Bitcoin Forum

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/russian-law-would-send-bitcoin-users-to-jail-as-cybercriminals

The sad thing is that this will only stop the normal users from using bitcoin. The criminals who were using it before won't stop using it because the government says so.

7 years? :o
disappointed to hear this news, but if it happens yes plan will inevitably have to comply.

Its just protection law. I dont know about Iceland and Vietnam, but Russia and especially Bolivia have high inflation of their currency, so it makes sence for any country in trouble with their currency protect it so people canot use more sound option to keep their wealth in - bad for people, but it keeps the concept of national currency as only viable option intact even in such hard times when it must be clear even for the average person its not worth keep fiat longterm because of such high inflation.

It has nothing to do with kidnappers and criminals .... They are trying to protect their own currency {Ruble} and everyone knows that. Many other corrupt nations are doing the very same thing, because they

know people can flee the country with their capital and their wealth, if it comes down to that. Russia has been jumping from the one extreme to the other and nobody really knows what the official status of

Bitcoin is in that country. If they do ban Bitcoin, it will merely go underground and nobody will have control over that. If the goal was to stop criminal activities, they would have regulated the exchanges more,

but they not doing that, and that raise the red flag for their hidden agenda.  ;)

^^

There are no capital controls in Russia. You can trade your ruble for dollars, no prob :)
People are also free to flee the country any time they want. Being allowed to live other countries tho, that's a different story.
Of course not. Laws are meant to stop criminals from using bitcoin.

But how many Russian bitcoiners are there? That is the question. There are lots of Chinese exchanges, but the sole Russian exchange, BTC-E, moved to Bulgaria and announced that it doesn't accept bank transfers from Russian banks. So how do Russians cope?

Dollar is based on the same fundamentals as Rubble, so its only time when it gets to the same high inflation problems. Keeping wealth in fiat longterm is just stupid.

What else you can do with the dollars in Russia than trying to save some wealth longterm and just hoping dollar will keep reasonably small inflation in meantime ?

Fuck Russia (the government anyway).  Americans have been saying that for decades.  But hopefully this won't come to pass--can this get quashed before it becomes law?

This just make a Bitcoin more expensive to get at black Market in Rusia. Is impossible to stop a paper wallet.

That's why people don't keep wealth in fiat long-term. They *invest* their money, or buy things they like. Duh.


Notice the "^^" in my post? Yeah, those mean I'm talking to the guy above me, who is saying that "They are trying to protect their own currency {Ruble}" and that "people can [not] flee the country with their capital and their wealth."
I'm telling him that yes, yes thwey can, they're free to turn their rubles into dollars and flee to any country that will take them.
We good?
As far as "What else you can do with the dollars in Russia"? What will they do with bitcoins (other than score shit crank and CP on DNM)?


Of course it can. These proposals are meant to be a signal, a warning to the asshat companies with business models based on exploiting loopholes, a.k.a "doing bad shit against which no laws have been written yet." No one is trying to stop Ivan from buying (real) alpaca socks from Tibet with bitcoins. Why would anyone care?

I bet the establishment is and will continue buying Bitcoin while the plebs will be thrown in prison if they should get busted.
It had always be like that!!
They can forbid and ban Bitcoin as much as they want. It will go underground and continue thriving.

Black market bit coin :)

Fixed. Stick it to The Man, join the BTCeanie revolution!

http://s32.postimg.org/trndnp979/Capture.png

LOL this is really funny.
From recent ''Panama papers'' scandal, we learned that many Russians, very closed to the president Putin, did exactly that, used to finance the shadow economy and crimes.
If you are not Putin's close friend, other rules applied for you :)
Any way, I don't think that Russia can really control Bitcoin users in Russia, if they are smart enough and don't reveal their identity online.
It's not just coincidence that Bitcoin users mostly have problems in countries like Russia, Venezuela, N. Korea etc.

So it will be second time Russia would try to ban bitcoin by creating immensely stupid legislation. Can't they understand that they won't help people by criminalizing cryptocurrency?
Criminals who dudes bitcoin so far doesn't care and still will be using it - but this law will hit normal people: cryptoenthusiasts and progress seeker will suffer from this.
Russian government is officially demonstrating how inept they are - once again.

Does this mean that the Russian government are scared of Bitcoin?
I think they are still quite communist, however they are in the EU and so probably connot easily ban and enforce laws on Bitcoin (without being removed from the EU).
$38,000 and 7 years is unreasonably high compared to other laws in other countries.
If they do try to ban it, they would be one of the few to attempt it.

