Topic: Liberty Reserve shutdown is a boost for Bitcoin? - page 11. (Read 12659 times)

You obviously haven't looked at the FinCEN requirements, thus have zero clue what you are talking about. You're just spewing FUD based on you're own paranoid delusions.  It's really not that complicated to comply.  Expensive, yes...complicated not really if you've got the money.

Read the libertarian principles. Good government is a minimal government with total control by society. So, our plan can be "toss and build the minimal new".

And replace them with who?  You?  No one?     You're gonna have to come with a better plan than "toss them".

Regulate Bitcoin, and regulator will change the protocol and start printing new BTC soon. So, what will be the difference from USD?

Current governments are not babies. They are adult mafiosos. So, if we can, we need to toss them.

Such is the truth of humanity.  Nothing is perfect but that dosen't mean you toss out the baby with the bath water.  You just work to improve the system.  I think a regulated Bitcoin will do wonders to force banks into acting right because there is an alternative.  A true competitor...finally.  As long as it's unregulated the banks can keep demonizing it and they'll win.  Regulate it and you level the playing field, so us little guys/gals can get a fair shake by taking the power back and utilizing currency how we want to, not how they want us too.  You don't have to be black market to accomplish these things.

The problem of any regulations is that they can't be absolutely right. And it doesn't depend on which government do you mean.
Every centralized system will be corrupt when it becomes huge and when it have a lot of power.


Your children and grandchildren will "say" thanks to you 

You're comparing surrendering to a foreign government to the rule of law of our existing government?    Not a really good comparison.  Regulations are a good thing when done right.  I'm not here to change the world...I'm here to make money.   I told you, save your Bitcoin bible thumping...I don't care.  Just giving you fair warning of the seriousness of the situation.  


No, we just like things like roads and bridges.  Schools and hospitals.  Healthcare and feeding the poor.  Oh and lights...kind of important.  Can't have those things without taxes and can't have taxes without regulations.  It does suck to pay bills, I know but hey, that's life.  

Then forget about Bitcoin! The US government will stop at nothing defending the dollar. "Whatever it takes" - so often we listen officials saying these words at both sides of the Atlantic. Expect everything from people so desperate to defend their power whatever the cost.

If that, I prefer "die".

But, Coinseeker, I rather prefer another phrase: "Fight or die". Or Russian version: "Die, but fight".
We all need to shut up the corrupt governments. Who said it will be simple? But we need to fight. We need to develop new, greater technologies to win. And we'll do it.

BTW, if the U.S. founding fathers thought like you ("comply or die"), America could be a slavish British colony today.
So, you are not a patriot of your country. True Americans think not like you. IMO.

You are correct that the Liberty Dollar was not illegal, and yet has caused much trouble for those that were involved.  I believe the Liberty Dollar case will prevail in the end (remember that BVNH has yet to be sentenced after more than two years).  Nevertheless, it remains a cautionary tale.  That case is fundamental to how and why I have to operate in the way that I do with offering the NEW LIBERTY DOLLAR.  It took a very deep study of that case, reading all the testimony and evidence, and LOTs of lawyer time.  
The laws on the books prevent STATES from issuing competing currencies.  They do not prevent barter, or the Article 1 right to contract.
Bitcoin is really very easy to use legally.  All the accounting is kept for you in perpetuity in the block chain and this provides legitimate business with the best backup of irrefutable accounting records yet devised.
So yes, you can declare the income from appreciation when sold, just like you might do for a stock sale.  
There can be some very easy ways around the problems.  I predict that as it grows it will become much easier to comply with the basic laws, addons to accounting software to automatically pull your records from the block chain and do your taxes more easily than ever before.  I am almost surprised that it hasn't already been done.  It would be a quick programming job and would benefit the community tremendously, and the programming team tremendously x2.

That assumes everyone shares your faith in bitcoin's indestructibility. They don't. I see many posts here and elsewhere nervously asking whether "bitcoin is safe" in the wake of the LR bust.

This is VERY bad for Bitcoin but also another fully telegraphed warning shot across the Bitcoin bow.  Comply or die.  It's really that simple.  The USG doesn't have to shut down Bitcoin, so please spare me the Bitcoin bible thumping.  The USG has once again proved that it can seize any bank account, nearly anywhere in the world and turn out the lights of any exchange at any time.  They can block the flow of money from US banks as easy as turning off a light switch.  And as you see, they are going to get the cooperation of most world nations.

Submit immediately to regulations is the message.  Comply or die is the ultimatum.  They are not joking, they do not bluff, this is not FUD.  This is reality.  

I don't claim to know what they are guilty of, if anything, and quite surprised if you do.  I am merely looking at what is alleged.  The US has a 4th Amendment which offers privacy protections against unreasonable search and seizure.  Not being qualified at all to judge whether this constitutes a reasonable search or not, I merely offer that IF what is alleged is accurate, willful complicity with ongoing criminal activity, then a little sunshine might disinfect.  I don't know the answer to what is happening to them and don't see it as a good thing on any level.  If it is true, I have done enough work for RAINN.org charity to understand the damage that child pornography can cause to victims, and would be very OK to have a good bit less of that happening.

