The Guardian called Berlin “the Bitcoin-capital of Europe.” Since then, Fin-tech has continued to expand in a European city. Today, in Berlin, you can buy real estate for cryptocurrency, book a trip or drink and eat in a large number of trendy bars. You can even get an education for cryptocurrency. In December 2016, the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) was one of the first to start accepting payments for its courses in various cryptocurrencies. They currently accept Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Dash. The Financial Director of ESMT, Georg Garlichs, explained to journalists why the school started accepting cryptocurrencies: “Like SMS, digital currency allows you to make international money transfers within a few minutes without a bank. ESMT is an innovative and future-oriented business school.”
Bitcoin payments have been popular in Berlin for some time. Leuchtstoff Kaffeebar is one of those cafes where you can drink a cup of invigorating espresso and pay for it with cryptocurrency. For owners such as Niels Göttsch, digital currencies are exciting innovations and no additional bank fees: “There are no political solutions. The algorithm is completely transparent for everyone,” he admires with cryptocurrencies. What to say about the IT sector, where cryptocurrency turnover has become a matter of course. However, despite the European tolerance for cryptocurrency, Europe has not become the market leader. Today, the lion’s share of all operations with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is in Asia, which sets the tone for the market. ¹⁶
However, it is good that recently Bitcoin almost got the status of a monetary unit in Germany. This is how the local regulator of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) interpreted cryptocurrency. However, the court quickly “corrected” the situation and noted that the authorities of the country cannot interpret the laws as they please. ¹¹⁰
In the USA, it has recently become possible to purchase coffee at Starbucks for Bitcoin.
All these examples are also just the tip of the iceberg. I have never paid with cryptocurrency yet, but I hope in the future that I will use it a lot. In fact, Bitcoin is gaining momentum every day. It is believed that the most loyal to Bitcoin countries are the USA, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and China. There is information that payments are made in Bitcoin by the computer corporation Microsoft, the developers and manufacturers of computer systems DELL, the ticket search service Expedia, and the airline airBaltic. ¹⁷
According to cryptocompare.com, Bitcoin’s market capitalization is more than $110 billion. According to coin. dance, Bitcoin is allowed in 110 countries, and its price has increased by + $6,565.05 or +132,895.75% over the past 7 years. And according to the report of the company Diar, venture investments in the blockchain and cryptocurrency increased by 280% – investments almost tripled in the first three quarters of 2018.
Violence against cryptocurrency owners
Unfortunately, there has also been violence in the field of cryptocurrency. After all, cryptocurrency owners are owners of big money. And where there is big money – there will be swindlers and criminals.
So, on July 9, 2018, Bitcoin Core developer Jameson Lopp launched a repository (github.com/jlopp/physical-Bitcoin-attacks) in which he collected and documented cases of physical violence against Bitcoin owners from both criminal elements and law enforcement agencies. The resource is available on GitHub and currently holds more than 40 different incidents that took place since December 2014, when police special forces broke into Hel Finney’s house in Santa Barbara. He is a famous American programmer and one of the first Bitcoin users; he received the first Bitcoin transaction of 10 coins from the creator project Satoshi Nakamoto.
The list also included incidents that occurred throughout the world, including cases of extortion of cryptocurrency under the threat of death, theft from Bitcoin ATMs and theft of mining equipment.
The list includes the abduction of the leading analyst of the EXMO cryptocurrency exchange, Pavel Lerner in Kiev at the end of 2017, the robbery of the founder of the “Kryptach” YouTube channel Pavel Nyashin (Makushin), who unfortunately was found hanged, stealing $100,000 in Bitcoins from Russian blogger Maxim Lotsok on the island of Phuket in Thailand, as well as the theft of 300 BTC from one of the creators of cryptocurrency, Prizm Yuri Mayorov in April in Moscow.
As Jameson Lopp (one of the most well-known developers of Bitcoin), whose home in North Carolina in October 2017 was nearly taken by assault by US special forces, notes, 23 of the listed incidents involved physical violence. And only in one case could the victim of the criminals defend himself successfully – this is about localbitcoins trader Ryan Rice from Miami, who they tried to rob during a deal to sell Bitcoins.
One of the last documented cases of attempted robbery was recorded on October 15, 2018 in Oslo, Norway when a 24-year-old man was murdered in his home after exchanging large sum of BTC.
In addition, on December 15, 2017, representatives of the main investigative department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) with two witnesses entered the apartment of the founder of ForkLog Anatoly Kaplan in Odessa to start the search. Formally, the basis for the search was the criminal proceedings against a group of persons from the United States and Ukraine, who, according to investigators, developed a criminal scheme to seize money from third-party payment cards. During the search, the SBU officers seized several devices with cryptocurrencies stored on them, a laptop and other personal belongings of Anatoly Kaplan. At the same time, one of the officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) attempted to withdraw Bitcoins to his wallet during the search. Also, the very next day, 305 ETHs were withdrawn from Anatoly’s Ethereum wallet. At the same time, the search took place at the ForkLog office in Odessa, and as a result, the company’s cash, all the equipment (about ten iMac devices) and a bottle of Kraken rum were confiscated. ¹⁸
I hope the criminals got what they deserved, and the Jameson Lopp repository will no longer be replenished.
A brief history of Bitcoin. Interesting facts
Perhaps, after reading a little bit, you will have your own, independent opinion about Bitcoin. I really hope that you will see the advantages of Bitcoin over ordinary fiat (paper) money. I want you to also realize what benefits you can get from it. Of course, you should not invest all your savings in Bitcoin. But, as it seems to me, this asset should appear in each of our investment portfolios.
If you want to learn a little more about Bitcoin, I recommend that you watch the documentary “Ascent of Bitcoin” (2014), as well as the movie “State VS Bitcoin” from BitNovosti. A lot of useful information can be found also on the website Bitcoin.org. And if you don’t have much time, I’ll briefly tell you about its appearance. So, the author and developer of Bitcoin is a kind of mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (perhaps this is even a group of people). Until now, virtually nothing is known about him, and the creator has never appeared to the world.
In 2008, a file was published in the network with a description of the protocol and the principle of the payment system in the form of a peer-to-peer network. According to Satoshi, the development began in 2007. In 2009, he completed the development of the protocol and published the code of the client program.
On January 3, 2009, the first block and the first 50 Bitcoins were generated. The first Bitcoin transfer transaction took place on January 12, 2009 – Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 Bitcoins to Hal Finney. The first exchange of Bitcoins for national money occurred in September 2009 – Martti Malmi sent to the user with the alias NewLibertyStandard 5050 Bitcoins, for which he received about $5 in his PayPal account.
The first exchange of Bitcoins for real goods occurred in May 2010 – the American Laszlo Hanyecz received 10 pizzas from delivery for 10,000 Bitcoins. ¹⁰
On May 22, the Bitcoin community around the world celebrated the so-called Pizza Day, which can also be fairly called the most expensive pizza in the world during the day. It was on this day, May 22, 2010, that a Las Vegas programmer, Laszlo