Bitcoin Forum

https://youtu.be/xS-eWwwmcoo

It's just unbelievable what's coming out of the mouths of these people. Terrorism, money laundering? Banks have had a monopoly of those for a long time, now a more transparent technology came out, they'd start accusing it of those crimes?

Considering that these bankers has also talked about removing the insurance in bank savings accounts, it just strikes me as revolting for them to say all these. If people felt secured with their money these banks are holding and then loaning away with massive interests, then maybe people wouldn't feel the need to find other ways of keeping their money.

Sigh, guys, they've finally taken notice and has become more serious now. The battle has begun

The title is a bit misleading, sounds like it’s not really a “crackdown,” just more surveillance on exchanges. There’s a similar law that could be passed here in the US. Keep in mind that this wouldn’t even effect Bitcoin itself, only people who use exchanges (although that does probably include most users).

Yes, there is the slippery slope fallacy that this is the first of many regulations (and believe me, I really keep my eye on regulations that could be the beginning of much more that they appear; in both Bitcoin and otherwise); however here in the US Bitcoin itself is protected under the first amendment (in theory at least, since software is protected), and I think it would be a stretch to try to regulate/ban Bitcoin itself in Europe (I’m not talking about exchanges, but Bitcoin Core itself)

Well the terrorism and money laundering angle is hardly new. We don't know exactly how much Bitcoin is being used for these purposes, but I feel that the concern is at least somewhay valid. You might say that fiat could be used the same way, and I absolutely agree, but fiat is regulated.

Bitcoin is in the spotlight right now, for both the general public and regulators. You are correct that this is the beginning, for better or worse.

Bitcoin is naturally getting more scrutiny now because it's getting so valuable. Hopefully, though, that doesn't mean excessive regulation is on its way.

A bit of regulation might not be a bad thing.
For real world use, on larger transactions especially, people need a currency that can be tracked and trusted.

If someone is scammed, to think there is a chance of getting their money back.

There was always a chance that an anonymous currency cane be used to finance terrorism and launder money, Its actually the duty of every country to make sure these kind of things doesn't if it does the country loses revenue and its become dangerous to everyone when terrorist get funds to buy arms and ammunition. This isn't a crackdown of bitcoin at all.

This you said above and taxing are the only thing I see any form of regulation or control achieving.Otherwise, nothing else.

On the contrary, bitcoin and the crypto world in their manner of operation has taken away the government based security on financial matters and transferred it to individual based where one becomes responsible for their pin, security etc

I only hope that people come to recognize how governments deliberately oppose progress and do things to make life harder and less enjoyable for everyone. Schools and media try to convince us that government is the only thing that can save us from our problems. Yet perhaps its fair to say that sometimes government is the problem.

In school, students are taught that its important to be skeptical and not believe in things without evidence. It might be important in this day and age for people to question and be skeptical of institutions like governments which make important decisions which have a powerful effect on billions of lives.

If the UK and other nations crackdown on crypto, it wouldn't necessarily be surprising. It would only reflect US Senate Bill 1241 which tries to be sneaky in doing much the same.

The legislative and media based attack on crypto could represent a good example of how governments cripple innovation and progress in society. There are many other examples of governments restricting innovation and progress. But I think bitcoin could be the most obvious one, hopefully something people will recognize.

It's actually easier for criminals to laundry their money in the blockchain then using banks or other services, so somehow it helps their deals.

I just read a post about some guy that had his entire bankroll confiscated by the European Commission of $700,000. They just took it without any warning or consent. Now, that guy would be worth millions if this didnt happen.

Why do governments think they will control Bitcoin? BTC is a decentralized system immune to governments. Are they blind and can't see this or are they simply ignorant to accept the truth?

The coinmarketcap for crypto currencies passed 600 billion recently and it was clear that they will start to fight back one day! But I can not see how they can effectively attack the crypto currencies? Even if people felt secured with their money on these bank accounts, there is still the problem that it loses every year a huge part of its value! And the times when you received high interest rates to partially compensate your losses are long gone.

I think if they are not funding any wars or any inhumane acts, they would not talk about cryptocurrency and will not bad mouth bitcoin,they would stay away since for them bitcoin is the source of evil, but rather than promoting how good they are, they wanted to destroy bitcoin, unfortunately for them, we live with an advance technology, we can do research even in the palm of our hands, andit is true that crimes against humanity is already there before the creation of bitcoin, andi think they should also consider that fiat is mostly used for the funding crimes. What i think that they should do is to help develop the technology of bitcoin, improve it and promote it to all, since it was created for a good cause.

Indeed, illegal acts such as money laundering, terrorism can still be attributed to Bitcoin. However, no one knows this. The bank has started to seriously problem, there may be someone arrested. But I believe that I am not breaking my law, so do not worry about it if you do not do anything wrong. Become a transparent member and do nothing to become a criminal

Bitcoin can be tracked, but there will likely be a hugely increased black market economy similar to the cash economy right now.
Any completely anonymous coin will likely be banned for registered companies.

