Title: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: SilverVigilante on March 03, 2013, 12:39:36 AM More at http://silvervigilante.com/?p=5099
I am just writing this to raise the possibility, not saying anything is for sure... Venture capitalist backed Bitcoin Company, CoinLab, has worked for the past year to sign an exclusive deal with Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. Based in Silicon Valley, CoinLab will take over exchange transactions for all US and Canada clients meaning your money will be moved to a US bank and CoinLab will function as the clearing pool for all p2p transactions on Mt. Gox. According to the company, they want to make it "safe" for US and Canadian investors to do large block trade of BTC. “80 percent of Mt.Gox traffic already comes from this area. We are essentially buying their book of traffic,” Peter Vessenes told Bitcoin Magazine. By March 22nd, customers' money will be moved from overseas to Silicon Valley Bank by March 22nd. CoinLab is the first BTC company to get venture capital money - more than $500,000 - last year. They provided games paid for with BTC, but haved into mass retail transaction services with the recent deal. Currently, the average Mt. Gox customer pays .6% per transactions, and volume over 10,000 pays just .3%. These tier two customers will be offered live phone help via Coinlab. Large transactions will be reported FinCEN, for Coinlab wishes to observe US money laundering rules, as well as know-your customer laws. Vessenes hopes to help customers with 250,000 to 500,000 blocks of Bitcoin to feel comfortable. Overall, he is not talking about many individuals in the Bitcoin network. Coinlab will store private key data in hard safes. These private keys will be split into three parts with only two needed to unlock your transaction. They won't be stored in a compuer database but printed and placed in a vault. Whoever can open the vault will be divided up: meaning a read team vault opener won't be able to open the blue team's vault. Coinlab is also working on getting your data insured against loss. Lloyds of London has yet to finalize an insurance agreement with Coinlab. With storage insurance, Coinlab will then bring BTC mainstreamer. According to Vessenes, “Our deal with Mt.Gox means we just picked a retail customer but I care very much about the needs of the institutional investors.”Coinlab's strategy page has a nifty life action chart of Bitcoin liquidity featuring a buy and sell button. The company will also work on alerts to their customers regarding big price swings. “Coinlab’s deal with Mt.Gox is great for Bitcoin liquidity in the US and Canada. It’s nice to see more formalized channels emerging here for Bitcoin FX. This is the start of many terrific things for Coinlab and the global FX market is $4 trillion but we still have a long way to go,” Joel Yarmon of Draper Associates, who invested in Coinlab, told Bitcoin Magazine.As one comment on BitcoinTalk goes: Backroom crony capitalism is what this looks like. The title of this article is a flat out lie, only wishful thinking. Coinlab has no deal with any “Wall Street” firms or major financial institutions. Mark Karpeles the owner of Mt.Gox DID NOT do this willingling. This is the result of staggering behind the scenes legal and political pressure. Why didn't CoinLab just open their own exchange and compete fairly for the customers IF THEY HAVE SUCH A HOT VALUE PROPOSITION? Ironically, this demonstrates that Coinlab and their backers don’t fully grasp bitcoins implications. Because thanks to bitcoin, my family, my businesses and customers don't have to sit idly by and be victimized by 'old school' tactics. We will not tolerate being kidnaped and secretly spirited back to economic tyranny. This might give bitcoin a short term boost but it is very bad for liberty in the US. WAKE UP AMERICA, we are being hemmed in, the borders a closing. -“Bitcoin is a global leaderless movement for currency independence and personal liberty" BitcoinATM Cool, so Coinlab is gonna keep your money safe at Silicon Valley Bank. But, as a member of the FDIC, that means the party ultimately responsible for your funds is...the US government. No thanks! SVB is a subsidiary of the Financial Group out of...the UK! No thanks! From the subsidiary's website: Silicon Valley Bank is the California bank subsidiary and the commercial banking operation of SVB Financial Group. Banking services are provided by Silicon Valley Bank, a member of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve System. SVB Private Bank is a division of Silicon Valley Bank. SVB Financial Group is also a member of the Federal Reserve System. "Legal stealing" is becoming a sad reality of the modern age. CFTC Regulation 1.25 provides that: “No futures commission merchant and no clearing organization shall invest customer funds except in obligations of the United States, in general obligations of any State or of any political subdivision thereof, or in obligations fully guaranteed as to principal and interest by the United States. Such investments shall be made