The real con is that it that the end game is there is a handful of US companies which have huge barriers to entry.  This means no startups can compete, and the remaining companies can raise fees.  They also have the long arm the government helping them by shutting down entities like p2p sales portals.

What NY et al forget is that they "only" want a $300,000 bond but there are 50 states in the country.  $300K bond * 50 states (some are higher some are lower but lets pretend they all follow NY lead) = $15M in surety bonds.   Usually a surety bond company will only cover a bond if a company has at least that in net worth so the min entry becomes a $25M to $50M investment.   Now the surety bond company is going to want 3% to 10% a year so the company now has up to $1.5M in overhead before accepting a single sale.   Who pays that $1.5M ... the consumer of course.

But wait you will go to the low price startup .... which doesn't exist.   Ever notice after the states decided to regulate entities like PayPal there was no PayPal competitor?  Do you think it was because nobody thought they could do it better or was it because the economic of regulation suddenly made it impossible for startups to "pay to play".

Of course a handful of companies isn't bad right?  You still got competition (kinda like WU and Money Gram compete so hard to drive the price of money transmission down).  When you have a high barrier to entry the market becomes more profitable the less players there are.  So if eight US companies grow big enough before the "pay to play" walls go up eventually there will be 6 then 5 then 3 as the merge and drive prices higher.

If Bitcoin does become big, the banks will end up buying or merging with a few of the remaining companies and we all know they will do a great job in keeping costs down and profit margins low.  They also will open the floodgates of innovation.

The good news is this won't affect the rest of the world.  There has been talk for decades to streamline the money transmitter licensing, and create a national license.  It hasn't happened because ... nobody wants it to happen.  Well at least nobody with money and power.  The state regulators don't want it to happen and the Western Unions, PayPals, and GreenDots of the world SURELY don't want that to happen.  Lower barriers to entry mean more competition, especially young innovative startups and that means lower margins. 

Full disclosure: we don't do business in NY due to regulatory uncertainty.  If we can grow big enough fast enough who knows we might be on the other side of those barriers but that doesn't mean high regulatory compliance costs are good for the consumer.  If history is any guide, the barriers will make a few winners and a lot of losers. 

You failed to mention the possibility that they are lying about it being a technical problem and that they do not have all the funds they claim to (I.e. Solvency).

Don't be naive to think that this is not a possibility.

Ponzi operators work in the exact same manner. They try to buy more time with vague excuses.

I don't know whether anyone's spotting the pattern here, but the thread title does say it: the exchanges are being targeted by banks and the payments infrastructure, despite all the recent good news out of the US hearings.

Is this something systematic, arranged for by the protection racket insiders big business players, trying to elbow their way into the bitcoin service providers arena? We'll possibly never know the full story, but I wonder whether all the incumbent exchanges aren't shuttered one after another over the coming year. Expect plenty of time to pass in purgatory, to make sure bitcoin users are in total agony, and then....

..... right on time to save us like the big heroes of regulatory compliance they will depict themselves as, will be someone like Circle. Or some other new financial industry insider-friendly startup, and they will magically have no problems with regulatory issues (totally to do with their hero-like virtue and definitely following all the rules, aka the rules that state you have to be part of the gang to be a big fish in the sea). And I bet their business model will be about as honest as Coinbase's. Perhaps a sudden hike in the fees, across all brand new shiny happy face helpful super exchanges!    (it's to cover the cost of the cartel protection fee "extended" regulatory compliance, of course, expensive stuff this bitcoin compliance)


Taking on the running of CampBX may well end up the same; it will carry on having it's operations disrupted by corrupt interventions by people who can't compete in business without using force.

we have an initial mass nmf
falling onto the
floor below and becoming mass (n+1)mf. This new, enlarged, block of
floors descends
with velocity v2 = {n/(n+1)}v1 through a distance hf at which point it
strikes the floor
below and becomes mass (n+2)mf moving at velocity {n/(n+2)}v2, and so on

bitcoin can never replace cash as it's too slow and merchants all need speed....

We need something faster for the world...

There was a Chinese dude from China in speculation forum warning everyone that the 31st Jan China thing is the real deal and the current deposit methods are not sustainable.

I also personally know someone in China who tells me the threat is the real deal. Even though im a super bull, personally I'm not buying any new btc till this whole thing is clear, price is way too Dependant on Chinese money ATM and there is evidence of fake Chinese volumes which means current price will collapse once China is out.

The markets will get more nervous in the next week or so