On Thursday (12  July 2018), the building housing Slovalia’s central bank, Národná banka Slovenska (NBS), as well as several other banks, in Bratislava, the country’s capital, were briefly lit at night with a “Bat-Signal” type Bitcoin logo projector/spotlight as part of a stunt by a Slovakian cryptocurrency activist group. 

One Twitter user (@ArminVanBitcoin) sent out the following tweet to show what NBS’s building looked like:

It seems that the Bratislava-based cryptocurrency activist group “Paralelna Polis” was angry because with the government’s hostile stance towards crypto companies and traders/investors. The following is a rough translation of the statement issued by the group as part of a blog post titled “Enlightment to the Banks” published on 13 July 2018:

“Cryptocurrencies represent for banking system what Gutenberg’s press was for literature.

As the church lost control over the manual rewriting of books, the central banks are losing control over new cryptocurrencies.

Slovak banks, instead of embracing the unlimited possibilities of cryptocurrencies and supporting the emerging crypto companies, due to state regulators or unclear legislation remain in the darkness. A witch hunt for crypto companies and blocking transactions to crypto exchanges continue.

The 'enlightenment to the banks' is an attempt to overcome the darkness, which, like in the 15th century, prevented revolutionary book technology to establish, now in the 21st century, is threatening the rise of a new blockchain decentralized era.”

It also posted a video of the stunt to YouTube.

It has been suggested that the shining of the Bitcoin and Monero logos on the central bank building is a reference to 2018 when the building featured a large logo of the euro in anticipation of Slovakia adopting the currency on 1 January 2009.

According to Bloomberg BNA, on 23 March 2017, the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic announced via a guidance note that “Revenue (proceeds) derived from the sale of a virtual currency is subject to tax… any type of exchange, for example, an exchange of a virtual currency for an asset… or its exchange for a service rendered or its paid transfer, including its exchange for another virtual currency” is considered to be a taxable event.

 

Featured Image Credit: Photo via Pexels