through an account or accounts used for the deposit of customer funds and proceeds from any sale of such obligations shall be re-deposited in such account or accounts.” MF Global did just this,using segregated customer funds. Nothing happened. The CFTC is meant to ensure that customer segregated funds remain segreated. But, MF Global robbed the customers, and since nothing happened to that institution or JP Morgan (named in lawsuits), one can conclude the CFTC (the US government) was an accomplice to the theft of customer funds. "But, funds at Silicon Valley Bank are with the "FDIC" and not the "CFTC." You're missing the point. The mainstream media probably helped you along the way of missing the point. …MF Global’s failure is contained within a relatively small circle of owners, lenders counterparties and customers. This isn’t to minimize the large and painful losses, but there are no public losses and, so far, little systemic fallout. Ok, so grand larceny is no longer a crime, and Coinlab wants to leave bitcoiners funds within this insane system? The owners of coinlab, as the Bitcointalker expresses, is missing the point. "Little systemtic failure?" If/when a branch of the US government fails to perform its duty, that IS systemic failure. Period. Coinlab is playing right into the strong suit of the Powers That Be. As dominant financial system investors know, things are moving very fast in terms of closing opportunities off for US funds abroad. As Dollar Vigilante wrote in their "Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge": "The US Government has been closing as many doors as possible. It has been years since a US citizen has been accepted in any other country as a stock brokerage client as the SEC has used the threat of their black helicopters to ensure that no one dare accept those with a US passport as a client. And now, with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA passed in 2010 and some of its legislation coming into effect this year, it all but ensures that soon no bank anywhere in the world will accept US citizens as clients..." Banks the world over are shutting down opportunities to hold accounts abroad. International banks, in the face of FATCA, will follow the lead of those banks that have already made moves to cease the acceptance of US citizens. As Silver Vigilante recently covered, one of the foremost gold storage vaults in the world, ViaMat, will also cease their acceptance of US citizens: "We are currently experiencing rapid and substantial changes in the general regulations within this business. The changes mainly relate to the tax structures and taxation systems of various countries. As a consequence of these changes VIA MAT INTERNATIONAL has taken the decision to stop offering this service at its vault [sic] outside of the US to private customers with potential US-tax liability." Optimized-20130222Viamat-letter.jpg GoldMoney and Bullion Vault use ViaMat for storage. Many of the retail storage facilities, at the end, use ViaMat to store metals. Although playing right into the hands of the bankers, there is no evidence that this is a backdoor way of mass market drive-by-shooting to occur in Bitcoin, just as it does in silver. As essentially a new "exchange," Coinlab can now technically enable just a few individuals or organization to trade and sell on the exchange without Bitcoin backing their trade, since they could, technically, BE the exchange. So, my concern is that this could be the entrance of 33 Liberty into the Bitcoin market to sell BTC they do not have and, as silver vigilantes will know, tank the price. No way! You think Bitcoin price above silver price has not been acknowledged by High Finance? It's likely, contrarily, they know what's going on, and they are not pleased with this new p2p currency stealing headlines, allowing the entire world to ignore fiat in real time, now, today. Nothing short of a 51% attack on the network can allow them to control the price. The dominant financial system must protect itself from $100 Bitcoin prices as large-scale investors move into the market. Marketing this new advent as a bank, the place to store your Bitcoin, the Bitcoin community has to acknowledge that the Powers That Be will need a mechanism (bank/exchange) to control our beloved BTC price. There is merely not enough supply at these new levels to sustain any sort of serial million dollar investments without really moving the price. Check the Mt. Gox tick chart, the price was knocked from $34.80 to $33.15 off 22,000 BTC sold in around one hour; that means only $748,000 in BTC needed to be moved in one hour to move the price 4.75%. That is 6.1 days worth of BTC supply. Or maybe I'm just missing the point? Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: BIGMERVE on March 03, 2013, 01:06:29 AM Yeah I feel like something fishy is going on. Mt.Gox's main source of income was US customers. Why would they give that up? It makes no sense.
Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: Merralea on March 03, 2013, 01:17:59 AM Just one more reason to expatriate to St. Kitts.
Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: Xendrios on March 03, 2013, 01:51:25 AM I think it's fishy. However, if not comfortable with Mtgox, just trade elsewhere. I don't buy my btc at gox either.
Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: Jigsaw on March 03, 2013, 03:07:28 AM I find it sad how the US finds the need to have a say in everything that's going well. My personal opinion is that once CoinLab takes over, the current bubble will burst due to anyone with a decent mind will sell all their bitcoins on mt gox and go elsewhere. Does the bitcoin economy need a bit of stimulation? Yes. Is CoinLab the right stimulant? Oh hell no.
Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: jmw74 on March 03, 2013, 03:19:00 AM Quote Why didn't CoinLab just open their own exchange and compete fairly for the customers IF THEY HAVE SUCH A HOT VALUE PROPOSITION? Anyone can still do that, right? Even if the main exchange becomes less trustworthy, bitcoin will survive. Mtgox was already pwned and while it did affect bitcoins' price, it wasn't permanent. Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: hardcore-fs on March 03, 2013, 03:24:55 AM Obviously someone has been putting the squeeze on.
Just another way for the US government to backdoor bitcoin. coming up next..... US government behind repatriation of Bitcoin in an attempt to extort taxes. Just think with all this data, they will be able to tie real people to bitcoin addresses. Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: hardcore-fs on March 03, 2013, 03:57:34 AM I think not......
one only has to look at ANY system that contains USD and straight away the USA starts imposing all sorts of restrictions. The way they see it, is that it is THEIR currency and as such they like to be able to track it down to the n'th degree. Bitcoin completely circumvents ALL the systems they have spent decades putting in place, in that it allows almost totally untraceable transfers of the USD to any other currency or place. This has already occurred in Europe, where the banks have had to turn over all data related to internal SWIFT transactions, any country that does not comply gets labeled as a money launder. Go have a look at MTgox and the number of banks that have started pulling the plug.... Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: teknetz on March 03, 2013, 09:55:14 PM Yeah, the second I read about this I knew something was up. I dont like the idea of them MOVING MY money... I never gave them permission to move MY money... Leave it the hell alone... And I CERTAINLY do NOT want my money stored in a US BANK ACCOUNT. Thats the WHOLE reason to use bitcoin in the first place...
I have since moved all my money on gox out to a private wallet, and will not sign up with coinlab. I did however find another exchange that seemed pretty smooth. Bought $100 worth the other day and the whole process didnt take long at all... The site is called BitFloor... not a lot of traffic, but the fees are reasonable(0%) and I can make a cash deposit in my area.. Screw the big-boys(my gox/coinlab) we will NOT play their games and fall for their tricks... The banksters are cringing at the thought for $100 bitcoins and are desperatly trying to control it, although they will fail miserably... Thanks for the post, stay vigilant people, and don't fall for the scam. Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: zvs on March 03, 2013, 11:19:14 PM Just one more reason to expatriate to St. Kitts. malta has some very easy to meet residency requirements ed: oh, can they move your money? i was under the assumption i'd have to accept some new ToS whenever this move is finalized (mar 20th?)... and at that point i'd refuse the ToS and just withdraw all to dwolla? Quote The way they see it, is that it is THEIR currency and as such they like to be able to track it down to the n'th degree. since 9-11, yeah'patriot act' and all that Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: creativex on March 03, 2013, 11:26:17 PM Just one more reason to expatriate to St. Kitts. malta has some very easy to meet residency requirements ed: oh, can they move your money? i was under the assumption i'd have to accept some new ToS whenever this move is finalized (mar 20th?)... and at that point i'd refuse the ToS and just withdraw all to dwolla? Quote The way they see it, is that it is THEIR currency and as such they like to be able to track it down to the n'th degree. since 9-11, yeah'patriot act' and all that Yeah, now don'tcha feel safe? Title: Re: CoinLab Repatriating Bitcoin Funds to US? No Thanks! Post by: aric on March 04, 2013, 02:39:04 AM I think you may be over paranoid here. It's not so much paranoia as it is intrinsically concerning. This news doesn't necessarily increase or decrease the current serious vulnerabilities that loom for bitcoin's adoption, but whether it might is a realistic worry. |