Bitcoin Forum

As you may be aware, today's news: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r398092-.html

Do you think this is going too far?  Will other States follow in their footsteps.  On one hand I do think that the whole drug issues around Bitcoin may be hurting those using it legitimately.

If you base your company in North Korea then you really can't whine when all your rights are stripped away by a bunch of demagogues.

America is crazy. The Bitcoin witch hunt could get interesting. They may even make a reality tv show that hunts down bitcoin miners.

NorthYork Korea? With the exception than in real North Korea the Bitcoin might be more free than in most democratic country in world.

They've asked for information, that's all. Regulators are still trying to learn and understand about bitcoin.

Regulation is necessary or else society will descend into chaos.  The important thing to understand is that the bitcoin economy can be regulated but the core protocol and currency itself cannot be controlled.  It will be impossible for governments to manipulate the currency as they do with fiat, essentially limiting their power.  This is necessary.

Governments always take that extra rope.

Best to register your company where the country's policies is pro-Bitcoin, you have less of such risks

They aren't persecuting, they're simply asking if the companies are complying with regulations. Since NY SEC charged pirateat40, you would expect a lot more attention. People asked for gov to intervene, so here you go.

The ironic thing is that in regards to Bitcoin even the people who deal in it won't be able to tell the companies who they're dealing with because of the way Bitcoin works the only information they could give was on people who dealt in paper money which would only make people use Bitcoin more.

Hey I would watch that!

I think this is a good stratedgy to Jeannie, but if you are doing business on the ground, your a small business doing transactions offline. would register your company in a pro-bitcoin company.

Or should New yorkers go on regular roadtrips to canada for transactions?

:)

Hosted by Charles Schumer who gives up his political ambitions to combat the evil scourge of Bitcoin, "Coin Hunters" takes to the streets. Dressed in full tactical gear, they search for high electric bills in search of these high tech addicts suffering delusions of grandeur about "changing the system." Sundays 10p/9p on FOXXXXXXXXXXX.

I think this is going too far yes. They want to control everything.

The drug thing is just a pathetic excuse. People buy millions of dollars in drugs everyday (legal and non) with just about every currency on the planet. Bitcoin is no different.

to catch a bitcoin miner. "now if you look on page five of our chat logs you say you want to dry hump a knc jupiter to make it hash faster. Could you explain yourself before the cops drag you out of here?"  a bitcoin is way too much freedom for ordinary citizens to have at least not until holidays.  The cool thing bitcoin has going for it is its really appealing to greedy bastards. If more prostitutes start accepting bitcoin theres no politician in the entire state that will be able to resist it.

Eventually Team America: World Police will make all Bitcoiners wear a yellow coin badge when they leave the house so the authorities can identify them on sight. This badge will be known as the Star of Satoshi.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/Lodz/images/lodzstar.jpg

All Bitcoiners will be targeted by Drones  :o

SWAT team conduct dawn raid on basement of middle class subburban house with T.V. crews in hot pursuit.
Pictures of fat spotty kid being dragged out of bed and cops smashing racks of computers and cooling towers with the buts of their riffles.
Mum in her nightie sobbing uncosolably.
Father looking distraught, 'Marijuana, cocaine, even crystal meth I could understand but this - I can't believe you're a bitcoiner. You're no son of mine.'
Son breaks away from the cops and whispers to his watching friend and neighbour 'behind the fireplace, my butterfly labs ASIC - it arrived, fire it up and change the world'.
He is then dragged away to the van and disappears.

lol, i love the image of the dad, head in hands shaking his head. "why couldn't he have just gotten into crack, why?"

because banks are evil, and the kid dreams!

This.

I think the idea of people operating their bitcoin business from New York, California, Massachusetts, Chicago, or anywhere near D.C. is a very unwise move, and this is the main reason why. Honestly, inside the U.S. is probably to be avoided if possible, but at the very least I would have thought that avoiding the worst control zones would be a top priority for more bitcoiners.

