This wrenchmonkey assclown ought to apply for a job with BFL.  He's doing great PR for them.  He's even more of a dick than Josh.

What Bitcoins?  I have none in my account (except some imaginary ones TF sent there).

Consider the Kansas AG as well, which is where their corporate address is.  State AGs generally diligently investigate these claims and if nothing else, they will risk not being able to do business at all if they do not answer to the satisfaction of the state AG.

Here's an online form for consumer complaints, but you might consider paper mail instead.  It just looks slightly more serious.

Good idea.  See ya!  (Well, actually I won't.)

He didn't say BTC, he said "Ripple BTC" which is clearly a vastly inferior item.  I think that's his point.

In theory, "knowingly possesses" means about the same as it does in the drug context:  possessing it long enough to know what it is, and yet choosing not to get rid of it.  In practice, that kind of case is not prosecuted, or every Usenet provider would have been raided long ago.  So in theory, simply having a copy of the blockchain is sufficient, if the blockchain actually contains the illegal content.  In practice, I'm not worried about it.  I do not believe the blockchain, itself, contains content that it is illegal to possess.

Bring it, bitch.

I notice you have the Heartbreaking Dawn's sauces.  I'm a huge fan of their 1498 sauce, one of the first to use the deadly Trinidad Scorpion pepper (mellowed out a bit with Scotch bonnets).  Unlike many of the sauces marketed as "extreme" sauces, this one actually has flavor and can be used as-is.

Another 6 post wonder account.  Fuck off, Josh.

Ripple:  r4VfSDJZNX53TRd6nExAmzsPdX7jbRSHf1
BTC:     1JHvM69LhkJPUFjDipfdtWMxEEpHUmqTLb

Indeed.  I have always operated under the assumption that these operations are so clearly unlawful that it is better just to stay out of them.  Additionally, many of these alleged "securities," which basically do not come near complying with the legal requirements for such things, are for "businesses" that are little more than outright Ponzi scams. 

They are essentially unlicensed and unregulated "stock exchanges" in which many participants act in as lawless and unprincipled a manner as one would expect.

I think the market already adjusted to reality back at the time of the "crash" (which still left its price well over what it had been before the bubble).  I think the market has realized it will survive Gox, regardless of what happens.  Any remaining exchanges will either get legal in the United States, if they want to and can do so and remain profitable, or find a more favorable market.

This really doesn't change anything except for the businesses that exist to convert to fiat.  Peer-to-peer transactions, such as for goods and services, remain beyond regulation, or at least beyond this regulation.

The fact is that if you want to operate a real business and make real money, you'll end up having to deal with real laws and real government agencies and real possibilities of real legal liability.  Now, that can be dealt with by actually complying with laws and regulations, or by staying below the radar enough nobody goes after you or just being too big to stop.  But staying below the radar, you don't get to do fun things like ACH transfers that you need to deliver the kinds of services people clearly want.

Obviously, outlaws will keep being outlaws.  But operations like Gox will have to get legal or get out of business, or operate in an area with a less oppressive regulatory scheme.  But good luck doing business in dollars and interfacing with the profitable U.S. market doing that, because anything connected to the U.S. banking establishment basically inherits the same regulatory scheme, directly or indirectly, and every first world country has such a scheme.

If Gox is unfit to compete, I'd agree, except I'd think a quick and decisive death would be better so we can get to the moving on part.  If it can restructure to comply and remain in business, that would be better.

Thanks for this.  I imagine a lot of people were looking for exactly this.  While I am a recent law school graduate myself and have worked in the law, the area of financial regulation is exceedingly complex and really requires a specialist to understand and explain.

Something that may be useful for people who sell products or services for BTC might be something like a How-to to avoid inadvertently becoming a money transmitter.  For example, does someone who sells a single Green Dot MoneyPak become a money transmitter?  What if they do it a few times?  What if they actually set up a business that sells items like this?  How about Linden Dollars for BTC?

What level of activity triggers these obligations?  If your nephew visits you and you take 1 BTC from him in exchange for walking around money, does that?  Pretty much anyone in the BTC community has done some kind of transaction like this.

Not really.  They're going on the warpath against companies who think they can just refuse to register as a money transmitter despite transmitting money.

I'd only conclude it was BTC in particular they were after if they got their pound of flesh from Coinbase and other currently unlicensed money transmitters and still continued to go after them. 

I'd say so.  Note:  other exchanges, including the one I use, Coinbase, have exactly the problem that Gox has.


From this February 19, 2013 article by Jon Matonis.

Does anyone know which exchanges have actually licensed as money transmitters?  It appears that this will be a necessary step for exchanges that do not want to end up with their assets seized or whose principals do not want to end up in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

+1

No evidence to support that, as I haven't seen a new good alt coin fail to survive.

I think there is always a market for a good new anything.  But going to Github and changing some names and logos and recompiling and calling it a "new alt coin" is never going to create a good alt coin.

I have come up with a very low-fee way of gambling on the future value of BTC. 

Now, this might be a little crazy, but I take this one step.  I buy some BTC!  My winning potential is unlimited.

Half-kidding, it seems like an amusing idea.

Seems to me it's for the market to decide what coins are worthy of attention.