Bitcoin Forum

Europe targets 500 euro bill as it fights terrorism (http://gantdaily.com/2016/02/02/europe-targets-500-euro-bill-as-it-fights-terrorism/)

In the wake of the Paris attacks, European officials are stepping up their efforts to choke off funding for terrorists by going after large banknotes, virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and pre-paid cards.

“We have to ‘follow the money’ and cut off the resources these groups use to carry out their heinous crimes,” said Frans Timmermans, a senior official at the European Commission.

“By hitting them in their pockets we reduce their ability to travel, to buy weapons and explosives, to hide in our towns and cities, and to spread hate and fear online.”

Europe’s top law enforcement officials say the 500 euro banknote (worth about $546) makes life easier for criminals.

Good that they're tracking "dirty" money and cutting resources to the terrorists... But good luck proving certain Bitcoin belong to terrorists and even better luck stopping those funds from getting transferred.

Was flicking the channels on Sunday and ended up watching "60 minutes" of all things and they where talking about illegal funds coming in to the States by setting up shell companies through lawyers. Interesting that they would want to crack down on bitcoin and not these lawyers setting up ways to get their clients money abroad.
Really have a hard time believing terrorist groups use bitcoin to move money around.

Europa is a trap.
Capital control, stealth of people money in the banks.

Perhaps Russia or China can save us ... at the end.
Or perhaps it can take a war to stealth the gold reserve of each country.

hint : Europa don't have an army.

This is the last news for Europe

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-terrorism-financing-idUSKCN0VB1N7

EU to step up checks on Bitcoin, prepaid cards to fight terrorism

lol! How they will do that  ??? If anyone want to trade he can do it without release his id. And for the rest ppl we already give are full details to the exchanges if anyone use them. I dont knwo waht they have in their mind but in technology like this such measures are impossible

And now they've found/created a reason to "regulate" bitcoin. I just hope it's not the end.

They could force this into more of area where those already adapting to bitcoin would have no issue. Those that are new would pause a little like say buying a joint. They could shut down sites like localbitcoin and set up fake trades to bust people not complying with their mandates in a "1984" type of way. Just two steps forward for them well we take one back.

Reuters has a fest again bitcoin in this days. One more article for this financial system news site

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-shoooting-eu-terrorism-funding-idUSKCN0T81BW20151119

EU clamps down on bitcoin, anonymous payments to curb terrorism funding

In my opinion europe go to a financial dictatorship system. They are closing their boards, we have seen racist and facist increase even and for traditional open communities like denmark, sweden, we have seen an economical war against every new idea and to every new technology, and we see an economical war to everyone in the europe that is not agree with the europe governance.
I think europe is in big trouble.

I don't know how people buy Bitcoins to spend on the dark markets, but I assume quite a few of them buy anonymously by meeting a localbitcoins seller in person. Stopping those anonymous localbitcoins trades could significantly reduce the money flowing through the darknet markets.

I also see this positively. Bitcoin is a great technology, but which may also serve evil purposes. We cannot forget the great danger of terrorism and we should make all efforts possible to mitigate the possibility that it is used by terrorists.

Terrorism and bitcoin are not related. Terrorism and Countries financing them are far more connected than bitcoin and a single terrorist cell.
Its just like 9/11 where people will hand over more liberty for the greater good. End of the process is "1984" and sadly its not a tinfoil idea anymore.

Think about how much money filters through a terrorist group and then tell me they are using bitcoin to wire money back and forth.
No terror group is going to trust its funds to potentially being grabbed by a Spy agency or worse tracked. Its really just people not thinking this through.

I expected some form of movement but not this soon, hopefully it will all just be a mediocre annoyance.

Think if you guys followed the online poker scene you could make a lot of comparisons to how bitcoin will be squeezed.

Have to agree with the sentiments guys: Europe has trouble and adversity coming at it from so many angles (both from within and externally)

• Widespread tax increases
• Widespread price inflation
• Widespread public spending cuts
• Increasing unemployment
• Armed conflict on 3 fronts (Ukraine, Turkey, Libya/North Africa)
• High and increasing levels of immigration (from the other side of the fronts to those 3 armed conflicts)
• Increasing frequency/severity of terrorist attacks committed against the public
• Widespread political acrimony, as solutions to the problems aren't obvious

The EU right now looks like a pressure cooker left forgotten on the stove.

