sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/fe84cf21975d075e2e624cba9d7d2907009ddcc87170ae2c4a0e066a555820bb

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/9e59bbc211849562dd958df5262897895f0b70a67dc76313c379ce36b85d5778

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/1c29a6586c2897f709ec22327c498966657324f4c8681cb6ed1292178df2514d

sent  only 1 LTC for non noobhttp://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/c0ebe955c6ff9f9186d03194770b9f15980ef0429fed49ff67c74845f70c6312

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/78477f4dc97212a4524a774abd6e68b54e57a83838b6eaba42191792b4aa5f4d

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/b13e8b9e8c0b1e8c0e58920905cdba82015332e9f05e903d1a484ffc0f673a99

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/372efdad149687f2a4c1e2ac27f685f03592268fac6d9f5715fb47349ccd787b

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/74d1112e23721936cf1e160bc51bb07332a07ece803f09f13498e8b12210149d

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/7929f1d99e9f58a4ec2623bc5242a69879a239133fbef0ef6e333609e6c70a09

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/aac51969a4f56c887a98ebc880a069deed2989f6f7b9ca5174673706aea395ff

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/4010868fc18422d0b5e2cd09530346dcb8937dfa853199b014e837e30941c8e3

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/bc3d4c7e466151a896647e14b83fffc3f3f7f8403d5a3bab5f0e5c1678d953bc

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/f5ad21cc78ca4f0c2c1373aea6357ac436f674eb136accd03738c3f60990cfc9

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/5bc9ee076c7d0ddaabe15242ded57791fbd41848f2571c352f4d5bb8027aa437

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/7869f4de287018df8621b359d0d7a96669b2a3a258637f292c6f4f896ac798fc

good going. the making a report of a suspicious transactions is done by using the UK's crime devision known as SOCA http://www.soca.gov.uk/
on the top right it has the link to SARS https://www.ukciu.gov.uk/(jktpc345lxt4gxzeqwcwrkrj)/saronline.aspx. sign up to it. look at the templates of the form to fill out to know what to look out for, and in short what to prevent happening to ever be in a sticky situation.

the whole FSA thing is that if you show that you have limits set to reduce the chances of laundering. and stay within the confines of different laws and show that you hold logs of any identifying characteristic's securely, and have a process set up to deal with large amounts or blatantly obvious proceeds of crime.. and all that blah. this is about making your own guidelines ("handbook") they are happy. this alone if done right would prevent the headache / possibilty of ever needing to do a sars report.

the main thing for the UK is the monetary limit, there are many limits for different reasons. tax, imports, AML, etc etc. which the lowest limit for UK is actually the european wire transfer regulations. of 1000 euro (about £850 give or take exchange rate) for maximum wire transfer amount or multiple amounts in a short period what can EASILY be deemed to be linked.(basically daily) with an upper 15,000 euro (roughly £12k) a year limit.
so having a very maximum of £850/day(£12k a year) but then set an safe buffer of lets say £500/day(£8k/year) ensures you don't have to really ever go into the complexities of grabbing customers whole biological history. if someone does send you the amount over the limit request all the info before allowing the transaction to complete or refund. just giving a refund without taking info/freezing accounts can be deemed as laundering if the funds were indeed part of a crime. so set strict limits and make it impossible to offer more then the limits without ID.
if they send funds without your consent then thats their fault for then getting into a situation requiring ID.

you will need to keep logs of account details and receiving bitcoin addresses and have a way to sort it so that it flags up if a single address receives or gives a larger then limit amount. also ip addresses help with this.
(the downside of ip addresses is if 1000 people are using tor, it may pick up that the limit gets flagged often) so to stay within the rules and keep good practice guidelines it might be best to just ban known Tor IP's.

when it comes to regulations governments dont care much about bitcoin. what they do care about is how much UK  pound sterling you are giving people/taking from them. so if anyone complains that their large transaction requires an ID and that crypto is supposedly anonymous, simply tell them that fiat isnt anonymous, so if they want fiat, they cant be anonymous. if they aint happy they can always trade bitcoins for litecoins lol. requesting/giving fiat is not an anonymous transaction.

the other main thing is if someone has sent a large amount (hopefully you have limits/processes to prevent this) and it does seem 'dodgy' where they have blatantly told you its proceeds of crime. you cannot tell them its being investigated or simply give them a refund no questions asked.

hense why bitinstant dwolla/mtgox just have the statement of "frozen funds"

some of this is bad customer service. but if you prevent yourself from getting into the sticky situations by setting limits and describing why the limits are there carefully. then you should never get into those sticky situations.

now a small test.

