Bitcoin Forum

If it wasn't for evil governments regulating everything to death, then there would be dozens of exchanges all over the world, if not hundreds, simply exchanging fiat currencies for crypto currencies with no questions asked. The way it should be.

You could probably walk into a bank, a post office or various types of businesses and shops, and freely exchange your cash for other bearer instruments like gold, foreign exchange or BTC. Banks would offer BTC accounts just like European banks offer FX accounts for everyone. A few mouseclicks would be enough to convert some USD into BTC, in your bank's  online banking interface.

Can you imagine? No risk of getting scammed by unknown counterparties and excellent rates! That is free market; what we have today is a nightmare created by cancerous bureaucracies. Scammers reign freely while honest traders are arrested.

A reasonable limit such as $10K for cash transactions, would not be a hindrance at all. What we have today is not due to the prevention of money laundering but due to cancerous bureaucracies, trying to thrive and grow by sucking the lifeblood out of the real world.

Would Gox exist in such a free market? Maybe. Maybe they would not survive the competition.

To the people, it would not matter.

Gox is a government victim, and free trade is a victim.

WE ARE THE VICTIMS EVEN WITHOUT A GOX ACCOUNT.  :'(

I am a victim. We need a government bailout. Give me money.

That is SO TRUE man! You are right, if only there were more exchanges just like Gox that would let us trade in USD and withdraw the USD, we wouldn't rely so heavily on gox.

I guess in a way, gox became a necessary evil. After all, it was the only exchange that attracted all the big investors and allowed people from all over the world to deposit and withdraw fiat.

yep, and it continues on all levels: cash deposits being restricted = safest method outlawed = excellent for scammers using stolen accounts

Any regulation that creates a victimless crime, makes the world less safe. That is my theory.

We have been lax. We have been asleep. Here is a link to some info that has been around for years. That people are starting to wake up to. It is the reason that the U.S. Government and the banks are starting to get violent. People are waking up.

http://www.abodia.com/ucc/articles/UCC-Connection-Howard.htm

After you read the info contained in the above link, look at the solution: http://www.abodia.com/ucc/.

Use this info to bypass all government regulation of Bitcoin and lots of other things... at least in the U.S.

:)

EDIT: Download the info - maybe the whole Abodia site - because who knows how long government will allow it to remain UP, after it starts to become popular.

No. If it wasn't for the evil governments, there would be dozens of exchanges all over the world, you could walk into one of them and never see your money ever again..

No, I wrote  "evil governments regulating everything to death". Good governments would not do that, they would only stop scammers. You never learned the difference between evil and good, as a kid? Worrying.

At the same time bad exchanges would go out of business quickly = damage control. Governments don't go out of business even if they are bad; so there is no damage control.

No, that would only happen for 15 minutes. After a few people got burned, and after everyone got burned a few times, they would ALL start doing due diligence before they did any Bitcoin business. After that, only honest businesses would survive. Some of the dishonest business owners would die in the process.

Isn't it about time that we start taking responsibility for our lives rather than letting governments do it?

:)

No one is a victim.
When i check my Bitcoin-QT ... i always have what i have buy (and mine).
I trust the bitcoin protocol to old my BTC in any case even my country crash ... and government freeze my bank account.

Don't compare the crap internet business (or government) with a secured network, please.
http://images.wildammo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oh-crap-a-brick.gif

All governments are necessary evil. For them to exist victims required.
btw, don't worry bitcoin will survive, they need it to form a cashless society, it's been a long dream of the elites to make everyone use Big Brother worthless, trackable, decryptable money so that they can switch off wealth of an individual or do whatever they want with the economy.

Will be interesting to see where Mt Gox goes... if it becomes a total scam then it will be really bad for the credibility of the crypto coins. Hope they will redeem all the missing BTCs.

Yes, and those exchanges that rip people off would be very quickly recognized by the Bitcoin community and no-one would do business with them. If there were many exchanges then they'd have a incentive to build a good reputation, otherwise everyone would ditch them and go to the competition. The dodgy exchanges would go out of business pretty quickly, while those with excellent customer service and a squeaky-clean track record would become very very rich. That's how the free market regulates itself. 

There were. Most of them took the money and ran.

Nothing, that makes sense, is going to happen until governments can make their money from it. When the governments gladly jump on board. That's the time to get out.

Now, it seems others here know much more about the subject than I do. I'm just a Newbie for that matter, but .. This topic got my attention, and your posting made me wonder about the next.

Now, I don't know that much about the topic (yet), but - and I can only speak of my own experience - in my opinion it already does.