It's not the money but the people who are using it,they do not have to blame everything on the crypto -currency,they will always find ways to get hold of the funds in any way possible,they should increase their intelligent and restriction on who are entering their country not blame it on bitcoin..

Well it's just about time they started realizing a 500 euros was only useful to terrorists, drug dealers, and corrupt officials, I say  ::).
Such as... ?
I'm interested in knowing any reason why bitcoin could possibly fail. The more we know about a threat the more we can take appropriate steps to counter it.

Yes, Europe is a continent of many huge problems.  The "Migrants" problem is huge just by itself.  If the current governments of Germany, Sweden, etc. do not do something tough against the "Migrants", the Hard Right will.  Which will lead to other scary problems.

The financial/economic problems are very serious too, lots and lots of them.  And these will be near-impossible to resolve easily.  Agree: NO solutions are obvious...

Which is too damn bad from my viewpoint (American).  Europe is the main source of our culture, Europe is a vital piece of the world.

it's simple. The EU will begin to check the EU exchangers which MUST have a financial license EVEN NOW and they don't have it. :)

Who can afford to take a financial license in EU? It cost over 700K(only the capital must be 350K euro +lawyers, staff, etc...shits).
Also, once a company has a financial license it must apply strict AML, KYC rules, external audits and so on.  Each transaction must be justified. You, as licensed company must show that you identity the source of the funds and so on...otherwise you lose the license and the biz.

More than that, the monthly cost for a such company is huge and the real profit from Bitcoin is low. Don't look over their fake volumes. :)

So, the EU officials just have to apply the existing laws and Bitcoin will value almost zero OR the exchangers will have to "move" somewhere in Asia but each country has laws for financial activities...I don't know where they can move so that they can be "free" .

nobody is blaiming X e-currency. the new restrictions will apply to all e-currencies.

Nobody can regulate the transaction of bitcoin but if they restrict on exchanging them to fiat than that will not make big problem to bitcoin ecosystem.

Bitcoin won't be regulated but they will restrict the exchangers from Europe. The exchangers are already outlaw because they don't have a financial license for their activity. I think it will be simple for EU authorities to shut down some exchangers like Bitstamp, BTC-e. None of them have a financial license yet.

If the exchanges move out of the EU, then the EU could order its bank to refuse to let customers transfer money between themselves and non-EU exchanges. The banks in the EU are already wary of taking payments sent from Bitcoin exchanges. With some pressure from the EU they would stop taking any Bitcoin exchange payments.

If bitcoin is not recognized as currency by the state, on what grounds would they shut down companies like Bitstamp??

It was recently ruled a currency by the EU http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/10/22/eu-rules-bitcoin-is-a-currency-not-a-commodity-virtually/

Europe generally wouldn't fit very much with BTC because of the tax issues as well, Their taxes are extremely high and if there people start storing BTC as savings it would be an issue for them IMO.

So this is why the news:

http://www.coindesk.com/european-commission-customer-data-bitcoin-exchanges-wallets/

After what happened to Paris I suppose we should have expected this. Perhaps we wouldn't be able anymore to deposit on EU exchanges without any verification like we used to.

EU != Europe

I'm just saying. There are countries in Europe that is not a part of EU.

This.

I much prefer the non-EU countries to those who are members, the EU frequently bullies it's smaller neighbors in trade disputes (and Brussels frequently bullies it's member states, so joining doesn't solve the problem either)

The thing is they cant trace the fiat ,the system used by the black market is very and well hidden soo if they can trace a thing that they could try to reach and get the system how they think they can trace bitcoin?Im surprised now that they connecting just bitcoins to the darkeness knowing that since fiat apear the terroris is being financed by it and not bitcoin at all.

Well not compared to USA. But they have the atomic bomb so they don't really need an army  ;D

Finally someone gets it. Europe is a continent and the EU is an artificial construct too enslave all the people living under this dictatorship.
Journalists here in Germany always mix these two different things. If the EU and the shitty € goes down it does not mean it will be the end for europe. But this is what they always try to tell us. And many dumb people believe it.
Shit is starting to hit the fan! No day without any negative news.Drama is coming closer.