Russia is not in the EU!!!

Of course. In the same sense that they're scared of their kids booting Krokodil.

Somewhere in Siberian prison:
Harsh, strong voice from the dark cell corner
-why are you here fish?
-was farming captcha for Mrai -answered with trembling voice. -and you?
-rape...

Congratulation Russian oligarch pricks, send the smartest and computer stuff aware
youngsters where they belong! Society much safe, so much.

7 years does not sound like Russia is taking bitcoin seriously,was expecting more like 25 years to be honest.
If you look at bitcoin and its popularity in Countries that are not exactly in line with Russia you may worry that it could potentially become a issue that becomes a lion.
Falls in line with Putin requiring his oligarch and generals to re-patriot their money back to Russia. He does not want his generals being compromised when their children are held hostage by the enemy. Its known that a lot of these generals where funneling their funds to their children who all mostly live abroad.
So you think about that and then add bitcoin shaking things up,its a issue they really do not want to get into.
Any potential worm that cracks the door open just a little for America to come in the back is not a good thing for them.

Cold war is still on do not believe the hype.

well they just excluded all russian from the next revolutionary tech

we are lucky that we don't need that everyone use bitcoin to have global adoption, even if the whole russia country will be out of this, nothing rally change

besides this they still need to catch those that will keep using it,r egardless of the law

Holy crap. 7 years in jail for using Bitcoins. What a joke. I'm glad I don't live there hahaha! They sure don't like freedom in Russia!

You're right, there truly isn't much technical knowledge required to use Bitcoin. I'm not a very technical person myself, and I think I know how o use Bitcoin fairly well. I think this legislation from Russia is piss poor, though, because it limits what some of the people in there can do, and it would be a (albeit small) benefit to the economy if they would let them use Bitcoin freely.

What if a tourist is found to have some on their iPhone, are they at risk of going to jail for 7 years?

Wow Russia is one of the most corrupt countries regarding government officials and politicians yet the finance ministry is banning Bitcoin because they want to make the financial system of Russia more transparent and healthy what a hypocrisy  ;D Whatever ruling they pass I don't think this will stop the population from using Bitcoin. Russians are hardcore when it comes to bypassing government laws so I guess there will be probably underground meetings where people will still exchange coins something like a rogue Russian Localbitcoins.

i'm wondering what about vitalik that is dumping 25% of his ethereum, how he would deal with this law?

Try to ban this: 1,"18sDzCWjYZWAXsywCXboxQcr7KFuRTBpXV","5KHPuxuz8i96Kgc7sZttr27eQ2PioDZJR4xvprynsmufH8acv9G"

Somebody have to show this to politicians. Ok, create a law to forbid to have numbers and letters. You can even encrypt it, even you can put it on a image. Toll is going to have lots of work trying to found a shit.

I guess it can be about the mafia use from Cryptolockers.

Damn, when I saw the title, I though this was just another unconfirmed rumour from a shady source, but seeing that it's Bloomberg, that's pretty bad news.
Plus, I didn't know Iceland was planning to ban Bitcoin, gotta look into that, I though European countries in general would be fairly safe.

Do many tourists visit Russia? I can't think of a reason anyone would visit, it's not like they have a nice climate.

Russians are not the smartest ones, we all knew that, but this just proves that they are afraid of losing the control over people's wealth now more than ever.
Criminals my arse ; the only reason they are fighting (and everyone else that is doing the same) is because they want people to stick to their worthless printed notes.

So many here have daddy issues with governments ::)

Please don't compare the Russian government to the Russian people. Actually I know Russian programmers and scientists who are some of the smartest people around and are on par if not better than sicentists from other leading countries. Plus Russians in general are tech-savvy despite living in a corrupt country with limited resources but they can make up for that with intelligence. I can't say that for some Western countries though.

Everything here is not so simple.
Firstly, the reason for this, control authorities and the desire to control everything. They can not live without control!
Secondly. No commissions from transactions. And how well that money is transferred, and they were not able to steal some of them, that they do not like.
Thirdly. They still do not understand all this. And constantly contradict themselves. That they want to ban, you want to take the next fork, and monopolize, to no one else had the right to main currency.
And finally. The government is sitting extremely stupid imbeciles and idiots. They do not understand the technology. And if they do not understand, it means you need to be banned. Here we must understand that the government did not fall for his outstanding ability, knowledge and experience, but only as an acquaintance.

