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U.S. bans transactions with Venezuela's digital currency
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order barring any U.S.-based financial transactions involving Venezuela's new petro cryptocurrency, as U.S. officials warned that it was a "scam" by President Nicolas Maduro's government to further undermine democracy in the OPEC country.
"The 'petro' is a desperate effort by a corrupt regime to defraud international investors," a senior U.S. administration official told reporters, strongly warning that any transactions in the petro digital currency would violate U.S. sanctions. "Investing in the 'petro' should be viewed as directly supporting this dictatorship and its attempts to undermine the democratic order in Venezuela," the official added.
Trump's order bars "all transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token," issued by Venezuela's government since Jan. 9, the White House said in a statement.
Also at the New York Times.
Previously: Enter the "Petro": Venezuela to Launch Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:45AM (24 children)
I have been on the fence regarding this whole bitcoin thing. God only knows if I had done some serious thing about it back in 2008 then I would have been in a different situation, but if USA is afraid of a having cryptocurrency backed oil dealings, then this is some serious shit I need to figure out. This ain't going away no matter what.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:01AM (17 children)
The fact that Bitcoin enabled a know-nothing 20-something-year-old to set up a website that flaunted Uncle Sam's War on Drugs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars should have been enough to convince you of Bitcoin's worth.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:23AM (16 children)
I got scared of providing credit card details.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:38AM
Cuban cigar indeed /monocle
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:50AM (2 children)
Yup... that's my number one thing about money transfers as well.
There are some cards out there which enable me to spawn off temporary charge numbers, but I have not figured out how to do that yet.
It requires a great deal of trust from me for me to give my credit card credentials to anyone. Believe me, any trust I have for a business can rapidly be depleted by "businesstalk*", as if the business talks tricky before I do business with him, is giving him any of my business going to make him honest?
*Up-to, as low as, with qualified purchase, other terms and conditions apply, highest STARTING speed, results not typical, lose 4 times the weight, and other completely meaningless business phrases used when communicating to their customer. These business phrases translate roughly to "give us your money at your own risk, we may screw you, and by your agreeing to our phrase, you surrender all recourse should we do what we say we might do to you."
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:54AM (1 child)
If your credit card details get stolen, you can just cancel the charges and get a new card.
(Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 21 2018, @07:57AM
But now that I'm on the topic of identity theft, I have the opportunity to inform you that my social is 518-92-8663
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:32AM (9 children)
With credit cards when shit happens it's not my money that's gone. Others may try to claim I owe them money but meanwhile I have my money and thus more options.
With cash when shit happens, that cash is gone. I can try to get it back, but meanwhile I'm out of that money and thus have fewer options. Similar for debit cards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @08:23AM (7 children)
Safer than cash, huh? Well, if you don't value your privacy and anonymity, anyway.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @09:01AM (1 child)
Buying food at the grocery store? You can use your damn credit card. Buying certain stuff at the hardware store? Pay cash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:51AM
I use cash for both. No need to allow companies to track me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:52AM (4 children)
Yes using credit cards does make it easier for the government to know where I eat, what I like to eat and what I buy and where I shop, but if I'm ever an enemy of the government my safety isn't significantly higher if I was solely using cash before that happened.
Because whether I use cash or not they already know where I live and where I work.
Yes using credit cards would be unsafe AFTER the government decides I'm an enemy. But if that ever happens and I somehow managed to escape (yeah right) I would be buying different stuff and eating at different places too. Like maybe in a different country.
So if you want to be safer in such scenarios you should have huge piles of cash stashed away and use credit cards for most "normal" stuff. This way you'd have more cash available - since you probably wouldn't be paying your credit card bills in such scenarios ;).
The government probably keeps a closer eye on people who completely don't use credit cards but buy expensive stuff with cash...
As for other enemies, for online- whether I use credit cards or not doesn't help them find my real identity from my posts here or other forums. For offline - they can probably figure out where I live and it's nothing to do with whether I use a credit card or not.
