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1  Economy / Web Wallets / Re: How are wallets like XAPO earning money? on: May 27, 2016, 10:18:31 PM
They are basically a bank. A bitcoin bank.

They gather people's money and they can make whatever investment they like with that money. As long as all the Xapo users do not decide to withdraw all of their money, there won't be a problem.

So, why would people decide to withdraw their money from Xapo? Think about it, If some hacker hacks Xapo and you hear it after, what would you do? You want to withdraw all and gtfo as soon as possible. Just like a real bank.

This is wildly incorrect and FUD.  Xapo (and similar hosted wallets/vaults) is a custodian of other peoples' bitcoins -- they do not put the bitcoins on their balance sheet and therefore cannot lend them out or invest them.  It is like a gold vaulting service, or a safe-deposit box, vs. a traditional depository bank.

Maybe some bitcoin companies are planning on getting a full banking license and pursuing that model but that is not currently what they do.  I don't think a bitcoin "bank" currently exists.
2  Economy / Web Wallets / Re: Official Xapo Service Discussion on: March 25, 2016, 04:25:20 AM
each financial company(like Xapo) must be licensed in almost all the STATES from USA. I am not a Coinbase fan but on contrary. I think Coinbase have an agenda and their investors want to create a new BTC for themself; BUT Coinbase are licensed in almost all USA. Why? Are they stupid to spend millions of dollars on lawyers and bonds and to maintain these licenses? NO! They understand that it's not possible to grow and to have the peace of the mind otherwise.

Of course, I can say the same about Circle : https://www.circle.com/en/legal/licenses  . Are they stupids too?


No, Mayax, they are not "stupids" but you apparently are.  Nothing you write contradicts what I wrote previously.  You just restated your original, non-legalistic case with some Google searches on MLT headlines: most (all?) of those cases involved a lot more than MTL violations, they were criminal conspiracies, which is why people were prosecuted and went to jail.

If you don't have the true context, state by state, for how they interpret and enforce their law, and the different business models of the companies they regulate (e.g., Coinbase runs a true "exchange" business, Xapo does not), then you are just a amateur with too much time on his hands doing Google searches.

Some final points:

1. if you violate state MTLs, "the feds" don't kick down your door, because the "feds" refers to federal, not state, law enforcement.

2.  you are a self-appointed rent-a-cop for bitcoin regulation, like a neighborhood watch wanna-be that follows people around to see if they jaywalk.   Go build something, do something productive -- or at least try to get a life.




3  Economy / Web Wallets / Re: Official Xapo Service Discussion on: March 23, 2016, 04:08:39 AM
Ok, I have "come back to talk."

This is the last ten minutes I am going to waste on this because you obviously don't know what you are talking about and, having spent time in these waters, I do.  This is aside from the fact that your coming on a bitcoin forum and damning companies for not sufficiently complying with statist regulation is bizarre and contemptible.

1.  NY Bitlicense provides for a safe harbor for firms in the application process.  If you are too dense to read the entire bitlicense itself, read below a quote from someone who drafted it:

http://reason.com/blog/2016/03/20/bitlicense-bitcoin-lawsky-red-tape

"CoinDesk reached out to former NYDFS attorney Dana Syracuse, who defended the BitLicense on the grounds that "the process so far does not differ from traditional Money Service Business (MSB) licenses" and that firms waiting on approval can continue operating under the law’s safe harbor provision."


Many States provide the same safe harbor, either explicitly or in practice, i.e., if companies are trying to in good faith the apply, they are not treated as "illegal" and they are not shut down.

2.  Many states have not decided on how to treat bitcoin companies.  Bitcoin companies reach out, ask for clarity about whether MTLs apply to them, and are told to wait until the state decides.  As long as the companies are proactively ready to comply, they are allowed to operate.  California is an example of this.  Texas is another (and in fact is very open to letting bitcoin companies operate, so far, without licenses).

3.  If you read MTL statutes in these states, and assume that they apply to bitcoin companies, you are wildly mistaken.  Each state is trying to figure out whether their current MTLs apply to bitcoin companies and in what circumstances.  So you can't say, "The MTL regs say this" and assume it applies to bitcoin companies.  There are 50 different states with 50 different approaches.

4. With regard to PayPal, you are an imbecile.  Of course they are licensed now -- they are a public company and have billions of dollars at their disposal. In their first 2-3 years, however, they violated just about every MTL in existence, as well as the rules of Visa and Mastercard.  They were eventually sued and fined by Louisiana and other states. 

http://www.cnet.com/news/feds-paypal-not-a-bank/

5.  If bitcoin going "mainstream" means being subject to regulation that makes it no better, with no more privacy, than our existing payment systems, then no, I don't want it to go mainstream. 

6.  Finally, what kind of person are you -- what kind of bitcoin user -- that you rely on regulators (state money transmitter licenses!) in order to have trust in bitcoin companies.  All of the financial services companies that tanked the world economy in 2008 were heavily regulated and compliant.  Very few of them broke the law or violated regulations.   Think for yourself, diligence for yourself, and stop being a lemming.

4  Economy / Web Wallets / Re: Official Xapo Service Discussion on: March 22, 2016, 11:17:56 PM
And by the way, PayPal, Wonga and dozens of other fintech companies that changed peoples' lives were in some way, in most jurisdictions, "illegal".  Chill out.
5  Economy / Web Wallets / Re: Official Xapo Service Discussion on: March 22, 2016, 11:05:27 PM
Hey Mayax - it's unusual to have a bitcoin user singing the praises of regulation. 
Virtually every company in the fintech space -- not just bitcoin -- is behind in trying to keep up with the maze of licensing required to run their business.
Xapo applied for the bitlicense http://www.coindesk.com/months-bitlicense-bitcoin-still-startups-await-approval-new-york/
and doesn't allow people in my state (North Carolina) access to their services, so I'm assuming they have the state license situation under control.  Perhaps they are in process with Delaware, which would give them a safe harbor?
Also, users outside the US are apparently served by a different entity, so your Delaware issue is irrelevant to people in, e.g., Italy.  The debit card is issued out of Gibraltar.
Unless you have inner knowledge of their licensing situation, or work for Coinbase, it's hard to understand the FUD you are purveying.  Go do something productive.
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