Slashdot Mirror
Russia Secretly Helped Venezuela Launch a Cryptocurrency To Evade US Sanctions (time.com)
According to an exclusive report by Time, Russia helped Venezuelan officials create the world's first state-backed cryptocurrency to skirt U.S. sanctions. The cryptocurrency was launched in late February and was banned by the Trump administration earlier this week. From the report: The new cryptocurrency, a form of digital cash that is supposedly linked to the value of Venezuela's oil reserves, was launched on Feb. 20 during a ceremony in the presidential palace in Caracas. Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader of Venezuela, declared that it would serve as a kind of "kryptonite" against the power of the U.S government, which he sarcastically referred to as "Superman." Sitting in the front row at that ceremony were two of Maduro's Russian advisers, Denis Druzhkov and Fyodor Bogorodsky, whom the President thanked for aiding his fight against American "imperialism." Both men have ties to major Russian banks and billionaires close to the Kremlin. But they were not the most senior Russians involved. According to an executive at a Russian state bank who deals with cryptocurrencies, senior advisers to the Kremlin have overseen the effort in Venezuela, and President Vladimir Putin signed off on it last year. "People close to Putin, they told him this is how to avoid the sanctions," says the executive, who spoke to TIME on condition of anonymity. "This is how the whole thing started."
Biggest drug lord ever?
When Russian sanctions started, US intelligence agencies gave Putin a year or two before they ran into real economic shocks. Oil has stayed down, but no shocks. Putin is living off his bitcoin gains?
Or is this article just a test of how quickly Russian troll farms respond to Slashdot? Would that beef up readership for more ad dollars?
Geez, you can't even jump a shark when you can only play one note.
Water is wet, the sun rises in the east, bears shit in the woods, and BeauHD posts articles about Russia.
BeauHD must be a Russian bot!
a bit after a russian shill promotes the idea
Just the other day we have the exact same usual suspects who are on here accusing Trump of colluding with Russia to setup this currency... wait for it.. accusing Trump of being Hitler by banning the exact same currency in the U.S.: https://politics.slashdot.org/...
Typical brain-dead reaction around here.
or make a lot of bankers really pissed off, if all the nations that dont want to use the US petro-dollar for trade it could put a HUGE dent in the value of the dollar, which is not worth much nowadays anyway, i bet all those central banks around the world tied to the Rothschild bank and the Federal Reserve would be ready to start WW3 over it
"Capitalism is religion. Banks are churches. Wealth is heaven. Poverty is hell. Rich people are saints. Poor people are sinners. Commodities are blessings. Money is God." - Miguel D Lewis
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I do not think it means what you think it means.
But... but... but... Hillary Clinton lost the election and the only people who care about Putin's involvement in Venezuela's cryptocurrency are butt-hurt snowflakes who can't accept that their candidate lost.
They seem to be doing a great job of getting them to hook up with Russia. They're also keeping food and medicine out of the country. I'd like to say that at least we're not supporting a dictatorship, but that ship kinda sailed when Trump congratulated Putin on his victory. Helping the Saudis bomb Yemen isn't helping either. We don't have a lot of moral ground to stand on in that theater.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You know its not the government that will suffer, I hope it helped some people there. Why cant people just fucking get along...
[($)]
If the goal was just to evade US sanctions based on dollar, why not just trade oil in ruble or yuan?
Where would journalism be without them?
USA is much worse, has done terrible things to Russia. I am american and I think USA should not talk bad about the rest of the world when its own house is out of order.
Advice and consent? Try unwitting complicity.
Remember, Trump was literally stupid enough to ignore what his own advisers told him about congratulations for Putin.
Nobody wants his advice on anything.
Their citizens have suffered enough already. Why focus on one dictator when the world is full of them?
I'm glad Putin did it, even though he's an asshole in general, just like I'm glad Trump reduced H-1B "body-shop" application approvals even though I disagree with most his other stances. I'll give kudos to jerks when they accidentally do right.
Table-ized A.I.
The title screams "secret" like there was a deeply hidden conspiracy. It's not illegal to set up new cryptocurrencies. It also doesn't seem that the Russians tried to hide their involvement at all.
Since the U.S. has been undermining, attacking, or setting up proxy wars against Russia and all of its allies for more than a decade I would be surprised if Russia wasn't setting up payback in any way they can.
ignore what his own advisers told him about congratulations for Putin.
"Well sir, if you congratulate Putin like every other world leader, including Merkel, Macron, et cetera, is doing, the Democrats will remove the dildos from their asses and shove even larger ones in, for even louder REEEEEEEEing."
"And if I don't?"
"Same thing, just without keeping cordial relations with a nuclear power."
