Slashdot Mirror
Russia Bans Bitcoin
mask.of.sanity writes "Russia has banned digital currency Bitcoin under existing laws and dubbed use of the crypto-currency as 'suspicious'. The Central Bank of Russia considers Bitcoin as a form of 'money substitute' or 'money surrogate' (statement in Russian) which is restricted under Russian law. However, unlike use of restricted foreign currencies, Bitcoin has been outright banned. The US Library of Congress has issued a report examining the regulatory approaches national financial authorities have taken to the currency."
...if they catch you running an illegal operation using Bitcoins, the necessary bribe to the authorities just got bigger.
May she rest in peace. Slashdot 09-1997 - 02-2015
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
The introduction of Beta is like a nuclear power plant disaster where the site is currently a ghost town with no real discussion anymore but lamenting souls crying out the pain.
I mean, err, Fuck Beta
Russia declares BitCoin Gay!! Who's going to pull out of the Olympics over this one?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Well, guess I'd better use my mods points before they're worthless, huh? Anyway, Russia banning Bitcoin should remind all the Obama-haters and Putin-lovers that Russia still somewhat on the authoritarian side. I've never gotten the mindset that just because Putin likes to stick his finger in the American Empire's eye, that he's a strong supporter for human rights, liberty, etc. I will say that America probably has surpassed Russia in lack of real liberty in recent years (yeah, they'll throw you in jail for exercising free speech, but we're drowning in laws that we often don't know we're breaking until we get arrested and our lives ruined; they have an incarceration rate that is half of ours, etc), but that just means we're worse, not that they're better.
Well, it's not over until the fat lady sings. I wouldn't set a death date yet. But I have to say the site is quite messed up right now with all the comments talking only about the suckiness of Beta.
I do see two problematic things:
1) They already asked feedback Oct 1, 2013 and didn't listen us. Why would they this time? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
2) As you said, the Beta site is currently so far from something usable that they will have a lot of work ahead if they actually want to make it function properly.
In the '80s Reagan banned Soviet Russia
The Central Bank of Russia considers Bitcoin as a form of 'money substitute'
That is an insult. Regular money can be made "at will" by banks and the fact that it is only handed to society for usury ("interest") and some real-value things (like houses) as security, makes it drain any society at no cost to the banks themselves. The funny thing is that all banks can create money, but private persons are criminals when they do exactly the same.
Bitcoins do not come with built-in usury and cannot be made infinitely. Bitcoins do not have built-in discrimination about who can abuse who. Bitcoins are more than a money substitute: Bitcoins make sense. Our current money system does not.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
They've also banned /. beta. Not everything His Shirtlessness does is terrible.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Honestly its been two days can we stop bitching about the fucking beta?
If the answers to these questions are "yes", there is a need to continue our picketing.
This better continue until the site is improved by scrapping Beta as the failed project it has proven itself to be, and until Shravan Goli has been replaced with someone who understands this particular business and why people (and thus advertisers) come here.
I care about Slashdot. A great deal. So much so that I don't want to see it run into the ground. Which is exactly what will happen with the Beta - it is broken by design, and cannot be "incrementally improved" until it works as well as the flawed system I use now.
As long as the managers are unwilling to see this, shout it. Shout it louder. Don't let Slashdot die due to someone's pride and a vision of "unified" experience from someone who doesn't even understand that this is a contributor site, not an audience site, and the fundamental difference between the two.
You have the power to change the site.
You do not have the power to change the contributors.
When the two clash, keep in mind what people come here for, which attracts advertisers. Hint: It's not to look at the design or headlines.
Honestly its been two days can we stop bitching about the [expletive] beta?
Bitching about the beta actually still serves a useful purpose. It demonstrates that the primary use of the moderation system here is to push personal agendas rather than to objectively rate comments. Objectively speaking, your comment either should be left alone, because your point is obvious, or it should be promoted to +1, because it's valid. However, in terms of the prevailing agenda, your comment actually deserves its demotion from 0 to -1.
