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Some one needs to explain why this is not pirateat40 v2.0.
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Any explanation for the high EUR price at bitcoin.de? It's only a couple of euros below Gox's EUR price, while Gox's EUR price seems to reflect EUR/USD exchange rate and GoxUSD price. Isn't there an arbitrage opportunity between bitcoin.de and Bitstamp? Buy at Bitstamp, sell at btcde, rinse, repeat? Of course the depth at btcDE is not that great, but still?
They no longer allow americans on their exchange (if you have a US address, your trading is restricted). They no longer allow non-german EU residents to trade over 2500 EUR per calendar year (because after 2500 EUR they have to fully verify you and they can only do this currently in germany). As such there's alot less of the volume sellers who normally buy on different exchanges just to resell on bitcoin.de, but still lots of small volume buyers who are driving the price up (because they aren't effected by the inability to transact over 2500 EUR a year). I would imagine the volume on bitcoin.de is significantly down as well since the Fidor bank announcement. Yes, I emailed them about the American thing. I have had an account for a while now and once I updated things and said I was a US Citizen, things were suspended. I emailed them and asked about when they would allow me to trade again. They said maybe in 2 weeks. But I noticed the caps on trades. I don't get it. I have a residency permit in Germany, so I don't want bad treatment regarding this. I would pay the premium price there (Gox like) as I trust the German banks more than the Slovanian (Bitstamp) banks. Well, it looks like bitcoin.de might have just cut off their nose to spite their face and they are going to have to adjust their policy as they won't generate enough money.  Actually you can thank the US Government for this. It makes a lot of financial sense for many financial institutions outside the United States to refuse to do business with US Citizens or residents. The reason FATCA and the compliance costs it imposes on those institutions. I would go as far as saying that I would not be surprised if MTGox ends up "solving" its withdrawal problems by simply refusing to do business with US Citizens or residents. The problem is far wider than Bitcoin. The bottom line here is that the US government has effectively turned ex-pat US Citizens into financial pariahs all over the world. |
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Does anyone really believe this is not about eventually placing control mechanisms in the Bitcoin protocol?
Obviously they see they must target the The Bitcoin Foundation companies who control the lead developer.
The problem is that the majority of the Bitcoin network's hash power is outside the regulator's jurisdiction. |
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Bit-pay exchange rate 102.3858 CAD
Virtex ask 97.59869 CAD
This means a close to 5% discount by paying with Bitcoin at these businesses
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$16 arb between Virtex and Gox  Virtex is going the wrong way!  Well we are Canadian's you know...someone hand me the map I'll get us turned around. MTGox 109.5 CAD Virtex 88.5 CAD |
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I doubt it, if anything they get more idiots everyday singing up to use the service. I'm guessing they have fast fiat transfers for their big customers like bitpay and other 6 figure daily traders, then just screw all the little people looking to get out small change because it's too much work for them to push some buttons and send a xfer.
If they allowed the deep pockets to withdraw USD or EUR, CAD, AUD etc in a timely manner we would not have the spread because of arbitrage. Furthermore this would actually help the little guy who has fiat trapped in MTGox since they could purchase BTC, withdraw and sell somewhere else without having to pay a 10-20% penalty. If volume is really the issue then expediting the "deep pockets" will go a long way to solving this problem. |
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The real question now is a non US person with no relationship to the US withdrawing fiat other than USD (CAD, EUR, GBP, etc.,) to a bank outside the US. If this is also blocked then the problem is a lot more serious since this is totally outside the control of the US Government.
You really think the US Government doesn't have control over that? Yes I do. For example Canadian Credit Cards denominated in CAD that have no affiliation with the US can be used in Cuba. 2.) Canadian Credit Cards: Any of the "Big Five" Canadian banks are fine. Royal Bank, TD/Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. No problems with PC Financial or Canadian Tire Mastercards as well. And for our friends in Quebec the National Bank Mastercard and Desjardins Visa also work too. http://www.tripadvisor.ca/Travel-g147270-c109329/Cuba:Caribbean:Money.Exchange.html |
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I currently have an international wire GBP withdrawal from July 11 pending. 4+ weeks delay
The problem is not limited to USD.