What if they make it so it records your MAC/IP address every time you make an exchange from bitcoins to fiat and vice versa it becomes quickly transparent who you are and where you are in the world.

Then you just need to avoid converting it to fiat. And I'm sure there would be black-market converting schemes...

Would you risk your money by sending them to a nigerian , russian, indonesian ? I guess not. Well, many of the BTC users wanted that BTC to be "adopted". Adoption means regulation. Regulation = AML, KYC and many others and also, it means that the exchangers MUST be licensed otherwise they will be closed.

Regulated exchanges will never be used for money laundering and terrorism funding, because it would just be too easy to track. If they want to stop

this, they will have to close down the unregulated exchanges and then the pawn shops. These people are selling valuable articles at Pawn shops,

brought from their own countries across the borders and buying guns and explosives on the black markets. Stop them at the borders and confiscate

these articles... If Europe are going to pay for their asylum, they have to contribute too... The taxpayers are going to get fed up with paying for

freeloaders. 

Bitcoin adoption is increasing currently in a massive scale with increased adoption, of course with that troubles start to arise and unwanted people using the new projects. Europe in a massive competition against illegal activities and therefore controlling BTC spread and origin is important to them.

What exchangers are regulated? Around of 4 worldwide. Coinbase, Gemini, Itbit and Circle(all from USA).

Even the so called biggest exchanges like BTC China, Okcoin, Bitstamp(this one is from Europe), BTC-e are NOT regulated.  Yes, they are running illegal companies because there are already laws who regulate their activity.

They are posing that they are corporations but they cannot cover "only" 1 mil USD to get a financial license :)

Of course, they cannot afford and they don't want that. Who will use them after that? The BTC industry is 90% based on black market(ponzi, fake forex and other scams) who doesn't want to be identified easily.
Once an exchanger is regulated, it must identity all its clients very carefully, to trace the funds and to be sure that they are clean.You need a lot of staff and resources to do that.

Well not a while ago I remember people celebrating about how europe made bitcoin VAT free or something like that. Of course I knew the niceness from goverment can only be temporal and limited since Bitcoin is anti goverment and anti censorship in general.

Terrorism can be related to anything. Or not. Same with bitcoin. Or anything else. Terrorists can deal with anything: money, bitcoin, gold. But all of a sudden they've got bitcoin to blame. How convenient.

Sometimes... Sometimes it just seems they don't even care how we feel...

Here in the States our Bitcoin transactions, or at least mine, are all traceable through Coinbase where if someone really wanted to know they could.  This is just another attack on Bitcoin - low lifes and terrorists use anything they can get their hands on to support their terrible ways - not just bitcoin.

They will always hunt on terrorists and the money they have and using. Whatever currency they will use that don't matter.

I would believe terrorists find a way around everything. It is quite inevitable to have terrorists thriving.

Terrorism around the world is not all the same. The extent that it infiltrates day to day can be quite small compared to say Pakistan where you have different factions meddling to get to a certain outcome. I do not see it as inevitable and more a product of say manipulation of 3rd world countries by governments seeking profit/gain off their backs.
Not saying peace and it dissolves but its is to much of a blanket statement to say it is always going to be around. Things change at a rapid pace now and terrorism on a global stage is becoming a very useless tool to manipulate with,in the violent context.

Terrorists? On the contrary. They care very much about people's feelings. That's what they're using most. I'm mean it's not called terrorism for nothing.

Gah! So it's those wily terrorists themselves who ratted out our Bitcoin?
Don't they know we're stickin' it to The Man too? Just like them, but in our own special way?
*roughly wipes aside manly tear with sleeve*
Fuckit! Obviously they don't even care who they hurt. They got no scruples! >:(

No scruples whatsoever. They're a bunch of heartless bastards. Not having any consideration for our feelings.  ;D

Finally! I hope so. I thin that the 1€/cents coins and 500€ banknote are useless, in some country you can't use more than 1000-2000 euro in cash to buy things, why the hell we need a banknote for 500€?

