In my research, I am coming to the conclusion that pretty much any precious metals dealer in the US is an MSB, and I don't think any of them are registered. At Wells Fargo, on a list of ten questions, the last question relates to being an MSB: Do you accept wires from one place and send them to another? All the other questions are about cashing checks. That is the last one. That is what precious metals dealers do. That means that GSBTC, Amagi, Agora, AK Coins, etc. are MSBs...
No, can't equate these with an "=", and certainly not categorically. For example my legal counsel opines otherwise, given our facts and circumstances, as does the bank manager at our local Wells Fargo. Furthermore, by your reasoning if it were to be held as such, than most any merchant / manufacturer could also be drawn in. There may be some who are (maybe if they provide for inter-customer payments within their system), but it comes down to "facts and circumstances" anyway. There is an odd predilection for suggesting further extensions to a compliance regime presumably in order to show how it is already over-extended and how slippery the slope may be, but maybe this is not so useful of an effort? |
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If no one believe that the dollar has any value, then it will not be accepted anywhere and lose all of its value overnight.
If it was merely based on belief the US (and other nation states) would have probably already collapsed entirely. It is force and violence that gives fiat money its perceived value. It does not matter what you believe as long as the government is able to force people to use it to pay them off or threaten them with violence if they don't accept dollars for settlements. I don't think that people are forced to use fiat money, it is because that so far they have no other alternative and they never realized that there could be an alternative The fiat money's value is maintained partly by existing consensus (unit of counting), partly by a balance between scarcity and availability through central bank's OMO If fiat money can be acquired easily like toilet paper, then it will worth nothing; if people do not get fiat money as income (from top of the financial system: Government spending and bank lending), then it is no difference than a foreign currency or stock, not so many people will care about its value Some belief affect people's life more than others. If dollar's purchase power dropped 50% in a week, people will lose their belief of fiat money, start to hoard physical goods and refuse to accept fiat money, thus accelerate dollar's fall. But if bitcoin's value dropped 50% in a week, most of the people don't care, since their income will not be affected Things will get interesting when more and more people start to receive bitcoin as their income, but that might never happen at large scale due to ever rising exchange rate of bitcoin (people tends to spend inflative fiat instead of deflative bitcoin, they might even mortgage the coins and get a loan to spend) Yes people are forced to use fiat money for at least one thing... US Dollars are is required for paying taxes in the USA. (It is called fiat for a reason) There are some institutionalized controls in place already for a Dollar -> Bitcoin transition. I could probably write an article on this, but the germ of it is that with Capital Gains taxation and other taxes in place already, the dollar can inflate against bitcoin and the capital gains paid in dollars will fund the deflating dollar. Those with assets encumbered by dollar denominated debt will see the debt value diminish and the asset retain its intrinsic value (so the rich get richer) and renters impoverished (except those with Bitcoin income). There are quite a number of institutionalized mechanisms that will be natural brakes on the transition, not the least of which is the size of the economy as a whole. |
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It provides for some liquidity.
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Are there any plans for extraconference meetups? If not I'll try to organize some sort of pre/post conference meetup... The one we did at San Jose and London were awesome opportunities for networking/more personal conversations!
This is the only one so far, https://www.facebook.com/events/344857295648485/ Also, all vendor tickets are sold out. Grab your tickets before they run out as well! Some of the best meetings were at the after-hours meets. |
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A picture of one of the meals would be good as well.  |
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The Quickbooks support is the killer app here. The articles almost bury the lead. Along with Quickbooks integration you get the whole basket of compliance regimes that every small business needs in order to feel very confidant that they are going to be able to use Bitcoin just like all their other payment methods without any new headaches. They get GAAP, they get clear unit of account, they get tax compliance, they get a way for their accounting to accommodate it without doing any extra technical stuff. The merchants want to focus on the things that make their business a success. Keeping their inventory fresh, providing great service, being awesome at what they do whatever that is. This provides them the opportunity to do that rather than deal with the arcane ephemera of Bitcoin issues. Well done BitPay! Adding Quickbooks is going to make getting the next 10,000 a LOT easier than the first 10K. I've been asking for this for quite a while and am delighted by it. This is not a huge development, but the impact is GIANT. Now with BitPay+Quickbooks, Bitcoin can accelerate and reach mainstream marketplace adoption among merchants. There are going to be a lot more places to spend your coins. |
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here spreading this word bitcoins is very difficult and need more time because we are trying to survive here for many things
Survival is more important. What is the danger there? |
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Thanks to LetsTalkBitcoin for hosting the debate on very short notice and I am pleased to have had the Bitcoin Foundation sponsor it.
Thanks also to the five candidates that made the time over Saturday to participate.
