The company operating the machines is american, and required to know its customers wherever they may reside. As the treasury secretary said when Nixon took America off the gold standard: "It may be our currency, but it's your problem." |
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The elephant in the room here is that the FinCEN ruling is pretty clear that the operator of a machine like this would require a money transmitter licence, which would in turn mean KYC compliance. In reality if you walked up to this machine it would say "Please enter your username and password". The only way you could get an account would be by sending off all your identification documents for verification. The patriot act killed this invention before it was even born. Please tell me I'm wrong, I so want to be wrong.
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Berwick will appear on CNBC at 11:35 am today. *Grabs popcorn |
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This is not a new thing, see thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50056.0. and thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112673.0Basically the monopoly that the big four banks have on the UK make it very hard to take your business elsewhere when you get treated like dirt. After approximately a century of stagnation, the cartel eventually had to offer a banking licence to a new entrant 'Metro bank'. Both Intersango and Mt.GOX switched accounts until even Metro pulled the plug on them too. thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95014.0The problem is systemic and may be coming from the regulators through back channels, but no bank has said as much. Hopefully Bitcoin-Central will have more protection from their European bank connection. |
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My bitcoin deflation joke RE: the closing paragraph. A million bitcoin isn't cool anymore, you know what's cool?
A thousand bitcoin?  |
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Title:"Clipping deposits sparks rethink on risk" Several paragraphs about increased inquiries to Peter Schiff's new offshore investment vehicle. Then this brief coverage: Bitcoin, a virtual currency created by a secretive technologist called Satoshi Nakamoto, has become one of the best performing assets this year despite its crypto-currency status and entirely computer-based existence.
Mr Nakamoto has been blunt about his rationale for inventing the cyber coinage ever since first laying out the Bitcoin concept in a late 2008 paper.
“Commerce on the internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments,” he wrote in November that year. “While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust-based model.”
Bitcoin attempts to eliminate the need for a trusted – financial – third party by allowing users to “mine” the currency online.
The amount of coins in circulation is tightly controlled by computer code, but still susceptible to volatile booms and busts. The lack of any type of Bitcoin “authority” means the currency is also vulnerable to attacks by hackers and thieves who target virtual wallets.
But the point is that uncertainty surrounding traditional banking and monetary mechanisms is helping create a motley set of experiments and new entrants – from the mysterious Bitcoin of cyberspace to new offshore banks in the Caribbean. |
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Thanks for the heads up, will see what I can do.
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I've been meaning to have a crack at this for a while, so here is my elevator pitch: (If you exclude the optional last paragraph of hyperbole it runs to 60 seconds out loud.)
Bitcoin is a digital currency that's managed by a software network instead of by government. A network of volunteers donate computer power to verify and store transactions between anonymous accounts. Anyone can click a button and make as many new accounts as they wish, but to fill any with bitcoin you need to first buy them from a currency broker and have them transfered.
New bitcoins are created as a reward to the computer in the network that is the first to verify and sign all the transactions from the preceding ten minutes. This reward however, drops over time; creating a fixed total number of bitcoins in the future. This process is now competitive enough that to remain profitable after electricity costs, it requires specialist computer hardware. But you needn't worry if you simply want to buy and spend them as a user, you just need to download the wallet software or sign up to a free online service.
What gives bitcoins value is a combination of their low cost of transfer, scarcity, anonymity and the resilient design of the network. Once under your control, nobody without your password can either confiscate your bitcoins, prevent you from spending them, or more often even know that you ever had any in the first place.
Lending will always play a role in society, but bitcoin has the potential to completely replace the everyday utility role of banks and companies like Visa, Paypal and Western Union; all while curing the world of inflation, forever! A global internet requires a global currency and in 2009 it finally got one; bitcoin has been growing steadily ever since.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01r9wc8/ (skip to 2:41:20) Sorry to anyone outside the UK who gets hit by the geo-fence at the BBC website. Pretty superficial coverage to be honest, from what is otherwise a very high brow program. They had a commentator Jeremy Cook, Chief economist at World First, describe the currency (he did a pretty poor job despite softball questions from the presenter). He called bitcoin a fad, and said people mainly want it because it's "something new". He couldn't explain why inflation is limited in bitcoin, inferring it was somehow down to the faith of the users. They also discuss the rising app downloads in Spain and the house for sale in Canada.
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No one has mentioned that Japan hasn't seen any inflation for 20 years. Broad money supply has essentially been fixed for a long long time. That takes away a pretty big selling point of bitcoin don't you think?
I'm no expert but I imagine Japan has also had pretty good mobile payment systems for decades, given that they all had smartphones when the rest of the world was could still only send picture messages if the recipient had an identical Nokia phone model!
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Sing along or skip to the end for the full run-down (in one breath if you can)!
On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A bitcoin from every country.
On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eight trojans mining,
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Nine ladies stripping,
Eight trojans mining,
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Ten feds a-sneaking,
Nine ladies stripping,
Eight trojans mining,
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eleven hours syncing,
Ten feds a-sneaking,
Nine ladies stripping,
Eight trojans mining,
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country.
On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve scammers scamming,
Eleven hours syncing,
Ten feds a-sneaking,
Nine ladies stripping,
Eight trojans mining,
Seven Ponzi's scheming,
Six wallet backups,
Five double spends,
Four private keys,
Three Zhoutongs,
Two 'paca socks,
And a bitcoin from every country!
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Remember: Friends don't let friends explain mining to journalists.
Just look at the almighty cringe on the guy's face as his colleague explains the mining process, his journalism spider-senses are screaming "Oh Noes, I can't spin all this into a catchy segue".
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You mean I can actually buy Bitcoins now without it being a complete bitch to do?
No, I presume they will only sell bitcoins to customers that have gone through all the identity checks. This is a way to get easily get rid of all your bitcoins in your favourite shop, again once you have gone through all the identity checks. Please correct me if I am wrong. |
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