THE DOLLAR VIGILANTE BLOG

Jeff Berwick in Acapulco interviews Wall Street and Bitcoin trader Tone Vays. Topics include: Wall Street, sound money, discovering bitcoin, cryptocurrencies ripe with trading opportunities, a great way to learn trading, calling the bottom, the limits of manipulation, Bitcoin as political and taxation safety, uncertainty in Europe, the importance of holding some BTC.

[The following article is by TDV Senior Analyst Ed Bugos]

Jeff interviews Bitcoin entrepreneur Tuur Demeester, topics include: unpegging of the Swiss franc, Swiss banking, the population held hostage by their central banks, the move to private currencies, Bitcoin as an insurance, governments to embrace Bitcoin, the religion of statism grows weaker, government shrinks, Bitcoin as the internet of property, Passport to Freedom, entrepreneurship, non-violence, especially to children!

[The following post is by TDV Contributor, Wendy McElroy]

Last December, a CBC News headline announced, “Cuba, US to restore diplomatic relations after 50-year rift.” Why now? The answer in one word: Venezuela.  

HUGO AND FIDEL, THE FRICK AND FRACK OF COMMUNISM

Venezuela is at the tipping point of a massive collapse. Grocery shelves are bare, with military personnel stationed at stores. Photographing the empty shelves is now a criminal offense. Even in the cities, it is impossible to find diapers, milk and other necessities for children. Average people will withstand state-created deprivations but they will not watch babies and children suffer.

Jeff interviews global investor Jayant Bhandari, topics include: Indian corruption and overwhelming bureaucracy, George Orwell's Animal Farm, Hinduism lacks moorings, US and Canada headed the same way, Indian shops flooded with Chinese goods, very low Indian productivity, Morality and Capitalism Conference, impressions of Cancun and Mexico.

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

All the talk last month was about a movie potentially being cancelled, The Interview.  In the end it wasn't cancelled and looks to have been one of the best marketing moves to get the movie massive attention.  This month the talk is about a serial mass-murdering hitman called American Sniper.

[The following post is by Scott Freeman]

Two events from the past week stand out as particularly memorable. One may or may not be remembered a year from now, depending on how things unfold going forward. The other – the Swiss franc revaluation – definitely will be.

The possibly memorable event I am referring to was the spike down in the bitcoin price to $160 / 900 RMB. If we consider the shake-out scenario discussed last week, we did indeed reach the $160 target price level, but the price did not remain under $180 for long. Those who bought at $160 did well, since the rebound went as high as $233.

Jeff interviews multi-entrepreneur and freedom lover, fellow Acapulco resident RG, topics include: E-Hookahs, reality TV comes to Acapulco, US rapidly being locked down, Eat to Live but Live it Up!, starting your own corporation and accessing capital, USSA making foreign places seem dangerous, Greece much freer than the US, expat networks, mentorship and mutual support.

Originally appeared at Bitcoinomics.Net

The Bitcoin Foundation has an image problem, and recently it took to Reddit to improve its reputation.

A common concern among the Bitcoin community is that The Bitcoin Foundation is playing softball with government agencies and paving the way for regulation on Bitcoin. Patrick Murck maintains that this is not the Foundation’s intentions:

[The following post is by TDV Chief-Editor, Jeff Berwick]

Things are really starting to go off the rails now.  The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) is coming to a rapid, volatile end.  It may not be this year but at this rate it would not surprise us if it was.

Many anti-bitcoiners like to point out the problem with bitcoin is that it is very volatile.  And, they are right, it is an issue.  Bitcoin recently flash crashed to nearly $150 and has now rebounded to over $200 as the Bitstamp exchange has re-opened without problem as we expected.

But bitcoin almost appears to be a beacon of stability compared to what is going on with the fiat currencies.

