Canada

Short story - TD bank knew I used to sell bitcoin via direct deposit of cash into my personal bank account (which I stopped after being told this was against their policy). Now I receive a letter in the mail saying all my accounts new and old are terminated (credit card, mutual funds, rsp, savings, chequings).

Okay so long story...

I am not a software expert by any means. My family is full of programmers, literally..I was just too far of an age gap to be around to get that influence. Despite that I was always into hardware regardless, and when I learned that my graphics card could be used to make "money" I figured why the hell not. I looked up graphics cards that would give me the best hashing power per $$$ and went on kijiji and bought everything I could. I didn't pay for electricity it was included in the rent so I got the parts together and joined up on slush like everyone else and later switching to bitminter,

Anyways I bought bitcoins from whoever I could for cheap. As the price began to rise I sold a lot of coins on localbitcoins.com, and at that time (~18 months or so) the main form of payment that sellers in canada were accepting were interac e-transfer. I went with them and accepted this as well as Interac website clearly said:

"An Interac e-Transfer transaction cannot be reversed once the recipient of the funds has deposited the transfer. You must obtain a refund directly from the recipient. You can ask the recipient to send you an Interac e-Transfer for the refund amount."

However I eventually fell to fraud as someone claimed that their account was "hacked" and they never sent the transfer. E transfers became disabled for me, and TD reversed the transfer saying they would not compensate the loss. I petitioned and they agreed to provide a one time refund and things were all good. I couldn't even send e transfers to friends, so I turned to cavirtex for selling my coins. I then saw that some sellers were now accepting "direct deposit", giving account details for a void cheque to make a in-branch deposit.

I had been doing most of my localbitcoin transactions in person but that was much more time consuming and the client base was much smaller. So I switched to direct deposit. I was unloading coins at 10-40% of what they costed on cavirtex. But next thing I new, after months of multiple third party deposits and large wire transfers to companies in Sweden (KNC miners) I get a call from the bank to come in and explain. I do and inform them the third party deposits are me selling coins. They say I can't do this and I comply, and things seem okay. Until about a month later, today, I get this letter.

"TD periodically conducts a review of all its customer relationships bla bla bla. As a result of this review, we have determined we can no longer continue to support your current accounts and/or services, or offer you any new accounts and/or services."


I am now going to just store my coins I think, send them directly to cold storage and sell them when the price is high on cavirtex. I think selling online on localbitcoins is dead (at least in Canada). Miners selling coins on localbitcoins will have to turn to only local sales - or some other form of payment like okpay, etc.

In the end I assume that the prices on localbitcoins will be the same as exchanges more or less.

Anyway..if you have a bank account and the bank knows you were/are involved in bitcoins be prepared for your account to get shut down.

Sigh.

No you wouldn't - receiving those payments from CaVirtex is fine. To be clear the OP had a BUSINESS account that was related to Bitcoins. In other words banks are denying Bitcoin-related companies an account at the bank.

I used to have people do cash deposits from localbitcoins - I was told I cannot do this but the direct deposits from cavirtex are fine.

I was thinking it - but I am not from Quebec so I dont have the right to say it...but totally agree with you there

As much as people say it, banks will never become obsolete. As much as I love Bitcoin I think the belief that crypto can replace all fiat is far fetched. They are a necessary evil. As to there motivations behind closing bitcoin related accounts? Possible that they do not understand it, or feel that Bitcoin can reduce their profits.

Either way, it is pretty disappointing. I myself have been trying to set up a Bitcoin related business and have been looking to which bank to use.

Are you selling bitcoins? If you are guaranteed they will eventually. Happened to me - and only a matter of time until localbitcoin vendors can only accept cash in person.

Wow so they are actively seeking out Bitcoin companies and preventing them from operating...crazy. Not surprising but still disappointing.

Not sure if you have any DC Banks there but look into them. Cavirtex uses them so they are likely bitcoin friendly.

RBC is known to hate Bitcoin - the way they just shut down Cavirtex and refused to let the company hold a bank account with them was crazy. TD as well - you can tell by the fact that they removed VOGOGO as a bill payment option (it is used to import CAD into Cavirtex)

It is sad but this is the world we live in

Hi Guys

Long time bitcoin enthusiast, never been a big forum guy as I always find I end up wasting too much time. Anyways I feel like I should get more involved being someone who has been mining bitcoins since they were worth $2! (now if only I didn't sell them back then I probably wouldn't be here!)

When I got my KNC Jupiter I was only getting about 350 Ghps. They released a firmware updated that got me up to 420 Ghps (0.98). When I tried 0.99 or 1.0 it drops to 350 Ghps.

My other miners work fine, i get about ~500 Ghps which is satisfactory. However this one machine is only going at 380-420 Ghps. When looking at the temperatures it appears as some cores on one of the ASIC chips is not working completely as the chip temperatures are: 61, 59, 58 and 45.

The low chip temperature on one of the boards makes me think that some cores may not be working on the board. I did try the enablecores.bin just to try but did not do anything for me.

I know they have the 0.99 tuning version of the firmware and I was wondering if anyone had a similar issue and was able to resolve it through tweaking.

If so if you could share the details/screen shot of the tuning page it would be very much appreciated! Thanks =)

(btw these are the October batch)

Out of curiosity - were you making excessive deposits by any chance? Or was the bank just account pretty much inactive, and the description was just related to being a Bitcoin business? 

Regarding the banks - I had the same issue. Cavirtex had an issue where RBC did not want to have bitcoin business and shut down CaVirtex's account (they now use DC Bank)

I mine Bitcoins and would sell them on localbitcoins for a premium via cash deposit into my bank. Bank shut me down, told me if I do this again they will close my account for good. I opened an account with every bank I could and did it till they made me stop. Now I sell on cavirtex and have to deal with the fees instead of making a premium.

Regarding Canada's stance on Bitcoins...

It is not considered legal tender [Suspicious link removed]j.com/canadarealtime/2014/01/16/canada-says-bitcoin-isnt-legal-tender/)

Currently FINTRAC has been very lenient, but I do not think it will last as do most people [Suspicious link removed]j.com/canadarealtime/2014/02/11/canada-regulators-look-at-ways-to-get-a-better-handle-on-bitcoin/)

Now it is clear that Bitcoins are taxable in Canada. However nothing specifically says if it falls under income or capital gains. I have been filing them under capital gains (thus only 50% of gains are taxable)
(http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/fctshts/2013/m11/fs131105-eng.html)

They do say "Digital currency can also be bought or sold like a commodity. Any resulting gains or losses could be taxable income or capital for the taxpayer. Paragraphs 9 to 32 of Interpretation Bulletin IT-479R, Transactions in Securities, provide information that can help in determining whether transactions are income or capital in nature." but to be honest even after reading it I do not see any clear-cut regulation of it having to be one or the other.