Category Archive: currency

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Bitcoin can win the competition with Fiat currency

Some days ago the researchers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released a new whitepaper in which they explained that bitcoin and digital currencies can win the competition with Fiat currency, or the government money.
On April 3rd, in fact, Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde of the University of Pennsylviania and Daniel Sanches of the Bank of Philadelphia published an interesting paper that answers the question: “can competition among privately issued fiat currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum work?”.

Bitcoin vs Fiat 

In this whitepaper Villaverde and Sanches try to explain how private and digital forms of money can interact (and could win the competition) with government-issued money.
To comment about this topic, the authors talked about the rise of the Internet, thanks to it, in fact, digital currencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum can stand out in the competition with Fiat.
This is a comment of the whitepaper’s authors:
“Our model highlights how the issuing of a private currency is logically separated from banking. Both tasks were historically linked for logistical reasons: banks had a central location in the network of payments that made it easy for them to introduce currency in circulation”.

Downloadable whitepaper

Multicurrencies Wallet

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio
Welcome to Blockchain Club

HolyTransaction add-on for cryptocurrencies exchange rates

Recently we at HolyTransaction created a new add-on for the Firefox browser only to see the exchange rates for cryptocurrency pairs.

This add-on allows you to see the exchange rates between the most popular currencies using only a couple of clicks.
Exchange rates are available between dollar, euro, bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, dogecoin, dash, blackcoin and gridcoin.
The add-on’s simplicity provides you an easy way to have all the information you need before selling or buying your favorite cryptocurrencies.
The price is shown on your browser, according to your specific preferences. You can change the displayed number of decimal places in the user settings.

How to dowload the add-on

To download this HolyTransaction add-on, you just have to follow this step-by step guide:
  • Click on the Firefox Menu at the top right of the toolbar;
  • Click on “Add-on”;
  • Write “HolyTransaction” in the search at the top right of the page;
  • Click on “Add-on” on the left menu;
  • Click the “Download” button next to the HolyTransaction add-on.
  • You will find the exchage rates window at the top right of your toolbar.
You just need to click on the HT logo of HolyTransaction.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio

Japan wants to regulate Bitcoin as Currency

japan bitcoin
Yesterday we read about the decision of an American judge to define bitcoin as property, as according to him bitcoin is a intangible personal property rather than a currency.
 
This is a very important matter on which lots of words have been spent since Satoshi Nakamoto invented this cryptocurrency. In fact, this definition has a lot of implications on how bitcoin is regulated, especially in terms of VAT and taxation in general.
 
Well, today Japanese regulators stated the decision to propose bitcoin among the methods of payments, so to define the digital cryptocurrencies as conventional currency.
 
In fact, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) wants to make “revisions to legislation that would classify digital currencies as fulfilling the functions of currency”, reported Coindesk.
At the moment Japan recognizes bitcoin as a property and not as a currency, but:
“Under the FSA’s proposed definition, virtual currencies must serve as a medium of exchange, meaning that they can be used to purchase goods and services. They must also be exchangeable for legal tender through purchases or trades with an unspecified partner”, said an article by Nikkei.
This possible modification might be submitted during the current legislative session of the Japanese legislature which runs from 4th January to 1st June, even though this it is not official yet.

About the author: Amelia Tomasicchio is a writer and a journalist of Bitcoin-related news and articles. She started writing about Bitcoin in 2014 and she graduated in Rome with an essay about movie industry related to Bitcoin.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio

“Bitcoin is Property, Not Currency”, stated California Bankruptcy Court

Some days ago an American judge for the Northern District of California stated that bitcoin is a property and not a real currency.
This happened during a case in which US Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California heared HashFast, a bitcoin mining service that declared bankruptcy in 2014.
The case sees a fiduciary suing the HashFast promoter, Mark Lowe, because he wants his 3,000 BTC bank, amount that is said to have been illegally transferred to Lowe himself.

Bitcoin: property or currency?

The main problem turned to be the classification of bitcoin as a currency or a property: should bitcoin be considered as a currency, Lowe would have to return the 3,000 BTC at the value they held when he received them (almost $360,000).
But judge Dennis Montali on February 19th decided that bitcoin is a property, so Howe must return about $1.3m.
These were his words:
“I understand how the parties acted, but that doesn’t make them dollars”.
Montali said that he would return to the question, if required and Lowe would transfer the 3,000 bitcoins or the equivalent dollar amount.

Pasted cases and decisions

Previously the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stated that bitcoins are a commodity too. But in October, 2015, the European Union’s Court of Justice decided that bitcoins are a currency and they are tax free so exchanges don’t have to pay VAT.

About the author: Amelia Tomasicchio is a writer and a journalist of Bitcoin-related news and articles. She started writing about Bitcoin in 2014 and she graduated in Rome with an essay about movie industry related to Bitcoin.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio