European Union

Confidential documents were made public on Sunday that reveal the current status of the negotiations on the TTIP free trade pact. Obama and Angela Merkel spoke out only last week in favour of the deal while tens of thousands of people protested against it. The press also discusses the pros and cons of the TTIP.

People demonstrated across Europe on May 1 in favour of workers' rights and social justice. The press wonders what significance International Workers' Day has in today's digitised, globalised world.

The Latvians have donated 10,000 euros so that a man suffering from throat cancer can travel to Switzerland and die by assisted suicide. The country and the press are divided over the issue.

A minority government has emerged in Ireland under the conservative Fine Gael party led by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The liberal Fianna Fáil has agreed to back the government. A precondition for the historic agreement was the repeal of the controversial water charges. Commentators criticise the deal.

With the victory of Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer in the first round of Austria's presidential elections the country has shifted to the right. The runoff vote is set for May 22. What are the causes - and consequences - of the FPÖ's electoral victory?

Europe is a multicultural society. But events like the attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve and the resignation of a Swedish politician who refused to shake a woman's hand for religious reasons pose the question time and again: how can different cultures live together?

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The Australian businessman Graig Wright revealed on Monday he is the founder of Bitcoin to three media outlets: The Economist, the BBC, and GQ.

The revelation comes following a raid by the Australian Taxation Office in December 2015 at his home. The businessman is negotiating how much he owes in overdue tax since 2009, when the first Bitcoin transaction took place.

His claim on Monday leaves little room for doubt, as he provided technical proof to back up his claim, including the cryptographic keys to the first ten Bitcoins created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Bitcoins are created by solving difficult mathematical problems, a process referred to as “mining.” The solving involves immense computer processing power with the difficulty of the problems adjusted to maintain a steady production of currency, thereby ensuring there is not Bitcoin oversupply and, therefore, devaluation. Miners can then sell their coins.

Wright’s claims were confirmed by key members of the Bitcoin project.

The first transaction in Bitcoin took place in January 2009. The project was founded on state-of-the art cryptography involving top names in the field, led by Hal Finney.

Gavin Andresen, scientist, and Jon Matonis, an economist, at the Bitcoin Foundation also confirmed the identity of the project’s owner.

The digital cash system currency is favored by organized crime and was recently forbidden in technology-savvy Estonia.

Money, bitcoin wallets, and bags of amphetamines lie on a table at the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden, Germany, 29 February 2016. EPA/ALEXANDER HEINL

There are approximately 15,5 million Bitcoins exchanged online, each costing €392. There is no registry of their owners who therefore remain anonymous and their transactions virtually untraceable.

 

Craig Steven Wright, 47, is an Australian computer scientist and pioneer in e-business.

Wright worked in information technology for various companies and he designed the architecture for possibly the world’s first online casino, Lasseter’s Online in 1999.

He was also the CEO of the technology firm Hotwire Preemptive Intelligence Group, which planned to launch Denariuz Bank, the world’s first Bitcoin-based bank, though it encountered regulatory difficulties with the Australian Tax Office in 2014.

Wright is also the founder of a cryptocurrency company DeMorgan Ltd, as well as the founder of the cybersecurity and computer forensics company Panopticrypt Pty Ltd.

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