Topic: US Congress Urged to Regulate Crypto Sector Under Bank Secrecy Act (Read 319 times)

Let's know first what this act is
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), also known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act, is legislation passed by the United States Congress in 1970 that requires U.S. financial institutions to collaborate with the U.S. government in cases of suspected money laundering and fraud.
Source : Google.

Now how it can be beneficial for us :-

 1. More trust from the people since government is handling it now
 2. Less frauds will be there
 3. The cryptocurrencies will be protected under law so , people will feel more safe .

Now how it can harm us :-

 1. It will be equivalent to any Fiat currency and over the time will become one with the Fiat itself
 2. The corruption now will add onto it.
 3. Government can make changes in it howsoever they want , they might even make up cases and pull it's negative image in front of everyone

I think it's a double edged sword.

we can say maybe it is a congress because it urges the crypto sector with laws they will definitely think crypto will be a threat to the dollar, but in the end they don't realize how futile it is to ban crypto but bitcoin won't die bitcoin is always driven by some other countries who are trying to reduce their dependence on the US dollar.

No need for protest atall, decentralized Bitcoin is fine. 
I don't know what is happening in HK currently but when I see videos of horrible things done in the name of protest, I immediately stop and close the videos to regain my sanity and peace of mind. Hope what I watch is not what is going on there.

Bitcoin is transparent enough. So the security agencies can take advantage of this transparency to monitor things. 

I don't have any good data but it is safe to say that cryptocurrency industry has one of the most scams around, no wonder some people are assuming that this industry is a big scam by itself. Then the government has no choice but to act because of many complaints from the scam victims. Of course, this is not the fault of crypto industry but by the scammers big and small. The government can intervene because they must do so and not doing anything is a big dereliction of their duty.

We can say that the government is just using escape goats so they can regulate the cryptocurrency industry according to their point of view. But is there an ordinary guys like us can do if the government will decide to do it one day? NOTHING...as under the law the mandate is not on us but on them to pass laws on anything and implement them. We can, of course, make some protests like what is happening in Hong Kong right now but are we willing to face the risks involved? I think we are not ready for that.

We should however make it clear that it is not Bitcoin per se that will be regulated because technically that is impossible as it is a decentralized platform but they can easily regulate activities and businesses involve with and surrounding Bitcoin. And we are now seeing that in many cryptocurrency exchanges. The problem with the people in this industry is that we are fully developing its potential focusing on the P2P feature and so we rely too much on third-party infrastructure because it is more convenient for us. 

Well we cannot blame the US congress if they are pushing to regulate the cryptocurrency sector and placed under the bank secrecy act because of illicit activities. As long as these syndicates are using cryptocurrency in their transactions as form of payment the government will use its authority to uphold the law for the sake of its constituents. If only there are no abusers who use cryptocurrency in illegal activities then we will be free from regulations.

Every country has its advantages and disadvantages. I for example am taxed annually over my net worth even when I haven't utilized it. It's ridiculous to pay tax over the same capital over and over again. It's pure theft.

More positively speaking, I am not being taxed when I spend my Bitcoins, regardless of the amount. This allows me to legally avoid taxation. Not many countries in the world are that lenient on spending Bitcoin.

I'm not aware of your net worth, but if you consider the option to leave your current country then I assume it will be more than worth it for you. I can't see myself do the same where I am in life.

regulation from the government has pros and cons to crypto users. but for those govt officials who are in charge on this should diligently understand the nature of crypto or blockchain tech
they should seriously study the world of crypto and not rely from whoever is claiming to be the expert on this field! they cant ignore the fact that this crypto revolution is changing many lives already and they should be fair in implementing such policies!
these crypto users will accept those policies as long as there is fair treatment on both sides...

I pay my taxes. That is the end of it for me. If the gov pushes too hard then I will just take my bitcoin elsewhere and pay taxes there.

What I know is that the use of cryptocurrency will still accommodate both, I mean those who wants to use it anonymously and those who wants to use it un-anonymously, so it does not not even matter if government comes up with a harsh policy, we will still accept it and those who can work under the policy will diver the attention of government away from those who wishes to use it anonymously.