So still nothing is clear.Yet they try to just scare people.

I'm sorry if you got personally offended, it was not my intention to do so. I was referring to both russian political side and people in general - it's obvious how that
doesnt include every single person located there. One question tho: doesn't Russian people choose their government in a democratic way like everyone else ?
If it is so , government is a reflection of people. It is known.

Just curious, which third-world backwater do you hail from? Nice government there?

Actually no, it is not nice government here either. But that just proves my point because our people are also pretty dumb as well in general,
what one would refer to as : "nation of sheeps". Compared to russians we are the same, and it wouldnt surprise me if the same laws come
facing our way as well.

really disappointed but it seems that they are failed to do so up to know. as they they given such statement in past and from the  present statement it is proof that they are unable to control it as they are giving warning again and again.

It is because of the criminals who use bitcoin, because of these criminals a lot of other people also lost access to that beneficial currency, the government should have to device some other procedures to stop the criminals to use it.

Welcome to bitcointalk, newfriend, nice first post.
You seem upset that the Russian government wants to ban Bitcoin, the de facto currency of internet crime from child pornographers to crank dealers to Ransomware h4xx0r0rs.
I realize how unsettling this injustice must be for a freedom lover such as yourself.

While I agree with you that issuance of own currency is as fundamental to freedoms as free speech and ownership of comically pimped-out assault weapons with clownishly oversized mags, do try to understand that if the sole unique use case scenario for cash was buying drugs and kiddie porn on DNMs, it would have been banned long ago.
I hope you understand :)

As far as I can remember, I have been reading news like this by Putin and friends about how they would put people to jail if they use Bitcoin, how they ban Bitcoin websites and whatnot, but if you look at the volume of rubble to BTC in Localbitcoins you can see that there is only more and more people using Bitcoin, so this idiot will never learn the lesson that now laws can stop Bitcoin.

Criminals using bitcoin nothing other than a lousy excuse in an atempt to control  the only thing they couldn't thus far - a decentralized p2p payment system,
that puts the faulty and essentially worthless fiat to knees.
The real criminals use fiat, and do their deeds in broad daylight on the open, but you dont see governments fighting them .. ask urself why.

Could it be because they don't brag about bringing fiat and governments to their knees on the interweb, like a bunch of embarrassingly edgy teenagers with daddy issues?
Dunno.

 

This. I may be mistaken, but I thought the majority of cyber crime originated from Russia, China, and North Korea. With the overwhelming majority actually coming from Russia. It seems cogent they would at least take steps to regulate cryptos (esp with the ruble doing the cool jerk) but this seems a little heavy handed. With that being said, media is state controlled/influenced and I'm pretty sure this is part of the propaganda machine that was born when Putin's name came up in the Panama Papers.

"We're huuuuuuge into not being shady, see?"

^^The proposal was first drafted last year, it's just doing all the usual rounds.

If they want to curb the use of bitcoin in illegal activities,they should have regulate the bitcoin instead of banning it outrightly.Even fiat can be and is used in illegal activities,will they ban fiat too?

No, moms buy milk for their babies with fiat. Dads gas up their cars with fiat. Babushkas buy whatever it is babushkas buy with fiat. Bitcoins? If bitcoins disappear, it would be harder to score krokodil and pay off ransomware extortionists, otherwise zero impact.
Still confused?

I dont believe this,just bitcoin used to black market?We all knows that fiat do that for a long time why dont they do the same,banning fiat?

kek

Yeah, that's fairly accurate, I'm not sure why so many people on this forum think they're bringing the government to their knees, and that they're part of some great movement. I'll admit I'm not completely innocent of that, but I definitely haven't been as fanatical about it as some of the people here.

LMAO, you had to bring krokodil into this. But you are right. Very few people in the world really use bitcoin because they aren't really so useful for making everyday transactions. I lived off of bitcoin for a few years (which means living off of Gyft for a few years), it sucks ass and you have no fuel. Bitcoin truly is internet money, albeit useful.

Also, the confirmation time issue would be spooky bad if ppl actually used bitcoin.


They are not aware of the abuses a government can pour on a person's head. It's like a business, wiith guns. AKA a gang. I tend not to fuck with gangs, lest I come up missing.

Perspective  ;D

Russians are fucking awesome. No bullshit and straight to the point, the way we should all be.  Putin sucks balls.