If anyone can speak to magicaltux/mtgox ask why all international wires are being delayed if the problem is claimed to be US gov.
The real question now is a non US person with no relationship to the US withdrawing fiat other than USD (CAD, EUR, GBP, etc.,) to a bank outside the US. If this is also blocked then the problem is a lot more serious since this is totally outside the control of the US Government. |
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The question in my mind is that if the United States and USD are the real issue here what are the wire transfer withdrawal delays of
1) CAD to a Canadian bank?
2) EUR to a European bank?
3) GBP to an UK bank?
4) AUD to an Australian bank?
... etc.
The spread between MTGox CAD and Virtex CAD is over 17% for example. If wires that bypass the US banking system can flow then arbitrage from non US persons outside the United States can go a long way towards solving the problem of the "trapped" USD while MTGox gets its US compliance in order.
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you know little things like brokers needing to send out 1099-Div and file with IRS.... i see more blood in the water soon...
Actually, what could be more blood in the water would be if investors decide to take a deduction for the bad debt expense. From the IRS website: In general, if you are liable for a debt that is canceled, forgiven, or discharged, you will receive a Form 1099-C (PDF), Cancellation of Debt, and must include the canceled amount in gross income unless you meet an exclusion or exception. Assuming it resulted in a large enough tax obligation for Trendon then he ought to be careful of a sneaky paragraph in Section 40304 of the 2013 highway funding bill "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act." Section 40304 of this act would revoke your passport if you have a "seriously delinquent tax debt." In other words, if you owe the IRS $50,000 or more, the Feds can revoke your passport. There's no hearing and no opportunity to contest this decision. There is also the issue of withholding taxes for interest paid to non US persons. http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/U.S.-Tax-Withholding-on-Payments-to-Foreign-Persons This one can be huge. |
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The wheels of justice move very slowly, and if there are appeals this can go on for years.
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... but this is very timely now. This is from the era of pirateat40 and his massive BTC short play. With hindsight we now know how it is playing out. Now here is the interesting part what will be the BTC / USD exchange rate by the time the US courts finish passing judgement on pirateat40? This may well set the record for a "short squeeze".
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The calm before the storm. The question is: In which direction will the wind blow once the storm arrives? Bull or Bear?
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Gox is showing under 10k volume on a friday evening. wtf wtf wtf.
gox is dying It is not just Gox. The bears on MTGox are spooked because they cannot get their USD out of MTGox while the bulls are having trouble getting their EUR into Bitstamp. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=270716.0. On the other hand Virtex has just changed their payment processor for bill payment deposits and added a 1% fee in the process. https://www.cavirtex.com/deposit_methods. The spread between MTGox and Virtex is well over 10% after factoring in the CAD / USD exchange rate. |
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Some common methods of payment before the widespread use of credit cards. I am talking about the 1960's and early 1970's here
In person:
Cash
Personal or company cheque.
Certified cheques
Cash on delivery (COD)
Traveller’s cheques (Hotels, and some larger stores)
For mail order
Personal or company cheque
Cash on delivery (COD)
Postal money orders
Wire transfer
The characteristics of all or these payments methods is that they are not reversible and with the exception of cash the payer could prove that the payment was made. This means that if the payer has recourse against the receiver of the funds, which is the case in many cases, the payer is protected. The receiver or merchant is protected in all the cases except for cheques because the payments are not reversible. With cheques the receiver or merchant was at risk only until the cheque cleared.
To understand how this is related to credit cards and later Bitcoin, one should take a look at the history of credit cards. When they were first introduced they behaved in a manner very similar to traveller’s cheques. They were intended for in person transactions. The transaction was valid and binding provided the signatures matched. Only unlike a traveller's cheque one signature was on the card and the other was on the slip. The advent of “card not present” transactions first with telephone and mail order and later over the Internet means that there is no proof that holder of the credit card has agreed to the payment. This is and not “protecting the consumer” is the fundamental basis for chargebacks. The credit card industry has failed merchants and consumers here in a big way since merchants are presented the option of either not making the sale or accepting the chargeback risk, while consumers have to provide all sorts of personal information in an attempt to mitigate a risk not of their own creation. The latter leads to the risk of "identity theft" which is also a result of the way the banking and credit industry does business. There is no valid reason for the credit card industry to not be able to securely make online transactions binding on the payer after two decades of e-commerce and avoid the whole chargeback issue other than their own inertia and incompetence.
