Bitcoin Forum

Forfeit Bitcoins that are inactive for over 5 years to the State of New York - (200.12c)

Am I reading this right?

No, hyperbole. These regulations regulate Bitcoin businesses, not individuals.

this is not true and NY regulators would have no way to enforce this.

No. No more than dollars under your mattress you don't use for 5 years belongs to NY.  Abandoned property deals with THIRD PARTY accounts.   So under the BitLicense if you had an account with an exchange and you didn't login for 5 years the EXCHANGE would turn the account over to the state.

Holy mother of fuck that cannot be real.

All they gotta do is make up some bullshit charges (Patriot Act or something) and put you in jail for 5 years and then keep all your money for inactivity. If you use coinbase or something that is.

if they do that theres no need to wait 5 years.

bullshit charge can be used to seize the account immediately.

They haven't managed to seize all of DPR's yet and he had semi-legit charges.

There isn't any bullshit charges that let them take monies as easy as wait 5 years that I know of.

All the more reason to keep the majority of your bitcoins running on a local wallet.  Don't trust your coins to any third party source!

If your bank account or other asset account is dormant for a certain period of time then the assets are to be turned over to the state. If the accountholder later contacts the state looking for assets then the state would return the assets to the original owner of the assets.

Think for a minute. Lets say they do implement this. Now how are they going to execute and enforce this? One of the benefits of bitcoin is that it's yours, and you're in full control of it. The fundamentals of bitcoin does not operate within the law and regulation.

Yes. There is no mechanism available to recover lose wallet.

DPR didnt have his btc in an account owned by another business.  they took everything they could get there hands on.  waiting 5 years wont let them get there hands on DPR coins.

point is that if they can take coins from an account after 5 years, and if they can make up bullshit charges to lock someone up for 5 years, then they can make up bullshit charges to seize coins from an account, and not need to wait 5 years.  so the 5 years thing dont matter.

good luck with regulating math and the laws of this universe

YOU CAN'T STEAL bitcoin (when no device is connected to private key).

WTF ? Who told u that Satoshi is from NY ?

like mtgox ...  ;D
ALWAYS RETRIEVE bitcoins to your private wallet !

This is why I've NEVER used third party wallets. Well, that and I didn't even know that online "wallets" existed when I first got started with Bitcoin. Storing them that way is the same thing as storing money in the bank. You're trusting them to keep your Bitcoin safe and we've seen with Mt Gox that third party applications have no incentive to look out for YOUR best interests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEpg-B6anWU#t=770

Nah

I bet that no one loses a Satoshi for them sitting for 5 years.

My Uncle had $17,000 seized for the heinous crime of having $17,000 in cash. Obviously large amounts of cash money could only be used for illegal purposes and therefore were seized under RICO without any charge filed other than suspicious cash. It took just over 3 years and over half that sum to get it back.  This was in the mid 90s.

I guess if bitcoin were that easy to regulate than bitcoin would already have been regulated out of existence. If you want a business to hold an asset for you for more than five years then you should buy EFT's not bitcoin. This does however bring up the problem of the unintended consequences of regulation. New York has been proactive which may mean bitcoin develops faster there because of certainty of regulation or may mean NY becomes a bitcoin free zone and business domicile in other places to avoid the inconvenience.

Any reason to believe that Satoshi's coins are under the jurisdiction of the NY laws?

Or are they trying to enforce their own lawns over all the world?

With anon technology, city state and federal laws dont mean much. no need to go to Switzerland anymore. Every body has their own tax haven if they know how with crypto coins.

TAX REVENUES WILL PLUMMET!

Pretty much this.

Get your local stores accepting Bitcoin (or an alt) and BOOM!

We're free from regulations.

Tax evasion will get the owner in jail, which is far from freedom.

They don't have taxes on Bitcoin, but I do see what you are saying.

I say that, since it is decentralised, they couldn't technically impose taxes, and they could only lay tax claims on Fiat exchanges. So if you work for USD and exchange, you have to pay taxes. Just have plain BTC (Not exchanged) and you should probably be fine. But don't quote me on this, since I'm probably missing a lot of laws. Not familiar with the US legal system.

This is exactly what I was wondering. Unless they have some alien technology with some new form of maths that can crack private keys its safe to say his btc are outside the scope of the ny regulation.

So I can start a service that charges $10 lifetime and sends 5 satoshis to your NY web wallet once a year, thus resulting in activity so it won't be seized. Right?

