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Blockchain University is live streaming the launch party with an evening of talks & a panel about Blockchain technology. Starting January 10 Blockchain University will commence its first course on Blockchain for developers, an 8 week course on Saturdays, in Mountain View, California. The initial launch session is open to the public. The video is viewable below and on the Blockchain University YouTube Channel. Live Stream Schedule (GMT-8) 6:30pm — Blockchain University Introduction 6:45pm — Blockchain Ecosystem Overview: Startups, Developers & Investors keynote by Adam Ludwin, Chain.com founder 7:00pm — Survey of Innovation in Blockchain-based Consensus Algorithms by Zaki Manian, skuchain co-founder 7:30pm — Panel on Blockchain technologies, startups & trends Speakers and Panelists: Ryan X. Charles, reddit Inc. @ryanxcharles […]

The post [Live Video Stream] Blockchain University Launch, Holiday Party & Panel appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

International Bitcoin exchange OKCoin today announced that it has taken over stewardship of Bitcoin.com. The eponymous Bitcoin website is owned by an anonymous individual who has chosen several different Bitcoin companies to manage the site over the last several years. Control of Bitcoin.com has passed from TradeHill to Blockchain.info and now to OKCoin. Also read: […]

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 Bitcoin spiked to north of $1,000 in late 2013, before starting a long decline in the current year. After some optimistic fluctuation, it has landed in a mid-$300 trading range that the virtual currency can’t seem to shake. Gone, for now it seems, are the go-go days of bitcoin heading straight north. Read More

Magazine publisher Time Inc. announced today its partnership with Coinbase to accept bitcoins for select magazine subscriptions. Readers of Fortune, Health, This Old House, and Travel + Leisure can now pay for their digital and print magazines with BTC. This makes Time Inc. the first major magazine publisher to accept bitcoin, and another major corporation to accept bitcoin after […]

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A student in the Netherlands has developed a cheap and censorship-resistant publishing service built on top of the bitcoin blockchain.

Russia's economy is in free fall. Part of that is due to dramatically declining oil prices. And part of it is due to international sanctions against the country.

This cheese story is about the latter part.

Back when the EU, Australia, Norway, Canada, and the US placed economic sanctions on Russia, Russia responded by banning a bunch of imports from all of them. That ban included a lot of food — meat, dairy, vegetables, and so on.

Unfortunately, people really like food — especially cheese. So in Russia, they've devised ways to circumvent this inconvenient ban when it comes to the good stuff.

Corner stores have become black-market cheese dealers.

"A sort of speakeasy scene for French and Italian cheeses evolved which was akin to buying drugs from 1980s bodegas in Brooklyn," one Moscow banker told Business Insider. "First, you walk into the bodega slowly, trying to wipe any suspicious look from your face. Then you pretend to look around the shelves for a while until the clerk recognizes you, at which point you and the clerk make eye contact and establish that metaphysical connection that signifies to both of you 'I'm here to cop an ounce.' You wait until there are no customers around, approach the clerk. He takes you to the back room, shows you the goods, you haggle over the price, shove the bag in your pocket, hand over the cash and bounce. Except here you're leaving the store with a ball of fresh Italian mozzarella..."

Or some amazing camembert, or brie ... You get the picture.

All this suffering, however, isn't necessarily making Russians dislike Putin. On the contrary, says our source, they're buying Putin's message that the country's economic woes can be blamed on a Western plot to hurt Russia.

"If you look at the way the elite that emerged from the '90s made their money, you'll realize that they essentially capitalized on ignorance by cheaply scooping up newly-privatized equity from an uneducated public," the banker said. "Physical certificates of stock were often exchanged on the street for bottles of vodka and that's not an exaggeration. In that sense, Russians are much less inclined to side with financial logic and more inclined to buy Mr. Putin's emotional message."

As long as that message remains, Russians will stay on Putin's side.

NOW WATCH: Here's The Formula For A Long And Happy Life From A 100-Year-Old Math Teacher

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The price of oil has fallen by half since the summer. The Russian ruble has collapsed. A bored, belligerent, and megalomaniacal dictator with a massive military is on the march...

So, what will happen next?

Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer says Vladimir Putin's response to this escalating crisis is likely to be "geopolitical," which doesn't sound comforting.

How about global markets and economies?

Will there be cascading ripple effects like those that followed the Russian crisis in the late 1990s? Or, for that matter, the early stages of the global financial crisis 7 years ago?

