
UK Is Leading the Way to Become a Global Bitcoin Hub - binjoi
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/31/uk-is-leading-the-way-to-become-a-global-bitcoin-hub/
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vasilipupkin
“While existing private digital currencies have economic flaws which make them
volatile, the distributed ledger technology that their payment systems rely on
may have considerable promise,” the Bank of England wrote in February.

So, can someone explain to me, how the distributed ledger ( blockchain ) can
be used without necessarily betting on the digital currency itself functioning
well ?

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jackgavigan
You don't need a currency to have a blockchain. A group of counterparties
could work together to create their own closed/permissioned blockchain as a
decentralised mechanism for recording transactions of, say, securities or
real-time gross settlement.

This is what companies like Eris Industries and Hyperledger/Digital Asset
Holdings are focused on.

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yarrel
They can but I'm very wary of systems that don't have Bitcoin's closed loop of
economic incentives for maintaining the blockchain.

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baseballmerpeak
UK is _Leading the Way to Tax and Regulate Bitcoin_

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mtgx
Except for that whole encryption backdoor stuff.

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dingaling
Ha, that's a laugh given the first two UK banks with whom I dealt ( Santander
and Ulster Bank ) refused to transfer _my_ money, from _my_ UK accounts, to
Bitstamp's account in Slovenia.

I even went down to the branches to try but the tellers could only say that it
was a system-imposed block.

Credit to Halifax for not having blocked that account at the time. Certainly
they took their pound of flesh in international 'transfer' fees, though...

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coob
Could you not have used Transferwise?

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Ended
Transferwise doesn't process transfers to bitcoin exchanges:
[https://transferwise.com/blog/2013-04/notice-to-bitcoin-
user...](https://transferwise.com/blog/2013-04/notice-to-bitcoin-users-
april-2013/)

