I trust Bitstamp, but with all the Gox crap going on I can't help but wonder how much we are still in the Wild West with regards to legality and safety.
Two different views from the above thread:
1.
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As has been repeatedly said, Bitstamp is not regulated. Just because they have a KYC procedure doesn't mean they do things properly.
They are still mixing all client funds on a corporate account, without any kind of financial license whatsoever.
This will end bad, when UniCredit decides the party is over, then the party is over, Bitstamp gets sued in Slovenia, fined, pays the fine from customer deposits (which are legally their property since they sit on the corporate account), just like this happened to MtGox in France in 2011.
Kraken is in the same case, friendly bank, for now, but zero financial compliance despite all their marketing efforts to advertise the opposite.
They are still mixing all client funds on a corporate account, without any kind of financial license whatsoever.
This will end bad, when UniCredit decides the party is over, then the party is over, Bitstamp gets sued in Slovenia, fined, pays the fine from customer deposits (which are legally their property since they sit on the corporate account), just like this happened to MtGox in France in 2011.
Kraken is in the same case, friendly bank, for now, but zero financial compliance despite all their marketing efforts to advertise the opposite.
2.
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This shouldn't be very surprising - Silicon Valley Bank, the bank that Coinbase and a few other VC-backed BTC businesses use, has stated that they are not accepting any new BTC business accounts in the recent past. I recall them saying something (sorry, don't have link handy) roughly equivalent to "we are already plenty busy with compliance work for our existing (large) BTC business accounts and we're not looking for any new ones".
The strategy amongst banks seems to be to freeze out new BTC businesses and tell the potential customers some bullshit about "Bitcoin is so new, we can't comply with the regulations". Welcome to the world of banking soft regulation where there is absolutely nothing illegal about your business but you cannot get a bank account.
The strategy amongst banks seems to be to freeze out new BTC businesses and tell the potential customers some bullshit about "Bitcoin is so new, we can't comply with the regulations". Welcome to the world of banking soft regulation where there is absolutely nothing illegal about your business but you cannot get a bank account.