Bitcoin Forum

http://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/05/09/secs-investor-warning-on-bitcoin-could-stifle-innovation/  (http://www.forbes.com/sites/perianneboring/2014/05/09/secs-investor-warning-on-bitcoin-could-stifle-innovation/)

What a load of crap.  Why does MasterCard truly want to push down bitcoin?  Is it because they are concerned for the good of people?  Or is it they don't want competition? 

How could such a thinly veiled plan be effective?  Can congress be so dumb that they accept this bias position of MasterCard in their attempt to squeeze competition? 

Unfucking-believable that they are allowed to do this. 

Of course, bitcoin has no lobbyists.

Haha. all this shows is that they're scared. "Stifle innovation"? Bitcoin is doing the exact opposite of this. Bitcoin is innovation, not to mention all the innovative ideas and companies that are being spawned and built around it. What the hell are Mastercard doing for innovation exactly?

Bitcoin recently lost billions of dollars in revenue, when Putin kicked it out of Russia. So they are running scared to retain their remaining markets. Tactics like these might help them in the short term.

Instead of lobbying, they should implement bitcoin into their plastic cards. A plastic card is cheaper than a smartphone.

Let the honey badger do its work.  The problem will take care of itself

I guess that they are just scared of competition. In the future (soon) I can see cryptocurrencies taking over. Mastercard isn't that bad like the other competitors (WU, Paypal and such), but this move is really bad. I wonder if/when will Putin bring Bitcoin back to Russia.

for those that have not read the article. the SEC announcement is talking about investments. it does not talk about using bitcoins to buy retail products, thus there is nothing to indicate that mastercard was throwing its dummy out of the pram in regards to retail transactions

i simply read it as
don't trust investment companies run by basement dwellers that cant be arsed to be regulated, while still wanting to handle FIAT.

which is actually true.

no where does it say, stay away from bitcoin. just stay away from unregulated and shady investment firms.

the FDIC insurance part. it is true there have been exchanges that showed customer balances, yet there was no equal amounts of bitcoin in cold store to match the exchange database balances. bitcoins dont need insurance if they can show and prove they hold matching bitcoins to cover customer balances.

so i hope btc-e, bitstamp, etc all become VERY transparent and auditable and not be secretly spending bitcoins meant for customers holdings. as this is a 'form' of fractional reserve.
EG many people for months thought that MTGox had 800k+ bitcoins to match customers balances. and mtgox continued to trade even after admitting bitcoins had gone. who knows how long karpales was spending/hiding the cold stores for personal use.

Mastercard should be scared and their lobbyists are scum.

Bitcoin users in Russia face no harassment, and the exchanges are operating openly there. The rumors about Russia banning the Bitcoin were proven false. The only thing which was banned by Putin was Master / Visa.  ;D

Good.  CC companies are low

Really? So.. umm.. what, really?

1. Russia did not ban bitcoins. they announced that it should not be used as legal tender
(meaning it WONT replace ruble, for tax purposes and where banks pay out in bitcoin instead of ruble)
ruble will still be there. there was no ruling to stop people exchanging it for private use outside of tax payments, court payments etc. all they said was rubles remain legal tender. and nothing else can be.. this does not affect bitcoins being bought, nor any other currency sch as euro's or dollars

2. america told mastercard / visa not to process retail transactions between russian retailers and russian banks. russia did not give the command

either way bitcoin is still tradable, but russian BANKS wont directly hand people bitcoins. BANKS can only hand people rubles. mch the same as banks handle rubles, and 'bureau de change' outlets handle the other currencies

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." More and more  true every day.

Oh, I didn't realize this. That is good then. I don't think that Putin did the ban on the CC, maybe it was vice-versa?
They have been trying to use certain sanctions on Putin, but they don't seem to work.  :D

The Visa / Master threatened Putin that they will take some of the Russian banks off their payment system. In return Putin told them to GTFO and introduced the new Russian card payment system. The government has asked merchants to stop accepting Visa / Master within the next 3 months.

