Topic: Localbitcoins and I (Read 5422 times)

If you're in the US, sometimes even the state you're in can make a difference. All in all, the problems most people run into are regional.

I never use their escrow, I just meet up offline and exchange coins there

Been dealing with localbitcoins for a while now ! They were totally secure and provided nice escrow services for every translation and they still do .However I stopped trading at local bitcoins because of extreme low rates for fiat transfers.Some cheap assholes literally trade for dirt cheap prices which is always a lose lose situation for us sellers .Also people on this forum provide verification services on LB which makes scammers more resistant .

I never use local bitcoin any more, they place account under suspect and also very high fees for those selling on there

U shouldn't get into any trouble using localbitcoin as long you dont overdo it (like several 10k's of Euros).
Bitcoins are no way illegal in germany.. there are even some BTC ATM's spread in germany.
Even tho they have an "Outputmax" per day until its registered as an official exchange service.

Soon we will need underground trading platform instead of Localbitcoins. Government officials have become increasingly concerned about these unregulated financial systems, and the US is starting to apply money laundering regulations to cyber currencies. I wouldn't be surprised that these current and future regulations kill services like Localbitcoins.

Licensing uncertainty
http://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-exploring-options-service-halt-germany/

Anyone knows exactly why LBC halted service in Germany while continuing to operate elsewhere in the EU?

In the United States FinCEN has given guidance that whether an entity trading Bitcoins is a business or not is a matter of "fact and circumstances".

This means that whether my trading of Bitcoins on Localbitcoins.com was a business is not a matter of regulation (over a specific amount, etc.) but must be decided by the decider of "fact and circumstance".

What this means is that the question of whether it was a business or not must be decided by a jury trial.

A jury trial for the criminal case against me plus the additional civil trials of all the seized property was going to cost me an additional $75,000 to $150,000.  The government offered to drop the criminal case against me and all the civil cases against all the seized items for a "donation" of $80,000 to their civil asset forfeiture slush fund.  Since that was cheaper and was a guaranteed outcome (case against me dropped, get all the seized property back) we decided to go with that.

But the bottom line is that since the case never went to trial and the jury did not decide if what I was doing was a business or not this matter was left undecided.

This means that they can still arrest you for doing any amount of trades using localbitcoins.com and claim it is a business.  There are no regulations or guidance in place as to what constitutes a business and what does not.

I paid income tax on every Satoshi of profit I made.  My case was never a tax issue.  The question was whether my trading on localbitcoins.com constituted a business or not.  It it was not a business and I was trading for my own account then I did not need a license.  If it was a business then I would need a license.

What the government should have done and what they would have done if they were not blinded by their delusion of a direct huge windfall asset forfeiture to their department, was send me a cease and desist letter and then we could have hashed this out like civilized human beings.  Instead, they spent millions of dollars, arrested me, threw me in solitary confinement, treated me as a terrorist under the patriot act, and held a five year sentence over my head in order to unconstitutionally shake me down to fill their coffers by outright extortion.

some countries and some amounts dont have that problem its just a security and anonimacy thing into europe its regular to do like 200€ and dont pay taxes

there is laws for how much money you transfer that is the problem..
under the limit your fine over? you better call your accountant lol

There were five Bitcoiners arrested the same timeframe as I was in "operation avalanche", so there have been at least five cases in Colorado.  The feds also did the same kind of operation in Florida but I am not sure of the total number arrested.

I am not aware of any cases outside the US, but I do not keep up on that.

I wonder how risky is that in other countries where the laws are not that strict. tbh you and a couple of other cases are the only ons I heard of having problems. Did lbtc ever result into people having problems in other countries ?

Just going on localbitcoins, finding a buyer or seller there, and then meeting with them is not as problematic as setting up an account to buy/sell and then advertising there.  It is the advertising your willingness to buy/sell that makes it look like a business and may require a license.  Just using the localbitcoins service to locate a buyer/seller who has an ad on the site does not make you look like a business.

I have done several bitcoin trades with local bitcoin. I bought bitcoin from localbitcoins. I paid money through bank transfer and get the bitcoin later. No problem at all.

If you live in Germany you won't run into the specific problem that I had (US Homeland Security) but you might have issues specific to Germany.

If you are interested you can read all about my case here:

http://www.jmwagner.com/
http://www.burtw.com/

correct
essentially bitcoin is a secure site and can be used in every country,, if illegal LB certainly have long blocked by country

Coinbase also seems unavailable in Germany: http://btcgeek.com/coinbase-expands-14-countries-leaves-uk-germany/

Alternatively to bitcoin.de (which is person to person) you can look at Kraken. They use the same banking partner as bitcoin.de (Fidor bank).

It seems to be the law in Germany that exchanges only can operate if they have a local banking partner, as explained in this (German) article:
http://www.winheller.com/bankrecht-finanzrecht/bitcointrading/bitcoin-exchange.html


Additionally there is a German section on this forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=16.0  There might be more info available there.

banks ? if you dont care about anonymity or privacy then why are you avoiding coinbase ? it takes some days though..

As others have said it's not available in Germany. Look at Bitcoin.de. It's integrated with certain banks so trades can be nearly instant.