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Cryptocurrency at a World's Glance

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While cryptocurrency may seem like a fad that has come and now gone, it is still present and countries around the world are still struggling to decide on how to deal with it. Cryptocurrency does not seem to be going away any time soon as it has sustained despite significant drops in value. The important matter to discuss is where countries stand in 2018 on regulating cryptocurrency. Source: CryptoStreet Starting off with the United States. There has yet to be any laws passed, but the general sentiment among the Treasury is that there does need to be regulatory measures put into place. However, then the decision has to be made whether cryptocurrency will be treated as currency or securities according to Bitcoin Magazine . What may seem insignificant to the average citizen is actually extremely concerning among non-US investors. If cryptocurrency is treated as a currency in the United States then it could be regulated at the national level. However, if it is treated as a security
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Global Unification on Cryptocurrency?

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Just this week there was a global forum called G20 and it is made of up 19 countries and the European Union. These 19 countries include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. During the event, the countries discussed cryptocurrency regulations. This could be a step toward international policies on cryptocurrency. Source: Motherboard According to Coindesk , Argentina Central Bank chair Frederico Sturzenegger announced in a press conference that they had set a hard deadline on July. At the deadline, they would know what "data" was needed to work on a policy to regulate cryptocurrency. However, despite Sturzenegger's words, the Brazil Central Bank president Ilan Goldfajn clarified that Brazil would not regulate cryptocurrency. This could pose a threat to regulation due to the anonymity of cryptocurrency as well
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Cryptocurrency Ready to Face the US Dollar

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Cryptocurrency is likely to replace the US dollar in the near future, except not in the United States. The Marshall Islands has already taken steps toward creating and implementing their own legal tender in the form of cryptocurrency. The Parliament voted to approve the cryptocurrency known as Sovereign . As outrageous as it sounds to make cryptocurrency legalized tender, the Marshall Islands is not alone. Source: World Maritime News Recently, Venezuela created its own cryptocurrency known as the Petro, which is the first example of a country creating official tender in the form of cryptocurrency. The goal is to improve the economic state of the country, which is in a state of despair, but through potentially illegal methods. The move to create cryptocurrency is a way to impede U.S. Financial Sanctions according to Stratfor . Something that Russia and Iran have discussed doing as well. However, the Marshall Islands currently use the US dollar and are not looking for a way to dodg
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Senate for Cryptocurrency

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Is our government getting on board with the idea of Bitcoin? Cryptocurrency is a major issue around the world recently as Bitcoin's value skyrocketed last year. This brought to the attention to governments the many illegal uses of cryptocurrency, such as tax evasion and money laundering. However, there was a Senate hearing by the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday February 6, 2018 that was very positive when it came to cryptocurrency. The chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Christopher Giancarlo, discussed the dangers associated with investing in Bitcoin, but also praised the blockchain technology. Then later he discussed how Bitcoin and blockchain are difficult to separate. They are essentially one and the same. Without Bitcoin there would be no distributed ledger technology—known as blockchain. Source: Tech Crunch This positive tone in the Senate hearing likely was the cause of the increase in Bitcoin's value after it plummeted below $9,000
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Bitcoin: Why Does Our Government even care?

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Bitcoin. It is a word that has been thrown around all over the news the past month, but what is it and why does our government care so much? Bitcoin is a type of digital currency that uses encryption techniques in order to regulate generation of the units of currency as well as to verify the transfer of funds. The key feature of the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is the anonymity that they offer. This is exactly what attracted many early users of Bitcoin . It was a way to make transactions (often illegal in nature) anonymously. Before cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Tor, this was simply not possible. The same feature that attracts many of Bitcoin owners, anonymity, is attracting the attention of the US government. One of the biggest concerns of the US government, as well as international governments, regarding cryptocurrencies in the news recently is tax evasion. According to TheStreet  a government file records that only 1,000 US citizens have reported cryptocurrency holdi
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