Because it's easier to have one bill in your pocket instead of five. It's about convenience. Would it be better if the biggest denomination would be the 50 euro one? Different sizes for different needs.

You have any proof of that statement you made? {The highlighted part} The only reason why they want to regulate everything now, is because of the

uncontrolled chaos they created with all the immigrants coming into Europe now and the Paris terrorist attacks. Bitcoin is the scapegoat for a problem

they cannot solve. How much evidence are there that terrorists are using Bitcoin to fund their operations? {Please post the links to that evidence}  ???

yes but for example when i was in Europe,i had a 500 bill,  I spent more than half a day to pay for something in a normal shop whit 500€, I finally changed in an exchanger, what's the sense if in italy for example i can't pay 1000€ in cash? 5x200€ is good enough in my opinion

Haha the €500 bill, i havent even used one in my life, so they can make it disappear if they would like. Not a really usefull bill lmao.

It's about convenience when having to deal with larger sums. Also if you want to stash some money for emergencies, you just hide your 500 euro bill and you're done. Or you can, of course, have a jar full of 1 euro coins. Also practical.

Why is it so many people here are concerned about stashing statist toilet paper scrip for emergencies? I'm from US, so no dog in this fight, but the last time I wished there were $500 bills was ...well, never.

western countries are responsible of today's terrorism because they created this capitalist system .. this capitalist system creates terroism ..first, it have to change this system.. abolising the banknote isnt the true way for this..there must be a system which straddle the whole world.. a system in which ones must be poor and the other ones must be rich.. this is so unfair..

I would be very happy to see a US $500 bill.  I like paying with cash on occasion, and a $500 would be of use to me.  Remember, they used to print $10,000 FRNs (1930s, IIRC), so a $500 is really nothing, especially at (dollar) deflated 2016 levels...

I do not see why .gov should prohibit anything that people find useful.  A €500 banknote is a great way for tourists in Europe to carry around a lot of "value" without having to use their credit cards (and there ARE credit card scammers in Europe, we got taken once in Naples, Italy).

And if Bitcoin were to get big in Europe, whoa.  Put me on the next flight!

Well see, I understand that pulling out a wad of $500s might excite you, but such bills are of little interest to the 99.9 percent of us hoi polloi. And while I would enjoy seeing a $3 bill, and a $2.37 bill, I'm willing not to whine about the U.S. Treasury, The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, to be more precise, not printing up any for me to enjoy.

As far as $500, those would be far more useful to criminals and people who wish to compensate for ...certain lackings by pulling out gold money clips of large bills.
We don't wanna cater to those :-\

...


bargainbin

Let's say you want to buy an ounce of gold, that would cost some $1270 at your local coin shop.  Two $500s and some more vs. 13 $100s.  Pay by credit card?  They won't take it (risk of chargebacks), and even if they did, that would be 3% MOAR you would have to pay.

What if you wanted to buy $10,000 worth of gold?  That would be $300 extra for using your CC, or counting out a lot of $100s.

Screw that.  I would like to have the OPTION of using $500s or even $1000s, just like we had those options 80 years ago. 

Freedom and privacy go very well together.

Government prohibited things when they get more useful to criminals than to the honest population.

500€ bills exist in Europe and they're precisely useless. Nobody uses them and nobody carry them ever! Only drug dealer get 500€ bills! In fact that could be a good way to kill the drug lords, poison all the 500€ bills you'll never hurt an honest citizen xD

What would you do whith such a bill? You couldn't even spend it, most shop don't allow bills higher than 100€.

Yeah but freedom and privacy means ways to not respect the law exist ;)

And for this example, you'd just make a secured and free bank transfer, as anyone else would do xD

...

laosai and bargainbin

500 euro notes would be useful in paying hotel bills for tourists.  Tourists MIGHT be able to convince some hotel owners to charge them less by offering to pay in cash (no 3% CC charges).

Illegal crimes?  Crack down on the criminals!  Put them in jail (ahh, how many "Rapefugees" are now in jail, hmm?).  Criminals commit crimes?  Catch them and lock 'em up.

Don't restrict our freedom.

It's a point of view.

Fact is you gotta chose between cutting the main value exchange process of illegal activities, and maybe upsetting one or two tourists every year that wanted to pay cash. What do you chose?