1)you receive 5 requests for bitcoin. 5 different bank accounts for £500 each but all going to the same bitcoin address in one day. what do you do (totalling £2500)
2)you recieve 100 requests for pound sterling £500 from multiple bitcoin addresses going to one bank account over the course of a year (totalling £50,000) what do you do.

answers
1)when users input the receiving bitcoin address before the transaction begins(before you inform them of your deposit bank account details), it is checked that the address has not received £500 in a short period (daily). and message the customer before the transaction begins. this address has reached its limit. (dont inform them how to get around it).
2)after a few weeks of doing nice little £500 to the bank with reasonable time gaps between it finally gets to your limit of £12k(or whatever lower limit you prefer) for that particular customers bank account. inform them before the money transaction begins that the bank account is at its limit

in both cases inform them if they wish to proceed identification will be required.(or preferably to avoid 'possible' headache you say "sorry transaction cannot be allowed")

so have the system in place if they want fiat, you request their bank sortcode -account number first. (check it against history) before showing them a deposit bitcoin address/ warning message
so have the system in place if they want bitcoin, you request their bitcoin address AND the bank account-sortcode they will use first. (check it against history) before showing them a deposit bitcoin address/ warning message.

this is why blockchain.info asks for your bank details when you buy bitcoins and not just the bitcoin address to receive the coins on.

preventing a sticky situation is much preferable then getting involved in one.

lol thats like the same thing as what some people said about the nazi genocides "it didn't happen" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial

but instead of tryng to change history. talk to some people that were actually around when the events occurred.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35051.msg436019#msg436019 for example

the price ACTUALLY reached that price. it wasn't a graph glitch, it actually happened. but the reason it happened and got so high was because of a speculated ramp.. no bases on any value or reason to be that high.. but it still happened.

atleast this time if it surpasses $35 it atleast has a bigger userbase and difficulty range backing up reasons for why it deserves to be so high

not quite the all time high

https://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

$35 is the all time high

"money" is a term used as a laymans word for FIAT. so marcus of augustus is correct
"currency" is a term used for the category of ANY items that is used in part or in full for trade between more then 1 party, (basically widely known value point (spot)/used by more then 2 people)
EG cigarettes in prison are not money, but they are a type of currency.
"cash" is another term which many refer to being FIAT.

so the correct wording is that "it is used a virtual currency but has the properties of an asset"

in the same way that gold is not cash/money, but it used as a form of currency, but has the properties of a commodity/asset

the first 3 words explains why treating bitcoin as currency is flawed.

it is not about what 'one' considers. its what the government department considers it to be. so ASK THEM directly.

having a full node running in the background for users that don't even know about bitcoin is not a good thing.
imagine microsoft re-develop their onlive service so that each user of windows is part of their network much like a torrent system so that everyone was whether they want it or not was getting things downloaded and uploaded from their PC.

BLOATWARE / Malware / ADWARE comes to mind.

i would simply have a light app that allowed people when clicking on it to act like an android app that talks to a blockchain.info wallet or something similar.



no secret/always running in background, no bloated taking up gigabytes of hard drive, no hours of slow internet and computer sluggishness while it downloads the blockchain.

something that PiUK should definitely get involved in

a simple and light wallet with a nice small presentation/tutorial/ introduction to bitcoin.

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/6893ee47ba518ec3833ea30f555de611e04e30ab70852914373dea2e4bf23d06

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/cfdf2326913d0445f51de928d87916612e4e96b4bdd6e5fa2517c0eb9a2987b1

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/44cc4ebe98511a345ad3cbfe6c7d563842467827b0c50d9bbc01d5c4ce8bac6d

sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/686577528df1afc1f11abdda20ad376388adac12bc8e92d7b45b504b6a086f93

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/194467e5347779c32a4f6d83527e6ae32f104a12ba0033d22bf0d9e6ddd9e2b8

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/3f32f86690d0751d67c4f447096d341c0181dee78f1f96d3303d13977f050475

Sent (dang it i double clicked send coins, oh well you received 3LTC - Merry christmas and happy birthday to you i guess)
http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/91900ce8cd7cfc96cdf63d31f8623e1589a5b086254ac5b82f26520f995da0e4
http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/b2819dfd5a8542e684edd6617621a5747c8e5cd93254eddffe3c198b1a800b73

i never said zero rated as that is a HMRC category... here ill lay i out for you

zero rated VAT
is a category for specific items
VAT exempt
is a category for specific items
reduced rate VAT
is a category for specific items
full VAT
is a category for specific items

now google "outside the scope of VAT"
ill save you time
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/forms-rates/rates/rates.htm#5
ill highlight another HMRC quote


its not a simple question of do you do over £77k income. that simply puts you into the BUSINESS category where you need to register with companies house and HMRC in relation to self employment/corporation status. not VAT