Major purchases such as property and cars still need ownership records.
Companies still need to provide tax records for salaries.
People still want security from fraud.

Even with private / freelance sales.
Everyday crypto use will only happen when transfer fees fall to a few cents, and there is more stability.

Right now, would anyone do a $1000 job for bitcoin ?
Knowing the price could drop 20% in a day ?
That's just gambling.

Some folks might accept crypto, but would probably want it converted into regular fiat currency immediately.
Prices aren't going to keep going up forever, and there will be a LOT of caution after the first big crash, and run on the exchanges.
 
So I think the governments are still going to get their tax share.
I do think income taxes will fall to compensate for increased black economy, and sales taxes will increase.

They are doing everything in their power just to stop bitcoin because they are all now threaten that their former supremacy will be erase in the future but i just  wondering that why these banks in EU is so much tense about bitcoin existence? Unlike banking here in Asia specially here in our country are supporting the bitcoin investment. In fact they are in partnership with our local exchanges.

While this is one of the many regulations that's going to be coming, Bitcoin isn't something that is protected by the first amendment. It really isn't. The government, if they wanted to, could fuck us all in an instant by making it very hard to buy and sell bitcoins (like the bitlicense in NY, but on a national level) that would cripple Bitcoin. What if they were to impose some sort of tax on transactions to the exchanges and wallets? Poof, we're gone.

This is all going to come at some point, the governments just have to deem Bitcoin a threat to their control and the people will fall into line with removing Bitcoin from the world -- it's sad how much power these people have.

Sadly but true. Even for us this can be done and they probably use this method for laundering money of any kind. This is perfect method for them. From some point some government call every crypto user a criminal and this is just not good for anyone to say this. Ok it can be used for this illegal activity but not use or do this.

Well I think its gonna happen sooner or later..

 Because the technology bitcoins have adopted have really held hands of most people who are trying to dive into corruption and everything.

How transparent it is.. is really doing good and bad.. for the people who are in it... Really know how to track everything down how it would effect transactions in a big way if something needs to be tracked down.

I've watched the vid and there seem to be a year or so left before they start regulating it. It seems that people would have a harder time keeping their money secret from the government. If you have some btc or other alt in an "anonymous" wallet and try to move that to a regulated exchange to convert to fiat, they might track all transactions to/from that wallet as well. Well, it's never really anonymous to begin with anyway.


We've seen enough failed states to know they don't really always have the citizen's interest in mind. It just happened that in more functional societies, the interest of the government and the people are more in line with each other. If they can, governments would go their own way.

noone cracks down on bitcoin yet i think. the questions they raise are serious enough, our concern is probably that they dont spill the baby with the bathwater or restrict circulation protecting thier own business

It is not unexpected at all, and it isn't a "crackdown" just a regulation of bitcoin to remove it's anonymity so that no criminal hide behind the addresses of this network and from the law. I don't disagree with the points highlighted here that the bitcoin has also been used negatively all across the world in different criminal activities e.g money laundering, because the huge amount of money which has been pushed into the market during this year seems amazing but quite alarming as well.

Doesn't surprise me at all. EU has been against and feeling threaten by bitcoin and cryptos. And they all makes excuses and covered everything by throwing the terrorism, money laundering issues to really ban bitcoin in any form.

The battle has began months ago. Although criminals has the intent to hide their resources and foot prints using crypto's, but I don't need a outright ban is needed for bitcoin.

Just try to keep an eye on an exchange or have a proper regulations around it will do. A total hammer ban is not needed. But let's see we all know that its really hard to stop bitcoin and crypto's now. Its has began. Next year will be another big year for us. It's gonna be like a cat and mouse game moving forward.

Yes, the battle has just begun because the bankers and their shareholder are not really with how bitcoin turn out by gaining people attention and trust. However, the so called Terrorism, money laundering etc. Have been right before bitcoin creation and now are blaming it all on bitcoin just because of it decentralized in nature.

The bell started to make noise. This are good news, after all we are waiting that Eu do something about cryptocurrency, and i like the part with the laundry money by the banks, what will they do? Will EU shut down all the banks?? I don't support dirty money but i liked the fact that she stand up for the bitcoin.

With the kind of hidden project that Europe has regarding the protection of bank deposits, I think that the banks are kind of loosing the race.

"The battle has began" I do believe bitcoin is going to silent they month by providing financial solutions and proofing to them that bankers are the criminals,  funding terrorism and funding political unrest. We have been with the issues of terrorism before the advent of bitcoin and others cryptocurrency and bitcoin system is the most adopted now because of the decentralized nature of it system and how people has started finding out that bank is a fraud .