The most important thing that we need from the regulation of government is just for them to help us scared those who are using it illegally way and those who are coming with bad projects, at least before any ICO can register, they will need to get permit for it and anyone without that permit would be seen as an illegal or scam project. We need that seal on them to be able to identify good one.

You shouldn't think that banks are only deal with physical money, and they are not able to deal with the digital forms of money.
Banks nowadays handle mostly digital forms of fiat and want to get rid of the physical banknotes and coins, because it needs human resources to handle them (counting, transferring, storage). Also, these activities are quite expensive, if you compare it to the costs of handling the digital forms of the fiat.
There are even 'coinless' countries in the EU (Sweeden) where you can't use banknotes, only bank cards and bank transfer (and digital banking applications on smartphones). You can only use one type of coin (I don't know which one is that), and only for the purpose of opening the door of the public toilets, if the card reader don't work for some reason... (understandably, this is a kind of situation, when there's a real need for a 'Plan B' if there's a problem with the digital payment process )
So they have managed to create and run a country without the physical form of the money, everything is digital there...

My curiousness on this is how the banks would be able to have crypto under them. The crypto is really a different phase of financial activities in my opinion. Because banks are actually physical in nature while cryptocurrency is totally digital and involves everything on the internet.

Although regulations are expected to help create a safe crypto market, harsher laws can cause more harm than good. Until now, the crypto legal nature is fragmented and ambiguous in many countries in the world. In some countries, crypto regulations do not exist at all. Meanwhile, other countries have strict laws that prevent the growth of digital currencies.

For me, if firms are going to be regulated, then they should work it that such forms don't defraud the people and shut down someday, and not to start making hell-like policies to discourage investors, when a harsh policy is formulated, investors can seek alternatives by going underground, this way, the government stand a chance of losing more form revenue.

I really don't think commercial banks have a problem with cryptocurrencies in that sense. If anything, they can monetize them by offering services like brokerage, custodianship, savings and loan, etc.

It's governments who might not like cryptocurrencies because they avoid government-controlled channels. They can't freeze or seize bitcoins, for example. And if lots of economic activity leaves fiat monies for cryptocurrencies, the ability of governments to control their economies is weakened.


They're just talking about regulating service providers like exchanges and payment processors. This isn't really about cryptocurrencies themselves.

Regulating cryptocurrency for banking purpose would only create a centralized system and we will see more of centralized coins arise which will already divert from the bitcoin main objective that it was created for.

Although we need it to an extent, but I think that the most important regulation that we need is that which will make cryptocurrency legal and can  involve legal authorities because of all these atrocities happening, because cryptocurrency is not yet regulated legally, people are even scared of reporting any cryptocurrency theft to the security agencies because they are scared, since bitcoin has not be legalized, and even the security agencies may not take urgent decision as to going after the criminal through investigations.

Nothing new with that news since I understand the U.S. Government are slowly getting a  hand on crypto entities via regulations but this will

be subject for greater contentions among the parties involved. I'm sure there has been some kind of lobbying happening right now from entities

especially on the banking sector who feel that their interest are threatened by the emergence of cryptocurrencies.

So, you are in favor of regulations. Don't you think that governments intend to enact laws contrary to the nature of Bitcoin? Do you really think it will make the cryptocurrencies world safer? So, why is fiat still used for illegal activities?  
And I don't think people are open to regulations. I have read many posts here in bitcointalk that the community opposes regulations as they want decentralized cryptocurrencies.

I do not believe in it, the government is set to harm crypto as much as possible and not vice versa

on one hand, they're just a lobbying and political consulting firm; this isn't coming from congress. on the other hand, FIN has some former executive officials working for them who would probably be considered influential.

i sure hope VASPs don't get regulated under the BSA, but the FATF travel rule is actually worse with its $1000 reporting thresholds.

Unlike before, many people in the world of cryptocurrency are already open to regulations with the intention to make the field fairer, open and to weed out bad players. The problem is seems is that the government is not that keen to get into regulating this industry in exchange for recognition and to establish the clear policy and direction on the side of the government and the industry itself. Well, this industry is still young so maybe as years go on things can be changing for the better.