Topic: What is the best country to start a "bitcoin" business ? (Read 2232 times)

This true of most 34 FATF member countries.  While no-one has yet adopted all of the FATF 40+ 9 AML/CTF recommendations in their entirety, there's a significant standardisation of adoption in Western countries in particular.  There are also memorandums of understanding between nations and provisions in trade agreements which effectively mean that other nations adopt similar financial compliance models to those of the US.

I'll play Armchair lawyer here for a few and give my 0.02 BTC

It all depends on the nature of your business and what you're trying to accomplish.
For 99% of things you may want to do, it's just easier to setup shop close to home, unless of course you're from the land of the repressed and home of the fearful.

For many things we have been doing with bitcoins in the USA, you would be running afoul of our lovely labyrinth of financial compliance laws that require you to either give all of your customers a financial rectal exam, or let the government will give you one, sans lube.

If you're in the states and need to protect yourself from your government, it's probably best to setup your core business outside the USA to deal with all non-USAians (notice that I don't say Americans, because let's face it folks, we stopped being real Americans the day we let the PATRIOT Act pass).

If you want to deal with folks stateside just setup an LLC in Wyoming and make sure you have a damned good lawyer do it properly for you.

Belize is great if you just need a nice friendly place to stick an entity that won't actually be doing business in belize.

New Zealand is alright from an "easy setup" perspective, but considering that the government there seems to LOVE being the USA's little b!tch lately; I don't think it's somewhere I would want to setup shop if there is ANY chance I could become a target.

I think the best country to start a Bitcoin business is Finland at the moment.

If Iceland were to pass the proposed "Virtual LLC", that would probably work:

 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.928020


Also, I just noticed this thread:


Most Bitcoin friendly country for founding a company
 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/most-bitcoin-friendly-country-for-founding-a-company-112026


[Update: Not sure which forum board this thread is best fit under but Trading Discussion wouldn't be it.]

Sealand.

Well, there are quite a few different possibilities depending on the business.  If your business is mining, you want cheap power and gentle tax treatment.  I hear Russia has both, and there's lots more possibilities.  If you're running some sort of other business (like an exchange), you're going to need a fast internet connection, so that kind of rules out mining in the middle of nowhere.

Is TOR a valid option?

Im in New Zealand, been fairly easy so far.

USA seems to have the most options for potential customers to trade into and for your company to trade out of bitcoins.

Probably Somaila. That's where all the pirates are anyway.

Wirtland.

 - http://www.wirtland.com

What do you think is currently the best country to start a "bitcoin" business ?
I think it is important to define, what we mean with "best".

It would be interesting to have a similar list as this one (http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings) from the WorldBank
that ranks the ease of doing business.

A mining business will definitely focus on different aspects as a BTC service provider...


Cheers !