Then again, I'm also disturbed at the number of bitcoiners who believe in preemptively meeting with and working with "the authorities."  ::)

 ;D ;D ;D

It's laughable from a non-american standpoint how a single city can have it's own regulatory system. The whole states thing in America is probably the issue, needs merging.

There's nothing wrong with a city operating on it's own and regulating itself as far as I'm concerned, the Greeks did this and a lot more recently Hong Kong was once operating independently of China as far as I'm aware and was almost it's own city state, I think it's had to give up some of it's powers to China though lately.

cliffs on what New york is doing?

+1

Their announcement just re-hashed the usual set of excuses about why it is necessary to regulate BTC. I wouldn't interpret it as just information gathering. You can do that in much cheaper and less intrusive ways. They clearly want to figure out who they can possibly pursue legally.

The ironic thing is what they are doing for something whose economy is a billion $ or so and what they do NOT do for things like HSBC  ::)

Many cities have semi autonomous status from the state they are in. Mexico City, Cairo, Singapore are all cities which are either a city-state or have a semi-autonomous status from the rest of the country they are in.

Your comments are laughable and show a certain ignorance about the world, history, the polis and in particular the nature of NYC.

NYC has a population greater than most countries. Even if London is still considered the world's most important banking city, NYC is a close second and a great financial trading capital. NYC has an economy greater than most countries. Court cases brought into courts in NYC affect the whole of the US and also the economy of the world.

NYC, like London before it, and Rome long before, are cities which have certain aspects of being states of their own.

The way the US is set up politically, having individual states has certain benefits politically. Read some Machiavelli and Sun Tsu. A country with weak internal states and a strong central government tends to be repressive. It tends to be hard to conquer but easy to rule once conquered.

As far as your comment that it is laughable from a non-american standpoint how a single city can have it's own regulatory system, since you speak for all non-US citizens, I will merely point out, Singapore, Macao, Mexico City, Vatican City, The Hague, as examples of the stupidity of your comment.


Peace!

90% of dollar bills have traces of cocaine on them, and most transactions are done with fiat. If I would want to buy drugs, it is actually way more easier for me to buy it with fiat than with bitcoins. :-\

The drug thing is only a poor excuse.

<-- yellow badge, I got one!

http://mob21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/Seikou/Godwinned.gif

You are 100% spot on!

Those who say that this will help BTC go "mainstream" are going to get what they are asking for but they won't like it!

My $.02.

:)

I'd like to point out, before this argument escalates, that the subpeona actually came from the STATE of New York.... as far as merging goes... that is a slippery slope issue... and merging into a one-world govt is probably not a good idea...

I think that working with so-called "regulators" is a short road to a quick death for the security and privacy of crypto currency, if not the death of crypto currency itself.

The would-be "regulators" should be told to go pound sand, as it were!

My $.02.

:)

I'm guessing Congress will hire some people on this msg board to start PatriotCoin, the digital p2p currency that is constantly inflating

This. I still haven't heard how the policy makers and regulation enforcers plan to regulate something that in all practical terms simply cannot be done. They still have no tactics except intimidation.

- They can shut exchanges, in one country
- They can ban IRL business use, in one country
- They can ban outright use (in one country) and have no real hope of being able to enforce the ban
- They can ban distribution of the client and see how that cat & mouse game works out
- They can try getting ISPs to throws as many networking hurdles in the way, and watch while that gets circumvented

Without a comprehensive worldwide authoritarian presence, and I'm talking CCTV in every room of every building and Skynet style total drone coverage of every square inch, there is no way of defeating this design. I suppose initiating armageddon is viable option, but then who would they lord themselves over, cockroaches?

If the Feds were able to brand bitcoin as a tool of terrorists and pornographers, and declare it illegal, all the US-based bitcoin businesses would shut down and venture funding would disappear overnight. Now let's say the US declares that any nation that allows bitcoin transactions supports terrorism and loses all US aid money, loses access to US banks, and is put under trade embargo. Bitcoin would forever remain an underworld currency with a small, mostly criminal user base. The US gov't would then claim that making it illegal was justified, since only criminals use it.

US regulators can't kill bitcoin, but they can condemn it to obscurity easily enough.

Interesting to see where this is going.

