To help a stupid guy understand better, can you confirm to me using my analogy: would you consider a multi-currency platform buying/selling(matching orders between different customers) apples, with the apples possible to be delivered at any time by the instruction of the customer, to be a money transmission service? If not, what's the difference?


About the only thing showed up for "CIC v MACARAJA" is the Bitcoin talk post in which MK tried to explain why they have done nothing wrong.

Not really relevant, it's the person who accepts and transmits the funds provides a service, for which the acceptance and transmission of funds is integral, and that's why they have to specifically exclude "money transmission service" from the service that can be provided.


Yes, it's in French.

And you are a bit over yourself, Gox could have eaten dirts a long time ago(it's quite a surprise that the authorities did wait for 2 years), have he really planned that, I could only say Mark is a bit....overoptimistic.

Okay, it's a platform providing service of buying/selling bitcoins, still would have fallen in the category.


None of this he could have planned back in May 2011. Back then Dwolla was probably Gox's greatest payment service provider, if the same thing had happened then Gox would have been finished.

A guidance is not a piece of law.

Actually, the purpose of this post, as the title stated, is to point out that, although Gox has proved to be incompetent in many cases, Karpeles has actually always been quite serious with legal affairs, it's naive to believe that he did think he can blatantly lie and get away, he must have had reasons to believe that Gox is not a money service business and he should not need to register.

I have the same hope, but the problem is they probably don't, based on what I have seen. Gox has always been like:'Let me run the exchange and leave me alone!"

The exceptions in the code specifically stated that if you:

(A) Provides the delivery, communication, or network access services used by a money transmitter to support money transmission services


(F) Accepts and transmits funds only integral to the sale of goods or the provision of services, other than money transmission services, by the person who is accepting and transmitting the funds."

you are not a money transmitter service, I think that's where Gox falls in? Bitcoin is just the goods/service Gox sells, not too different from apples actually.

No, the evidence DHS presented to the judge is how a CI sends USD to Gox to exchange it to BTC and exchange it back to USD for six months, obviously they are targeting BTC specifically as a currency. And did you see that they only call Gox a "digital currency exchange" immediately after they call BTC a "digital currency"? Some smoke-screen is going on here.


I don't think you can consider a multi-currency platform buying/selling apples as a currency exchange/money transmitter ,  even if it's being done somehow implicitly, what's really being bought/sold is more important than anything else.

Government regulation specifically defined "currency" as something issued by a government,  a guidance is not a piece of law.

1. The warrant itself never mentions other foreign currencies.

2. After you have bought bitcoins on Gox, there is nothing they can do to stop you from exchanging it for other foreign currencies. The exchange cannot prove that the buyer/seller are the same person. And this is at best something Gox facilitates, not participates in, the site is not built to serve and profit from this purpose, so the first thing the government should do when they find soemone is using Gox to exchange currencies is to inform them to take actions against such users, not just forfeiting their account.

And surprisingly, the great majority of gay community support the FED and consider it a solid case, because deepceleron has screwed them by processing their orders slowly, so he must be a loser/liar.

I meant it as it's broken, what Eve bets on is that he can help Mallory defrauds Bob, by breaking the network, and even if Bob checks with Charlie, he still can't prove Eve lied, so the cost of doing evil is small.

Joel, you didn't carefully read my previous posts. I consider it fair if Bob got defrauded if he only trust Eve on his UNL. My concern is that, even if Charlie later joined Bob's UNL, Bob still can't tell if Eve was a liar, if he trust both Charlie and Eve equally.

Please show me where the protocol is documented, Joel, I don't consider the wiki to be proper documents.(as you have admitted, something there are terribly outdated)

THen why is UNL also important? After all, Bob will not accept the transaction if there is no network consensus(I did imply Bob has only Eve on his UNL)

So essentially, if Charlie and Eve refuse to agree with each other, no transaction will ever be "processed"?


Oh I didn't, all I talk about is the "current" set of transactions, prior ledgers are identical on both Charlie and Eve.

Yes, but if Charlie is not on Bob's UNL, Bob will deliver goods to Mallory before it's too late, because Eve says OK, which is fair, since Charlie was not on the UNL. But the problem is, even if Bob adds Charlie later and being told by him that Mallory was doing double-spending, he still can not decide which one, Charlie or Eve, was cheating. Tell me if I was wrong.

So basically, Bob's client will check if Charlie agrees with Eve, even if Charlie is not on his UNL? Or will Charlie stop working because he is the only honest validator left(assume he just represents 50% of the network)

Point is, you don't know which one comes "prior" to whom, there is network propagation time difference, Mallory will try to send nearly simultaneously. And what is "network consensus"? If it's only Charlie and Eve, they are the network.

I think it's you who misunderstood what I said.

Seems to me that, not just both sides of a transaction, but everyone who is two degrees of separation away, should share some overlapping validators.

Consider this:

Mallory wants to double spend, so she sends a transaction to Alice, with Charlie as the validator, while sending a conflicting one to Bob, with Eve, her colluder, as the validator, which both Mallory and Bob trusts.

Now Charlie gets his version of the transaction and ask Eve whether she has anything conflicting, Eve said no, but refuses to sign Charlie's version of the ledger, Charlie decides to not trust Eve anymore. But the problem is, Bob still trusts Eve, and happily accepts Eve's version of ledger. One day, Bob decides to verify with Charlie, and Charlie tells Bob his version of the story, Bob is surprised and turns to Eve, but Eve claims to never have received anything about a conflicting ledger from Charlie, instead, it's Charlie who refused to sign Eve's version of ledger without a reason, that way, Bob can't tell which one is a liar, Charlie or Eve, unless he initially trusted both on his UNL, which he shouldn't need to simply because Charlie validates Mallory's transaction to Alice.