Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

As a Swiss citizen, I'm sad to report here that a socialist national councillor, Mr Jean-Christophe Schwab, filed a motion to ban Bitcoins in Switzerland. In particular, he argues that Bitcoins are mainly used for criminal transactions, that we should not allow anonymous currencies and that the central bank should not have competitors -- the usual anti-Bitcoin arguments, I guess. It is hard to say whether this motion has any chance to be approved, but this councillor is known to fight a lot for his ideas.

See by yourself: http://www.entete.ch/sk_lmd.pdf (http://www.entete.ch/sk_lmd.pdf).

I already contacted several other national councillors that I know personally in order to give them solid arguments against this motion, but that would really help if the community and/or the Bitcoin Foundation could take part in the process before it's too late.

Thank you all in advance.

sad. too bad they would have to ban every single "virtual currency" and then they'll wind up messing those laws up anyways

with Bernanke deciding to continue printing $85B/mo to hand over to his banking buddies i don't think this will matter one bit to Bitcoin.

Silly council members think they can solve all the world's problems with legislation.  Once you have in place the basic laws against force, fraud and theft, it's all downhill from there.

Let them try to legislate away the laws of prime numbers.

lmao the old home of anonymous banking trying to ban anonymous currency, that would be the day...

what exactly is his plan to stop it? take away everyone's computers, cut off switzerland from the internet?

I sent a note to the lawyer at btc foundation, perhaps they have some contacts

When you say "filed a motion", what does that mean? New legislation at the federal level? That would be quite remarkable if true. I suppose, politicians from all cantons would be able to vote on that, no?

I think the real motivation here is obviously ideological. He says he is "opposed to the privatisation of money creation, which must be controlled by the state". He provides no rationale for why it must be so. It's just something he believes.

Unfortunately the fractured language situation in Switzerland will make co-ordination somewhat complicated ... there are plenty of people coming to the meetups in Zurich and I'm sure lots of people could be co-ordinated together to make protests, but I have no experience of political campaigning here (I live in Zurich). I'm not even a citizen so doubt they would care much anyway.

Re: his plan. The article says "that would obviously be practically complicated, but we could ban holding of bitcoins or making transactions in them". In other words random punishment whenever they find someone and hope everyone else falls into line.

Just to be comprehensive, this link gives more detailed information:
http://www.parlament.ch/f/suche/pages/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20133687 (http://www.parlament.ch/f/suche/pages/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20133687).

34 co-signers, outstanding.

I guess that's of a scale that does require a real response. It's not just one crazy politician.

I'm pretty sure someone tried to ban Internet a few decades ago, there are nutjobs everywhere...

That is some serious Shit, worst is the other well known Politicans who signed this too , but meh i don't care
they banned Drugs, the People still doing doing them so fuck that Conservative Communist Bullshit


and if that's not worst enough it's a Banker and the socialist Lemmings trying patronize us, by supporting Banksters after the Bailouts.

Somehow i think it doesn't matter, if you didn't pay with Bitcoins, you would pay Cash.

Why they don't try to ban hawala

The Laws against Ponzi Schemes are sufficient, Laws against Drugs are beeing used to justify the worser Crimes.
But i'm also very confident that insanity will prevail,
yay let's regulate Bitcoin because it worked oh so well with our financial System.
Always the bad Drugs when probably by now most Transactions are for other trades for Profit and not the bad Drugs.
I know they just want talk about this Issue but lucky us theres no Regulation in Sight for the next Year, what really annoy's me its that this must be a Banker who brings such Thing^s to the Table. I'm very dissapointend by our Swiss Liberals, i haven't expected that from SP if such Things came from CVP or more right sided Groups that wouldn't surprise me.

Any law in Switzerland can be overturned with 50,000 signatures.
Doubt it will get passed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland)


Here is an awsome example:

http://boingboing.net/2007/12/02/swiss-dmca-petition.html (http://boingboing.net/2007/12/02/swiss-dmca-petition.html)

It's best to prove them right, immediately before proving that they can't effectively do anything about it anyway.

