Topic: Does Wells Fargo see the writing on the wall? (Read 2157 times)

I'm very interested in seeing how banks in america (and other countries)  start to handle bitcoin. It's unavoidable that banks won't take some sort of action as bitcoin expands and more merchants start accepting bitcoin.

My hope is that banks will find a way to work with bitcoin where they can still benefit from it somehow but merchants and consumers are still able to reap the benefits that bitcoin offers such as lower fees.  That's the best case scenario we can hope for IMO.

Sad this is I just read on coinbdesk that payment processors like bitpay are refusing to work with marijuana related merchants in legal states due to current federal laws.  They are already walking a fine line with banks by dealing with bitcoin so they don't want to step on any more toes and start getting involved with merchants who are breaking federal laws.

Of course pot stores can still accept bitcoin on their own without any payment providers but then that makes them liable to the volatility of losing bitcoin and it starts become an unsafe/unsmart business practice to accept funds that can/will drop in value at any given moment (or increase in value).

Yeah, cause no one uses the post office anymore right...

This sort of move is to be expected and it will be fascinating to watch it play out. I just read an interesting article about how the shops legally selling weed in Colorado can't get bank accounts (due to state and federal regulations) so they deal with huge amounts of cash and have to hire specialist security teams etc. Obviously using bitcoins is a perfect way to avoid all of that hassle. 

Except the entity with a computing power exceeding 50% of the network...
Lets stick to the facts.

They must have missed the memo that went round saying bitcoin will do to the post office.......

 

I think the whole idea of money laundering is a bit extreme to be honest..

The definition being:


Which can be accomplished no matter what the medium of exchange whether cash, coins, gold, cars, etc.

If anything, Bitcoin is more favorable to the legal system for the very fact that when they do catch criminals and gain access to their computers they can easily trace their wallets and other purchases via the Blockchain.

Wells Fargo pump and dump in 3....2....

These banks and rich people they have to get their dirty hands on everything. They want to try to push bitcoin out with something they mandate is more "legitimate"
 

Coindesk also has an article on it, no need to register as well.

http://www.coindesk.com/wells-fargo-summit-bitcoin/

Seems Reuters has picked up the story.  No need to register here :

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/us-wellsfargo-bitcoin-idUSBREA0D1LL20140114

I agree. IMHO this looks like preparation for a preemptive strike against Bitcoin. Things is about to get interesting.

Banks will get involved one way or the other, it's just a matter of time. It will probably be the ultimate test for bitcoin as we know it today.

Bitcoin ws created to bypass the corrupt banking system.

Not be assimilated into it.

Naturally the arrogant american business people are going to try and find ways to make money off it while taking a large rod up their ass willingly to regulators.  Begging for their approval and asking how Bitcoin can be molded to comply with the corrupt banking system.  But how that is going to jive with the unregulated nature of Bitcoin .... I don't know.

This quote in particular made me want to vomit:

"“Wells Fargo could remake the Bitcoin business in the US overnight,” said Ryan Singer. “They have the expertise, knowledge and clout necessary to deal with concerns about AML compliance and banking risk. If they are truly getting close to being ready to experiment with bitcoin, then every bitcoin startup should be lining up to learn more."

Ryan Singer is, in my opinion, an anathema to the Bitcoin community.  This guy needs to be condemned for his nonsense.  This is not some new technology that Wells Fargo can "introduce" to the world, and "remake".  This is a technology that is intended to bypass their corrupt control of peoples money, and make their entire business model obsolete.  It truly requires some arrogance for them to not even see that yet.  I also love that the head of money laundering prevention called the meeting. Wells Fargo got caught red handed laundering hundreds of millions of dollars not too long ago..... Spare me this "play nice assimilation with regulators" bullshit.  Please.

-B-

Banks can exploit the market for people that don't want the risk of securing large BTC holdings themselves. Big investment sorts, and maybe rich middle class people also. Wells Fargo could easily fill those type of shoes.

And they can convincingly set their own high standards of accountability. The new HD wallets will let them define which chain of addresses they will and will not use with each customer. They can't do a great deal better than that, seeing as they can't change how the protocol works.

But I wonder if it might be too tempting to leverage the BTC they have on deposit to patch up their sketchy balance sheet. All the banks have bad debts, and they're not writing them off yet for one pretty big reason: it would bankrupt them. The debts of all these banks are bigger than their (still very considerable) assets. The trouble is the debts are vast in comparison. So, they're using dodgy accounting practices to make-believe they are still solvent; either over-estimate the value of the debts, or just sequester them off-balance sheet (i.e. pretend they'll actually be paid off by who owes them, or pretend they don't exist)

Putting your BTC into a big bank might be about as secure as Input.io or MyBitcoin.com in the long run. You might end up saving the shareholders and the bondholders investments, and losing yours to some smallprint legal clause.

Wells Fargo is researching how they can do business using Bitcoin.

I see this as all positive for bitcoin. It is only be the men in suits who might be able to find a way that keeps the regulators happy ( over money laundering etc) and also makes them some margin somewhere. (they might not be able to make fees directly off transactions with bitcoin but I see the men in suits getting acceptance for a "special, new  bank account type ". The fees to open and hold such an account will be "expensive' ie will approach the level of fees visa/mastercard charge etc. ie they will make bitocin a peer to peer visa equivalent. I dont like fees but and happy for some level if bitcoin gets made legit by regulators as I still see so many other benefits to using bitcoin that I will continue with it 

They're notorious for being huge spams, so I heard.

I would of paid a satoshi to read that article over giving them my email address...

what? this is huge! one of the biggest banks wants to make bitcoin more mainstream and work with it   !



"The bank, the largest in the US by market value, has emerged as one major financial institution interested in dealing with a potential new Bitcoin economy. But regulatory uncertainty has deterred banks from offering services to virtual currency start-ups."

Wells chief executive John Stumpf said it was the bank’s practice to examine financial innovations.

“We have made enormous investments as a company and as an industry in a payments system that is secure, and we need to be sure we are up to speed with what other things are going on and their risks and rewards,” he said.

“We want to make sure we understand what it is, what it does and what it does not . . . . The world is changing and will continue to change. Whether Bitcoin will be a big part of that, who knows?”


info: Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home mortgage servicing, and debit cards.