I believe this is a good thing.
Issues like this are inevitable towards the further accepting of Bitcoin in the US and the rest of the world.

Anonymity in financial transactions is fundamentally incompatible with government taxation and currency controls.

Which one do you prefer?

Do you like banks (and other "financial institutions") reporting your transactions to the government?
Do you like IRS rules and regulations?
Do you like mandatory payroll reporting and withholding?
Do you like low value (max $100) currency?
Do you like TSA searches that result in confiscation of "undeclared" currency?

+1

Must quote this again.

Those preemptively meeting with "the authorities" will find out some unpleasant truths about respect of fundamental rights by U.S. government. It's pure naivety doing this.

But even our lead developer doesn't stay anonymous, meets with the CIA, and is pro-regulation.

This is bad news for Bitcoin. But it isn't surprising.

This. It's not a part of a grand conspiracy. The regulators have jobs to do and need to learn about bitcoin in order to justify their existence. If they didn't, there are new regulators lined up ready to take their jobs.

Regulators gonna regulate.

Yes.


Yes.


Yes.


I don't understand the question.


Yes.

The U.S. government stopped printing $500 bills, $1000 bills, etc. so that transporting or possessing large amount of currency is cumbersome and impractical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_denominations_of_United_States_currency

(You probably like that too)

But the good news is that you can now create whatever denomination you can afford and store it on one of these
https://1-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.trendhunter.com/cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/xusb-flash-drive-pen.jpeg.pagespeed.ic.h53oDIh69i.jpg

these
http://www.lrga.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/micro_sd.jpg

or even print your own paper wallet.

Until they "regulate" it out of existence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.  The Supreme Court upheld all seizures as constitutional, with only one justice dissenting.

(You probably like that too)

Wormbog, by all means, consume and propagate the US-centric propagandist viewpoint, but at least try to acquaint yourself with the alternative propaganda, it'll give the impression that you're not living in a cave. Allow me:


Perception of reality problem: you're assuming that US based businesses and venture funding actually matter to the rest of the world. Not the case. Plenty of loud mouthed, well funded propagandists will disagree, but it's still not the case. The world's dependence on the US economy is reaching/reached a tipping point, check out the events of the last 5 years for evidence


More assumptions... so many countries have reduced their dependence on US aid now, trade embargoes are going to matter less and less as the US exports less and less real world goods and services, under those circumstances, other countries are going to be doing less and less trade using dollars. When are people going to wake up to the fact that the US increasingly exports little else but debt and death? Why doesn't anyone understand why the US political will is so determined to ramp up their export of both debt and death? (the debt being significantly more successful than the death, of late)

What is really needed to tell them to go pound sand is for some business to be willing to stand up to them and make them go to court. Hard to find businesses willing to do that, but clearly they exist, e.g. Lavabit.

Yep!

My $.02.

:)

All I have to say: "Bring it!"

Things are just crazy. What's next, a turn-key democracy?

Well not to condone NY reaction but

a) this is from the STATE not CITY of NY.
b) States in the United States at one time were considered sovereign (they still are on paper but not as a practical matter) and the early US government was more like European Union.  Your comment would be like an American saying "I find the idea that France passes its own laws laughable, all power and authority should simply sit with the EU".

Nothing to worry about. Bitcoin can take a hit.

Its interesting to see the difference in opinion, on this thread.

I think regulation is fine and dandy, but it will change absolutely nothing for me.


I think you'll be disappointed by their ability to "bring it"

China and Russia are the key to US regulation being pitched at a reasonable level, after the NY and Senate investigations are finished.

Once the regulators learn how much is being done in the bitcoin space in these countries, and that crippling US-based Bitcoin (and all crypto) businesses, will leave an empty highway for the foreign domination of this internet-based revolution in finance. The only way to have influence in the direction of this technology is to allow local companies to compete worldwide.

Not sure if it's going "too far", maybe just far enough.  I don't think they are out to hunt down bitcoin/bitcoiners and drone them, but I also don't think they will be pre-ordering asics either.  Might be appropriate to say that they are now more "interested" in the whole bitcoin thing, whatever their reasons may be.  Ultimately, they will probably look to figure out a way where they can take advantage of it somehow while allowing it to continue.

