Bitcoin Forum

Would establishing legislation dealing with BTC, followed by an enforcing body, be that bad for BTC? In other words, would having a body, agency or an entity you can turn to and ask for help in case you get scammed be a bad thing for BTC? I ve witnessed multi million dollar BTC related scams not being investigated or penalized in any way. How can BTC economy get better in the future? Pls share your opinion about this one since I feel this is the most important problem which hampers faster BTC adoption.

in my country btc was not accepted by our goverment, but not banned at all so btc adoption faster here. And I think with having agency or an entity is bad for some reason...,but will have some advantage from other sides...

security is a big problem right now, it culd help if government can support bitcoin in this side, but not at the cost of having a centralized system, i want bitcoin to remain free

there was a topic where i suggested a 2fa to be added directly in the client, a sort of login information that pup up when you launch the client, and it ask you for a code after you enter login and pass, like an exchange

this would add a better security against wallet stealer, especially with hot wallet, which seems to be used by many newbies

I m not talking about security. I am talking about investment options and projects. Cause we re way past the time where people would buy BTC, hoard it and wait for the price to go up. I m talking about what do you do with you BTC once you buy them. After all, if all of us buy BTC and hoard them, there will be no developments inside BTC economy, no growth. As in every other economy, there must be transactions.
In order for people to perform transactions, they need to have some sort of consumer protection and this is what I think legislaton should be aimed towards. How I, as an ordinary BTC user, can be protected if I decide to invest my BTC into something. Paypal s got charge back and laws supporting it, credit cards s got protection and laws supporting it, BTC s got nothing. I think this is one of MAJOR BTC flaws which needs to be solved in the future.

To incorporate some form of legislation would require bitcoin having certain characteristics. First there is no issuing party, nor does it have company registration number and in certain laws regarding fraud, you will need that as a proof. Also to certain extent, some government doesn't even recognize its existence as a legal tender. So all these come together that prevents it to be part of the fraud protection.

So what extra regulation do we need? If you order goods from a respected shop, or invest into a trustworthy bank, you will get the same consumer protection whatever the currency. Say, if you open a non resident account in a major bank in London, they will offer you the choice of getting it in $, £ or €. The Sterling isn't the only option. What we need is better BTC recognition from the leading financial players, and I'm not sure regulation would bring this.

well you talked about scammers in your OP, so i thought you wanted to have answer about security too

as long as bitcoin remain decentralized it's difficult to have safety on investment, once i read, that in the future banks, could "play" with bitcoin, and offer this kinda of safety to customers, if they deposit their bitcoin there

basically they would say " deposit your bitcoin on our bank and get 2-3% interest per year or something like that, in exchange your bitcoin are secured by us"

It depends on what you want to use Bitcoin for, if for instance you are trying to transfer it to the currency of the country involved it causes a lot of problems once you go past the tax threshold, for law abiding people it becomes a real issue, for people who don't give a shit it doesn't make much difference either way. The main thing legislation would do is bring some clarity, but as expected governments are fucking it up already and not creating proper laws for it, the only country I've seen do things properly so far is Germany, they've declared Bitcoin private money and done a 10% tax of the profits, that would be the way to go, but it looks like other governments have different plans.

Maybe my initial post is not clear enough. What I was referring to is actually legislation related to consumer protection. In other words, establishing a system where there is actually someone you can complain to if something goes wrong and that someone actually does something about it.

There are all ready consumer protection laws on the books. They are not currency dependent. They simply need to be enforced by the appropriate authorities/agencies.

Yes, this is true but under low in my country only accepted currencies in trades are our national currency.
I don't think that any registered company in my country could issue an invoice in BTC, such invoice will not be accepted by authorities.
So, before we talk about consumer protection laws first BTC should become legal in my country, maybe in other countries is different situation.
So, yes, BTC legislation is good thing from business viewpoint.

Yes and no. If these legislations are being introduced to undermine what Bitcoin stands for, then yes it is bad for Bitcoin. For example, if legislation was required for every person who wanted to buy Bitcoin to provide identification and justification of why they want to buy Bitcoin then it goes against the whole point of the freedom that is provided when using Bitcoin. However, legislation to protect the integrity of services provided via Bitcoin, for example all companies offering stocks and shares via Bitcoin must regulated accordingly.

When New York started with the legislation regarding BTC they emphasized the need for it, due to consumer protection. In my opinion.. regulation can be done without having to over regulate it.

The problem is more with over regulation... that hamper the growth of innovation and you can see this with many innovative Bitcoin companies moving their operation abroad. {Outside of US borders}

legislation from an government body that is capable of effecting positive good would likely bolster and help bitcoins.. i dont know of any such government though

I have yet to see a government really put Bitcoin in the positive light...I do hope that a lot of countries will eventually see the good that Bitcoin can do and media shouldn't just keep bringing up only negative aspects of Bitcoin like the Silk Road...

Yes, with consumer protection we would have much less BTC scams. Why? Cause there would be a deterrent for these scammers, something they fear about and they would move to something else.
I think this form of legislation is what NY had in mind and I would like to see that attempt to be successful.

Although isnt the entire idea of bitcoin legislation flawed, as anyone with a tad of brains and intent could bypass any maneuvers to regulate a cryptocurrency merely by the currency's state of fact?
I live in NYC and supposedly bitcoins are regulated here yet I buy them on exchanges without any state interference if I hide that I am a New Yorker.. which is not especially hard to do.