Topic: Coinbase banned Germany & Luxembourg (Read 6470 times)

I wouldn't https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4s7biu/kraken_has_not_released_23000_of_my_funds_and/

"very strong KYC" does not mean a financial license. also, they request documents without having authority to do that. only a licensed company can request documents to its clients. those document must be stored and reviewed by certain persons from company and according with strict rules (defined in license).

"very strong KYC" cannot be an excuse when the Feds will shut down Kraken. It will happen sooner or later.  Many exchangers were closed(and put them in jail) due to the same reason, unlicensed money transmitter.

Kraken is not under "the Umbrella of Fidor" because the bank license cannot be passported to other company.  Kraken is partially using Fidor for its EURO payments.  The rest of them are processed by Paycash

so, all the people who are sending documents(IDs, bills, bank statements) to these illegal companies are doing it on their own risk.

Well since there are regulations banning bitcoins in your area the best way to have bitcoins is not to buy them but produce them through online jobs that pays bitcoin. In our country there is no declaration banning ownership or use of bitcoins but given the area that I am living in there are no place where you can purchase bitcoin, if I wanted to but I will need to travel 43 kilometers but there's no guarantee that I can buy one. The best alternative is to register on online jobs or get a signature campaign so you can own bitcoins. Hope this helps.

Maybe Kraken is under the Umbrella of Fidor. They use this bank, also bitcoin.de, for german customer and Kraken did have a very strong KYC check for Germans.
Make sense. 

Very good explanation. Many likes from my side.

This is a completion for an existing law.Even now, you must have a financial license if you operate as e-currency exchanger. You are transmitting money(you work with fiat; receive and send money) and this thing  follows under an existing EU law. You need to be PI(payment institution) or E-money institution(EMI).

Coinbase does not have a such license in EU( indeed they are licensed in almost all the USA but these licenses are not passporting to EU) and that's why they preferred to remove Germany from their list. Why Germany? Because this country specified that all the BTC trades require a license.

According to BaFin ( German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority), as a rule, commercial trading of Bitcoins is regulated and more than that, anyone who purchases and sells Bitcoins commercially in his own name for the account of others conducts principal broking services and has to obtain a licence by BaFin

So, the EU financial law regarding to the companies who run an exchanger already exists. They must be licensed now too. That's why Bitstamp and Circle already took these licenses. Do you think that they wanted to spare a lot of money for an useless thing? No! It is mandatory if you want to operate legally and with the peace of the mind in EU.

So, Circle has a financial license in EU and Kraken is illegal(both in USA and EU).

Kraken is operating without being MSB in any state from US and they have no license in EU too...What does mean? It's an illegal company. Yes, they are very vocal in media but they are...out of law.

The new article that you quote will make the existing law more clearly AND more, all the "wallets" will have to get a such license if they want to have clients from EU.

I think the German government doesn't want to allow Coinbase to operate without a license in the country because they most probably would like to collect tax on the profits of the exchange. Germans in general are pretty strict when it comes to taxes and rules compared to other countries where the governments are more lenient towards taxing foreign businesses. However I do think that US companies will need to obtain licenses in order to operate in the European Union.

There is actually not an European Rule that you must have an license.

The European Commission plans this rules which must be setup in national laws till 2017

Tackling terrorist financing risks linked to virtual currencies: to prevent misuse of virtual currencies for money laundering and terrorist financing purposes, the Commission proposes to bring virtual currency exchange platforms and custodian wallet providers under the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive. These entities will have to apply customer due diligence controls when exchanging virtual for real currencies, ending the anonymity associated with such exchanges;


The question is "Why does only Germany banns Coinbase and localbitcoins?"
What is with the other european countries?

The second question what will happened with the other bitcoin exchanges like Kraken, Circle and so on? Will they banned also in the next days?

It seems that they banned the members of Germany because of the government of Germany, You government have banned that currency so for not involving you in any problem they have banned you people from there and informed you about that.

Coinbase was not banned. The issue is that ALL the exchangers including Coinbase MUST have a financial license in EU. Coinbase has licenses only in USA. Germany is not joking when it's about finances and that's why Coinbase removed this country from their list.

What the hell?
I get that you are newbie,but you are so naive?
You dont think that something is wrong that Coinbase just got banned in 3 different countries? lol,i would stay out of it.

I Hope Coinbase Open To Buy/Sell Bitcoin In Around Of The World, So Everyone Can Buy/Sell Bitcoin Without Need To The Exchanger 

I guess coinbase obeying the USA rules and consider it as part of their rules,it's normal if they're having office on USA and want to keep their business running,since USA really prohibit any form of online gambling,so does with coinbase,can't do anything and just can obey the rules

You can't send Bitcoins to the buyer directly, it has to go through LocalBitcoins. You have to deposit the BTC into your LocalBitcoins wallet and when you sell, the amount is locked into escrow until you confirm the buyer has made payment. LocalBitcoins then takes a small fee from that amount before pushing it over to the buyer's account.



Yea and it's a good thing because it means Bitcoin is being taken seriously. This is the only way if we want to go mainstream someday.

Regulatory compliance of course.

No company wants to make it difficult for their costumers to be their costumers, also they would save a shitload of money if they didn't have to monitor users' activity.

Why did they do this? Rules from the governments or from the coinbase shareholders?

Coinbase give me rules what i can do with my bitcoins?
Than we can separate bitcoins in dark bitcoins, infected with porn, gambling, and in white bitcoins?

Good times for mixing services ;-)

You can use Kraken, BTC-e and Finex as well.However without being regulated and out of jurisdiction you take all the risk yourself, using them, if they should run with your funds one day.
So you have much more exchanges you can choose from with different risk potentials.
And you can meet and trade from person to person at any time wherever you want in Germany without getting in trouble.
Things are not so bad as you think.
Berlin and Hannover also are cities with several Bitcoin startups and stores, companies accepting it.

Yes, it's like that from the beginning, also you cannot gamble with coins bought at Coinbase, if you do so, your account will be terminated.

You need to obfuscate your activity from Coinbase.

When you sold on localbitcoins, did you send coins to the buyer directly from your Coinbase wallet?

probably there may be new rule set by government and some modification on law or finance . I hope they may allow this bitcoin as legal after several days /month .

This is maybe a little off topic but it looks like Coinbase is getting stricter with rules. Did you guys know that it is a violation of their ToS to sell the coins in your Coinbase account on LocalBitcoins?? I'd been doing that the past maybe 6 or 7 months and never knew it was illegal. A couple of days ago I received a warning email from them saying that I was in violation of their ToS, that it is illegal to sell BTC from my Coinbase wallet on Craigslist, eBay, LocalBitcoins etc