Bitcoin Forum

Here we go!

http://nerdr.com/bitcoin-laws-imminent-bit-coin-soon-to-be-illegal-in-us/

Exchanges seems like the easiest target, dealing with all that money. I really doubt we'll see any actual legislation for a few years though. It is possible it gets slipped into some other, unrelated bill sooner then that. But I just don't think bitcoin is really on the radar yet to get real national attention.

cite a source please?

I wonder how this could actually work. Would legislation that affects Bitcoin also affect Facebook's game currency or the Linden Dollar?

I can't imagine that they could rush something through like this

Good point. The article doesn't.

I think it would be something that involves unregulated money exchanges. That would get to the heart of the difference between bitcoins and game currency. There are lots of places that will sell you some amount of points for cash, but bitcoin is the only place you can turn those "points" back into cash.

I just went to that link and searched for "bitcoin" and nothing showed up.  Methinks these people are just trying to spread FUD...

Courts don't right write legislation, they interpret existing legislation.
So either some aspects of Bitcoin fall foul of existing legislation or the courts can't do anything.



Edited because although courts can right legislation, that's not what I meant...

Who said anything about courts? I think the OP was referring to the legislative branch.

Last time I checked, criminal laws in the US are made by the legislature, not by the courts. Really, that was the best you could come up with?

The OP says that it's the courts service looking at them.

Yeah exactly anyway I dont trade currency I trade   'unique number over internet' how they plan to ban  numbers ?? some peopel can call it currency but what is bitcoin from legal point  of view??, from technical its only unique number nothing  more. ONE BIG CAN OF WORM from legal point of view.

FUD
Source or gtfo

+1

Yeah, sorry, people tried that argument with piracy as well. It doesn't work that way.

Look at the other guy's articles on Bitcoin - there's an obvious bias. You'd think someone with a hatred for Bitcoin and news as juicy as the US court service ramping up it's research efforts about Bitcoin would cite some kind of proof. Absent that proof, the logical conclusion is simply someone who hates the idea of Bitcoin and is making shit up.

On the off-chance the author reads this: post some proof. I don't believe in the libertarian, tax-dodging, protect-my-assets-from-the-gubmint bullshit, so show real proof they're moving to functionally outlaw it and you'll have instantly succeeded in getting at least one Bitcoiner to drop it.

LOLWUT!?!

http://www.uscourts.gov/SearchResults.aspx?IndexCatalogue=AllIndexedContent&SearchQuery=bitcoin


Oh....heres an idea....let's wait for either a single attempt at prosecution or legislation before hopping to conclusions!

FUCK FUD!
FUCK YOU!

Well wow, it was reported on nerdr with no evidence, TOTALLY TRUE.

At this stage, a violent attack from a big government like that would put bitcoin in all mainstream TV shows.
It's possible that the more abiding of governments subjects start to run away from the technology, but such publicity would attract those who are not that abiding. I'm talking about this: http://falkvinge.net/2011/06/16/bitcoins-four-drivers-part-one-unlawful-trade/

So that would be shooting on their own feet.

And about the blogger of OP, I think he just wants to provoke bitcoin enthusiasts to see their reactions.

The closest thing that'll ever happen would be MPAA / RIAA sueing someone for selling bootlegs for BTC.

Let me guess, I should sell all my bitcooin at any price.  ::)

Nerdr seems to be consistently posting anti-bitcoin articles.

someone from the uscourts.gov domain visited my blog on Jun 8 arriving from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2632671

other than that, in the past 90 days I've also seen one of each from:
nyc.gov
usbr.gov   
nasa.gov   
state.gov   
fcc.gov   
va.gov

I'm not in the US and use a VPN so good fucking luck

I don't really care for the http://nerdr.com's tone. Everyone affiliated with Bitcoin is "driven by greed" according to the post. But that's true of any business venture.

As others have mentioned, the search for anything 'bitcoin' related on the site referenced by the 'article' turns up nothing. I agree, the nerdr articles relating to bitcoin are just trollbait. I replied in my usual tone, just so people would realize he's talking out of his ass.

it's a bullshit article, nicely walking the line between innuendo and bias.

it ends thusly:


i think they're full of shit.

Whose site is nerdr anyway? I cannot find a name, or even nickname anywhere.

It's pretty much full of anonymous flak for bitcoin.

Maybe he was  bitten by a bitcoin when he was young, or something ;)

I really wish I'd checked this site out better before I posted it. Apologies!

Pure link bait. Don't waste your time with this clown (NERDr) or the hit piece post.

...well stopping the US guys from mining wouldn't be too bad..giving the rest of the world a chance to mine... ;D
And Norway should be next. They also have ridiculous low electricity prices, subsidized by the government....