Of course if I paid for a forum subscription (or whatever else that links me to that forum ID - game account) with a credit card then yes it's traceable. But the last I checked SN doesn't allow you to pay for subscriptions anonymously with cash e.g. send them a letter with cash and a UID. You have to use stuff like PayPal which is far from anonymous.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @01:43PM
Governments aren't the only adversaries after your personal information.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:49PM (1 child)
So I went to the local middle eastern food market recently, and decided to pay cash. That should keep me off a few lists, I think, except before I even finish shopping, Google Maps is asking me questions about the place. So the whole credit card versus cash thing is only a sliver of the privacy war.
By the way, they had 12 different brands of grape leaves in jars on the shelf! I don't know if that points to a chaotic supply chain, or a severely segmented market.
Oh, and since it bothers me, flaut vs. flaunt [quickanddirtytips.com]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday March 22 2018, @02:30AM
Come now, obviously the folks advocating for cash only are also, mobile phone free, doesn't use the internet, live in a mobile home with make shift tin-foil hat they put on upon entering their humble abode.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:58AM
It matters because privacy is inherently desirable to me. I simply do not want companies or governments collecting information about me, regardless of what they do with it.
I'm also not confident that companies won't think of various schemes to use the data against me that I didn't even think of. For example, insurance companies raising premiums based on what food you buy. They pay people to figure out ways to use the data to generate a profit, so they have more time to think about this than we do.
Also, the government could easily get a hold of the data if companies possess it.
But if you pay with cash, they will know much less about you. I won't hand over everything on a silver platter.
How do you know they've decided you're an enemy if you're on a secret list? How do you know their criteria? The reality is that some people end up on these secret lists simply because they have the same name as some 'bad guy'.
Also, by then, it is too late; they already have tons of data about you.
Nonsense. They can't yet closely scrutinize everyone. By constantly trying to avoid surveillance even if your activities are completely mundane, you provide a cover for those who need privacy more than you. Make them waste their resources.
This is that toxic 'Just give up and surrender everything' attitude that inevitably results in the destruction of our liberties. Such shallow thinking.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:17PM
Yes, I understand that. I use credit cards myself, I just couldn't bring myself to use it to buy bitcoins.
All in all, let me say again
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)
mine alt coins. convert to whatever coins you want to hold.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:16AM
Interesting idea.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 21 2018, @07:53AM
I started with wp's bitcoin then blockchain both were very good articles
There is a wiki somewhere that has all the gory details
And there is a Medium article that explains that cryptocurrencies are an asset class that facilitates censorship resistant distributed applications
Bitcoin really isn't useful for anything other than raw seething naked speculation. It's transactions take so long to settle that BTC is no longer useful as a medium of exchange
But etherium's smart contracts make eth useful for all manner of things
I regard ICOs as a wise investment when the companies behind them aren't fraudulent. There are some ICO dating sites - read those first
And when crypto skyrockets turn around and run as fast and as far as you can: I lost $885 on TRON
If your in the US of A or the great white north, Bitmains Antminer L3+ LiteCoin rig can use 110 volts. All their other rigs require 220.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 21 2018, @07:59AM (3 children)
USA will be afraid for anything transacting oil which is not bound to USD [huffingtonpost.com].
And today's China won't bulge to economic sanctions, I guess such things will seem amusing to them, at first at least. If China wants to buy Venezuelan oil in yaun or crypto-currency, it will give little attention about what Trump has to say.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:18AM (2 children)
And Europe is using Euro?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:32PM (1 child)
For the time being, the only country that is using other currency than petro-dollar is... Iran. [wikipedia.org]
There was another one who tried to peg oil to another currency, but was too weak for his grand pride to stand on its own [globalresearch.ca]. By contrast, it seems that the Iranians have the common-sense to appease some other economic powers (in this case, Europe) in place of bending to the will of US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:20PM
Not any more http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/18/chinas-bid-upend-global-oil-market-petroyuan-shanghai [foreignpolicy.com]
Let's see how it turns out.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Funny) by requerdanos on Wednesday March 21 2018, @03:49PM
So, two things I can name that the US has banned buying from Spanish-speaking neighbor nations.