[The following post is an interview between Julia Tourianski & Jeff Berwick]

Jeff interviews Rapper and freedom fighter L – Dixon, topics include: the system is flawed!, Barry Cooper, getting people out of jail for victimless crimes, 30 years for marijuana seeds!, the war on drugs is a dark age, the framework for a new world is being built, decentralization, Bitcoin, 3D printers, the new system will render the old obsolete, the revolution/evolution will not be televised, seasteading, life in Mexico, Never Get Busted, Anarchapulco.

[The following post is by TDV Contributor, Scott Freeman]

Imagine that you are the CEO and largest shareholder of Acme Nano-Widgets, a market leading widget manufacturer. Things aren’t looking so great for Acme this year, but this is not yet general knowledge. What do you do if you want to maximize the value of your stock holdings? Do you hold on and hope for the best? Or do you take an active role instead? 

Jeff interviews Aiden Gregg, a professor of psychology from the University of Southampton in England, topics include: Psychology, Michael Heumer, the spread of Libertarian ideas, the exponential growth in Anarchists numbers, status quo bias, political psychology, Students For Liberty, Saxation – a thought experiment, beefing up the taxation is theft argument, Bitcoin, Anarchapulco is going viral!

[The following post is by Laissez Faire Books]

In 1880, the U.S. brought together a group they considered the world's smartest people to answer one pressing question…

What will New York City look like in 100 years?

New York was in full bloom. It was an unprecedented hub of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Yes, it was an exciting time to be a New Yorker. The world's first elevated train… underground subway… and with the first skyscraper in the hopper…

The Big Apple was changing how the world thought about — and lived — in cities.

So everyone was curious: What lies ahead for The City That Never Sleeps?

Originally appeared at Bitcoinomics.Net

1Broker is a simple and easy to use website which allows you to trade gold, silver and other markets via contract for differences (CFDs), which represent contracts between two parties in which the seller will pay to the buyer the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time.

You can trade the DAX, Dow Jones 30 Industrial (DOW 30) and S&P 500 indices can be traded in bitcoin denominations.

Hello from Anarchapulco Bay,

This is going to be, perhaps, painfully blunt.  That, actually, is very hard for someone who grew up in Kanada in the 70s and 80s where politeness was driven to the extreme… to the point where not holding the door open for a woman who was literally 20 metres away from the door would result in a beating.  Yes, that kind of passive agressive politeness.

That, actually, is what makes what I am about to say seem against my nature.  For, the craw in my nutsack, or whatever that saying is, is about another Kanadian, Stefan Molyneux.  Or, at least, he lives in Kanada… anyway, that's just geography.

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

The recent reports of a number of gunmen murdering some cartoonists/journalists in France has been front and center in mainstream media this week.  Here, at TDV, however, we are stoic, never over-react emotionally to events and always filter through information before we comment on them.

[The following post is by TDV Contributor, Wendy McElroy]

Roger Ver is a virtual currency millionaire who has been dubbed the Bitcoin Jesus because of his avid advocacy of the blockchain money, which includes his seeding many businesses that use it. Last year, the libertarian-anarchist became a citizen of the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis and renounced his American citizenship. Ver may be a bellwether of how the US plans to treat those who renounce their citizenship or who are otherwise inconvenient expats. 

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

In the early morning on January 5th, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, Bitstamp, stated, "We have reason to believe that one of Bitstamp’s operational wallets was compromised on January 4th, 2015.  As a security precaution against compromises Bitstamp only maintains a small fraction of customer bitcoins in online systems. Bitstamp maintains more than enough offline reserves to cover the compromised bitcoins."

Jeff interviews radio personality Mark Edge of Free Talk Live, topics include: Voluntarism, dealing with statist's questions, examples of anarchic systems, the royal family, Free Talk Live, big radio, pro Liberty radio vs Rush Limbaugh, Acapulco, Anarchapulco, the Free State Project, US dollar collapse, increasing citizen controls, growing police state, TSA, how the internet has changed everything, freedom in Mexico, internationalization and the permanent traveler/prior taxpayer (PT) lifestyle.