Moderators, thanks demonstrating the enforcement of Slashorthodoxy. I'm not sure whether or not my own comment is orthodox, but if you disagree with me that moderators here push their own agenda, feel free to demote it.
I can only agree. I was first put off a bit by the beta, but after using it for a while I find it to be an overall improvement compared to the classic theme.
No, bitcoin is the new Dollar. Soviet Russia had (at times) a full maximum sentence penalty (15 year was the maximum sentence in SU) for private Dollar trading. They are Ok with people holding dollars now. Now they can dilute the rubles in sync with diluting dollars. You can't dilute bitcoin, so you can expect both countries (and eventually Europe) to start having harsher and harsher penalties for it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I believe he would say, "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this beta."
#IamSlashdot
There is a serious benefit of Beta you are all ignoring. Productivity around the world is increasing due to people preferring to work instead of reading Slashdot.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
They have not yet made an acceptable response. therefore, f*** Beta. On my last few days here unless there is a total and unequivocal reversal of course on Dice' behalf
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It's only an increase if you convert it to something useful, like real currency before the market crashes. Which it will. Bitcoin wasn't "designed" to do anything useful. It's a science fair experiment. As with many other prototypes, it got rolled into production without any thought whatsoever, and it is causing chaos. I wish the experiment well. Perhaps the lessons learned after the inevitable crash and burn will inform the next digital currency, which may actually succeed.
Russia banning Bitcoin will have relatively little effect on the use of Bitcoin there since enforcement is highly selective and not dependant on established law.
OTOH if Russia bans it, the US (and its hangers-on) will have to think twice about banning Bitcoin. Heaven forbid the old foe gets it right, and first. Absent strong motivation, the US does not want to be seen as supporting Russia, particularly not ideologically on some matter of principle.
so you've read the white paper, then, I presume.
You know, the one that described the use case for the design and the foresight and theories of application.
What Alice Hill, President at Slashdot Media, writes on her Linked-In page:
...) while protecting their voice and brand integrity
Proven track record innovating and improving iconic websites
(Slashdot.org,
She's the one claiming to be responsible for this fuck-up. She's the one who needs nuking from orbit (it's the only way to be sure).
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Banning Bitcoin will make it much easier for the kleptocrats in control to take their cut.
The more you tighten your grip, the more the Slashdot community will fall through your fingers.
(BTW, we are a community and not "a audience".)
By definition, you are an audience. Even the banner for slashdot states that it is news for nerds. So, not only are you an audience, you are a targeted audience. A community is a group that holds common values. If you want to propose that slashdot viewers are a community, what are the common values that bind all of the viewers?
I'd say it's because of 'News for Nerds' chosen by Nerds and then commented on by Nerds in a relatively information dense way. Once in a while if you mine the comments then you can learn something interesting and useful. If there isn't anything worth reading you may have a decent opportunity to *write* something meaningful. Like bitcoin mining it becomes more difficult as time progresses and you have to put more energy into it.
I don't know what slashdot values mean to anyone else, however I know what they mean to me;
Slashdot was what I started reading (lurking) in 1998 and was pretty much my idea of what the Net should produce using this Web presentation layer. Like myself a lot of users here are actually professional geeks and nerds who have found a respectable balance between work and personal interest with /. and get very nervous when the interface gets tweeks or fucked with. I don't think there is a single IT shop in the world that has /. blacklisted and inaccessible.
I've accepted some of the changes as ok compromises or even neccessary but some of them, even in previous revisions, some changes turned me off. I have been trying the new beta and giving it a chance and I'll probably continue to do so because I value /. enough to give it a chance at least in a way that is more constructive that a single line post that says;
Fuck beta.