Anyway I'm not sure it's such a big debate. Nobody uses those bills so that you forbid it or not is just a detail. Especially as you can easily replaced it with 200 or 100€ bills.

I mean I understand what you're saying but honestly, we (Europeans) absolutely don't care about the 500€ bill.

Nobody uses it! I never saw one in my whole life! And I'm not poor, just not using thousands of euros in cash xD

I think that's also for that reason that government are starting to question those bills. Just because they're not used, not at all.

They are used everyday, it depends in which country you live.

If you're a used car dealer, or a shop selling electronics goods in Germany, they have customers paying cash everyday. Also some auctions houses don't accept anything but cash, so if you buy something costing €5,000, €500 bills are handy.

Your coin shop doesn't trust you? And you honestly can't be bothered to carry 13 bills instead of 5?
How often do you do this, buy ounces of gold from your coin shop? like, once a day, or more often?
Can you write them a fucking check, or did you previously screw them?
You seriously can't carry an extra (what do 8 bills weigh, anyhow? less than an ounce?)? How will you carry that z of gold?!
You're not entitled to have whatever bills you feel. I want $3 bills, and yet I haven't even petitioned my government to print them. Can you imagine?
TL;DR: It's not all about you, Snowflake. Make do with hundreds, you'll live.

Of course I'll make do.  Always have.

Try paying with a check at your coin shop.  There are other legitimate businesses that take cash too.  If I ran a coin shop, or sold gold, or ran a pawn shop, I would not take credit cards or checks.

:)  

I'm not sure you have thought this through enough to understand that LARGE denomination bank notes mean a little more freedom.  

Keep thinking, Snowflake.

Really? Well it's fun, cause it's really uncommon in France for example.

Well I bet that if it's rather largely used, no point in forbiding it then =)

>There are other legitimate businesses that take cash too.
If by that you mean "take only cash," and we're talking about prices which will make $100 bills impractical due to bulk (so, like, >$10 grand), name one.
And no, reupping on product doesn't fall under "legitimate businesses."

So no, no $3 bills for me, no $1million bills for Trump & no $500 for you.
Life's hard, Honeybunch, lrn 2 make do.

...

We have different views then.  We will not change each other's minds.

Each of us is in a different environment with our own perspective, which is OK.

Peace.

we have little bit worry about this,and bitcoin will get some bad effect because this,but it never make me stop to spread bitcoin,europe is not the only one bitcoin market.

Well, I can understand their point of view. Bitcoin is wild west of money transferring. Awful things like ransomware, terrorists funding, black markets are powered by bitcoin.
I don't want for bitcoin to be blamed for this and associated with these acts, but I doubt EU lawmakers know what they are doing.

They probably just want to mitigate the negative effects through regulation however it remains to be seen if they could pull this off well.

You can strip bitcoin out of the situation and see that they blame cash in the same manner. It comes down to control over the people in many forms. If they lock down how we move finances they can create markets crashes easier and scare the people into doing what they feel is right for their pocket books.

why they are blaming bitcoin for this all?i think some people use what their want to illegal or terorism payment,but we can't blame that payment (bitcoin).

Only solution is to turn the five hundred bill into a thirty pound coin. Would make rich and terrorists stand out.

Oh no they won't! Imagine they do, who will they be able to blame if they can't just tell people "mah, bitcoin fault, terrorists and shit" ^^

How can they blame bitcoin for terrorist?

so if they got the fund from western union, should we closed western union??

If they bought weapon using Dollar, should we ask the country to change the currency?

I think it is very funny for europe blaming bitcoin for this matter, bitcoin is just like other money only bitcoin is digital money

Exactly what I was thinking. Criminals will continue to do illegal stuff with anything, any currency.
You can't stop that by trying to forbid bitcoin. Bitcoin does make it easier on criminals nowadays. Just because illegal activities are going on, doesn't mean that they should prevent all of us from using bitcoin.

Not Bitcoin BUT the exchangers are part of criminal activities.

The exchangers are doing the IN and OUT.... :)

EU isn't blaming Bitcoin -- Bitcoin is simply getting the same level of regulation as regular money, Snowflake.