>That is why FBI could easily arrest the Silk Road owner.
Define "easily."
DPR wasn't arrested by doing blogchain majiks, he was arrested because he had such mindnumbingly crappy opsec that he *actually kept a diary of his khrymez" and tried to hire feds to murder a d00d.

http://s32.postimg.org/kfa5ztk0l/ross1.jpg

>Contrary to general knowledge, bitcoin transactions are not anonymous.
Contrary to general knowledge, that's not the general knowledge. Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Strangely enough tho, you can't arrest 1MY5yFZZfcVbV5kw1VqCnhqMKARYV3UKAS, so watching an alphanumerical string selling CP to another alphanumerical string is not overly useful :-\

>Bitcoin is just an efficient technology to transfer funds across borders without discriminating the receiver or the sender.
Sure, and an AK47 is just an efficient way to rapidly accelerate a small mass to roughly double the speed of sound. The fact that its unique use case scenario is wetting people is neither here nor there :)

Oh this is really disappointing.

But for 7 years??  Like what?  Murderers I hear get 10-15 years !!

Oh its bad news for us. And its good in their country because they cant buy drugs in deepweb it good but its bad to others that they dont buying drugs.. Its bad to like me earning only in bitcoin

This won't pass, and it, won't last i believe. They will find different way to control transactions and filter internet because they know they can't stop it, but they can taxed. So most likely this will be ending of this story.

That could also be the case of temporary lock down and then open up once current global issues are fixed.
Seems to be they do not want another distraction as they cross their Ts and dot their I's on the global stage.

The dollar is much better store of value than the Ruble for the simple reason that the US economy is 10 times as large as Russia's and vastly more diverse.

As for Bitcoin, the value is very arbitrary and reflects a balance between investor hording and the huge sums paid out to miners to keep the network operating. That's a razor's edge - a very slight imbalance can cause huge swings in valuation. Please do not think or imagine for a minute that Bitcoin is some stable store of value. It's the polar opposite - more comparable to a penny stock.

Buh Bye Yobit. You have until may 24 to remove all your coins from the exchange or kiss them goodbye forever.  :-*

Wow the Russian government doesn't muck about regarding Bitcoin. Do you think they will prosecute single individuals as well or this is geared towards exchanges only? Imagine if you are a tourist or a foreigner visiting relatives in Russia and get caught transacting Bitcoin on the street and boom 7 years in jail that's ridiculous. By the way what will happen to the BTC-e exchange? Aren't they based in Russia?

\

Lol it actually doesn't stop people from buying drugs at deepweb, they use TOR browser, they bypass government ban easy way, they just need to use TAILS LINUX live CD as an OS which has already preinstalled Electrum there, this way they can still use bitcoin, they need to become a bit more tech savvy and everything will be fine.

Final word: Bitcoin cannot be banned.

Yes. Because banks have to follow AML/KYC laws, and knowing the identity if the account holder is the most fundamental AML/KYC law. That's why you can arrest people behind bank accounts.
Bitcoin doesn't require you to provide 3 forms of ID to get an addy, making it difficult, if not outright impossible, to say which IRL person controls an address. This, in turn, makes arresting pedos hopped up on bath salts & feverishly yankin' it to CP difficult.
Do you get it now?


I'm saying that just as "Bitcoin is just an efficient technology to transfer funds across borders without discriminating the receiver or the sender," an AK is just an efficient way to accelerate a small mass, "without discriminating the receiver or the sender."
The fact that AK's unique use case scenario is killing people is as irrelevant as the fact that Bitcoin's unique use case scenario is doing illegal shit. What don't you get?

Well ya, like a solitary cockroach you see scurrying across your floor -- let it go and BAM! you got a disgusting infestation on your hands. You MUST kill it before it lays eggs!

^^
>Buying bitcoin requires ID
If you bought BTC with a valid ID, you're doing it wrong. But don't worry, use any mixing service advertised on this forum, or "gamble" on any illegal interweb dice site promoted here, and you're good to go -- no more link with your valid ID.
Sadly, this doesn't work with IRL bank accounts.
I swear, it's like dealing with stubborn sulky children around here sometimes :(

>Buy bitcoin with cash to buy something that you could have bought with cash in the first place, how smart is that.
Not smart at all. Oddly, you can't buy your bath salts & CP with cash from DNMs, you need bitcoins.
That's why people buy bitcoins. Duh.

>Buying drugs and guns with USD through HSBC bank
Are you telling me that since there's crime and injustice outside of bitcoins, we should let bitcoiners do khrymes because it's only fair?
What kind of broken logic is that?