Frankly, I am surprised this didn't happen a year or more ago.  Perhaps the MC executives thought "beanie babies".  I would not be surprised.

Also - The use of Mastercard and Visa as a weapon against Putin shows the problem with centralization.  Now MC and Visa are going to take huge hits over it.  Not that I particularly care as I find credit systems like these to be leeches upon society.

amen. The cat is out off the bag and what not - The amazing race is on

so the next time I visit Moscow, I can leave my visa card at home.
Bitcoins will be easier to use than trying to get whatever Russian
credit card that is.

My Russian friend says St. Petersburg is a much better place to visit.  He seemed to like it a lot and he's from the Sochi area. 

I wonder if Russia still accepts American Express?  Lol

Oh I didn't realize this. This guy seems cooler and more powerful each day.
Mastercard deserved this. They will eventually be out of business anyway.

The people behind Bitcoin should get their own lobbyists.

"The possible social benefits of Bitcoin far outweigh the investment threats of Bitcoin. " The reason is that mastercard started to lose investments and thought that this is because of bitcoin. It's better for them to co-op with bitcoin and it would give more benefits.

Lobbyist should get their own bitcoins.

they don't have a full access card to the congress ... or senat ... or ...  ::) god (in the white house)

I think MasterCard has a good chance of winning this fight. The bitcoin community is scattered and infighting. The bank industry players are all on the same page. The bitcoin community has lost it's focus on economic freedom and many/most players are only interested in getting rich quick. The banks know exactly what they want and I suspect they will get it.
By this time next year it may be all over and MasterCard's smart approach to lobbying could put them in the position of directly writing the laws that you will obey or be fined and arrested for rejecting. It is very common for lobbyist to write laws these days. Unless we organize and show a united front our opinions are worthless to lawmakers. 

The RIAA and MPAA were in the same position of writing the laws that you will obey or be fined and arrested for rejecting for over 10 years.

Yet The Pirate Bay is still online.

You're begging the question of whether or not the opinions of lawmakers are worth anything to us.

If it takes Mastercard a year to get some new legislation through, the technology needed to circumvent those laws will have a year to develop.

Good example. The RIAA and MPAA vs. customers was a freedom fight. They got most of what they wanted but users were able to change the music and movie industry forever. It is not exactly the same though. Music piracy was and is stealing and was subject to existing law. Laws they fought for with their lobby.
As far as the worth of lawmakers. well, I may choose to ignore the laws I disagree with. But when I'm in court that is not going anywhere. I might as well announce that I no longer am subject to any laws.
Your last point about getting the technology ahead of them is a real hope. It is why we have had a neutral Internet till now. Maybe it will all turn out alright?  personally I don't like to wait for things to happen to me. I like to make thing happen for myself. MasterCard has no other enemies than us. The foundation has to fight them while trying to convince people they are not secretly controlled by ______________(insert group here).

No.

Because buy and pay with QR code is already implemented and ready to use... on bitcoin network.

It's the commercial community that not view the benefice of this (and must migrate from EAN to QR code sticker).

Good old Mastercard

The Bitcoin Endgame.

Any business that wants economic freedom can register as a general contractor. They can circumvent money transferring laws by never actually touching and only negotiating payments to subcontractors transparently through the blockchain to similarly registered legal subcontractors. If you want to claim that anyone that doesn't have any money is a money launderer and a terrorist we will truly have a War on Poverty.

Obviously if you end up in court you're doing it wrong.

See this thread: https://lwn.net/Articles/598061/

truely a great explanation mr, RISE OFF THE NEW AGE lol  ;D

SO how does that work? Because exchange XYZ can prove it holds all the bitcoins it owes today, that by itself to you is a guarantee they wont lose yours tomorrow? Sounds like you dont understand the difference between an audit and a deposit insurance.