Top Russian leadership can code at that level, thats amazing.
Russian math education is really doing something right.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
We have a gazillion altcoins. Any idiot can start one. There was even a website that let you stick in a few bitcents and out came a fully re-branded model client. What is lacking in Venezuela that Russia needs to step in and do a thing that 14 year olds can do on their own?
To put them in place Obama had to claim Venezuela was a threat to the United States. Even a habitual liar as gifted as Obama had to struggle with that one.
And meanwhile, we're still merrily selling tens of billions in weapons to Saudi Arabia at a time. You know, the country where almost all the 911 hijackers were actually from, and a sponsor of jihadist groups across the middle east.
OK, so why did Trump's lawyer pay her $130,000 then?
It's not slander if it's true.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
The people complaining about Trump's call to Putin are pathetic. These are the same people who claim the US should be more diplomatic when solving disputes instead of just launching a few cruise and hell fire missiles at the problem. How in the hell will US and Russia relations improve if the leaders of both countries do not talk to each other? Railing against Russian behavior at the UN or any other diplomatic gathering is a waste of time. The only thing that would stop Russia in it's tracks is confronting them militarily through proxy countries. Russia is just trying to stay relevant in world affairs by any means possible. Russia is a 3rd world country with a nuclear arsenal. The state of California has a higher GDP than Russia.
You seem a bit obsessed with Hilliary Clinton.
This crypto currency stuff is going way too far.
It has no value. (beyond the obvious perceived value where it's worth what someone will pay for it)
In theory this venezuela thing could work. But I am pretty sure I can't just go pick up a barrel of oil at the terminal for it. And oil gets mined at different rates than the coins.
Computers crunching math doesn't make more oil get drilled or shipped.
I must say, this latest bout of inane hysteria in mainstream media has been funniest to date. "He did the exact same thing that pretty much every European leader did, must be collusion/treason".
Never seen such a direct admission that European leaders are also colluding/treasonous if narrative spun has any semblance of reality. Literally, everyone is guilty. Can it even be termed collusion if everyone does it? The proper name for universally accepted standard is usually "cooperation".
I am OK with other nations having whatever they chose. It is like other people's relationships. If they can't think for themselves, I have no business thinking for them. It is sympathetic that you empathise with suffering of fellow humans from a distant land, but you are deluding yourself thinking that you know exactly how they feel, what they want, and what they would trade for what else, if they could. And meddling in their affairs is just over the top - it is questionable at best, suspicious of ulterior motives at worst, and it certainly undermines some important principles like sovereignty and right to self-determination.
The whole issue could be true or it could be a lie. Most businesses will simply pay off a threat to avoid a trial even if they know they could win because the cost of the payoff is less than the cost of the bad publicity.
Whether or not it is true is irrelevant, what matters is she agreed to an NDA, signed it, took the money and is now trying to get around it because suddenly she sees there's more money to be made and her activist lawyer sees a way to try and tarnish Trump.
If they had a sexual relationship 10 years ago so what? That's between Mr. Trump and his wife. See, unlike with a previous President, she isn't making any claims of assault or rape and this did not happen in the Oval office. But when it was about Billy the media was all about "his private life", but no that won't do for Trump. The women Billy paid off or Hillary pressured were accusing him of violence against them. No such accusations here.
So this is nothing more than garbage passing as news to do no more than try and smear the duly elected President because the left and media after almost 18 months since losing still cannot accept that fact. He won, get over it.
It was garbage at Clinton's time too. One woman claimed sexual harassment because he asked for sex and exposed himself in 1991 (there was no assault). This was dismissed due to lack of damages and then brought up again because an intern who had a consensual affair couldn't shut up about it to a friend who recorded everything. Then the former settled out of court.
The biggest and most serious thing about it all was that everyone wanted to tell half truths and lies about their personal lives under oath. The "media" was mostly Fox News who wouldn't shut up about it well into Obama's presidency. It wasn't until Obamacare that they realized they didn't have enough air time to bash both.
If the media spends even half that time on Trump's lies.. it will never end. The interns of today will retire and they won't even be half way through.
I too am American and hate antirussia stories. I will definitely unsubscribe from Slashdot.ORG because of it!
he asked for sex and exposed himself in 1991 (there was no assault)
Actually exposing yourself to an unwilling person is Sexual Assault. The worst kind of assault.
Just a 7, to get a 10, they need nerve gas and controlling other countries elections and cyber warfare, as well. If Russia was serious about that, they would have done it themselves and not through Venezuela. The obvious partners are Russia and China, from there reaching out to other countries sick of US interference, that didn't happen so stories about Venezuela are just stories. Right now the US is confused, doesn't want Venezuelan oil any more due to falling demand in the near future for fossil fuels, renewables and electric cars doing the damage. So the high cost invasion of Venezuela on the back burner, no profit in it and the vested interests in the invasion have diminished influence, the war industrial complex, due to high risk of real terrorism in the US.