Yeah bitcoin could easily be made illegal in the USA...just like other victimless crimes llike marijuana and prostitution.   They could make it a crime to buy or sell bitcoin...hope this doesn't happen for awhile.

Bloomberg is definitely too liberal in the retard department.

Yes, please. Why am I voting for people to represent my views, when I'm the best person to represent my views?

I vote for me to represent my rights and I'm the only one that's eligible to vote.

The important thing to understand is that the bitcoin economy can be regulated but the core protocol and currency itself cannot be controlled.  It will be impossible for governments to manipulate the currency

Right up to the point at which NSA turns its servers against mining pools.

My $.02.

DAMN Perfection. Your logic is undeniable

While that would make the life of miners more difficult, solo mining is still possible, as in private pools, and decentralized pools like p2pool.  The nice thing about Bitcoin is that one can put a lot of relay nodes between the pool server and the rest of the bitcoin network.  Instead of pool server broadcasting blocks to any peer it only broadcasts them to a handful of "relay peers" which are essentially disposable VPS in a bunch of US unfriendly countries. 

Decentralized systems will always adapt to centralized threats.  Look at bittorrent and tor, they aren't silver bullets and it is a never ending struggle, but they have proven very difficult to attack effectively.

That assumes governments are informed, rational, and make logical decisions.   Take a look at online poker.  A nearly useless series of laws simply drove the money, jobs, tax revenue, and innovation overseas.   The key word in your conjecture is "learn" and historically regulators haven't been very interested in learning.  It is entirely possible they won't learn, and will stiffle/cripple innovation in the US and the money, jobs, tax revenue, and innovation will simply flow overseas.  The good news is Bitcoin is global and it will adapt around a broken US regulatory structure.  The bad news for entrepreneurs in the US (myself included) is that Bitcoin surviving doesn't necessarily mean they will survive.

I guess you underestimate the hashing power of Bitcoin as a whole. Read on...

http://qz.com/84056/the-bitcoin-network-is-now-more-powerful-than-the-top-500-supercomputers-combined/

You think the NSA couldn't have a sh*tload of ASICs in a bout two days if the wanted them?

True enough!

Why do you think regulators care about the US economy and jobs and tax revenue and anything else like that?   They only care about grandstanding and making themselves look good and hassling bitcoin companies and individuals is the way for them to do that.

I hope they learn, and do in this case think they will because Bitcoin is as global as the internet itself. I take the point that they still might not.


Sorry. But that is just too cynical. The situation with regulators is that these people genuinely believe that most business would screw over their customers at every opportunity without regulation, and that ever more regulation makes companies behave ever better towards their customers, the defenseless public.

This mind-set stems from a systemic failing of society. Most regulators have never worked in mainstream business or owned their own companies. They come out of academia, or other government sector departments, or places like the Vampire Squid, who really do want to screw over their customers at every opportunity.

A city-run regulatory hit-squad in Detroit is still closing businesses because of infringements with the kaleidoscope of regulations there. No wonder that city is bankrupt. They just don't understand that businesses create wealth, and all government ever does is redistribute wealth.

Very nice post, and true.  But what is a Vampire Squid (in this context)?

Vampire Squids are the massive to big to fail banking entities (originally referred to Goldman Sach's specifically but now more generally) which exist to suck lifeblood out of the economy.  Not innovating, no creating, not improving the economy rather acting like a tax, a friction, a siphoning off a % of the overall wealth to the detriment of the overall system.   If you are the vampire squid you don't want ANYTHING to ever change.  The only two risks you face are actually killing the economy (sucked too much wealth out of the system) or true innovation allowing wealth to bypass you.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jakezamansky/2013/08/08/the-great-vampire-squid-keeps-on-sucking/

Thank you.

That's why we have p2pool. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool

Please guys remove your tinfoils, this is getting ridiculous  :-\

The rest of the world probably carried on as normal. Remember there's a lot more to this world than the 'land of the free'.