Prolly nothing... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...find-a-haven-in-bitcoin-btc-friendly-portugal Crypto Refugees Fleeing Ukraine Find a Haven in Bitcoin-Friendly Portugal Favorable tax treatment for digital assets and balmy weather had already made Portugal a crypto hub. Now for many fleeing Russia’s invasion, it’s a place to start over. Crypto advertising adorns an electric tram in Lisbon. Photographer: Goncalo Fonseca/Bloomberg By Henrique Almeida and Olga Kharif March 19, 2022 at 11:00 PM PDT From Maria Yarotska drove for six days across Europe in a Fiat with her mother, daughter and dog to escape the war in Ukraine, ending her journey in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Yet unlike the thousands of refugees who made the 2,500-mile road trip to continental Europe’s westernmost country, she will still be able to keep her job. That’s because the 35-year-old’s employer — a blockchain effort called NEAR with a Ukrainian co-founder — is expanding its presence in Portugal and has become a supporter of refugees fleeing the war. “I have a lot of colleagues here,” Yarotska said in a telephone interview last week from Lisbon, where she was staying in temporary housing before finding a more permanent place to live. “They'll help me legalize my documents so I can stay.” Like other western European countries that have become havens for Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion, Portugal, too, is absorbing an influx of refugees. But crypto workers from Ukraine, which had established itself as an industry hub, may find it easier to start over in Portugal than in other European destinations. One reason is that Portugal is already fast becoming a hub of its own, with zero-percent taxes on digital-currency gains, affordable living costs and mild temperatures combining to attract a cadre of crypto adherents there. Another is that the country is already home to an established community of Ukrainians. Before Russia’s invasion, Ukrainians were the fifth-largest group of foreign nationals in Portugal. In the past three weeks, the country received more than 13,000 Ukrainian refugees after the government approved measures to speed up and simplify the entry process of those fleeing the war. That's about the same as the total number of refugees that arrived in Portugal since 2015, according to data compiled by the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service, or SEF. As a result, the number of Ukrainian nationals in Portugal has climbed to about 40,000 from about 27,200 in 2021, making it the nation’s third-largest group of ex-pats. Brazilians are No. 1, followed by the British. In Lisbon, authorities are providing temporary housing for hundreds of refugees at a sports hall that has been turned into a reception center. City officials have also approved a plan to help find housing, jobs, schools and health care for Ukrainian refugees, according to Mayor Carlos Moedas. Valentin Sotov, a software developer who is working on a crypto-based metaverse game called Amber, fled western Ukraine’s city of Mukachevo by car with only a backpack and a laptop at the end of February, and is already looking forward to working out of an office with the two colleagues who made the trip to Lisbon with him. It hasn’t been easy: After staying in an Airbnb and another temporary spot, they are looking for another apartment and finding it tricky. “You have to have a contract for a year, and you need to have a Portuguese guarantor, and you need to have a tax number and a visa,” Sotov, 35, said. “We don't know what to do yet, we are asking our friends." And yet even in his precarious situation, Sotov perceives opportunity. Valentin Sotov Source: Valentin Sotov “All the people here are very open, it’s a parade of nations,” Sotov said. He sees the move to Portugal as “a big opportunity for our product, because we can work with a lot of IT people in one place.” Today, the presence of digital currency enthusiasts from all walks of life is palpable in Lisbon, where networking opportunities abound. These range from the annual Web Summit, one of the world’s biggest technology conferences, to weekly informal gatherings at bars to discuss the next big trend in crypto. Portuguese entrepreneurs have also succeeded in building a handful of unicorn startups, or privately held companies worth more than $1 billion. Anchorage Digital, a U.S.