You do not need Id to buy bitcoin. What you mean to say is you do not have all the available options to purchase bitcoin that others have in this forum,otherwise the point you make is invalid.

Did not realize Yobit was in Russia but now that you mention it what about Btc-E as well? Pretty sure these groups will set up outside the Country if the businesses are profitable enough. They most likely have a better grasp on the situation as well.

Perfect logic. It's obvious you can't stop money laundering for drug traffickers or tax evasion, large corporations like HSBC are heavily involved in both and are never punished by their politician buddies. Are you telling me that we should act like neo-serfs while these neo-lords break rules with impunity? What kind of broken logic is that?

No, it's money that *you* want the internet to need. Probably because holding a bagful.


Bitcoin does not allow micropayments, it's already the leat efficient micropayment channel. what kind of a micropayment channel charges five cents to send a penny shaving? What kind of a micropayment channel can handle *3 TRANSACTIONS PER SECOND, MAXIMUM SUSTAINED"?


No. You can transfer bitcoins abroad. Then the recipient has to sell those for actual money. The trick is difficult, that's why so many remittance cos went belly up.
You need to buy shit abroad, use your international CC :)


So those underserved living on < $2/day have internet and computers/unlimited 4G on their iPhone contracts?


Err... Right, weren't we talking about bypassing AML/KYC? Yeah, we were, and now you're listing it as one of bitcoins' advantages.


Well no, bitcoins is helping it, that's what we're talking about. Yes, you can do khrrymez without bitcoins, but bitcoins makes shit like ransomware and extortion a hell of a lot more practical. That's why 40% of all interweb crimez involves bitcoins :)

5 pages of rambling and it appears most people are blindly believing a crappy media story where the source is yet another crappy media source which links to another crappy source that has mis-interpretted the whole saga.

in short they want to licence it. where people are required to register and become compliant. unlicenced exchanges will receive a small fine and large business institutions will get mega fines. and if they are found directly linked to terrorism, etc. then its prison time.

the real funny thing is that russia is actually going to be using blockchain technology. so before you all blindly think that russia is against crypto currency please do your research.

but i know you wont read the real sources so lets atleast link you to your favourite shamedia, because you would probably believe them first

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/blockchain-for-banks-russian-central-bank/
http://www.coinfox.info/news/5356-v-permskom-universitete-otkrylas-laboratoriya-po-blokchejnu

So same thing that Venezeula has done towards bitcoin miners  ???
This is typical governments trying to control their citizens against free market with their own cryptocurrency.

What all countries fear most, something taking over their domestic currency...

ridiculous

the REAL CRIMINALS are the government cronies, not just in Russia but everywhere...and they are financed by fiat money, not Bitcoin. Government is just another word for organized crime.

SO in order to fight crime, fiat money needs to be outlawed, not Bitcoin  ;D

Of course the ruble has been in trouble lately, competition is not wanted  8)

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=RUBUSD%3DX+Interactive#{%22range%22:%2210y%22,%22allowChartStacking%22:true}

this, ladies and gentlemen, is the explanation...criminals printing too much fiat money, do not wish people to escape from the scam  >:(

thats bad news for the altcoin intended for the russians themselves, i remember there was one purposely made for them. they can't come out now lol
This might not stop them though, cryptocurrencies are doing very well for its the future of money and even if they jail the users people will still hide themselves and use this.

The negative stigma towards BTC is horrendous!

Thanks for the quote, saved me the time reading most of the posts.



Never knew Yobit was a Russian exchange?

@ontopic Regulation is really keeping up with the bitcoin space. This was expected, makes the playing field level for the exchangers. The next thing regulators should go after are the fake volumes that's becoming a common practice among these guys.

Basjcally it is just full of crap that the law will be efficient in combating crime. The whole thing is pseudonymous and no one knows the other party without really tracing it from third party service like exchanges.

To Russian Government you are too naive to think that banning Bitcoin usage will stop criminals. Be it a criminal or a civillian who wanted to adobt bitcoin, it is very easy to hide but hard to trace. Regulating just makes the bitcoin skyrocket. One word for you, Fuck you Stupid Russian Government

I see that they have RU as option for language, but i didnt know that they were based in Russia - where did you find this info ?
Another exchange that could be affected by this is btc-e , but its not really known about location of that exchange either.
If i'm not mistaken, they could just move their servers to another country, therefore avoiding any legal issues. Their law isn't valid outside of land borders.

bad plan,its really bad,not just bad for russian bitcoiner and bitcoiner all around the world,but its bad for russia its elf,that plan will make people have negative think about russia,and sure some people more hate that country.