However I'm only doing so because I was under the impression that the classic view would continue to be available and not forced upon me. Now I see the rumbling that the classic view will not be available, I hope that is not the case. Let me put it this way, Slashdot had reached it's maturity a few revisions ago and it actually takes more energy to read now. After using the beta I'm not certain I can maintain that amount.
Hey Dice: Why can't you leave the classic view available at least then you won't drive away folk that have been here for a while. The more you change it the less I want to subscribe, every time I go to subscribe you make me less want to by changing it. If you want to derive more revenue why don't you 'Ask Slashdot', Slashdot?
I will probably participate in the boycott and it will be the longest period in time that I have gone by without reading /. since 1998. But I see dangerously similar parralells to jumping the shark or the Imperial phase of a band.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Say I mine for silver as a business in a big plot of land, zoned to make it legal. I mine tons of ricks and those rocks have lots of silver in them. I let the rocks stay as rocks as long as i want. Can I be taxed by the IRS on the amount of silver in the rocks that sit in a pile? The silver amount hasn't been realized. They are a pile of rocks (raw material). They have no value until i separate the silver. The silver can be stored in a closet. It has no value until it is realized as a form of currency or traded/sold off. The IRS can tax me off the money made selling the silver or jewelry made off the silver. But they cannot tax me off the rock sitting in my backyard.
Bitcoin has no inherent or realized value until it is used for a transaction. If i sell the bitcoin for USD then i can be taxed. If I use it to purchase a Tesla Roadster it can be taxed (the roadster purchase). The IRS cannot tax a bit sitting in a digital wallet until it's value has been realized or transacted upon.
Indeed, bitcoin is a protocol used to push around numerical value (which are counted is bitcoins, BTC).
Your IRS or any other tax service shouldn't tax bitcoin, just the same way that they don't tax your paypal account (as is litteraly putting a tax on the e-mail address itself) nor (for a more extreme metaphore) put a tax on your credit cards (litteraly taxing the actual bit of plastic with a "Visa" or "Master card" logo on them).
Bitcoin protocol is a mean to exchange value (except that you don't directly push around any official currency, but instead you push BTC around and convert to/from BTC using exchanges, payment processors, etc.)
This is exactly the same as paypal is a service used to do online payment, and as a credit card is a mean to do payment.
At the end of the day, a merchant using BTC as mean of payment, will exchange them to a local currencies (USD, EUR, whatever is here around) usually in a completely automatic manner (using a payment processor such as coinbase, bitpay, etc.)
So at the end of the day, a merchant will make revenue in local currency (USD, EUR) and that what the merchant has to declare as a revenue:
the flow of USD/EUR/etc. going to the merchant's bank account. The tax service shouldn't give a fuck is that money was conveyed using paper money at a cash register, or using commercial centralised payment methods like PayPal or MasterCard, or a distributed crypto-currency as bitcoin.
What matter is at the end of the day, a merchant made XXXX USD/EUR and has to pay taxes, social charges, inssurances, etc. from this amount.
Also, to the poster above: please stop spreading the disinformation that bitcoin can't be tracked. In fact, the whole security principle of bitcoin lies on the exact opposite: every single transaction is broadcasted to the whole network, so every single node is able to verify it.
The closest thing the bitcoin protocol has is "pseudonymity". Identity of parties in a transaction aren't directly disclosed in the clear:
- it's not 'Mr XXX, living at adress AAA' has sent bitcoins to 'Ms. YYYY living at BBBB'"
- it's more like 'account [public key 1]' has sent bitcoins to 'account [public key 2]'
On the other hand, if Ms. YYYY happens to be a merchant, she has the name and address of Mr. XXX and can map it to a public address. Government have enough ressouces to do such mapping on a large scale and completely remove any anonymity.
But you're shielded from your neighbours accidentally discovering that you spent money at a sex-shop.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I found the response acceptable. I find your self-righteous power-trip mob-raising rebuttal more objectionable. Enjoy your last few days here, and I'll enjoy each day after that.