Quote from: simulacrum on February 02, 2014, 01:51:38 PM

Quote from: BTCisthefuture on January 30, 2014, 04:27:53 AM

I started to look into this and quickly started to realize it seems to just be a case of a journalist/newspaper over exagerating things and coming up with a shock story title to get views. I havent seen any other articles suggesting anyone would go to jail simply for using bitcoin...only that current finincal crimes would apply to bitcoin as well.

Doesn't seem to be much "news" here , just a single paper/journalist using shock journalism to get views...and it appears like it worked as this article is getting more views than any of the other articles about russia that point out russia only said if you commit a crime with bitcion it's treated the same as if you commit a crime with fiat.

In case anyone still thinks this was "just" media hype, the first thing I would say is that media hype in Russia (especially via state-owned media) is often the preferred method for signalling how the authorities feel about something, and maybe preparing the country for upcoming policy or legislation.

The CBR announcement (link below) specifically states that "the issuing of currency surrogates in the Russian Federation is prohibited." They may not be planning to arrest everyone with a BTC-E account, but they are saying that the Bitcoin economy is not welcome in Russia.

(One potential implication: this could be problematic for Russia Today's work as a Bitcoin cheerleader)

http://www.cbr.ru/press/PR.aspx?file=27012014_1825052.htm

What a retard. You say in 1 breath 'media hype in Russia is often the preferred method for signalling how authorities feel about something' then in another say 'this could be problematic for Russia Today's work as a Bitcoin cheerleader'

If Russia Today is a Bitcoin cheerleader it means the authorities are OK with Bitcoin.