Topic: Bitstamp BLOCKs withdrawals to verified users - page 2. (Read 11656 times)

Bitstamp deposits fiat on their Unicredit bank account, not BTC. And Unicredit, like every regulated financial institution, is going to subject their customers to KYC. Every company banking with anyone has to go through it.

I don't think you are seeing things right.  At this point Bitcoin is a giant ship under full steam provided by well marketed misconceptions and a shit-load of VC money.  Just like any large moving mass it won't change direction easily.  Someone who has BTC and is nimble and observant may be in line for a big pay-day.  (I've recently been taking a cash advance just in case I'm wrong though )

Guys if no one understood this - this is how COIN VALIDATION happens.
So now they are verifying coins to make them marked. Unfortunately I did not tumble my coins, I suggest everyone to tumble coins before and after sending them to BitStamp.
Moreover I suggest to use other more legitimate businesses which do not ask for this.
YES in bitcoin world they are destroying bitcoin by implementing coin validation - this is illegitimate to our world!
It's illegitimate to the real world as well! Banks don't ask you where the funds come from AFTER you deposit...

Yeah but when I was mugged on a busy street next to an ATM (with a camera) I was told by the plod that no CCTV was in the area....lol

They don't want to solve crimes that land on their front doorstep let alone go on fishing expeditions through a slovenian exchange!

It is very rare to see any police officer in London, i thought they had CCTV everywhere?

"a" cannot be true when we are talking about BTC, only possibly true when it is fiat.

"e" is completely true.

Looks like they are going full gox...

When I took a cursory look at Bitstamp, there was no indication of any actual people on the 'about us' page, and they seemed to operate in several jurisdictions and had a cloaked domain.

They also changed their methods to allow unverified user to send in BTC but not to retrieve BTC back out.  They didn't even send an e-mail warning but rather communicated this by a little fine print on their facebook account or some such.

As far as I am concerned KYC is much more critical when it comes to the parties who are holding value for others.  Namely the principles of a financial services business.  I only rarely, and under duress, take on risk of doing business with those who don't comply with this theme.  Whether Bitstamp has mended their ways by now I don't know.  I've no need to do business with them at this point so I've not looked in a while.

And I would be very reluctant to do business with anyone who changed had a history of holding a user's BTC hostage in exchange for high quality identity documents.  If anything smells like a rat it's a this aspect of their operations.

for what its worth i withdrew BTC from stamp 3 days ago or so with no issues

Them replying in 2 days does not help the situation...

Are these the same British law enforcement who send out letters to burglary victims without ever visiting the scene of the crime? Who claim there's no CCTV in central London when someone is mugged? Who don't even bother showing up when cars are stolen and just post out a crime number?

Which British law enforcement is there that you're familiar with?

I've done some research into the matter and here's what I found:

1. Bitstamp is incorporated in the UK and, based on FCA/HMRC statements made in 2013, Bitcoin businesses in the UK do not require any specific license. They have no legal obligation to request KYC/AML information to their clients, as far as British law goes. They are requesting it because they want to, as confirmed on the Bitstamp site: "Whilst Bitstamp are currently unregulated and do not fall with the scope of the AML/CTF obligations in the UK the senior management have implemented systems and procedures that meet the UK AML legislation."

2. Bitstamp - much like every other exchange - uses a traditional bank, Unicredit in Slovenia, to conduct their operations. Unicredit has a legal obligation to subject Bitstamp to KYC/AML, and they're going to be fined in case Bitstamp does something dodgy (see the 1.9bn fine paid by HSBC for not monitoring their clients as they should have done).

3. This has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with the fact that Bitstamp is a Bitcoin-related company. There's no EU, euro area or Slovenian law governing Bitcoin businesses. The ECB and the EBA issued warnings about Bitcoin, but a warning is not regulation. Probably there will be regulation in the future, but right now there is not. Any requests made by Unicredit to Bitstamp are simply in compliance to obligations a bank has with respect to any customer, Bitcoin or not.

4. Bitstamp - much like every other company - would incur sanctions if they were discovered to be involved in money laundering (duh). Again, that's not because they're a Bitcoin business. If the authorities discover someone is laundering money through a real estate business, they'll go after them (duh #2).

So where does this leave Bitstamp users? Here's some options:

a) Bitstamp's bank is subjecting the company to extended KYC and Bitstamp is in turn asking customers for the necessary data.

b) Bitstamp is anticipating new regulation (e.g. they believe they will be required to apply for a money transmitter license in the UK or similar) and they're trying to gather what they believe to be necessary documentation to be fully compliant with UK law as it applies to money transmitters.

c) Bitstamp suspects some customers are laundering money through their services and they want to kick these people out before the subpoenas start coming, leading to account freezes, and hence damaging image and revenue. They have a right to do so; they're not obliged to provide their service to anyone.