For those of us who do not commit crimes with Bitcoins and use them for the fostering of legitimate business activity, and pay our taxes, and etc.  The accountability features of Bitcoins are more advantageous than the potential anonymity features.  Your mileage may vary.

I may not agree with all the laws, but I still must abide by them.
Fortunately, being very careful to not be engaging in any criminal activity allows for a good defense against probable cause for search, and so also protects my customers from this sort of seizure.  Like it or not, white market operations are bulk of the future of Bitcoin, if it is going to have a future.  If you sleep with dogs, you had better have a pretty damn good flea collar.  

I am also not one that is rooting for any systemic collapse of any economy.  The resulting human suffering is not worth ANY amount of personal gain I may have through my own economic resilience.  Big changes have big social cost and strain the ethical tolerance of the people that suffer under those changes.  Who want's to rule the ashes of a fallen society?  I would much rather see our little experiment continue, thrive and grow.  The more it is used for good, the better chance that has of happening.

AND, Bitcoin is such a good.  Technologies such as this that create common interests among people across government borders is one of the factors that helps prevent war and conflict between the governments that hold power.  People don't start wars, governments do.  So when there are people doing mutually beneficial business with those across borders, they can each put influences on their respective governments to NOT engage in hostilities and have a built in incentive to do just that.

All of those have an inherent value outside of their market price. Bitcoins only value is it's use as a currency. If it is harder to exchange your dollars for bitcoins, it is less useful as a currency and thus it's price will drop.

The point is, demand WILL drop. The LR announcement might not scare that many present investors off but it definitely will scare some potential investors. And serious govt crackdown on bitcoin will scare current investors, pretty much all of which are speculators off. SUPPLY will continue to go up too, considering more bitcoins are mined every day. Limiting access to exchanges willl reduce volume, but people won't be able to either buy or sell bitcoins so it won't make the supply change at all.

Who said the government had to be logical? They aren't going to make computers illegal either just because they are used to pirate music and movies.


Look what happened to Liberty Dollars. They weren't even really breaking any laws but the founder was made out to be a domestic terrorist.

There are already laws on the books that prohibit creating a currency that competes with the dollar. The gov just has to decide that those laws apply to bitcoin.

I think there was a case about a pizza place near the Mexican border that decided to accept pesos instead of dollar and they quickly put a stop to that.


My big fear with bitcoin is that it is pretty much impossible for it to actually be used legally. When you buy that gyft card with bitcoins, do you declare the appreciation of the coins relative to when you bought them to the IRS? I'm willing to bet most people don't, but you are supposed to. And there is no way to enforce because bitcoins are anonymous. The govt is going to become more upset that they aren't getting their cut as bitcoin grows and will start to cause more and more problems for us. I don't see any easy way around it.

Fortunately, the tards who think government regulation of bitcoin exchanges/businesses/etc will "crush" bitcoin to nothingness, are in the minority. Were they even a significant portion of holders, price would have CRASHED to sub-$100 on the LR news.

What, are we so misinformed as to think that making it HARDER TO GET bitcoins will reduce DEMAND? I'll tell you what; it will have a CONCRETE effect on SUPPLY. It might make certain types of people more afraid to use bitcoin but it's virtually impossible to shut down the protocol/network so for that reason it will flourish. The only concrete effect we can determine from regulation is that it will reduce supply, and we all know how that works.

Drugs - government intervened, regulated, prices and popularity went up
Prohibition - prices went up
AK-47 - illegal where I live; price to get one is much,much higher than it is in jurisdictions where it is legal. But some of you would think that the regulation would make the AK-47 less desirable - because you are errantly assuming that reduced supply automatically leads to reduced demand which is not the case in most situations involving government intervention.
BITTORRENT - decentralized protocol; even has a weak front-end like bitcoin (websites/centralized infrastructure that offer .torrent downloads), government completely impotent and unable to do anything; torrents wildly increase in popularity despite illegality and risk of massive fines/imprisonment.

BITCOIN ("nah this time is inexplicably different, government intervention/regulation will cause price and popularity to go DOWN, here is some illogical FUD to support my position") 

No it wasn't, lol. It was used seldom, not even 1% of the bitcoin transactions. People withdrawal to the anon polish cards, not their own bank accounts.

ive been saying this. LR was huge in the underground world. Those transactions are going to go somewhere. PerfectMoney will take a big chunk of them. But with PerfectMoney saying NO to americans opening accounts then Bitcoin is the only alternative. As people figure this out and send their money in we will see a rise for sure IMO.

This appears to be hitting the mainstream press now :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/28/why-bitcoin-enthusiasts-should-pay-attention-to-liberty-reserves-shuttering/