I signed up an account at Mt. Gox for I wanted to experience the buying of some BTC. And shortly after that I read all kinds of disturbing news about Mt. Gox and that people are starting to wandering if it is all a scam. Now, after that I have put my original plans on a hold. I decided to first get more information about the subject, and then - in time, some months or so maybe - buy some BTC and trade them/buy products with it.
So, I guess I am one of those newcomers, that - because of this news - hesitate now. And I can only guess it keeps much more people away. I can imagine that this is not a good development for companies that wholy or partly rely on doing their business with BTC.

Could it be that that is exactly what banks/governments are trying to do with their regulation-efforts?? Or is that a stupid question?

Unfortunately bitcoin and all alt currencies in general are fighting an uphill battle against corruption/fraud/scams within its own community.  Forget about governments or government regulation.  There's enough scams and corruption on any btc or alt coin forum/website to make a grown man paranoid to the point of schizophrenia. 

So no.  I don't place the blame on governments.  That's just the easy cop out excuse.  I place blame on the inherent nature of digital goods and the constant impending risks of hacking and or being defrauded on direct transactions.  Now...compound that with a completely unregulated market NOT overseen by a more powerful entity to ensure things are running in a fair space...and it turns into armaggedon.  And that's where we're at right now. 

At any point in time, any or all of these exchanges can pack up their bags and leave with hundreds of millions of dollars of our investments.  And they wouldn't face any recourse.  Why? Because they're unregulated.  Same goes for getting your bitcoins stolen on a scam in the for-sale section in this forum.  Good luck trying to file a police report and having them returned by a 'blockchain cop.'

That is what you call a CATCH 22.


I'd like to think the best of MT Gox and that this is all just a huge misunderstanding and they'll eventually make good on their word, but at this point it's not looking good.  Chances are they could have been doing massive selloffs of the btc before suspending withdrawls and knowing that the price would plummet. 

This is the chance we all take with cryptos.  We must put our 'blind faith' into others when it comes to acquiring/trading more of it.  And unfortunately there are a lot more bad guys out there than we'd like to think there are.  And a great number of them lie at the top of the food chain in companies and corporations, just like our own governments.

Well I think it was poor management at Mt.Gox that made this a problem that it is now. As for making it a problem for all, that is true, it won't affect only them, Mt.Gox has 19% market share so it will affect everybody.

I want to be victim with 34m$ in my pocket too...
:D

You know what? That's a great idea. Lets step beating around the bush and just go completely decentralized.

Law enforcement? Military? Public education? Health care? Public goods? etc.

Who needs them? Lets make every person responsible for their own life and see how that works out.




Half-measures are for pussies.

While I don't want too much regulation , it's lack of regulation that have allowed so many scam sites and questionable companies operate in the bitcoin field the last few years.  Again I don't want too much regulation, but I've never seen any evidence that allowing something to be the wild wild west would somehow limit the number of bad actors.

Absolutely.


Well, you should.

Just ask yourself the question, why are there so few exchanges that accept money worldwide, from US and non-US people? It is easy to acccept  SEPA, Swift and national transfers and send out BTC. A 12 year old can do that. It is not the technology, it is the aggression from governments, mainly USG, that stops entrepreneurs from doing that. They are afraid that one day, they will be kidnapped and abducted to the USA and spend 20 years in prison for a crimeless crime, even if they operated from a foreign country.

Or shops that accept cash and send you BTC, right away? Cash for BTC is 100% safe, all that is needed (technically) is a cash checker.

In theory there is nothing difficult about renting a small shop and doing that, then expanding to other locations to start a chain of cash-to-btc cafes. But sure enough, AML and KYC horrors will stop anyone from doing that as well.

There are BTC ATM's but even those require ID, fingerprints and so on - again that is not a technical requirement at all, technically all is needed is a cash checker and a bitcoin address.

If anonymous BTC ATM's would be everywhere, that alone would reduce scam dramatically. Only real cash for real btc, without the need for risky unknown counterparties or complicated AML procedures at an exchange.

What is holding BTC back today, is 10% private scammers and 90% government scammers IMHO  :(

Huh???   Nobody is withdrawing in USD from Gox here in the USA.   Nobody has been for months, and months.  At least not without waiting months and months to get their money.  Its hardly the exchange that the USA has been using.  Totally dead opposite in fact.  What are you talking about?


Who is relying heavily on Gox?  ?????   Definitely not "we"  (USA).  They had their US bank accounts frozen 9 months ago.

Gox has only been repeatedly referenced in the media because their price is always the highest, and its fun to say "BTC is worth $1100!" when its actually trading at 900 on all the other exchanges.


Huh???????????

The big investors (wall street, etc) have used SecondMarket and exchanges like CoinBase in the USA.  

