Corn Belt Pain Continues As Supply Trickles Into Markets

The pain being felt in the United States corn belt continues as low prices have reduced the flow of grain into the market to a trickle (archived). Archer Daniels Midland and other buyers are finding it necessary to raise their basis bids to get any new grain at all into their supply chains while farmers are forced to weigh how much of a loss they are willing to sell their crop for in order to plant the next crop. It remains to be seen how much to hodl farmers can muster and whether it will be enough to save their fortunes from the malaise affecting commodities on fiat markets. Sorry for your loss.

NACDL Amicus: Silk Road Warrant Unconstitutional According To 4th Amendment

As the build up to the Ross Ulbrict's appellate hearing continues, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has filed an amicus brief criticizing the unconstitutionality of the investigation which lead to the persecution of Ross Ulbricht. The move comes as militia operations motivated by other breaches of the United States constitution by the Federal government have resulted in the liberation of substantial portions of Oregon. Whether the appellate court follows Judge Katherine Forrest in rejecting sanity and constitutional limits remains to be seen. Continue reading

Concerns About United States Coal Industry Intensify

Peabody coal, the largest coal mining concern in the United States, faces concerns that it could follow its smaller competitors into bankruptcy (archived). Patriot Coal, Walter Energy, and Alpha Natural resources filed for bankruptcy last year while Arch Coal filed for bankruptcy on January 11th of this year. While oil has dominated the mainstream news cycle, the energy extraction industry as a whole is leading the fiat march to suffering. Continue reading

IMF: Bitcoin Features Present "Risks" To Us

In a recent blog post the International Monetary Fund presented a key feature of Bitcoin as a "risk" to its agenda, namely the one where Bitcoin allows people to transact without regard for various controls states would like to impose (archived). They further advocated the populist misconception that Bitcoin exists for the poor who have been excluded from existing financial services due to their poverty.

Bitstamp Bans Russia

Bitstamp declared in an email that they are banning access from all IP addresses originating from the Russian Federation to their website.. The email was posted on Bitcointalk citing a draft proposal, via Coindesk, for Russia to restrict surrogate money. Coindesk claims upon speaking with the deputy minister of finance, Alexey Moiseev, that there are plans to create laws to punish any individual attempting to convert cryptocurrency into Rubles. However, no official law has yet to be implemented banning the use of Bitcoin in Russia, and a draft proposal to amend the use of surrogate money was published on a Russian news outlet which states (translated):

cryptocurrency, production of which is not carried out on the territory of the Russian Federation, will no longer be money substitutes

If ratified the aforementioned amendments would not go into effect until sometime 2017, thus cryptocurrency produced outside of Russian jurisdiction would technically be legal. Bitstamp's preemptive banning of Russian customers, similar to that of Satoshi Dice blacklisting US-based IP addressed, seems completely unwarranted. It has yet to be confirmed whether or not the funds of Russian customers are accessible for withdrawal or have been "frozen" by the exchange.