BR
GC

I waisted 10 minutes reading that ****!  Can we get a mod to delete this thread please.

I agree that sources would be helpful, but I think this community is reacting too defensively.  We need to think about the legal issue and how it will effect bitcoin, because there are too many interested parties for bitcoin not to the be the target of the law.  It's not just the anti-drug, anti-laundering, anti-terrorism types.  The real push will come from VISA, banks, and such.  And their pockets are very deep indeed.

This is from Source Watch:

Lobbying expenditures

In the first three quarters of 2009 the sector's lobbying expenditures broke down as follows:[4]
Total for Finance, Insurance & Real Estate: $246,451,462
Total Number of Lobbyists Reported: 2,441

Insurance $90,164,227
Securities & Investment $47,354,408
Real Estate $36,831,069
Commercial Banks $27,347,713
Finance/Credit Companies $18,532,559
Misc Finance $13,525,932
Accountants $7,158,218
Credit Unions $4,937,336
Savings & Loans $600,000

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced on Sept. 8, 2009, an advertising campaign of at least $2 million aimed at defeating the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The Agency was proposed by the Obama administration to regulate more closely mortgages and credit cards. Certain practices would be banned and would require financial firms to offer loans with less complex language.[5]

Political contributions

Since 1990, the financial industry has made $2.2 billion in political contributions to lawmakers, more than any other industry tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics. Since 1998, the earliest available data, Wall Street has also been the top spender on lobbying activities, at $3.6 billion.[6]


So...

If you think lawmakers have anything other than the best interest of these banks at heart, you're sorely misguided.  And of course they will make bitcoin illegal.  The only question is when and how, which I thought the linked article explores rather well.  We must prepare for and/or fight the coming legal battle, not pretend it isn't happening.

No, this isn't trolling, it's reality.  Let's make the best of it.

Exchangers will be the very first, pools second, big miners third. I never expect them to go after the little guys though, thats IF they go after anyone to begin with... They could just tax the exchangers and make a shit-ton of money. Why does everything have to be so damn negative all the time?

Exchanges are the big problem right now.  Mt. Gox would be legal if it registered with the Japan Financial Services Agency as a money transfer service and complied with their regulations. Japan's regulations for money transfer services are quite flexible, and were specifically intended to encourage new Internet-based forms of money transfer.  The regulators do insist on audits, will check that the customers' money really is there and is held in accounts separate from the business's own funds. For the amount of money Mt. Gox is handling, those requirements are quite reasonable.

The disanalogy is that you use your music privately, just listening to it.  Money needs outlets in order to have value: venues and exchanges.  There is no equivalent need for exchanges and vendors in the music industry.  Those are vulnerabilities to bitcoin's value that would leave our personal wallets totally intact.

I would be willing to donate to a digital currency lobbying organization.  Even though we cannot match the bankster numbers, we could make it interesting.  It's not like bitcoin will be shut down completely.  It's a question of how much legal danger and restriction we will face, and we live in a democracy: it's partly up to us.

Agreed.

It did get me thinking though. If the US Gov were to go after BTC and put US miners 'out of biz" and push all that mining activitiy over seas, there would be blowback.

The rest of the world would love to get off the USD and giving them access to a viable currency may just hurt them more in the long run than help them. It wouldn't give the USD any credibility as the damage is done. People are already stocking up on gold and silver in case of currency collapse....

Anyway, how can they prove BTC is being mined as a currency if it comes to it? I heard it was a novelty item....  ;)

No we need to be aware of this stuff. You made no error other than perhaps starting out with a skeptical tone.

Thx for the heads up.

I recommend you read "The Art of War".

Or do you like being in the dark?

He states his intent in his reply to you:


It WAS total bait.

ZOMG way to tip them off!

Some people think that national governments are extremely corrupt and are engaged in huge black projects funded by drug money etc etc.

In such a case, wouldn't they be interested in *using* bitcoin rather than banning it? With a suitable PR covering of righteous indignation against the illegal uses but nothing actually effective getting done that shuts bitcoin down?

in that case th price would go through the roof ;D

"Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.

"In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital," Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. "In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.""

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/25/financial-un-drugs-idUSLP65079620090125 (ftp://http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/01/25/financial-un-drugs-idUSLP65079620090125)

"Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims)

What makes you think that corruption = drug money? Are you so brainwashed that you automatically associate things? What do drug lords have to gain from government projects and are they in position to gain most from whatever the project may be? If not them, who would be the one to gain the most from it? Are you ever going to ask the questions that really matter?