Regulations will come, in one of my worst Case Scenarios it will lead to de-anonymize the whole Internet, with blocking all crypted (except accredited ones) Traffic and flagging it for Law Enforcment like a full blown China Wall but worldwide.

Regulations could also build trust in Bitcoin, but somehow i don't want this because PayPal CC is obviously better.
but it's my freedom to buy wathever i want, i can or will ruin my Health anyway in this World with or without Drugs,
just that usual hipocrisy work yourself to death, but doing Drugs nonono it will affect the other Slaves..
at least we don^t have to listen to such Things as Bitcoin supports Terrorism.

I blame 20min for his effort because of their SR Story few Days ago, it had to come someday, now its good that Forbes covered the Story already and the Research that was done by tracking SR Transactions, it will prove aufmerksamkeitsgeile him wrong.

Haha, the best part about this is that nobody actually "holds" any Bitcoins. And I don't mean physically either. All you hold is a simple set of numbers and letters that give you the ability to move some numbers around on a global ledger. He is effectively banning strings of characters. I say more power to him, this would be an amusing experiment.

Doesn't sound like the Bitcoin Foundation will establish its' HQ in Switzerland.

Very similar to the simple set of numbers which have controlled secret bank accounts in Switzerland for so many years.

This will be good for Bitcoin as it will generate publicity and then discussion between people who might not have heard about Bitcoin until Mr Schwab decided to do a PR job for it. Keep up the good work Schwab!

Yeah, I suppose we'll have to send him a thank you card or something.

sorry, this doesn't translate into banned.

"Because of the importance of the financial center, it seems appropriate to evaluate the impact and risks of "Bitcoin" to our country, to check its compatibility with the laws that govern our financial sector, and, if applicable to take the necessary measures."

Yea, someone should change the title before we get a wave of FUD that hits the media (a la Thailand).

The guys statements to the press don't match what he actually submitted to parliament, but he said quite explicitly what his goal is.

Anyway, I suppose it's time for the Swiss Bitcoin community to start some lobbying. Those MP's who signed his motion are possibly just looking for education, despite that Schwaab already made up his mind.

With this motion, the federal government is asked to write a report on the risks of virtual currencies. In order to be submitted to the government, it first has to pass the two chambers of parliament (which it has not yet).

I have already contacted one of the co-signers. This motion is a good opportunity to introduce people to the benefits of cryptocurrencies.
 

Any other news outlet cover this?

Hi,
Thanks for the info.
Please next time inform us (people living in Switzerland) also in our local community on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113055238568417913658

I'm for sure willing to collect signatures for a referendum, if it is needed.
Maybe Jon Matonis or some other good talkers who are well known in the Bitcoin community is willing to visit us again and speak in front of the parliamentarians this time..

Regards

This will create lots of discussion, and is a good opportunity to educate the public, Mr Schwab included, about Bitcoin technology. A good starting point are the very arguments brought forward by Mr. Schwab: some of them are myths (Bitcoin is inherently anonymous, and it is mainly used for criminal transactions), and some are simply his opinions on how economy should be managed (central bank should not have competitors).
Myths are easy to dispel by presenting facts and requesting the other side to provide (the nonexistent) facts that support them.
The "no competitors" is actually a valid argument, and we should try to understand where it is coming from culturally and historically, rather than ridiculing it just because we feel differently. I can see how a significant portion of Swiss population might agree, or at least consider it as a serious argument. We should try to understand what specific scenarios - surreal or realistic - Mr. Schwab imagines that may lead to a competition that may be damaging to Switzerland. My understanding is that he has actually requested the federal government to come up with such scenarios, so he doesn't really have an idea, but rather just a vague, ominous feeling... which we know is based in misunderstanding of the Bitcoin technology.

