LIVE: Liberty Reserve Seizure: the Spark Regulation Demands for Bitcoin + Virtual Currencies?
Updated with full video – see below.
On today’s SiliconANGLE Live NewsDesk Show, (see live feed below or visit youtube.com/siliconangle to watch on-demand), we continue the discussion on the U.S. government closure and seizure of Liberty Reserve, alleging that the online company acted as “a financial hub of the cyber-crime world.”
Yesterday, U.S. federal law enforcement agencies announced the closure and seizure of Liberty Reserve, an online, virtual currency platform that the U.S. government alleges processed more than $6 billion in criminal proceeds over the past seven years. Liberty Reserve is a well known online money exchange that uses its own virtual currency, dubbed as the Liberty Reserve, or simply “LR”, to provide anonymous payment processing services for online customers. The ‘currency’ is somewhat similar to Bitcoin, only it faces a far more sinister side to it due to its total lack of regulation. With that being said, this could be a huge blow to Bitcoin’s momentum and future as a ‘currency’. Or is it?
Virtual currencies like Liberty Reserve and Bitcoin frighten governments, because of their ability to be used for money laundering, but also their attraction to consumers as a way to hide wealth and circumvent taxes. It seems the U.S. government is acting on this fear, despite the fact that platforms like Liberty Reserve also offer opportunities for legitimate business exchanges, especially in growing markets like Nigeria where PayPal is not an option. The promise of web-driven, international currency exchanges is a highly disruptive trend, bringing together digital and physical currency in a world not equipped for rapid economic fluctuation that’s relatively new and unregulated.
Joining us now to further the discussion of Liberty Reserve, Bitcoin, and virtual currency is SiliconANGLE Founding Editor Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins. (See the live broadcast, embed below ~ if you missed today’s topic, check our YouTube channel for archived clips.)
Some of the things we’ll be discussing with Hopkins include the U.S. government’s claims of Liberty Reserve fostering criminal transactions, the similarities between Bitcoin and Liberty Reserve, whether or not this will affect the U.S. economy, and why Hopkins believes this is not a dire consequence for the Bitcoin economy.
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