Due to the massive funds involved in drugs, a lot of corruption occurs in connection with drugs. Gary Webb exposed a CIA operation which sold cocaine from a South American guerilla to LA gang members which in turn exploded the crack epidemic. Recently, planes involved in CIA transports of suspected "terrorists" to and from secret detention centres have been proved to transport cocaine. Afghan heorin, the amount of corruption is immense, Karzai's brother is widely accepted to be a very major actor in that trade. In the 80ies, much of the construction in Miami would not have taken place in absence of cocaine trade.

Of course corruption takes place in many other spheres; in Italy the Comorra control waste management and "dispose" of the waste in "unorthodox" manners, and in some areas cancer prevalence has increased by 30%. The control could not occur without collusion with parts of the authorities. The Comorra have even invested some money in the resurrection of the World Trade Centre.

EDIT: And then there is Mexico too.

The crossed out line is due to no actual evidence; I just checked.

I read that ycombinator site regularly (Hacker news)...the comments lead me to believe most there are anti-bitcoin.

The USA something is looking at bitcoin - so what?  The US is a "bit" player in this, so the 90%+ rest of the world won't care.

Gox in Japan, TH in Chile, US courts in US.

True, but the US is very influential in monetary and banking policy worldwide.  Why do you think oil is traded in dollars?  It's also true that the many investors / miners are US-based, and the US can disallow wires to/from institutions with any ties to bitcoin exchanges, disallow vendors accepting bitcoin, etc.  Let's not lie to ourselves: it would *suck*!

Did you see the Alphaville piece?  Many of the accounts at MtGox were actually professional investors, dipping a toe in.  If it's illegal, they're gone.

The currency will survive, of course.  But what will be the value?  How useful will it be to a US citizen if you're not interested in drugs, weapons, or porn?

I think there's a lot of willful blindness here b/c we all have so much invested.  Maybe I should stop posting and go donate to EFF (in $, not in BTC anymore, unfortunately).

https://i.imgur.com/Y4Gyd.png


Although, it would not be too surprising if the land of the free would deny yet another basic freedom to own citizens ;)

+1 = 4

US thinks they are still influential (got bigger bombs), but the picture from outside the boundary is quite different.  There is a lot more money elsewhere in the world and the US owes too much.  It's still has a look of "decline and fall", and as long as the US Treasury can convince the debt holders to keep buying, the currency won't collapse (not in their interest to do so).  That was the case before the GFC, but we might be trading oil in CNY or some other denomination eventually (carefully does not put a date on it - waits for a bit more flaming - fun forum community)

that story has 0% credibility. it would survive for no more than 10 seconds in a newsroom, but it's got 3 pages here. oh well.

what's a FUD?

F.U.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt).

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

this

People should stop trowing ideas out their a$$ and try to convince users making it looks like an article.

Yes, this guy intentionally mislead people so that he could use that emotion to create debate.

When asked in his comments section he to provide sources he simply stated they were hard to come by therefor you should respect that. "Just a heads up". Sorry but that doesn't cut it.

And I will NEVER trust anyone who defers to "what will the children think" to support their argument. Using children to support one's arguments is as cowardly as you can get. Highly manipulative.

Exchanges seems to be like the easiest target, dealing with all that money.

With Bitcoin you can place an order to buy or sell and the price can jump up or down in an instant and transaction fees are starting to get on the greedy side. Personally, I made some money early by buying Bitcoin at $400.00 CDN and taking money off the table as the price was rising meteorically.

Regulation and laws follow after something that hasn't been regulated starts to gain popularity. The pro is that more financial institutions will invest because of these rules but it means we pay more in terms of taxes.

Exchanges seems to be like the easiest target, dealing with all that money.

Given that the unstable bitcoin course overcame a mark of 11,000 dollars for a week, what is the risk of this currency, which Goldman Sachs now regards as a "commodity"?

A lot of countries will put laws in place for the regulation of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but they will not ban it. The bitcoin market as it is now is very prone to insider trading so there will be laws put in place to stop things like that from happening and keep a group of people from being able to sway the market to their favor

How is this possible? Isn't bitcoin decentralized? Seriously speaking, I think this will be hard to materialised (in the near future might be possible). How can they make a law when even bitcoin users have their freewill to do transactions? Can you give us a valid source for these? Law per se, is government approved. If so, the government has partly taken control of bitcoin? Just saying thoughts here.

A certain cost bitkoyam gives people confidence in them, no more, no less. If a lot of people think that a crypto currency has value and are ready to receive / give it away for real goods and services, it means that it is.

True. There has to be some laws in place I believe to regulate the market so it will be more harder to manipulate than it is now.

Yes, cryptocurrency laws sometimes disappoint because a person is offered to pay for things that don't have to be paid for. They regulate cryptocurrency as they want.