The big investors in China used BTC-China.

Man ... your information is so way off in so many ways.

:-/

-B-

with this statement you are establishing regulations. You may not mean it intentionally, but you're calling for no regulations and then contradicting your original petition by saying this should be a rule. While I do agree that regulations should be toned down, I just wanted to point out this issue that I noticed.

That's a bit of a philosophic question, but..

But isn't that a bit of a misconception?
To think that without law enforcement or Military people would not defend theirselves?  That without Public education children wouldn't be educated anymore? That without Health Care people could not get treatment for diseases? Without public goods there wouldn't been build any roads or bridges? Or, without money people would not trade any more?

All the things you name are (or should be) to the benefit of people, and controlled by people. But, well ... that is Utopia. It seems. ..  ???

OK maybe I was not clear enough. In many places there is a limit for cash transactions to prevent money laundering. For example in Germany shops can accept up to 10 000 EUR in cash, per day and per customer, without ID. No problem for normal people, but certainly a hurdle for a criminal with a suitcase full of cash  ;D

So the existing limits of that nature (typically $10K or 10K EUR) are fine. A store could take $10 000 from each customer, daily, and convert it into BTC. Trouble is, the legislation and justice system is so hostile against BTC that no one can do that in practice...

Example is that Florida case. AML limit is $10K but the other law really limits cash transactions to $299. Or zero, if the buyer makes a dumb joke. Not cool...

Victim mentality = Entitlement mentality.

Just one question? How could someone launder digital money? I can not think of any way.
If not possible, there is no need for regulation to prevent it, right?

Put down the tin foil cap for a sec, bud.

I don't think you truly have a grasp of the situation.

The ONLY reason the government wants to partake in this endeavor, is because people are converting BTC to fiat, and many are not claiming taxable income on their earnings.  You really think any government would be cool with their citizens selling hundreds of millions (and potentially billions) of digital currency for fiat under the books?  You are truly living in a fantasy world.

With regulation comes responsibility.  Right now the BTC world is still basically a huge Silk Road bubble waiting to happen.  The ugly fact of the matter is that a great deal of the bitcoin users are using them for illegal methods or to attain illegal goods/services or simply scamming others out of their hard earned coins (without legal consequence)...and it's not something that is a positive contribution to society.

You can argue up and down about the government and their suppressive illuminati police state measures, but at the end of the day, we all are the ones living on their lands and using their resources.  Some on here may actually claim earnings on their convert btc stakes, but I'd say a good majority don't.  

And until they all do, the government will consider btc and all alts a threat to circumvent the taxation system.

We need a system of controls badly, else what happened with Silk Road and Mt. Gox will ultimately become the norm in this virtual currency world and spell its demise.

It's better to reduce governments and eliminate their income once and for all. But by just not paying taxes the governments would not shrink. They print the money they need through Central Banks. So they always can hire police or army to impose some regulation or tyranny.

I'm loving all the recent bad news and price dropping.

Hopefully Mtgox completely implodes and we can get some sub-$500 bitcoins!

I'll just leave this here:

http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html?m=1

While I don't want too much mercury in my body, it's a lack of mercury that has allowed me to catch colds and other infections. Again I don't want to ingest too much mercury, but I've never seen any evidence that allowing my immune system to learn and adapt in Wild West fashion could somehow limit the number of diseases I get.

Countdown is begun,

Tokio/Japan GMT, 23:45
Peking/China  GMT, 22:45

"Put down the tin foil cap for a sec, bud.
I don't think you truly have a grasp of the situation."

>>Aha....

"With regulation comes responsibility.  Right now the BTC world is still basically a huge Silk Road bubble waiting to happen.  The ugly fact of the matter is that a great deal of the bitcoin users are using them for illegal methods or to attain illegal goods/services or simply scamming others out of their hard earned coins (without legal consequence)...and it's not something that is a positive contribution to society."

>>No it's the banks (and the government) that are currently exhibiting zero responsibility and scamming others out of their hard earned cash.

"You can argue up and down about the government and their suppressive illuminati police state measures, but at the end of the day, we all are the ones living on their lands and using their resources.

>> No, the government is living on our lands and using our resources. They are supposed to represent the electorate last I heard. That's why they are referred to as Public "Servants."

"We need a system of controls badly, else what happened with Silk Road and Mt. Gox will ultimately become the norm in this virtual currency world and spell its demise."

>> Agree with this. Satoshi solved a major problem but many other exist. Gox is a blight on the bitcoin landscape. Incompetent fucks.

