Two sitting ministers from the legislature of the Australian state of Queensland have revealed that they privately own bitcoin. The declarations have been made for the state’s register of members’ interests – which lists information including the properties, trusts, and union memberships of Queensland’s politicians.
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Queensland Registry Reveals Aussie Politicians Own bitcoin
The updating of the of Queensland’s politicians’ interests has revealed that two of the state’s representatives currently own bitcoin. The register discloses the formal political affiliations of the state’s politicians, in addition to revealing major assets and investments owned by Queensland’s representatives.
Nick Dametto, a recently elected MP for Katter’s Australian Party – a right-leaning minority party that seeks to serve Queensland’s vast rural population – has discussed his bitcoin holdings with Fairfax Media.
Mr. Dametto first purchased bitcoin in October 2017, which quickly grew in value. “I then used my bitcoin to buy a couple of different other coins that are worth a lot less, and then they went up a little bit, and at one point my $5,000 investment went up to $60,000, then it crashed after Christmas,” Mr. Dametto said.
bitcoin Moving Toward Mainstream in Australia
Mr. Dametto estimates that his bitcoin holdings are currently “worth about $20,000 Australia (approximately $15,400 USD),” concluding that he is pleased his investment despite the bitcoin market no longer being “at the heights it was before.” Mr. Dametto adds that he is “about as much into bitcoin as I am into skydiving. And I’m not into skydiving.”
Bart Mellish of the Australian labor party also declared that he possesses bitcoin.
Former Politician Seeks to Cash-In on Crypto Boom
Since losing his seat in November 2017, former independent MP, Rob Pyne, has sought to cash in on the rise of cryptocurrency – including changing the name of his Facebook page to “Roby Pyne: Cryptocurrency Guru.”
In recent years, reform of Australia’s tax regime surrounding cryptocurrency has helped propel bitcoin toward the mainstream. Earlier this month, it was announced that Australian newsagents will facilitate fast and simple purchases of BTC or ETH.
Do you think that cryptocurrency ownership will soon become the norm among the western political class? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock
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This weekend many bitcoin cash supporters gathered in Japan for the bitcoin Unlimited event, Satoshi’s Vision Conference. The three-day conference was filled with synergy as the event was the largest bitcoin-centric conference to-date in Tokyo.
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bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Over the last three days, an event was held in Tokyo Japan aiming to bolster the adoption growth of bitcoin cash (BCH) and on-chain scaling called (SVC). The event was hosted by the Master of Ceremonies Taariq Lewis, the founder of Aquila, and saw many special guests including bitcoin Unlimited’s Peter Rizun and Andrew Stone, bitcoin ABC’s Amaury Sechet, Nchain’s Craig Wright, the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute’s Daniel Krawisz, Centbee’s Lorien Gamaroff, and many more bitcoin cash evangelists.
The night before the event saw an extremely large BCH Tokyo Meetup at the bar Good Heavens which was so packed there was another bar across the street to attend to the overflow. The following day Satoshi’s Vision began with registration and talk by Jerry Chan the president of SBI Holdings subsidiary SBI Bits. Chan greeted the crowd with a speech about how individuals can make bitcoin cash the best money in the world and how SBI Bits is helping fuel the cryptocurrency landscape.
Attendees waiting for the next presentation.
Following Chan’s opening talk participants listened to Daniel Krawisz discuss how BCH proponents can entice him to support BCH alongside how they can entice others as well. Basically, Krawisz describes what would entice him to split his old UTXOs and sell BTC for BCH. Krawisz explains some of the key methods of persuasion:
Investment is like survival — The key to success is convincing people who are paying attention that BCH will survive. Whatever is going on around here a long time from now, BCH will probably still be part of that mess.
Participants also saw Cornell professor Emin Gün Sirer talk about scaling bitcoin x100000, bitcoin.com’s Emil Oldenburg discuss colored coins, and other guests like the founder of Yours.org Ryan X Charles, and bitcoin XT developer Tom Harding among other on-chain scaling evangelists throughout the afternoon. Alongside that, the audience listened to a panel discussion which talked about tokens and colored coins, another hot subject right now within the BCH community. Following the day of speakers, BCH fans met up for another social held by the bitcoin Cash Fund.
Colored coins panel discussion.
The following day saw great talks by the BCH Tokyo co-founder Ken Shishido, bitcoin Unlimited’s Andrew Stone and Peter Rizun, as well as bitcoin ABC’s lead developer Amaury Sechet, talk about the future of bitcoin cash. bitcoin.com’s CEO Roger Ver told the crowd how BCH can increase economic freedom worldwide.
“We’ve heard about a lot of people that were involved in what used to be a digital currency mock the idea of using it as a currency,” Ver explains talking about how core supporters don’t respect that bitcoin was made to be a currency and why he thinks bitcoin cash is the closest to Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper and the true intentions of bitcoin.
But I think the people in this room are excited about digital currencies, not ‘store of value’ currencies that don’t work very well at storing value if they’re not being used as a currency.
Dr. Craig Wright
That evening SVC guests were invited to a special dinner hosted by Calvin Ayre’s firm, Coingeek, a strong supporter of bitcoin cash and on-chain scaling. On the last day of the event, attendees listened to Christina Storey who discussed how to be a “good investor” and a talk by Josh Ellithorpe on the bitcoin cash integration at Coinbase and the intricate steps the firm took to make it as smooth as possible for users. After lunch participants heard from Open Bazaar developer Chris Pacia and how his team is building an online decentralized marketplace. At the end of the discussion, Pacia noted that “Satoshi may or may not be speaking after me” just before Dr. Craig Wright entered the room to the Metallica song ‘Enter Sandman.’
Dr. Wright talked about the many things the community can expect from him and the blockchain company Nchain, such as research findings and studies on bitcoin and scaling the network. Further Dr. Wright delved into a slideshow touching on bitcoin network topology and small world vs mesh. However, he got the crowd really fired up when he stated:
bitcoin is all I work on, bitcoin is my life — For the next 10, 20, 30 years, bitcoin is all I will work on — My goal is for five billion people to use bitcoin daily.
At the end of SVC, many participants said goodbye to the people they met for the first time in person and new friends who supported BCH. The last presentation had a panel discussion on bolstering bitcoin cash adoption and getting BCH on every phone worldwide.
The final panel discussed “Marketing and Adoption: How do we get a BCH wallet on every phone?”
Overall the event was a great success in the beautiful city of Tokyo, and it seems there is a very strong force behind BCH here in Japan. If you missed out on attending Satoshi’s Vision in Japan or didn’t catch the live stream you can still watch the entire SVC event and individual presentations can be found .
Did you attend the Satoshi’s Vision Conference or watch the live stream? Let us know what you think of this event in the comments below.
Disclaimer: bitcoin.com was a sponsor for the SVC event in Tokyo.
Images via Pixabay, Shutterstock, SVC, and Jamie Redman.
At bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our page? You can even lookup the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more.
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