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We'll Never Legalize Bitcoin, Says Russian Minister (siliconangle.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In yet another backflip worthy of the Moscow Circus, a Russian minister has said that the country will never legalize bitcoin, just seven months after another government minister said it was considering making it legal. Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov made the statement this week, saying that "bitcoin is a foreign project for using blockchain technology, the Russian law will never consider bitcoin as a legal entity in the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation." Recognizing that blockchain technology is separate to bitcoin, Nikiforov went on to say that "I think that it is quite possible to use blockchain technology and the use of various digital tokens." Those tokens may constitute a Russian-issued cryptocurrency. TASS reported that "Russia's Communication Ministry has submitted to the government the document containing technical details related to cryptocurrencies adoption."
If Russia started selling it's oil & gas in BTC today's $9K a coin would soon look like a bargain price.
BTC is not a currency, it's a vehicle for speculation. Why would anyone spend a BTC to buy anything today when waiting even a few weeks or months results in massive gains? It's the same problem that any economy would experience with a rapidly appreciating currency. Why buy now when you can wait and buy more tomorrow? Eventually people stop using the rapidly appreciating currency for every day exchanges and it ceases to be a currency and becomes instead a speculative asset at best or the fodder for tomorrows burst bubble at worst. Look up the history of the tulip bubble or the South Sea Bubble or the Mississippi Company Bubble and you will understand that despite the novelty of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, we've seen this economic experiment before and we know what the end result will be.