Topic: 2013-06-13 Latest from FinCEN - page 3. (Read 7030 times)

We'll have to disagree on arbitrary authority ever being satisfied. I've never known it to happen.

Bitcoin under "voluntary compliance" (an oxymoron, btw) is like taking the best engine ever built and unplugging half of the sparkplugs from the distributor. It would decrease the value of the engine, as has happened with Bitcoin under voluntary compliance thus far.

Interesting read 

http://www.fincen.gov/contactus.html

I wonder which one of those inquiry lines can provide clarification on what's what in relation to Bitcoin.

it might be as well targeting everyone running a full node, validating and forwarding transactions in the p2p network. miners who do not listen to transaction broadcasts, do not store blockchain and do not validate transactions, just work in a pool, are not affected. pool operator however distributes mining reward and could be intermediaries. so, i would worry about pools and full nodes. pretty much the whole network.

"The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was established by Congress in 1984......."   

If this post were from a noob I would take exception. At this point I will scratch my head. My understanding is that it would take a major fork to hand over the keys to regulators. I don't see that happening. Voluntary compliance should be more than enough to satisfy them, especially if they offer monetary incentives to do so.

Yepper. And Bitcoin's existence threatens the reputation of those that issue the fiat, unless they can control the price or the gain a significant share of the Bitcoin supply.

You glossed over the important part of the excerpt:


They know they could lose the store but I don't think they have anything to fear. I expect that the "REGULATE ME, PLEASE!" crowd will save them the worry and just hand Bitcoin over to them in their zeal to be compliant.

I kinda wonder why there is any interest in bitcoin. With a market cap of only a billion, it wouldn't pay the catering for the conference.

It means they expect us to implement a coin tainting system.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! 

+10
Great Post

if you buy something and pay, the taxes are included. it doesn´t matter with what you pay. most people use money, but you could also try to pay with grandpa´s stamp collection. if the shop takes it - fine. only because you use bitcoin does not avoid any taxes at all. (in addition, the bitcoin may have been obtained with dollars you owned legally, therefore all taxes paid) the shop that receives an payment in bitcoin owes the same amount of taxes to the irs as an other for the same deal.

laywers are limited in their knowledge. speak to the financial regulators of your country.

I would guess we are more of a money service I presume after reading through the last posts. You are right about being a plain webshop if you take out the bitcoin aspect, we won't be considered a money transmitter. The question comes into play when this webshop starts accepting other currencies unlike other webshops that just deal with their local one, in our case bitcoin, so although we are not a money transmitter we would maybe be considered a money service. Like you said the best is to get an expert advice from a lawyer for clarification.

Thank you for the feedback about the site and my question

your not a money transmitter. imagine you would only sell for dollars. that would look like a regular web shop. does a webshop need a banking license ? now you are adding other currencies. (maybe you should actually consider having your prices in some additional currencies). one of them is bitcoin. i don´t see how that would make you now a money transmitter. it is still plain e-commerce webshop. the escrow is a service, other webshops may have smiliar services. find a lawyer, get one or two expert opinions. i would not recommend asking them.  

great idea, nice website!

simple answer logically
money= FIAT (finances insured and taxed by governments)
a money services business trades money for products and services . EG buying a bitcoin or a tin of baked beans.
a money transmitter puts and takes money from peoples bank accounts

Reading this I am still left wondering if an exchange is a money transmitter. Seems like it would be a money services business, but not necessarily a money transmitter.

nice quote. which IN CONTEXT is about saying dumb naive FIAT exchanges saying this person should be credited wth 1 billion dollars/euros when in actual fact they only have $10, 10 euro to their name. causing the "value" of their single unit of account (FIAT) to go haywire affecting the whole FIAT economy.

causing for instance a liberty reserve dollar being worth more then a bank note dollar, which would be different Value then a bitstamp dollar, all because of the credibility of the FIAT exchanger manipulating the bank's accounting systems.

as you read the ECB report you see it does not care about second life (the game) which creates and trades lnden dollars. it only cares about the FIAT-linden exchangers. same as the other examples..

its all about the FIAT

The source is the European Central Bank.



"Would threaten" is Bankerese for "does threaten".

bitcoin is not a threat because:

1) the banks only care about FIAT.
2) when you buy bitcoin you hand over FIAT to another person... its the same as buying a tin of baked beans.. money moves from one account to another. but essentialy stays within the financial system, which they love.
3) bitcoin can help banks. instead of polish, mexican, asian workers putting FIAT into envelopes to send to their birth countries. they will in the future buy a bitcoin locally (keeping FIAT in country) and allow the bitcoin move across borders.
4) as long as the gateways in and out of FIAT are secure. they dont care about other currencies.
5) as long as minimum wage laws exist the 99% population that work hourly wages will get paid in FIAT so bitcoin will not "take over" the world.. but may when more popular, work along side it.
6) fincen (america) is only as interested in bitcoin as interested in the EURO.

bitcoin has POTENTIAL of being a threat,

but right now the Yen and Euro concerns them more then anything. and these fincen meetings are not about BITCOIN par Say. they are about FIAT exchanges that don't obide by FIAT rules, which are now popping up due to naive teentrepreneurs.

instead of forming opinions based on chinese whispers of other people on the forum.. PLEASE go to the source, read the material properly. learn what the rules are the limits to their powers and read their concerns and you will see that bitcoin is not a threat. just the naive law breaking people that want to convert their illegal activities into FIAT.

the sponsors of the meeting : child exploitation charity, where their due to LIBERTY EXCHANGE (a FIAT exchange) but not due to bitpay, bitinstant, bitcoinQT, bitcoin mining...

We are keeping very detailed records of all orders and expenses for the business so that should help us with any issues that we face when regulation starts to take place. Now that's a great idea, a bitcoin based accounting software would be amazing.

haha, yea I agree with what you're saying it does make sense and will most likely be awhile before they actually make it mandatory. I was just curious to see what people's thoughts were. Thank you again for the advice.