Now then contact HMRC and ask them if bitcoins are INSIDE the scope of VAT, and if so which category, and why. u will be surprised by their reply...

then ask bitpay, walletbit, bitinstant, blockchain.info(UK based by the way) why they are all government registered companies(companies house and foreign versions of such) yet they are not registered for sales tax/VAT.

the key word "outside the scope of VAT"

P.S
and if your just going to look at blockchain.info and see a VAT number..and try replying back thinking you have proved me wrong without further research. Then please go check it out
TQ at the start go on... oh wait its not valid.. lol its not a VAT number for any country. (its his way of saying "i look official by saying this random stuff starting TQ ..but i cant be VAT registered') VAT numbers are pure numerical.

to help explain death and taxes meaning it might be worth hitting up the books again

money, the monetary system, e-money are all about FIAT (legal tender) you know the amounts that have a $ £ symbol linked to it.

currency is ANYTHING used in whole or as part of exchange where by more then 2 parties agree on the value.

eg if i invented a rabbit credit and only me and another person ever done one trade using it. then it is just a bartered exchance.

if a few people all used rabbit credits and they had a set understading of its value. that is then a currency.

currency can be vodka, facebook credits, airmiles, sexual favours (in some countries) food, mobile phones the list is endless.

currency is just a grouping term of all the things that can be used as a means of exchange for goods and services. it is not legal tender itself. although MONEY is within the group known as currency as its used as a means of trade. it does not mean that all currency's are automatically legal tender because they act like money does.

'foreign currency' is a laymans term for not native to this country and when used in context of other countries legal tender then it should be used on the context that using the word currency is just a laymans lazy way of not listing every countries FIAT MONEY.

and as for renaming the bitcoin to resemble gold. that is flawed too.

gold is a commodity. and a commodity is a raw material used to produce other products (jewellery, electronics)
much like oil makes car fuel, plastics. wheat makes flour and other things

bitcoin is not a commodity. the only resemblance to gold is the store of value and the term "mining". which leads on that people have stupidly linked btcoin to gold purely from the term "mining". where it would for the bases of use, purpose and comparisons "miners" should be called "vectoring" (due to use of elliptic curve) or something that actually corresponds to solving the digitial puzzle that some people call it. then the snowball effect would be a better understanding that bitcoin is not something you use to design spaceships, motherboards or to add ingredients to, to make a meal(commodity). but its something you hold and own (an asset) much like valuable art a car. its a end product with clear ownership.

and this thought has came from 3 different accountants i spoke to.. and not just a brain fart opinion of just me.

and as for going to court. you can go into court with the mindset that you want the return of property. its not limited to the financial valuation of the product. the only time it becomes a financial thing is if the possession has changed hands again and it is impossible to return it to the rightful owner. then a financial compensation would be the only last resort. but i will say that is UK courts. so speak to a solicitor/lawyer before filing a court action for full and proper guideance

i think someone has only read the first page of a SEC/FSA hand book and pooped their pants thinking the world will cave in because they see E-Money being regulated.

money and E-money. think of them as government trademarks for the description of FIAT EG uses the symbols  £ $

separately currency can be any form of exchangable item. although money is in the category of currency, the term 'currency' just means group of items used for trading. it is not a government owned/monitored/regulated term.

people in africa trade bags of food, milk, goats, mobile phones. that is their currency. and the government doesnt do anything about it.

facebook trade credits, personal information and labour time. that is their currency and because its online its an E-Currency/virtual currency.

both those terms are not to be confused with money or E-Money.

E-Money or money is the term used for the trading 'device'(paper/computer/coin) that uses that countries FIAT symbology. EG  £  $

E-Gold could have made coins till the cows came home no issues if they never used government symbols. but as soon as the government realised there was a $ symbol on it and the guy was trying to deceive people into thinking it was dollar coins.. the government cracked the whip. under counterfeit charges. so the lesson to be learnt is, dont use government symbols or make it appear as government issued.

bitcoin is not money or E-Money.

but bitcoin is though a currency, just like when you were kids swapping pokemon cards for a packet of crisps or in prison swapping cigarettes with 'bubba' so he doesn't invade your rectum.

so to end that ill repeat one more time bitcoin is not a 'money' or 'e-money' which is government regulated. but bitcoin is a currency.

now to clear up the word commodity. a commodity is usually a raw material traded or used to then make different end products/purposes.
shares are not commodities. but you can own shares of a commodity.

a share is a item you own (financial asset)
a bitcoin is something you own (personal asset)
different assets have their own tax laws.

not everything on the planet is taxed by sales tax/VAT.