These are the good options which should leave all users pretty much relaxed, provided they're not doing anything awful. Of course the questionnaire is pretty invasive and some Bitcoiners might conclude it's at odds with crypto ethics; in that case they should just move their business elsewhere, much like a vegan would not finance a meat-producing company.

However, there are not-so-good options too.

d) Someone at Bitstamp is building a new service / product based on the wealth of data they have, e.g. anything along the lines of data mining for marketing purposes, and they're gathering as much information as they can so that they can improve the service / product and sell it for a higher price. Not particularly scary, although this would violate the privacy policy in case a third party is involved in the handling of personal information ("Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested by the customer"). It would be borderline legitimate if they're using the service / product internally, as per "We may use your Personal Information for the following purposes:

    To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs);
    To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you);"

e) Bitstamp is undergoing financial difficulties, maybe connected with the recent downward swing in prices (they overextended themselves? They fractional-reserve'd customer money without telling anyone and now they can't make ends meet anymore?), and they're hiding between KYC/AML to buy time.

Also, I wouldn't underestimate the abilities of British law enforcement. This is neither here nor there - personally, if I were a Bitstamp user I wouldn't be bothered by the police reviewing my data/transactions to see whether I have been giving money to terrorists or mobsters, but I understand that many members of this community would object to this as a matter of principle even if they don't have and never will have anything to do with criminal activity.

So they are asking for a record of me transferring money to Gox...
Yeah and what if I got through Okpay?

I think if they don't want to cooperate I want to leave them no matter what. bitcoin-central and kraken is probably my new home...

I'm projecting that you are more right than you are wrong, and it is why I say that loss of fungibility will 'almost certainly' kill Bitcoin.

I doubt that there will be a blockchain split, but there will certainly be a big market opened up for playing the spread(s) between coins with (potentially various kinds of) taint.

The tainting authorities with real teeth will be the ones which can obtain a government charter since it is they who Overstock, TigerDirect, etc, will be forced to honor.  If these authorities get into gaming the spread markets there could be some real fireworks.

One way or another, a solution which correctly implements anonymity (among other improvements) will prove much more reliable and useful in the end and Bitcoin probably will ultimately wither on the vine.  But it could take years and there could be a lot of money to be made in the interim.  Especially if the VC's keep plowing funds in.

Go ahead and tumble your BTC, but you better hope like hell that when coin validation comes there will be a grandfathering for it.  Of course if you DO have stolen BTC the calculus is inverted.

I've got documentation that all my BTC came through an exchange.  I wired in fiat and bought at market price and can document both.  I anticipate that this, at least, will be sufficient to obtain grandfathering.  Relatively fewer people are going to have sympathy for those who actively attempted to mix BTC so I'm less confident that this will be grandfathered in.

While I am rabidly against coin validation, {color}-listing, taint, etc, I'm not about to take a bullet for others.  Bitcoin as a system is simply not worth it at this point.  You won't get anywhere near 'every coin is tainted', and it's meaningless anyway for anyone who understands how tainting would likely work.

Coin validation (and general loss of fungibility) will almost certainly kill Bitcoin eventually, but it could take a while.  Those fortunate enough to be sitting on clean coins might have a sharp boost in their net worth as the 'dirty' coins are exposed and devalued.  If just touching a tumbler itself turns out to be sufficient to taint coins to 100%, and it might be since it would simplify the math, that would increase the value of 'clean' coins in circulation even more.

Peter Vessenes warned against using tumblers at the San Jose conference a year ago due to the possibility that one might end up with coins which could be tainted.  (He was then and is now the top dog in the Bitcoin Foundation.)

Parenthetically, that was at a time when the Mt. Gox/Coinlab deal was falling apart.  (Vessenes was, and afaik still is also the CEO of Coinlab in addition to heading up the Bitcoin Foundation.)  He'd already gotten $5M from Mark but had not bothered to get MSB licences which, accd to Karpeles, was part of the deal.  The interesting thing was that Vessenes made specific mention of the historical customer data that he presumed Mt. Gox to be holding and how useful it could be.

So I haven't received an answer in 2 days already. Waiting a few more

I moved all my funds off of bitstamp. Can anyone confirm BTC withdrawals are happening with reasonable amount of delay?

totally

They denied my verification request with all real details 

lol no reason given