nixon took the nation off the gold standard in 1971.  Since that time, America has seen a period of … Read more

Washington Post: “Markets Saved World” in 2012

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This is a brilliant piece of propaganda.  Central Planners are trying with all their might to force people into behaviors and financial assets that are in direct contrast to their logic as well as long term financial well being.  This is the height of immorality, not to mention hubris.  In the end, there is no chance of any of this working as the reality on the ground will overwhelm all of the manipulations and lies of the corrupt oligarch class.

From the Washington Post/Bloomberg article “Almost All of Wall Street Got 2012 Wrong as Markets Saved World”:

Blankfein was more prescient. “I tend to be a little more positive than what I’m hearing from other people,” the 58-year- old CEO told Bloomberg Television in an April 25 interview at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters. “One of the big risks that people have to contemplate is that things go right.”

Well of course Mr. Blankfein was optimistic.  He knows he has the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve in his back pocket and they will do whatever he says with one phone call.  Furthermore, if things go wrong you just get a bailout.  Crony Capitalism 101.  That’s how the World’s 100 Richest People Got $241 Billion Richer in 2012.

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World’s 100 Richest People Got $241 Billion Richer in 2012

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I am not an envious person, nor am I someone just trying to make as much money as possible.  If that was my goal I would’ve just stayed at my cushy and easy Wall Street job.  This isn’t about money, it is about the fact that the richest people in the world are merely abusing the monetary and political systems of their nations while pushing everyone else into deep debt servitude.  Moreover, now in the United States the oligarchs are attempting to disarm the population so that their fortunes are protected from the masses that they have just raped and pillaged.  From the Los Angeles Times:

The richest people on the planet got even richer in 2012, adding $241 billion to their collective net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 100 wealthiest individuals.

The aggregate net worth of the world’s top 100 stood at $1.9 trillion at the market close Dec. 31, according to the index. Of the people who appeared on the final ranking of 2012, only 16 registered a net loss for the 12-month period.

“Last year was a great one for the world’s billionaires,” said John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of Red Apple Group Inc., in an email written poolside on his BlackBerry in the Bahamas.

Meanwhile, as Spain descended into the gutter in 2012…

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Watch Ben Bernanke Panic as Reporter Asks a Question!

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Luke strikes again!  My favorite part is actually when then lady asks him “how did you get in here?”  How dare a lowly little serf get near the great magician Bernanke!   Like this post? Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G Follow me on Twitter.

Video Blog #2: What to Expect from the Fed Tomorrow

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Since nothing else moves the markets these days besides the utterances of insane Central Planners armed with printing presses, I figured it would be a good idea to preview tomorrow’s Fed decision.  I find the setup particularly interesting since the consensus seems to be expecting QE3 and I do not.  Have a watch! Like this … Read more

TWISTED

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Zealotry of either kind — the puritan’s need to regiment others or the victim’s passion for blaming everyone except himself — tends to produce a depressing civic stupidity. Each trait has about it the immobility of addiction. Victims become addicted to being victims:  they derive identity, innocence and a kind of devious power from sheer, … Read more

Jaime Dimon is a Welfare Baby

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There is nothing more annoying than seeing the giant “welfare baby” gangster named Jaime Dimon parade around dismissing criticism of the banks, acting as if he has skills, when in reality his entire existence would have vaporized if not for his ability to infinitely suck at the teat of the Federal Reserve. Hey, but don’t … Read more