UK vat is basically items that are sold by VAT registered retailers that have been mass produced(1) and made up of multiple parts(2) for consumers, with some exceptions to that rule.

1.thats why someone selling a single original antique painting doesnt charge vat but someone selling thousands of copies of the same painting does charge VAT

2.thats why some fresh veg is VAT free where as a ready meal (microwave ready prepared dinners) is not vat free even though its been made up of purely the ingredients that were vat free.

VAT is only applicable to certain items. bitcoin isnt one of them. so you dont have to worry about selling 1 or a million of them in regards to VAT,, just be careful keeping records for corporation tax/income tax.

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/3098594b0d0341312cb17346a2d8607894f464094e00e571c039d5890f8a597f

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/286f6a51509a7edee43e5eeac88450323a474f208d0ad4876367ca4210e78f7a

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/4c6cd7439bff5d900bc442f58a8302bb8e38c54bdb93e21cfadf99a9047644e6

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/c19296512f13c18506eb391141138fad2102b68b9120c888281c1325703eda30

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/96c1bd4dadcfea6a348c4483136b6c0520986467dd95c86d10476d626f76dac6

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/e4e41abf9dc857d3bd93fc76a6ebb843bda898e9ebe533d79045bb64bcabeb9e

its good to see that some people like yourself rely on indicators to base the price. so keep it up. unlike others that use high school level terms such as 'supply and demand' (only 2 indicators) and have never put anything into a chart. to understand what causes supply and what causes demand to have more then just 2 indicators. they don't look below the surface. i have several indicators. the graph on the first page of this thread was a very very simplified version to point out one point.

looking at the result of reaching the 21 millionth coin...
i was going to write a long reply to your answer. but to answer your question ill just leave you with this question
imagine a country that stopped printing money.. what would happen eventually.

all im saying is that the spot price should be based on mining costs plus a fair value ontop for profit based on value(supply and demand)
value is different then speculation/manipulation. i agree that everyone should make profit in different ways. but a sudden 300% spike in price (out of the blue) where there's no correlation to why it increased. is a bubble that always bursts.
that is not a valued price, that is pure manipulation/speculation.

so if you see a spike in price on the charts and there is no reason you can think of to explain it rationally. from the mindset of someone that is not the profiteer. then you know its a speculated spike for short term profit.

double face palm.

ELEVATED/ volitile,/ fluctuating prices are due to supply and demand.. BUT LOOK DEEPER. there is a baseline of any raw material that is based on production costs first(time + machinary + electric) as you say the minimum wage.

the volitility is small percentage on top. the profit/speculation

go to a gold mine.. they dont say "well gold is $1600 so ill sell it to you at $800 so that you can take it abroad and selling to someone else for $1350 for them to then sell it to the mass markets for spot"

spot is created from the base line costs and then adding profit/speculation ontop...

many gold barons who dont actually mine but go to the source try to use many reasons/excuses to try pushing down their purchase price to maximise their profits by using excuses like "pffft im not paying that, havnt u seen the spot price drop 30% i want 30% cheaper or im leaving". and that is what your tryng to say...that is the attitude of a middleman. that has no experience of manufacturing.

that's manipulation..


its also been found how supermarkets are manipulating the price of milk by trying to push farmers to accept less then cost price by saying "consumer prices have changed blah blah blah"

but that is just middleman manipulation for profit. nothing to do with the underlying value. and the great think about milk is that it only has a week's shelf life so when farmers publicised how they were being manipulated, people slowed down the amount of milk they bought causing retailers to rethink their strategies. (its all happening in the UK for the last few years).

if the middle men manpulate the price down then miners will give up which cascades into a lack of supply which then makes the price rise. and thats what middle men want. profit from both sides.
using the milk scenario again retailers at first didnt care about farmers or consumers they wanted to buy a pint of milk for 14p and sell it fr 90p. but both the consumers and farmers revolted. farmers retired causing milk supplies to dry up and consumers refused to pay 90p for a single pint and £2 for 4 pints

now farmers get upto 25p and retailers sell 4 pints for £1.20 and everyone seems happy. now thats stable non manipulated pricing. and the farming industry is starting to grow again. retailers make a bit more profit selling single pints (50p) as its considered acceptable due to packaging /delivery costs increase.