It is also a testament to this Bitcoin Foundation to attract such a group of quality candidates. The debate questions were friendly, more so than I'd hoped, very civil and open ended, but not particularly challenging (except when the interviewer was not understanding an answer and pressed for more). Board member is a leadership position so it would be nice to have had a few more hardball questions dealing with the necessary core competencies for the role such as how they would form and mobilize strategies to handle particular governmental oppositions that are occurring today around the world, and some which may yet come. Rather than (just) be a complainer, I'll offer examples: Not all regions see competitive business advantage as a sufficient incentive to permit transaction freedom. Some may not be convinced by the merits of Bitcoin even with a complete understanding of it and the technology. If some near-totalitarian state were to decree Bitcoin outlawed, and assign capital punishment to users transacting in its jurisdiction unless using a government sanctioned escrow for the private keys of all its citizens, (which law, were it to exist, might even be enforceable to some degree). Faced with such, how would you as a Bitcoin Foundation board member address this? Citizens there may not be able to send TBF member fees nor get any representation in TBF without foreign help, would you advocate such help through the Foundation and how? I'm insufficiently vain to imagine that any of the Board hopefuls will read this or answer it, but had to put it out there for the rest of us to contemplate because I am old enough to remember when "munitions grade" PGP was illegal to export from the USA. |
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Hmm I wonder how many colours of coloured coin it takes to [something something] a blockchain?   (You only need four whatzits to build a DNA strand? Hmm....) Think like the game " sprouts". (And maybe read Peirs Anthony's "Macroscope" while you're at it.) One point is a point, two is a line, three is a circle. If the fourth is inside the circle, it is surrounded, no luck there. If the fourth is outside the circle, how you gonna connect it to the other three without surrounding any of them? -MarkM- Congratulations to your child-self. The personal implications of your avatar icon are suddenly more manifold. |
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Would love to see silver that cheap again, but the fundamentals? Even with the rising bond rates I don't see the dollar getting that much stronger in the near term. Despite all of the new taxes, the spending is still outpacing it. For the dollar to be that strong, it would take some serious fiscal discipline among those making the decisions with what used to be the money of the American people. Continued dollar devaluation seems more likely than not, as debt ceiling is poised to rise next month yet again. That said, precious metals are heavily manipulated, so anything could happen. The ETF naked short game brought the prices down, physical buying reached binge levels. When the big guys have loaded up their trucks, they may just want to reverse it back up. Some are hinting that this will be sooner than later. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-16/jpm-advises-buy-goldOr... they could go for another round of shorting the paper to see if they can grab some more? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-extends-losses-though-some-still-bullish-2013-09-12Its their game, we are just barnacles on the underside of the cargo ship trying to guess which way the captain will steer. |
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I really should read the white paper and everything that has to do with BitCoin. I understand almost nothing about the technical part of BitCoin. Shame on me!
Yes. It is great to know. And knowing will help you a lot in these days, however for Bitcoin to ever be mainstream, in my opinion it will have to eventually be completely unimportant to those using it to understand ECC, block chains, proof of work or anything technical really.. |
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Come to Kansas City Missouri, you guys need to meet me for dinner anyway.
You should take this offer. You really should. |
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Making Bitcoin specie out of gold and silver, and distributing these. With a hard money conversion tool linked to every fiat currency but defaulting to Bitcoin. Where bitcoin is the hot virtual money, linking it to cold hard cash (the kind that jingles). Tangible and valuable 1ozt quarter bitcoins for 2013  |
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In your calculation do you also assume that all other crypto currency is worthless and remains so?
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I don't represent the foundation, but to me it seemed to make sense. See if you follow my reasoning:
A company may want a membership so that it can have a representative. If the designated representative who's job includes participation in the foundation leaves that company, the company would be able to designate a different person as the representative.
This feature should cost more.
Individuals who are employees of a company may also be members, and as individuals their membership would follow them rather than the company that employs them.
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I propose changing the title to this to: Wall Observer - MtGox $140 USD Watch - Softcore
How about... "Whale Observer" |
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Münchhausen by proxy != Münchhausen. I meant something along the lines that society at-large is a guilt-tripping caregiver that wants migraine medication for themselves because their retarded child/government is making them sick. It would be understandable, except...
I'm familiar with the difference. The government is empowered based on the maladies of the citizenry. When we are "terrorized", government gets security powers. When we have "inefficient health care" government gets the power over that. Government may also be engaged in the source of these problems as well. Which side of the relationship is the "caregiver" is a matter of perspective. Those to whom you go to for aid, you also empower. |
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The "engage as a business" language comes from 31 USC § 5312 & 5330. It is in the text of the law that congress passed. It is not given a more specific definition.
Yes, not specific it the congressional text, but enforcement doesn't end there, that is just where the authority is asserted. There are a number of specific definitions in the CFRs which is closer to where the rubber meets the road. In practical terms, if the bulk of your business is this sort of trading and transfer activity, a court may rule that you are engaged in the business of money services. If the majority of your business is selling plastic ducks and you do some balancing of accounts in bitcoin to maintain a particular level of cash on hand, or to keep enough bitcoins to pay suppliers, even if it is on a daily basis so long as it is not a significant line item in your general ledger, you may not be engaged in the money service business. It is likely going to come down to your own particular facts and circumstances and how they are judged. If you are trying to design a business sculpted around how to avoid the teeth of this law, you probably have a money services business on your hands. |
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