Bitcoin is in effect turning back the clock to a much saner time when it comes to at distance payments. The key for the payer here is to obtain proof of payment. How? The receiver or merchant must in some form or another communicate to the payer the Bitcoin address for payment. As long as the payer can link this Bitcoin address to the receiver or merchant the blockchain record can be used as a receipt for payment just like the cheque or money order 50 years ago.
If there is a need to provide protection to the payer over and above the recourse of having a receipt this can still be provided by a trusted third party without the added unnecessary complexity of the payer denying that the payment was valid. Bitcoin can actually facilitate this further with multi-signature transactions.
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Just use whatever email you like and encrypt your message. Encourage your recipients to do the same.
+1 However in addition to protect against back doors: 1) Use only Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) to encrypt and decrypt the messages on a computer running a FLOSS Operating System under your control. 2) Use a FLOSS Operating System and mail program for example GNU/Linux with Thunderbird to send and receive messages. |
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The court ruling in Texas is a huge positive for Bitcoin because it amounts to the court acknowledging Bitcoin for what it really is. Furthermore having governments treating Bitcoin as money is essential for Bitcoin's success because it avoids problems with VAT or GST, a type of tax levied by all major countries in the world with the notable exception of the United States. So enough for this US centric idea that it is good for Bitcoin for Bitcoin not to be money. The article has this issue completely wrong simply because it looks at this issue only from a US perspective.
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Bitcoin officially a security under US law: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/06/us-court-sec-bitcoin-idUSBRE97517G20130806(Reuters) - U.S. regulators got the green light from a federal judge to proceed with their lawsuit against a Texas man accused of running a Ponzi scheme using Bitcoin, the virtual online money system.
Trendon Shavers of Bitcoin Savings & Trust had challenged the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against him, saying the regulator had no jurisdiction to sue him because the Bitcoin investments he offered are not securities or subject to any U.S. regulation.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Amos L. Mazzant in the Eastern District of Texas ruled on Tuesday that his Bitcoin investments "meet the definition of investment contract, and as such, are securities."
Bitcoin exists through an open-source software program. It is not managed by any one company, it is not regulated by any central bank, and its supply is controlled through a computer algorithm. Users can buy bitcoins through exchanges that convert real money into the virtual currency.
The SEC warned investors against the dangers of potential scams involving virtual currencies like Bitcoin in an alert on July 23, the same day it filed the charges against Shavers.
Tuesday's ruling could have important implications for the still murky legal world surrounding digital currencies, which is not regulated by the United States.
Bitcoin has come under greater scrutiny after U.S. authorities in May seized two accounts linked to a major operator in the Bitcoin digital market.
The judge's decision could be important for Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who became famous after alleging that Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their website idea.
In early July, they applied to the SEC for approval to launch a Bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded product known as the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust.
The SEC alleges that Shavers essentially used money from new investors in his Bitcoin endeavor to cover withdrawals by older investors and his own personal expenses.
The agency said he raised at least 700,000 bitcoins, or $4.5 million, from investors in multiple states.
Shavers had asserted that his Bitcoin investments are not securities because Bitcoin is not money, but the SEC countered that they constituted both investment contracts and notes.
"It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money," the judge wrote. "It can be used to purchase goods or services."
Shavers could not be immediately reached for comment. Will this have an impact on market movement? Does that mean bitcoin itself is a security or just whatever pirate sold is a security? It means two things: 1) Bitcoin is money 2) Pirateat40 was selling securities 1) is very significant because it is a US court ruling that Bitcoin is money. One must also keep in mind here that we have an agency of the US government arguing before the court that Bitcoin is money. |
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Once the SEC is done with pirateat40 then it will be the turn of the IRS. Starting with US withholding taxes on the interest he paid out to non US persons. By the way the court has already ruled that Bitcoin is money. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269313. |
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