another thing "Recommended retail prices" was invented to stop these middle men retailers from making excessive profits by pushing the price they paid to manufacturers down and pricetagging it to consumers at what they pleased. it gave manufacturers more powers to say if we sell if to you for X you have to sell it for Y giving the manufacturers the powers of pricing based mainly on costs+ small % of profit. the ultimate fair and more stable price begins with the miners/manufacturers. NOT the other way around!!

so if you want to know how to base things that are NOT manipulated then base it on the cost of production + reasonable percentage ontop of profit.. if the profit margin gets too high where costs have not increased then it is pure speculation/manipulation and eventually the bubble will burst where consumers (end purchasers) will not continue to buy it. causing a price drop.

its like commodity prices for wheat, oil, etc they are based on producton costs and vary depending on how much a middle man can manipulate the producers down to. but there is always a set bottom limit where producers will just say no...

that is the baseline of pricing.. everything above it is profit/speculation/manipulation. so as long as you see the production costs (mining difficulty(imagining electric prices never changed)) and you seen the retail prices move up on par (obviously at a higher level) then it is fair and stable.. sudden spikes in price that cannot be linked to production costs are where its very easiy to see a manipulation/speculation occuring

aswell as putting bitcoins into fiat debit card to spend on groceries. where people can top up the debit card at local shops and then request that any balance in the card not spent on groceries could be put back into bitcoin. thus avoiding many gateways upto 6% charges and being a more instant conversion.

i read the title so here is my brain fart and 2cents to add


KEY:
orange line is the mining hashrate
blue line is the price

bitcoin came into existance in january 2009 and for 1 year 9 months virtually nothing happened to it........

then people started seeing value in it (also thats when charting data began as services started being made to remember the important data)

A) people started seeing value in it, even when mining was lower the price would rise and fall mainly due to what people would use the coins for and what they deemed it worth (speculation)

B) the speculated price kept rising without links to how much it cost to make the coins. But more linked to peoples dreams and speculation which brang along with it, as a secondary item more people wanting to mine the coins so they can get in on it... But then due to some bad press/propaganda starting about hacking thefts the price nose dived and along with it 30% of miners decided its no longer for them.

C) this is where people started to shift their perceptions away from what they could spend it on, but more to do with how much it cost to make. and so the remaining miners held the price at a certain level and slowly the price began to rise again

D) even through the next media blitz of bad press (the pirate saga) miners still held strong and helped the price to not collapse but to be just a little blip.

straight after point D and into point E is what is known as the FPGA/ASIC drama mining stayed strong and with the block halving(E) it did drop a little, but no where near 50%.

now you know the history of the last 4 years..

now for the present..

what is great is just like rare minerals, EG diamonds, gold, silver platinum.. if you look deep enough the fundamental pricing of these minerals is based on how expensive it is to make. and right now i am glad to see that as the difficulty is increasing. so is the price.

right now today. the network hashrate jumped upto 35Thash where the price then responded with about a $31 price tag. and then when the network hashrate went down to about 32Thash the price then followed.

this is where it should be, where the price relates to actual mining costs and not speculation.

so if you see a major spike in the price but no network hashing spike. then you know that it is probably speculation and risky.

over the next few months more batch's of Avalons will be released. each unit yields 66Ghash which with February's batch of 300 still only just arriving through peoples doors is 19.8Thash (ontop of January's average of 23Thash)
bringing a "POSSIBLE" 42.8Thash by march 5th.

and the March Batch 2, consisting of 600 units (39.6Thash) will bring the network hashrate to a "POSSIBLE"  82.4Thash total.

i say possible due to the fact that some GPU miners may give up, some ASIC miners may be delayed.

final thought: if the price is based on mining costs, then bitcoin will remain safe and easily calculatable value. where by any other speculations/manipulation will only last as long as the people involved keep trying to push it. which could be just minutes for a financial pumper dumper. and weeks for media/government involvement.

now ill leave you to speculate......

Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/47dfffa13c584bb647eacadb3f743e00dfd8710df6117522a696f8eaf0537956

to note Bitcoin first came out spring 2009 but it was not until the beginning of spring 2011 that the price even touched $1.
http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=
 and that's when everything starting rolling forward.
Ltecoin is nearing the cusp of this important growth age. watch this space, services and merchants are in the pipeline. the community absolutely needs an equal amount of promoters as it needs develops/users. bitcoin is a majority coder/userbase which does not help it expand with much speed into the main stream (bricks&mortar stores) so if you have a great salesman's approach/ a PR mindset you will definitely fit in.



Sent http://explorer.litecoin.net/tx/da23ca3052814142217c4ed27c28887d65eafa37bcbae7b6047fd19c05b2eced

gonna try ripple out, need some xrp

rJc889SGH2CAc69hV8ybHo79RRTuYBTPP7