Blame the government ministers signing this off IMO, not the whole country. I'd love to visit Russia one day, not too sure about that when I hear these kind of stories, but it's probably just the typical sort of political Wrestlemania that's beginning to be seen more overtly in the Western world.

The positive side of Visa is that it *could* handle nontrivial number of micropayments, while Bitcoin couldn't.
Being able to do a job vs. not being able to do it is considered a plus IRL :)

3tps sustained (or 5, or 7 peak, won't quibble) is simply not enough. This is what Bitcoin is capable of now. Not a question of modem speeds, simply how many transactions could be reliably included in a 1MB block. Saying "when we will need 100 transactions per second, then there will be 100 per second" is ridiculous -- that's what the whole scaling/blocksize debate is about, the thing that made Mike Hearn, Bitcoin's ex-lead programmer, say that Bitcoin is a failed experiment & quit :(

There are currently two lines of thought re. scaling: Classic and Core.

Classic team is proposing a temporary fix: double the blocksize limit now, doubling the number of transactions currently possible. This would work, but has (justifiably) been called "kicking the can down the road" -- 7 (or 14) transactions per second is still laughably small for a serious payment channel.
For perspective:
"In 2010, Visa was handling on average around 2,000 transactions a second, with a daily peak rate of 5,000 transactions a second. During busiest season of the year it peaked to 11,000 transactions a second (Dec 23)1. In 2010 they had burst capacity of 24,000 transaction per second with no degradation of transaction quality." (http://abhishek-tiwari.com/post/reflections-on-visa-s-high-availability-payment-processing-infrastructure)
And, of course, scaling Visa is trivial -- add moar data centers. :(

Core team feels that Bitcoin couldn't (and shouldn't) scale. Instead, they're banking on another network -- the Lightning Network, being built *on top* of Bitcoin.
Then, people could start transacting on Lightning Network, relegating Bitcoin to being a settlement layer.

Of course, this is a clumsy solution for many reasons, not the least of which is this: Lightning works like a gift card, not cash.

Before Alice can buy a cup of coffee from Bob via Lightning, Alice must decide how many cups she is likely to buy from Bob in the foreseeable future, and pay for those all those cups. Like buying a gift card. Alice would have to  create such payment channels buy such gift cards from every person or business she pays via the Lightning Network.
TL;DR: While a credit card lends you a sum of money (for free) to buy stuff & sends you a bill at the end of the month, Lightning will make you pay that bill in advance, *before* you could spend a penny of it. No thanks.

---

But you're right, this is getting way off topic & too many tangents. If you feel like moving this to some other thread, PM me and I'll follow :)

Edit re. 40%: Sorry, my mistake, it's "Europol said that, according to its data, bitcoin accounts for as much as 40% of criminal-to-criminal payments online" http://www.coindesk.com/europol-bitcoin-european-cybercriminals/
Still, quite a slice, considering the number of BTC transactions vs. ...oh, PayPal transactions (which account for only 25%) :D

No wonder! Russia has a fascist government and they simply don't allow people to have free money. They simply believe that power should belong only to government. Thank God they are not a part of EU.

My sincere condolence to all the russian bitcoin users.

To be fair, Bitcoin is still not banned in Russia. Not like it is in Fascist Iceland, which is a part of EU.

If it is not banned there then what do you call it when they say if you are caught using it you will be arrested/ put in jail?

http://www.coindesk.com/information/is-bitcoin-legal/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country#Iceland

I have taught BTC e exchange is based in Russia?
And i had beliefs that Russians are not under communism anymore, how come somebody can forbid something if folks wont to use it? (If it is not drug or similar).
This is technology piece of computer code, how this can be bad or forbidden, i'm confused completely.

They know that once shit hits the fan people will start looking for alternatives, and Russia is one of the countries that hates alternatives to the state the most, so of course they will be adverse against bitcoin, and wait for Putin to start passing laws against citizens storing gold, then all the bitcoin doubters will learn that every smart person must own some bitcoins the harsh way.

1. Bitcoin is not banned in Russia yet. In Iceland yes, in Russia no.
2. There are no major Bitcoin exchanges in Russia that I know of.
3. There are many things governments forbid, from walking around naked to automatic weapons to printing your own money. Communism has nothing to do with it.

should i believe this?i mean if this is really happen in russia,would people from russia in this forum gone?or exchange from russia also closed?
in other side i'm happy because some people mentioned russian is scammers,but i'm not sure with that.