I believe you can actually do this, assuming the regulation is what I think it says...

Prepare for a new industry popping up in the service section!

That seems like a pretty good service, but you would have to have a service that signs in to check on those funds i believe.

I agree that it will be hard if not impossible to confiscate the coins, but it will allow them to potentially bring charges against a number of people or wallet addresses.

i understand pay VAT on merchandising.
i don't want pay tax on money ! (it's stupid)

Exactly how is a law in NY going to have an affect on me if I'm located in the other part of the world?
Besides, they can't claim the coins no matter what they do.

NY is always trying to get its hands in everyone's profits  ::)

Exactly....there's no way to just take or seize bitcoins from someone so easily. It would take quite a process.

I can't wait to see where this goes, and how they will try to enforce this regulation, if they succeed I can see other states following suit! But didn't california already pass regulatory laws??

ugh this is the same with banks..
http://www.mybanktracker.com/news/2010/10/05/inactive-bank-accounts/


No cause for alarm here...

But they can put you in jail for violating their laws, if they can link you to a bitcoin address.

We can avoid a lot of confusion and FUD if people take the time to read up on this stuff. The original question doesn't even make sense.

It's not an address, it's an account at an exchange / web wallet that operates in NY - where the coins technically aren't really yours because you don't have the private key (you have only their word they will spend on your behalf)

This has nothing to do with those who manage coins themselves.

I would imagine that business will have to have some special bitcoin account or something, it might not be in the regulation yet but I could see it. If some of these businesses keep their coins in an exchange they could be subpoenaed and they go from there. I could see a few things happening like this. If I thought of this then you know they have. These people pay millions to their lawyers to figure this stuff out. Im sure they will figure out some way to get money out of it.

They could try that. But is not hard to keep crypto revenues off book just like a cash business might.

Or simply create an entity of shore in a favorable jurisdiction to "own" your business or to book your crypto revenues through.

I bet they will prosecute some people to instill fear in people but the well prepared business person could get around it.

Heck, put all of your assest in a corp owned by an offshore entity. Many ways to do this.

This would only be true if he held his bitcoin at an exchange and his account at the exchange were to be inactive after 5 years. After the 5 year period is up the assets would still belong to the customer, but the state would "hold" the assets until the customer claims them.

Actually, fundamentally if you don't own the private keys to your bitcoins you dont own your bitcoins.

So coins left in an exchange are fundamentally not yours!

Always use a private wallet, located on your computer. Not an app, or an exchange or an online wallet.

my $0.2

Plus no one knows who he is, so how would they find him. Also, if he "loses" the private keys, then they could not possibly get the bitcoin off his wallet.

Unless the state runs low on revenue
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4832471

That article says that CA is the worst offender of doing this, but it also notes that the money CA is taking as unclaimed is a "massive loan" so if the rightful owner of the property comes forward then the state will need to pay the owner for that property.

That sounds like a bad idea but a good idea for their pocketbooks
Anyways shouldn't be easy to claim unless they have private keys to all of their accounts personal and business.
Unless it was all in one central bitcoin wallet and then distributed from their then it is possible to do this.

Eh no. If you are convicted of a crime the government has no stake to take any property from you that is already yours.
The law prohibits the government from seizing property or money during incarceration, this is why people found guilty of embezzlement go to jail for a few years and come out rich as fuck. They strike a plea deal that states that they only pay a small fine and spend some time in jail, once they pay the fine the government cannot take any more money from them for the crime.

The government can seize your property that you acquired as part of your crime. If you otherwise owe money, the fact that you are incarcerated does not prevent anyone from getting a judgment against you and seizing your assets.

What a confusing title.  I'm thinking the OP is confused thinking they will take Bitcoin from whomever they want which is not possible.  Maybe if you playing in their overly regulated system you will have the potential of losing your money but only if you hold your money there.

You're right in that they probably can't take your bitcoin, short of you giving them your private key, possibly under duress. BUT, if you don't turn over bitcoins when requested, they CAN send you to jail for violating their laws.

The would be an oxymoron. The reason assets are turned over to the states is because of inactivity (it is plausible that the owner forgot about them - opening up a greater chance for fraud on those assets). If the government is able to find the person who owns the private keys, then the "account" would no longer be "inactive"

It's impossible to wait for 5years with no activity but you have the sole right to your account thats the advantage of bitcoin

In 5 years, bitcoin would be worth a lot more. Accounts on websites or banks are one thing. Cold storage is a different thing.