For anybody in Cyrpus right now, it should be relatively easy to spot those residents who keep their wealth in physical gold, silver or Bitcoin. Why? They will be the only people smiling this week, as everybody else has just had 6-10% of their bank account gouged by a once-off tax.

What is really scary is that Cyprus is a Eurozone country.

Will we now see the panic spread to Italy and Spain as citizens fear a copy-cat raid on their funds in the coming days or at some uncertain moment in the future?

This latest development should not be seen as a `small country' issue. The US did similar things with gold confiscation in the 1930s. Australia has decided to prop up the stock market by raising forced pension contributions on 1 July. What is different in Cyprus is that people will feel the pain immediately, and that modern technology will let the shockwaves spread.

It might be worth refreshing my earlier blog will 2013 be the year of BitCoin?