Most exciting for investors outside of Russia, Gazprom's so-called ring fence is being removed.
BeKnown is an effort to replicate this growth while offering clear ways to ring fence professional and social networks.
All of which brings us to the present and to the imminent removal of the ring fence around Gazprom shares.
In the UK, it may mean revisiting whether the proposed ring fence between retail banking and investment banking is protection enough for essential banking services.
It's possible that the ultimate threat of break-up will concentrate the mind of individual banks, and give them a stronger incentive to take the ring fence seriously.
Until January the company's "ring fence" kept foreign investment below 20%, and the scarcity value of Western shares gave them a 40% to 50% premium above their Moscow price.
But he said the Government's change of heart on the reserve power to "electrify the ring fence" was good politics but bad economics that would lead to even less lending.
No other virtual currency will even come close to that kind of vibrant liquidity and building walls to ring fence a virtual environment will turn out to be a counter-productive strategy.
The ring fence was one of those anachronisms from the early days in the capitalization of Russia, when folks were still just a bit queasy about foreigners taking over the nation's patrimony.
We should perhaps also remember, the toughest ring fence in the world would not have prevented the failure of Northern Rock - which did not have any "risky investment bank activities" to speak of.
And he was a member of the Independent Commission on Banking, set up by the chancellor, which recommended that a ring fence be put around the retail banking operations of giant universal banks like Barclays.
These two were special purpose vehicles, a sort of independent holding company, that the New York Fed created to ring fence toxic residential mortgage backed securities and collaterized debt obligations in the heat of the crash.
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The big banks are likely to argue that the costs for them of borrowing would rise almost the moment that the government commits to the ring fence, even if the actual insulation of investment banking doesn't take place for years.
The hope is that the ring fence, combined with other reforms, would make it easier and cheaper to rescue the parts of banks vital to the economy, and would force the costs of the rescue on to shareholders and creditors.
One solution would be to augment the new financial ring fence between retail banks and investment banks, that is being forced on universal banks by the government, with a behavioural ring fence - such that expectations of the conduct of retail bankers would be different from those of investment bankers.
The Independent Commission on Banking is expected to recommend that the government should legislate almost immediately for big banks to put a ring fence or firewall around their retail banking operations - but the implementation of the ring fence, to separate retail banks from investment banks, should then be phased in over a period of years.
The point is that the UK banks' downgrade is an inevitable consequence of government policy to reduce the likelihood that they would be bailed out in a crisis - of which the most conspicuous manifestation has been the Vickers' commission recommendations to put retail banks behind a ring fence and make creditors to banks explicitly liable to losses.
The Conservatives argue the Welsh government is wrong not to ring-fence health spending in the budget.
By contrast, Mr Cameron has already pledged to ring-fence the education, health and international aid budgets.
Among the other proposals being considered are plans to ring-fence those assets on banks' balance sheets.
"Whatever investment we have we should ring-fence the money and invest it, " he said.
Attempts to ring-fence factories from debts and other liabilities were rejected by the Koreans.
In contrast to most other bank bosses, Mr Horta-Osorio supported the ring-fence when it was first proposed.
The most significant takeaway from the Vickers report is the idea of a ring-fence around retail banking.
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In its report, the OECD also backed Chancellor George Osborne's decision to ring-fence banks' retail and investment arms.
The pair also backed the chancellor's call for the break-up of banks that did not implement the ring-fence properly.
The Tories vowed before the 2010 election to ring-fence NHS spending telling voters, in effect, that the status quo was affordable.
Mr Miliband urged the PM to stop any of the centres being closed by reinstating the ring-fence around their funding.
At that point it's crucial to have a set of rules to keep banks well away from testing this ring-fence.
She also pointed out the government was going to ring-fence the public health budget to protect it during the tough times ahead.
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