-based digital asset bank with offices in northern Portugal, is the latest of these unicorns and was co-founded by Diogo Monica, a Portuguese national. “I’m part of a crypto investors’ group on Telegram with 250 foreigners who have moved or plan to move to Portugal,” said Stephan Morais, managing partner and Lisbon-based venture capital firm Indico Capital, whose targets include web3, fintech, artificial intelligence and digital companies. “They’re coming from all over the world.” The number of foreign residents living in Portugal rose 40% over the past decade to 555,299 people, according to the National Statistics Institute. On top of the zero percent tax on crypto gains (gains resulting from the sale of cryptocurrencies are not subject to personal income tax unless they are considered a professional activity), Portugal also offers some foreigners a flat 20% tax on their income or a flat 10% tax on their pensions. Bitcoin pocket information guides at the Lisbon Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. Photographer: Daniel Rodrigues/Bloomberg Today, even crypto aficionados from neighboring Spain, which shares a similar climate, started crossing the border into Portugal after their government last year made it mandatory for Spanish citizens to declare their crypto holdings in an effort to combat tax fraud. A spokeswoman at Portugal’s finance ministry declined to comment on any possible changes to the crypto rules in Portugal, where a new government is expected to take over in coming weeks. “Two out of every three people who come to consult me leave,” said Maria Extremadouro, a lawyer in the Spanish city of Vigo, who specializes in block chain and crypto legislation. “There’s lots of talent leaving for Portugal.” While Portugal is a welcome refuge for many Ukrainians, language barriers and the related everyday obstacles of being in an unfamiliar place mean it may be a while before it feels like home. For her part, Yarotska is getting there: She found a place to live and her nine-year-old daughter has already started classes at a local school. "I think it's safe to say I'm fine," Yarotska said in a Telegram message this week. "My daughter had her second day at local school (she loves it), and I finally found an apartment, we are moving in on Monday."
Prolly nothing... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukr...-usb-drive.html?&qsearchterm=bitcoin on a usb Ukrainian refugee flees to Poland with $2,000 in bitcoin on a USB drive PUBLISHED WED, MAR 23 20228:00 AM EDTUPDATED WED, MAR 23 20229:33 PM EDT MacKenzie Sigalos@KENZIESIGALOS SHARE KEY POINTS Nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s population has been forced from their homes in the last four weeks. Many have turned to cryptocurrency to safeguard their cash, bring their money with them, accept remittances and donations, and to transact with each other for daily necessities. A Ukrainian refugee took a USB stick with him across the border containing 40% of his life savings, or about $2,000 in bitcoin. Civilians continue to flee from Irpin due to ongoing Russian attacks in Irpin, Ukraine on March 07, 2022. Wolfgang Schwan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images On the morning that Russia went to war with Ukraine, Fadey woke up at 9am to a deluge of Telegram messages from friends asking him what was happening on the ground in the western city of Lviv. After a quick scan of the news, he realized his country was under siege. He decided to get out. Fadey is 20 years old and asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect his privacy, because there is conscription for Ukrainian nationals aged 18 to 60. Escaping duty on the frontline meant having to clear the border before officials had the chance to lock it down. To do that, he needed two things fast: A negative Covid test, and money. “I couldn’t withdraw cash at all, because the queues to ATMs were so long, and I couldn’t wait that much time,” Fadey told CNBC. So he turned to bitcoin instead. Fadey tells CNBC that he made a peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange with a friend, trading $600 worth of his bitcoin savings for złoty, the Polish national currency, which he then used to pay for a bus across the border, a bed in a hostel for him and his girlfriend, and some food. The speed and ease of that crypto transaction proved instrumental. Within two hours of Fadey’s safe passage into Poland, Ukraine closed its borders to all men of fighting age. Fadey also took a USB stick with him across the border containing 40% of his life savings, or about $2,000 in bitcoin. That thumb drive, combined with a unique passcode, became the key to his financial survival. “I could just write my seed phrase on a piece of paper and take it with me,” explained Fadey. Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro Analyst explains how to trade chip stocks right now — and gives one upside of nearly 100% Forget Tesla — buy these EV-related stocks instead, says Morningstar strategist UBS slashes Netflix price target ahead of earnings, warns of cautious outlook His experience highlights some of the most important characteristics of bitcoin: It’s valid across borders, requires no bank, and is tethered to its owner by a password, making it a lot harder to steal than cash. Nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s population has been forced from their homes in the last four weeks, and the war has strained the country’s financial system. As the invasion proceeded, ATMs across the country started to run out of cash, and some people stood in line for hours only to face a $33 limit per transaction. Transferring money out of national bank accounts proved equally fruitless after the central bank suspended electronic cash transfers on the same day that Russia invaded the country. Add in closed borders, a rapidly depreciating currency, and the looming threat of a Russian takeover supplanting the Ukrainian hryvnia with the ruble, and it was a perfect use case for cryptocurrency. “In that part of the world, crypto – despite its volatility, despite the sentiments that the West has towards it – they don’t ask, ‘Why crypto?’ They just ask, ‘How?’” said Brian Mosoff, CEO of Toronto-based crypto investment platform Ether Capital. “That’s a very powerful thing for a group of people who don’t have financial stability, or political stability right now. To be able to hold their net worth in some type of asset or product that essentially can be stored in a password.” Man with Ukrainian passport [paste:font size="5"]ranks fourth globally in terms of digital asset adoption, and earlier this month, it passed a law legalizing cryptocurrencies. Gladstein tells CNBC that Eastern Europe generally is big on digital assets, and Ukraine, in particular, is a known technology hotspot. “There were tons of Ukrainian exchanges, companies, even core developers,” explained Gladstein. “They all have phones. This is a highly connected, very IT-driven country. Very computer-literate. Very phone-literate, probably more than your average American.” That technical know-how has been especially helpful as Ukrainians turn to their crypto wallets as their sole on-ramp to banking. In Poland, for example, there are more than 175 bitcoin ATMs, allowing refugees who fled with bitcoin to cash it back out for fiat currency. Recent advancements in payment technology have also made it easier than ever to transact in cryptocurrency. The Lightning Network is a payments platform built on bitcoin’s base layer that enables virtually instantaneous transactions. Some Ukrainians use it to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions, while others have found that Lightning is a cheap and fast way to receive donations and remittances from anywhere in the world. The payment process is simple and takes less than 60 seconds. Users can download an app like the Muun wallet, make a four-digit pin, and begin sending and receiving cryptocurrency payments simply by showing an QR code. “Me sitting in California, I can still send you any amount of money instantly to your phone anytime,” said Gladstein. “We don’t have to worry about the fact that you’re a refugee. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a Polish passport or a bank account. None of these things matter.” Residents of Irpin and Bucha flee fighting via a destroyed bridge on March 10, 2022 in Irpin, Ukraine. Irpin, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, had experienced days of sustained shelling by Russian forces advancing toward the capital. Well over two million people have fled Ukraine since Russia launched its attack on February 24. Chris Mcgrath | Getty Images Constantin Kogan is the co-founder of a blockchain-based gaming ecosystem, and he has team members based in both Ukraine and Russia. Kogan tells CNBC that one of his Ukrainian employees stayed put, but sent his wife and children to the border with a crypto wallet. This employee wasn’t sure where his family was – or which border they had crossed – but he did have a plan for their financial security: make regular deposits into his wife’s crypto wallet. He keeps the bulk sum of his net worth (about 60%) in crypto, mostly stablecoins. Chaplia says that many of her friends in Ukraine are “very, very deep into crypto,” but for her, moving some of her cash into bitcoin, ethereum, and tether served like digital gold: A way to store it for safety and forget about it. “I used to be skeptical of crypto, I have to admit, but because of the war, I had to give it a chance,” she said.
are you sure ? I would not be unless all fake money are removed, aka Tethers. With unlimited ability to create fake money, one would be prudent to assume the up trend will resume.
I was in Cascais, Portugal in April. This seafront city has many expatriates and traditionally is considered a hub for Russians. Since the invasion, Russians are not liked very well in Cascais -- including a small number of restaurants having signs they don't serve Russian speakers, etc. The city replaced their Portuguese flag with a Ukrainian flag on the tall seafront flagpole, and there are nearly daily rallies supporting Ukraine -- as there is elsewhere in Portugal. There are also a good number of recently arrived people from Ukraine fleeing the war -- but these tended to be well-to-do people financially. We spoke with a couple from Ukraine at one of the seafront eateries one day at lunch.