It's just fear mongering. They are afraid of what they don't understand and trying to scare the public so they won't invest and lose money (potentially).
To understand the EU you have to really know it and how it operates. It's ruled by leftists like Macron and Merkel, who are slowly running it to the ground. Merkel with her suicidal tendencies to make Germany the multicultural center of the world and Macron who's openly saying he would like to be the president of Europe...
I've read that the predictions for the EU aren't good because it's slowly dividing into the East and the West, especially that the only answer EU has for the countries that don't support it's migration policy is to vote for sanctions. We'll soon have a Hungarexit, Polexit and so on :D

Bitcoin is inevitably going to survive in Europe simply because the Euro will keep getting weaker and weaker. Just wait for another country to leave the Union and you'll see how its currency dives.

That argument has been used over and over again, but it's going no where. We already had reports from FBI saying that the concern of the possibility of money laundry with bitcoin is minimal. They are the ones that are in a good position to make these statements, so I don't think people will take those accusations from banks seriously.

I took the thread title from the headline itself though. Who knows, maybe they are more sympathetic in RT?

What I can't accept is all the talks about terrorism and money laundering, which traditional banking has shown time and time again to more adept with. Also, it could go more beyond exchanges as they start tracking more and more of your transactions.

I don't live in the US but if bitcoin is regarded as a currency, can't the government just decide to "prevent" its use? After all, there would be no diplomatic issues.

Haha good luck? I mean they can try finding out what happens with bitcoin but it will be hard to track not to mention if you get into some anonymous coins. They seem like they are a year or two behind and I am not worried by these empty threats. They are meant to make the weak sheep pay up but if you hodl strong you should be fine.

Of course rich people are scared, since cryptos can reshuffle the distribution of wealth. So they try to badmouth them in public.

Oh, well not much a suffle, there is still a large part of the world that are too concerned with eating and have no money to invest even if the returns are large.

Yes we need to take this as a learning curve and take these regulations as a feedback and try working on it to remove the anonymity of address which we use to transfer funds as there are lsome serious money laundering is happening and also nowadays even hackers and criminals have started demanding their ransom in bitcoin which makes it one of the most favorite channel of money for criminals so if we can work on it then it will.be a win-win situation

You really don't expect that bitcoin would be given a smooth pass just like that without any form of resistance and even that they will come against it with all the things they have got? When all the terrorism and money laundering is being defeated, the next is the volatility just like the way the stock of a company was suspended because it was related to crypto and its stock price witnessed some massive increase in price as being read earlier in the day.

The battle has always been there and its not going to go down while a lot of government agencies are trying so hard to discourage the it's adoption. Banks talking about removing insurance of customers deposit is just trying to run away from responsibility and not to be held liable for their errors I see no reason why they can't just allow bitcoin so we keep our private key ourselves with even the need for banks.

True, they'd always find some flaw about it that would require regulation. Its very essence runs contrary to the existing gov't-monitored financial system.

Well, those in the EU still have 18 mos before these regulations come into play anyway. Still enough to move funds away from those vultures. Though I suppose once regulations take effect, they are going to take note of any incoming btc on the registered accounts in exchanges so it might be harder to encash them.

Looks like the ministers are concerned enough about crypto and want to make bitcoin one of the topics in the next G20 summit.  https://youtu.be/_r9heYdnlMo?t=2m15s

The problem is that if bitcoin is more profitable to consumers and less to the bank owners, so no big bank would like that bitcoin should be given the chance to excel.

This problem will remain there until the super powers will start talking about the crypto currencies their respective senates to either legalize it completely or partially. Because neglecting the fact that crypto currency will take over is not in their interest either.

Yes.Even though,fiat is also used for such purposes,it could be traced easily.But since bitcoin transactions are pseudo anonymous,government authorities suspect that it would be used more for illegal purposes.That's why,they try their best to regulate bitcoin exchanges.

I think that regulation is much better than completely banning bitcoin and it would help bitcoin to progress in the long run.

I am not surprised, central bank has been trying to bring down Bitcoin since Bitcoin popularity is rising, and the old tactics is using Bitcoin as the terrorist fund and money laundry things, but they not realize Bitcoin is only a tool, every valuable things can be used for both of the things even Fiat also can be used for that purpose and I believe 2018 Bitcoin regulation is going to be a hot topic

These terrorism and money laundering, as we all know, have been in existence for many years. If the European Union really wants to crush the bitcoin, it's just an excuse that they want to find. I think the trend can't be stopped. Maybe EU will take a lot of control measures, but the encryption money should be recognized by the European Union or the whole world, and it is necessary to accept some local government's supervision.

Eventually regulations will encourage a higher level of demand. Most investment funds require a clear legal framework to make decisions, as they don´t tolerate lots of regulatory risk.