We don't need no stinkin' lobbyists! We now have are very own Serial Entrepreneur:

http://www.fitsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/john-wayne-gacy.jpg

He embraces Clinton, just like...

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSBByGPNe7FjOmxzJdqQAurmH5_Fo_gmEjpqjpYdxGG_kJbokQ0

We are working on something like this for a better type of exchange... keep your eyes peeled  :o

Well put.  Looks like this may be a signal that they think they're ready to fight?  I don't know what the future will bring but I'm ready for it to take it's course.

I can tell you one thing is for sure.  The lobbyists working for Master Card don't have any interests for what is good for the average person that uses that the regulations will effect.  They work for the bankers and history has shown what their intentions are.

That will be that smart thing to do!But they can't think smart now,are scared and trying to get rid of competition.Mastercard is digging it own grave.

Yeah. Corruption . Manipulation. General public ass- fuqing. Inflation. The rich get's richer, while the others bend over with a can off vaseline.

I doubt that is going to persuade a judge.

This, the govs of this world are snakes all of them.  Have you seen what the honey badger does to snakes?  Its going to eat Putin take a nap than eat up Obama and Harper in one go.

The reading comprehension is weak with this one.

I don't know what you are looking at in that link that is relevant to my statements?

Anyway, the only lobbyists working to counter the work of MasterCard are those employed by the bitcoin foundation. Considering how loony and in tatters the bitcoin community is MC has a good chance of winning their arguments and writing the policy you and I will have to live with.  :(

lets hope the bitcoin gathering in Amsterdam atm gives us some positive uplifting news. The leader off ebay is considering payment in btc , anny news on This front ? This message is partly off topic, for that im sorry - but imo still relevant lol

The thing that's worrying about this is that these guys have a chance of succeeding.
5 people with money supplied by a wealthy financial institution could do a lot more damage than all the 120,000 well-intentioned guys in this thread.

they will try fight it but bitcoin is such revolution it will be easiest and best international payment system no matter what

That's the government that rules us. It's bought and paid for by the unscrupulous. The greed or the ignorance of lawmakers is their target. They will try to kill technology that has the real potential of ushering in a better lifestyle for billions of people around the globe. That is what they are deliberately trying to do and they could succeed or at least impede its growth.

Here's the most important part

"Two weeks later, members of the House Appropriations Committee announced they have concerns with “virtual currencies like bitcoin” and are awaiting a briefing from the FBI regarding criminals and terrorists using virtual currencies to illegally launder and transfer money.
Lobbyist at work!"

Forget NASCAR, crowdfund Lobbyists bitcoiners.

If programmers can't evolve their software faster than legislators can evolve their laws, they aren't very good programmers.

Let the US Congress make Bitcoin illegal.

It will simply mean that the pace of innovation will increase.

If the US Congress makes Bitcoin illegal, it's pretty obvious they're trying to make a profit out of it, too. Limiting the range of sellers will increase the range of buyers everyday. It's basically what the Gov did with Marijuana. Legalize it to get a benefit out of it.

lets just Get it done !? Simply brilliant

MC can probably do a lot to suppress the exchange value of bitcoins. They're a huge centralized corporation that can bring huge resources to bear on a well thought out, organized plan to influence laws and regulations and make bitcoins less useful / more difficult for regular people.

Might it be wise to try to pool our resources and have an organized response? Oh, wait, we did that...the Bitcoin Foundation has been making the connections with the people who will decide on how the other 98% of people who aren't as computer savvy as we get access to bitcoins.

I think all this thread will do is help btc more than hurt it all its doing is hurting ccs and proving Russia is not against btc ( at least not overly aggressive about it)

We kind of knew this was where it was headed, the moment we heard lobbyists from MasterCard were in Washington. They obviously want to squash anything that poses a legitimate threat to their bottom line. It wouldn't surprise me, if all the terrorist talk (in relation to BTC), is partly as a result of Mastercard lobbyists.