Ah stupid me, you are right of course. What a horrific idea, that people spend their own money on what they want, instead of handing it over to the government. Which in turn spends that money to define what people can do with the small rest that has not been stolen from them. Or positive contributions to society such as the NSA  ::)

Now you have noticed that scamming is very popular in the BTC world yet those scammers are hardly arrested; arrested are the honest traders. Simply because those in power are OK with scammers, scammers damage the BTC too.

Again, the scamming is not due to wild west but due to regulations. What is safer? Drawing BTC from an anonymous, public ATM for cash? Or buying BTC from a person you don't know? The problem is that ATM is not permitted.

No one would have to take risks at places like localbitcoins, if regulations would allow banks & others to buy and sell BTC freely.

 :o ???

Just noticed that. Have you just timewarped from the Medieval? We are using THEIR resources? Isn't it supposed to be just the other way round in a democracy...unless you think that we are bondslaves, living on our master's land? Wow such royalism  :o  >:(

There is no such thing as good government.  The only difference between a monarchy and "democracy", is that people are convinced that their vote means anything. Democracy is still run by the select few that look out for their own interest (or those of friends/family).

How can 2 people in Florida go to prison for money laundering (a very small amount) yet CEO's, government officials, Senators etc just lose their public image and get a slap on the wrist for doing the exact same thing but on a larger scale.

As a Canadian I remember Paul Martin, a person that was elected as Prime Minister.  This person had not paid income tax in Canada for over 20 years because he moved his shipping business to the Caribbean. He stole $250 million dollars, his ships were caught smuggling thousands of tons of cocaine into North America and all he got was his title as Prime minister revoked. If this was an average person they would have faced jail time. Look at what the current Ontario provincial party in power has done. They have stole more then $2.5 billion, and everyone focuses on a mayor that may oray not have a drug problem.

It's time the average citizen on this planet stand up for what is right. The current governments are NOT democracy, it's a republic where those elected do what they want. We need to reform and create true democracy where every piece of law, legislature etc must be voted on by the people and not by the select few who have alterior motives. But the common person can't be bothered by following politics.

Bitcoin trading is no different then trading electronics for cash (kind of). Some speculate that in 10-15 years of you do not have an Engineering or medical/math degree you will not find any work. The stock market is no longer about the performance of a company (look at Apple for example who turns a profit every quarter, yet because they don't reach a certain market target (which is influenced by people not spending money they don't have), their stock price drops, EVEN though they are profitable).

People need to tell their government that they work for them and not the other way around.
  

The OP is correct but missing one detail.

In a world where finance isn't regulated to death, you don't need Bitcoin. Just pick a bank and use it to convert commodities into whatever asset you need to pay with, or vice versa. Bitcoin's only real use is to combat red tape. Without this, it's easily beaten by many other systems, for example a payment processor plus gold exchanges.

That's not to say Bitcoin is a bad idea. It may or may not be a decent weapon against man-made idiocy; time will tell.

Yes very true and well said

Bitcoin provides censorship-resistance (which you mentioned) and also freedom from counterparty risk (which you did not).

Backed currencies fail because you can't trust the people holding the backing to actually perform as promised. On a long enough timescale, the percentage of vaults that start defrauding the holders of their notes by performing undisclosed fractional reserves (a.k.a embezzlement )approaches 100%.

Oh absolutely, I am not denying that, BTC success is due to Gresham's law, no doubt about it. A Liberty Reserve type system would beat BTC if it wasn't for the vulnerability.

This is not tinfoil hat stuff, Alan Greenspan himself wrote this:

http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.

Just that there are a lot more risks than inflation nowadays.

yawn

BTC/CC going to 2~21 T market cap in 5 years.

money solves teething problems....hodl.

all govs will cave when that much money is on the table, the corporations will demand it.

Apple does a fine job of legal tax minimisation, via Ireland then Holland.

BTC will do the same.

That is all

stop worrying your welcome.

i hate to break it to you but most people hate to be free and demand 4they be regulated out of freedom

Sadly yes, the major bitcoin exchange in Canada is "pushing for clear regulation". Wtf, why would you want any regulation. Nothing the government comes up with will at all be beneficial to anybody except themselves. Working with them is pointless it's better if none of them even know what Bitcoin is. None of us will ever have any say in any legislation they come up with, pretending to be important enough to shape government regulation is laughable. Right now it's a free for all and as a result Bitcoin based business exploding. The moment the federal gov gets involved it will all implode in suffocating regulations.

You should use some other substance besides mercury, perhaps lead... because for a moment I thought this had something to do with the mercury in vaccines! :D

LOL, the price on BTC-e 102 usd 

Check,
http://easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/641/7070778456.png (http://easycaptures.com/7070778456)View Screen Capture (http://easycaptures.com/7070778456)