Hmmm.  I wonder what kind of impact that might have in the online poker scene if it passed?  I mean, would that law be honored by its public....or would it be ignored?  I'm thinking that there's going to be boon in the online poker industry once the transition to bitcoin in that industry is complete....but preventing our neighbors in Russia from playing with bitcoin might slow down that process some because Russians comprise a large part of the player field.

I don't think this 'ban' on Bitcoin will stop the Russians from accessing and playing on online sports-betting and casino sites using Bitcoin. The majority of these websites require no personal identification being Bitcoin-based so a good VPN service is enough to get you playing. Now I don't know how people will proceed with cashing out and exchanging the coins back to local currency but I guess they will go to a neighboring country and exchange the coins back to euros or dollars there in safety perhaps.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I've read replies in some threads of users stating that YoBit is based in Russia and one of the issues that occurred when the law about Russia banning bitcoins is that the possibility of YoBit shutting down. But I don't see any warnings or any announcements from YoBit that they're shutting down as I'm sure that they can just transfer servers/host to a different country although the permissions and legal papers and stuff.. I don't how those work.

are you russian?its why i never se people from icland,but why they ban bitcoin?
i wont think people in russia care about this news,might they just care about bitcoin movement,its too late for goverment to make any rules related bitcoin,russia have big amount of civilian that use bitcoin.

That's not how things work. Even if you move your servers to the moon (which, AFAIK, doesn't have any gun/drug/CP laws), you still wouldn't be able to (legally) sell guns/drugs/CP. You have to obey the laws of your home country, and, occasionally,laws of countries which can access your website. That's why Stamp banned Russian IPs/Russian users (http://www.econotimes.com/Bitcoin-Exchange-Bitstamp-Temporarily-Blocks-Access-From-Russian-IPs-145498) (old news, not sure if still banned), for instance.


Because they don't like it & don't want it there. Contrary to popular belief, printing your own money is not a natural human right. No more than the right to run a ponzi or shit on sidewalks.


Some wouldn't, some would.
The ones who don't mind digging rotten potato from frozen tundra while being repeatedly secsed up the butt by burly zeks, for 7 years :o, wouldn't care, the rest would.

I think even if YoBit move their servers to another country that still makes their service illegitimate in Russia because within the borders of the country the Russian jurisdiction doesn't permit the operation of any Bitcoin exchange. So unless the local citizens use a VPN service or other methods to circumvent this obstacle their IPs will probably be blocked by the government.

But the usage of bitcoin is anonymous , how will their government know that their particular citizen is adopting bitcoin and doing transactions and other payments with it? I don’t thisk that they will send to jail any of them.

The same way that people distributing child porn get owned. Only with BTC, it's much simpler.

1. If you are a brick & mortar store accepting bitcoin, you have to advertise the fact ("we accept BTC")
2. If you are a website, ditto.
3. What else uses port 8333 ??? (https://www.google.com/search?q=idee+fixe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=port+8333) Comically simple :)
4. Bitcoiners always talk about using bitcoin, they never stop because they simply can't. A bitcoiner will still be giving his "to the moon" pitch to the jackboots while getting V& 8)

1.Bitcoin was banned in the past in Russia, it is second attempt of Russian government to ban it.
2. There is BTC-e which if I am not mistaked Russian operated exchange - but recently I heard that they moved to Bulgaria because Russian environment is too unstable for cryptocurrencies.
3. Some things that are banned are plainly stupid and laws varies from place to place. There is nothing people can do about it.

No, Bitcoin was never banned in Russia, you're mistaken. Officials publicly opined on legality of bitcoin, but no law was passed (and, as you seem to be implying, consequently revoked).

BTC-e is not a Russian exchange. It's not an anywhere exchange, no one knows the identities of the operators. Clearly the people who started it were Russian speakers (or wanted to introduce another layer of opacity), but this doesn't make it a Russian exchange.

Can't disagree with that, though don't have enough info on this particular instance to comment.

I guess we'll find out this month whether the legislation actually goes through the Russian parliament. Bloomberg is pretty reliable - they would have fact checked before they ran the story.

Yeah doing that will not stop criminals to use it as they will be expert in adopting bitcoin anonymously, and will use bitcoin whenever they need and they will not know the government about any of their action, as bitcoin is anonymous.

