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Trump Bans Venezuela's New National Cryptocurrency (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday banning any transactions within the United States involving any digital currency issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela. The order applies to U.S. citizens as well as anyone within the United States, and includes cryptocurrency issued on or after January 9. President Trump's order is in response to recent attempts by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's regime to "circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency," the White House said in a statement. Venezuela launched its oil-backed cryptocurrency in February to help pull the country out of a continuing economic crisis. President Maduro said each petro token will be backed by one barrel of the state's national petroleum. Maduro also said roughly 100 million tokens would be issued -- estimated to be worth around $6 billion. Bitcoin prices dropped about $200 to around $8,388, according to Coinbase, following the order.
I'm going to say no. He's not telling the government what to do. He's trying to make something illegal (aka against the law).
He's trying to cite emergency powers:
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)
And I think it would be awfully hard to call this a national emergency for us. On the other hand, it was Barack Obama that called it an emergency, and this new executive order merely cites it: https://www.federalregister.go...
So yes, these executive orders are getting out of hand.
The embargo of trade with Cuba was initiated by an executive order, so there's strong precedence for it.
"Banning" cryptocurrency is akin to trying to ban Math. Yeah, good luck with that.
Banning math is not exactly new.
It is fairly common for /.-ers to not bother reading TFA. But the answers to your "sarcastic" questions are right there in the write-up — you didn't have to click away to read them...
The executive order bans transactions — not ownership. If you own it, you aren't subject to any punishment until you try to sell it.
If you are a US citizen, you will be violating the order — and become subject to whatever punishment prescribed. Not very different from the ban on travel to Cuba, for example — it was illegal, but people did manage to get away with it.
Perhaps more importantly is why would you seek to circumvent this one... Maduro's government is even more stupid and evil than Chavez' was — and Chavez managed to not only destroy Venezuela's economy, the rate of murders and rapes quadrupled during the first 15 years of his rein (even before oil price tanked). Are you just as critical about US sanctions against Russia?..
If, as I suspect, you are motivated simply by the desire to "stick it" to Trump, I urge you to move to Venezuela permanently...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Bitcoin prices dropped about $200 to around $8,388, according to Coinbase, following the order.
Bitcoin prices fell way more than that the day before, because someone farted in a trading room I assume. And now they are going back up. This stuff's really volatile, a $200 price change is just noise.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Typical comment section troll; has no idea of the contents that he's commenting on. As all other executive orders do, this executive order lists the laws cited in the first paragraph: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,"
Congress already gave him the authority: 50 U.S. Code  1701 and 50 U.S. Code  1702
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
on Venezuela while we help the Saudi's bomb Yemen? I get that they're government is sketchy, but we support something like 80% of the world's dictatorships. If we're trying to take the high ground on Democracy that boat has sailed, circumnavigated the globe and returned laden with exotic spice (joke shamelessly stolen from Yatzee of Zero Punctuation fame)
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Why is AC being downmodded - Trump can't even get the courts to allow things he *is* allowed to regulate, like immigration. Nothing about this is an emergency - Venezuela isn't going to take the pennies Americans might throw at their new currency and build WMDs with it. If there's fear that the new currency will somehow take away our stranglehold on the price of oil, banning it from America will do fuck all to stop the global markets from using it anyway.
Just as you are supposed NOT to spend your money on goods sold by ISIS, you are not supposed to buy Venezuelan bonds, including the petro.
In that case I wonder why Citgo is still allowed to operate in the US. Oh yeah, because entrenched interests like it that way. Funny how calls of "national security" don't apply when influential people with large amounts of money stand to lose it...
Per executive order 13692, you cannot send any property to Venezuela. The IRS considers cryptocurrencies as property. Thus trading - sending or buying - in Venezuelan crypto is not legal. Unless, of course, the underlying executive order is illegal - but that's not been determined yet.
Based on the above, it is quite clear that President Trump didn't add anything new, just explicitly listed Venezuela's cryptocurrency as banned - which it already was, per the earlier EO and existing IRS statutes.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Funny how calls of "national security"
National security is a nice catch all phrase that they use when they want to do a end run around the law and strip you of your rights. Unless its about guns, then its "think of the children."
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Norway, Sweden, Finland. Germany, France, and Italy have socialist tendencies as well. Unchecked corporate greed gets you 'murika which is demonstrably bad for most.
Only I can judge you.