We reached out to one of the smartest market observers we know, economist and hedge fund manager Mark Dow of Dow Global Advisors for some thoughts.  Here's our summary of his current thinking:

* The fate of Russia's economy and banking system will depend on how "levered" the Russian economy is — in other words, how dependent it is on debt and other forms of credit. Mark does not have a good sense of this. [Based on some chatter we heard this morning, Russians are not yet rushing to Russian banks with wheelbarrows to yank out their rubles before they lose all their value, but this day might not be far away.]

* Some Russian oligarchs might see their fortunes demolished.

* The bigger story for the global economy is the collapse of oil prices, not the collapse of the ruble. The speed of the oil price crash will cause lots of reflection and re-examination on the part of investors. It will also likely lead to widespread "de-risking" — a flight to safe assets like Treasury bonds.

* It is the speed of the oil price crash that is important, not the magnitude. Rapid crashes like this catch people off guard. They also make them emotional and scared.

* Eventually, when the dust settles, cheaper oil will help stimulate the economy, but not as much as some people think. US consumers do not spend as big a percentage of their incomes on oil-based products as they used to.

Here's Mark:

I don't have a strong sense for how levered the domestic financial situation is in Russia. My sense is a few oligarchs will get caught out. And Putin will have to struggle to retain his popularity. But this is in no way like 1998. There was a ton of foreign and domestic leverage in the Russian economy then. I think oil is the factor to watch for global markets, not Russia.

The falling ruble is something people can and will point to if we continue to sell off, but I think this is really about oil for international markets.

There will be dislocations [from the oil crash] for sure. Also, it will help consumers less than people think (oil is a smaller share of household budgets these days), but a net positive.

The real problem is the speed of the decline forces people to reexamine their priors, convinced there is something going on they don't see. And in that reexamination they shed risk. Once the dust settles, it will be seen as a net positive.

The oil dislocations will come domestically from the paring back of exploration and production. Internationally, from the dependent exporting countries. But the speed factor is what has us so much on edge. The speed of the price change is almost always more important than the level for our psychology.

Stay tuned...

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Pinball machines have been created from a single meme, so why not base one on, say, all of them? Liberty Games decided to refurbish an old and busted "Baby Doll" machine with all the cats, doges and "winter is coming" memes they could wedge in, while...

Time Inc, publisher of magazines like Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, is now accepting bitcoin at select properties through Coinbase.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has issued temporary guidance for bitcoin businesses.

The market is continuing to break down as we have been expecting on these pages for the past several weeks.  While I believe that the bear market will come to an end rather soon, I also anticipate that the market may finish its bear season with a vicious roar. I have stated on more than […]

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BTC China has hired a former chief analyst from online payments giant Alipay, signalling a shift further into e-commerce.

Compared to other investments Bitcoin has been a bad performer of 2014, losing 52 percent against the US dollar, The Verge reports. But that’s good news, because the less Bitcoin is seen as a speculative currency, the easier it will be for Bitcoin to gain momentum as a technology. “{i]f you’re more interested in the […]

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The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) released a report today outlining action taken when businesses deal with digital currency such as Bitcoin in response to a senate inquiry. In their report, ASIC does not require Bitcoin exchanges to maintain any license because the commission does not believe digital currencies fall under the same definition […]

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MasterCard may be trying to stomp out Bitcoin in places like Australia, but what they’re not realizing is the fact that people want to use their Bitcoin to pay for everyday expenses, bills and utilities. Even still, rather than find a way to integrate Bitcoin technology into their business model, they’re trying to find a […]

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Reddit is the 9th most visited site in the US and ranks 36th for the entire world. Incorporating Bitcoin into Reddit would expose millions of people to the nascent technology. In the past week, Reddit Crypto Engineer Ryan Charles debuted on the Reddit Blog. The blog announced plans to integrate Reddit with Bitcoin’s blockchain technology […]

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VBTC Vietnam Co. Ltd. (VBTC.vn), an established Vietnamese Bitcoin exchange, has recently announced a partnership with Coinarch Pte. Ltd.. The two companies are partnering to launch a new service on Vietnam’s first Bitcoin exchange called “VBTC Plus” which will be Vietnam’s first Bitcoin leverage trading platform. Bitcoin leverage trading, or Bitcoin margin trading is an increasingly […]

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GEMS, the prospective social network looking to be the “Bitcoin of social networks” announced today that they will be utilizing the open-source Telegram app for its Android platform. Upon launch, GEMS users will be able to message users using the Telegram app or users utilizing any third-party messaging apps built on Telegram. Also read: Gems Seeks […]

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