Right now manoeuvring around a likely South African civil war seems to be taking priority. As for oligarchs close to the Kremlim, pretty much yesterdays news, Russian Oligarchs under the thumb of the Russian technocracy is far more accurate and Russian organised crime is diminishing. Far more accurate to say USA kakistocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... vs Russia technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Russian governance has really changed in the last decade and US governance seems to be heading for change as well, at one stage it look like straight up Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but now it looks to be heading into some pretty serious reform. The UK is just disappearing up it owns backside and the EU just seems to be generally in turmoil not knowing which way to go but push for reform seems to be building. China and India have massive populations to deal with and that creates all sorts of distortions ie maintaining control.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The Russians secretly helped Venezuela by sitting in the front row at the launch ceremony. Good catch TIME
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
The worst kind?
STFU
Venezuela fricks up bitcoin like they did to the rest of their economy?
European leaders don't have the geopolitical role the US does (NATO lead, leader of the free world, etc.) nor is there reason to believe they acted against their career expert advisors suggestions, without warning, when they spoke with Putin, representing their own countries.
Also... since when do Americans feel their president should take the lead from European leaders on geopolitics?
Knownothing trolls and tools everywhere.
The CIA and the Media
But when it was about Billy the media was all about "his private life", but no that won't do for Trump.
Also, people forget all too quickly that what got Slick Willie an impeachment was not playing Hide the Cigar, but lying under oath.
I vaguely remember Russia supporting and test running Ethereum given it's russian background (maybe I'm mistaken) with Putin himself showing considerable interest in it.
It was garbage at Clinton's time too.
Agreed, so can we let this thing go?
Not on your life will the media let something like this go. Not when there is PROFIT to be made. Who cares about the president, or his wife? Who cares about the country? No, the major media outlets have gone tabloid news on us for money...
And by the way... Clinton was impeached for lying under oath in the Paula Jones civil suit... Not for the inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. But the media didn't care all that much then and didn't drag their darling president though the various wallowing hog pits of his past diligences with multiple women, willing and unwilling who where making claims of abuse dating back to Arkansas.
Clinton was obviously no choir boy and apparently his is an open marriage of political convenience, but I personally don't really care about any of it, as far as the media wants to be even handed about things.... Which is to say, I have to care about the hypocrisy here and will point it out when I see it. I don't care what the Clinton's or the Trump's do or don't do or even who they do it with, as long as we are fair about this..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Obama is a professional liar like every lawyer, it was not habitual nor was he gifted at lying.
After being elected to office, any politician trying to be popular MUST lie and since they are paid and maintain their job hinging upon that skill; therefore, politicians are professional liars.
National Security is the last resort excuse to justify anything and to the paranoid people with wild imaginations anything is honestly possible. Multiple cogent arguments can be made against Venezuela's threat... I disagree with most the premises upon which all of those are based but some people DO believe those. So to assume they lie when some batshit crazy decisions come out-- you underestimate the power of the dark side of the force.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
that's why. They thumbed their noses at global oligarchy by giving a lot of their oil money to the people at large. Chavez also seized land that was being left fallow for no reason (and did it in spectacular fashion, the well to do were declaring the land was worthless to avoid property taxes. He went to them and demanded they sell them the land at the value they'd declared or pay the back property taxes and fines from lying to the tax man).
Tl;DR: We're making an example out of them to support a political narrative.
This is not to say they're a bunch of knights in shining armor. As usual it's more complex than that. Venezuela is rife with corruption. But an unusually high amount of money made it to their working class. But their biggest problem was the price of oil collapsed before they could build an economy that isn't dependent on it. That and a drought that rendered their hydo electric plant useless. That's another thing, folks forget that Venezuela is only about 20 million people. It's small enough that one hydoelectric plant going down is a major economic issue. Add to that international sanctions that kept them from re-financing debt and they're screwed.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Merkel and Macron pointedly did not congratulate.
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified (made decentralized and paying variable interest) Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
The difference between assault and battery. Assault is the real threat of harm, battery is the actual physical act of harm. So sexual assault is the threat of sexual battery; sexual battery is when the criminal finishes up and says you should put some ice on that...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
As I said, if your position requires essentially everyone around you to be "knownothing trolls and tools", have you ever considered that it's not the world around you that is wrong, but you?
Consider that it's very beneficial for you to be wrong in that scenario. Because if you are wrong, you can fix it. If the world is wrong, you're fucked. Because world owes you nothing. It was here first.