Germany is first to offer official opinion on Bitcoin
An official statement out of Berlin is one big step toward legitimacy and acceptance for Bitcoin. Germany’s Ministry of Finance is on record acknowledging the digital currency as “private money” and a “currency unit,” meaning it’s something that can be taxed when used in commerce but not as a personal asset. Germany is in an especially interesting position to deliver the first official proclamation from a world government, as its economy is seen by many as the linchpin in the Eurozone. The acknowledgement on its part could be a good sign for Bitcoin users throughout the EU. Bitcoin has....
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Following the Covid-19 pandemic, the massive amount of stimulus, and amid the Ukraine-Russia war, Germany’s inflation has soared. Official data from Germany’s consumer price index (CPI) indicates that inflation jumped to a 10.9% annual pace in September and it’s the first time since the end of World War II that Germany has dealt with double-digit inflation.
German Inflation Skyrockets Tapping Double-Digits in September
All across the world, inflation rates have risen a great deal. Many economists believe that the energy crisis in Europe that is tied to the....
European Banks. In 2008, Europe followed the United States into a financial crisis, a crisis that was best described as caused by: "Too many people, borrowing money that they couldn't afford, from people they didn't know, to buy things they didn't need, so they could impress people that they didn't like." A German television documentary called "State secrets and Bank bailouts" was aired in Germany and France in March this year, and this documentary has raised some interesting issues. Two documentary makers in Germany, Harald Schumann and Arpad Bondi, became concerned that the popular....
Berlin has long been seen as something of a hub of bitcoin activity, but Germany as a whole has lagged slightly behind the UK in terms of bitcoin popularity... until now. For the first six months of the year, the UK was home to a higher number of downloads of the original bitcoin client (Bitcoin-Qt) than Germany. Since then, Germany has taken the lead, with 19,248 Bitcoin-Qt downloads taking place in the country from 1st July to the time of writing, compared with 16,826 in the UK. Those based in Germany have also been giving CoinDesk more attention over the past few months. In June and....
Back in August, Germany became the first country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as “private money.” Note this is not the same as legal tender. This, perhaps above all, is seen as legitimizing Bitcoin’s image worldwide, where prevailing narratives before mid-2013 or so focused on Silk Road and money launderers. In Germany itself, Bitcoin spenders and businesspeople are now free to engage in digital commerce without the fear that their activities put them on the wrong side of the law. But this designation has further implications in Germany and Europe. First, the currency’s decentralized....
Who ever said Bitcoin was make-believe Internet money? The digital currency, as it were, is now considered to be legal tender in Germany. A report from Progress.org indicated that Bitcoin has been deemed to be a "unit of account" by the German Finance Ministry. Frank Schaeffler of the German Parliament Finance Committee said, "We should have competition in the production of money. I have long been a proponent of Friedrich August von Hayek scheme to denationalize money. Bitcoins are a first step in this direction." "A free country should resist and not intervene in citizen's private choice....