Does Canada View Bitcoin as Currency?
My name is Matt Burgoyne and I'm an associate at Canadian legal firm McLeod Law. I'm involved with Canadian and international counsel in the developing area of virtual currency law, specifically including bitcoin currency. Does Canada consider bitcoin to be a real sovereign "currency" or simply a commodity? This question is particularly relevant given various bitcoin related news stories that have involved Canadian companies in recent weeks. First, as most have no doubt heard, there is at least one bitcoin ATM operating in a Vancouver coffee shop, and according to a Vancouver Sun article....
Related News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKawxWMfbA. From video description: Michael Perklin (Bitcoin Alliance of Canada), Francis Pouliot (Bitcoin Embassy/Bitcoin Foundation Canada), Jillian Friedman (Bitcoin Foundation Canada), Guillaume Babin-Tremblay (Bitcoin Foundation Canada), Stuart Hoegner (Bitcoin Alliance of Canada).
There's been a whole lot of innovation in the world of bitcoin going on in Canada. Just this morning we reported of CoinTap's business coming to life in a Canadian pub. Wednesday, we reported that another bitcoin ATM in Canada would start operating in Ottawa Thursday. All through the the Canadian government has been relatively silent. Until now, that is. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a government official in the country has said that bitcoin is not recognized as legal tender within their borders. "Only Canadian bank notes and coins are recognized as legal tender in Canada.....
The Bank of Canada is looking into possibly issuing its digital currency like Bitcoin, according to a senior official in the bank, CBC News reports. Carolyn Wilkins, the bank's senior deputy governor, said so in a keynote address entitled, "Money in a Digital World" at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, her alma mater. At the same time, she said that the bank is keeping a close eye on both benefits and drawbacks of digital currency. Wilkins says Bitcoin and other digital currencies have a long way to go before they can truly circumvent central banks, since the daily number of....
Recent posts from Canada describe steps that have been taken in this country forward bitcoin popularization, including launching of ATM in a coffee shop in Vancouver. Moreover, during the only one week of bitcoin ATM work in Vancouver, over 100,000 Canadian dollars were traded. Since then, the operators of bitcoin ATM – Bitconiacs company stated that other cities in Canada are also ready to launch similar ATM quite soon. In the beginning of November 2013 the Canadian government and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has published an official release on bitcoin - entitled ‘What you should know....
More and more shops and companies start accepting this currency. There are a whole lot of bitcoin casinos in Canada. What do you think of bitcoin? Have you ever used it? You know, bitcoin is cryptocurrency, a new world’s currency that was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto early 2009. Despite the comparatively short history, lots of people worldwide have already had their own opinion about this type of currency. Some think that bitcoin is the currency of the next generation. Others consider it disruptive. There are many people who believe that bitcoin is a worthy substitution for the existing....