If it stops just one criminal, it'll all be worth it :)

I am not much worried about the Bitcoin ban, as it is not possible to ban the crypto-currency. How the Russian authorities are going to enforce the ban? If they want to ban Bitcoin, then they will have to ban the internet altogether. If some Russian national uses a US-based VPN to transact his coins, how the Russian authorities are going to track him?

I guess if some Russian individuals try to buy coins with a VPN from a foreign exchange they would be able to, but the real problem is how they will manage to exchange the coins for Rubles in Russia if there are no local exchanges or Bitcoin ATM. One could try to exchange Bitcoin in a neighboring country for local currency then convert to Rubles at home because there will be no paper trail or try an illegal underground peer-to-peer exchange in Russia.

But they will fail in doing that because if the Russians want to run with the world with the same pace they would have to adopt bitcoin as the current system of online business is shifting to bitcoin and those who do not have bitcoin will not have access to it.

I have already told this, Bitcoin cannot be banned , a user can bypass government restriction by using TAILS OS (Linux) which has electrum preinstalled and TOR , you can write down in a piece of paper or usb the seed of this wallet, and can restore it everytime you need to use it. So yes thats the beauty of bitcoin, it cannot be banned no matter what governments do.

^^^
Doubt Mom is up for carrying around a laptop, booting TAILS and typing in the seed every time she goes shopping, but I could be wrong.

before we put too much blame on Russia...it is Germany, not Russia, that is stopping people from selling their bitcoins at localbitcoins.com

so far, the German Bafin (a Fincen like suborg of German government Mafia, responsible for making sure the governments gets the maximum benefit out of financial markets, and maximum control over their peons) has hurt BTC more than the Russian government. Germany the so-called democracy, has done worse than Russia...

See for yourself: so-called free democracy with so-called social capitalism in place:

https://localbitcoins.com/country/DE

Unfortunately LocalBitcoins is currently not available in your selected region. Please look for other location or come back later.

https://localbitcoins.com/country/RU

countless ads, no problem.

7 pages of theory yet i dont see anyone using the facts of the Duma report..

Huh?

Another fact that russian goverment is conservative and for me banning bitcoin is so stupid cause i can't see nothing bad on it. Better to work with other problems i think.

You sound ...unwell. This thread is about this Bloomberg article http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/russian-law-would-send-bitcoin-users-to-jail-as-cybercriminals .
The phrase "Duma report" is used 0 times in that article.  Even the word Duma is used 0 times.  Heck, even the word "report," which is a darn common word, occurs exactly zero times.

What shitty recreational neurotoxin made you think the article references some Duma report?

if you knew what proposed russian legislation that the artile thinks would treat bitcoiners as criminals, then you would know..

the duma report is the draft legislation which is what everyone is afraid of.. but if you actually read it. its not that scary.

the problem is that media hasnt read the report hense why as you have proved.. they cant even quote it or refer to it. all they do is play a game of 'chinese whispers' where they say something someone else said who heard it from someone else and each time it gets a little bit more misinterpreted..

so next time dont blindly read media.. FIND THE SOURCE!!

So you're telling me some "Duma report" never mentioned in the Bloomberg article is the source of that article? Are you absolutely sure it's not The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Because those aren't mentioned in the article either.

My ninja Googling immediately led me to https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/a-7-yr-prison-term-for-bitcoin-use-says-russian-finance-ministry/ , which sourced its info from http://www.interfax.ru/business/497887 .
The Bloomberg article doesn't cite its sources, but I do trust it an asshair more than bitcointalk's own Russian criminal law authority, franky1.

this is just good news
Russia telling criminal organisations that they should be using bitcoin to luander their millions
this will only drive up its use by people moving big amounts
so good for btc price

RUSSIAN Government have reason to do it with their own country. The first reason i knew, bitcoin is usig in illegal transaction like buying illegal stuff, weapons, and drugs. Second thing that they possible thinking if they banned bitcoin many criminals in their country cant transact safely.

This seems to me that russian incomes are somekinda low
So using bitcoin will create strange unbalanced situation in.

on the good side, it will help increase bitcoins value, just like anything else that is made illegal

It is not true. Rather, this is no longer true. Previously crazy deputies thought about it, but gradually their brains began to appear.
If you are interested in Russia think of Bitcoin I created a great post, here it is - "The situation with cryptocurrency in Russia" https://steemit.com/russia/@ratel/the-situation-with-cryptocurrency-in-russia
In it I described the situation by date by date.