Sigh.  This is yet another misleading headline like the 'Thailand declaring bitcoins illegal'.  Did anyone actually read the text?  It says they they are looking of ways to regulate the use of bitcoins.  This is good for bitcoin because if bitcoin is regulated, then there is a much higher chance that banks will want to interact with bitcoin.

These misleading headlines really need to stop.

Will

Will,

The original article I quoted was explicit about Schwab's objective to ban Bitcoins; I had not found the second reference at this stage. I agree that the title should not be as dramatic.

Here is a follow up:
http://www.coindesk.com/swiss-politician-asks-government-create-report-bitcoin/ (http://www.coindesk.com/swiss-politician-asks-government-create-report-bitcoin/).

The OP is right, the original newspaper article with quotes from Schwab is quite a lot more strident



It does seem that Schwab wants to ban bitcoins, but all that's happened is that there will be a report written on Bitcoin examining the currency - I don't think Schwab will get what he wants.

A more accurate headline would be:

After a Swiss national councilor suggests banning Bitcoins, government report is commissioned.

Will

Can somebody translate the french text?
Parce je ne parle pas de français, like most peopel here I guess

The problem is the report he asked for is a report on "The risks of Bitcoin". Note: not the risks vs benefits, just the risks.

Worst case scenario: he gets exactly what he asked for, and then parades it around as "evidence" that a total ban is required.

This is odd considering the neighbor country, Germany, is the most outspoken positive about Bitcoin. On top of that the Swiss also value privacy and are pretty much against anything that threatens their sovereign right to privacy in most aspect of daily life. This is rather shocking, but I guess the dumbfuck politician missed the point of Bitcoin like many other old farts in power.

Gold is more anonymous than bitcoin.  Switzerland will have to ban that first.

The postulat is now translated to German:
http://www.parlament.ch/d/suche/seiten/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20133687

Like others already pointed out they want the Executive to make a report about the risks of Bitcoin (no word about chances..), especially focused on the usage of Bitcoins for money laundering and financing criminal activities. It also calls Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme.

So it's far away from banning yet. AFAIK the parliament has first to accept this postulat,  then Mister Schwaab will probably try to ban Bitcoin with a law. If he can convince the parliament to ban Bitcoin we still have the opportunity to make a referendum. All this will take more than a year.

This is largely correct.  I think the good PR will be a benefit to Bitcoin - any law against will do almost nothing.

but wait a minute, cash is used as well for drugs, prostitution and all bad things. bank notes are filthy with cocaine. on my bitcoin u won't find cocaine.

what a gyp.

I wouldn't go that far. Many transactions can likely be traced through an occasional SR deal.
But yes, more crime is based on the good, old government-issued cash than on bitcoins. Also, cash is more anonymous.

Yes, and cash has levels of anonymity too, depending on what type of cash is used and how it is used.  Most bills are serialized in an easy to scan way, and increasingly transactions are through machines or banks, so there are some very non-anonymous check points.  Paper cash is imperfectly fungible with regard to identity and transactions.
If you pull bills out of an ATM and give them to someone scurrilous and they are next deposited into a bank, you may become an interested party by law enforcement based on that chain.

For more anonymity they would use gold coins as cash.  Those are all the same. 
The Swiss argument against Bitcoin might be more easily pointed at gold than at bitcoin.

I love how the guy uses the argument that Bitcoins are used to to do illegal activities.

Just like USD's or other fiat aren't already being used for illegal activities for 100's of years.  ::)

It will keep people from withdrawing to Swiss banks via exchanges.

Just like a dollar bill is filthy. I teach my kids that money is dirty (literal germy) and that hundreds if not thousands of people have touched it. Id est, wash yer hands son.

Stupid Swiss, atleast their government.
They can't ban such things becouse we have fucking Proxies and shit.

I'm pretty sure the counselor feels stupid after SR being seized and people being able to identify the address where the FBI is holding the coins, so much for his anonymity argument... cash is more anonymous than btcs, btcs are only anonymous if the user takes precautions...