The types of rules have been around for years before Bitcoin.  There were some interviews on some early Let's Talk Bitcoin with the Money Transfer Association and they discussed all these problems.  FinCEN is merely applying those rules and it is not specific to Bitcoin.  This is an ongoing problem with all financial-related businesses.

Also, the IRS put out guidance based on their rules.  Their guidance leaves open the possibility of other circumstances or changes in the future.  This is perfectly reasonable for me since most of my transactions were on exchanges rather than buying goods and services.  the courts also rules in things like Silk Road and pirateat40.  Someone has a web site that compares these different interpretation but I can't find it at the moment.

For most people it is not about paying taxes or not paying taxes, it is a matter of paying too much because much of the money is wasted.

As for taxes being too high the main problem with government is the incentives.  There is no incentive to end things that are no longer needed.  A government program can be started at the drop of a hat but it can be next to impossible to end a program when it is no longer beneficial.  That asymmetry is the problem.

Some nut job is on reddit looking for legal advice for the lawsuit he filed:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2kh53h/need_new_york_state_legal_case_to_show_the/

http://www.article78againstnydfs.com/Lawsuit/

He is focusing on the fact the answer from the State of NY points out that he sued the wrong party.  He doesn't mention the main reason for the request for dismissal is that he failed to show any link between proposing rules and him losing $1 Billion.  He also send rambling letters to the Court how Lawsky is screwing up the proposed regs and he even mention p2p technology and issues with gold as a commodity.  He says he will drop the case if the State drops the BitLicense proposal ... as if the court clerk is going to go over to Ben Lawsky and end the proposed license. 

A few references:

https://blog.caseykuhlman.com/entries/2014/bitcoin-somaliland.html

http://prestonbyrne.com/2014/08/19/interview-on-lets-talk-bitcoin-no-137-the-eye-of-the-beholder/

I would not count on that as the people who run the site are perfectly willing to promote scams and many people lost.  This site is just the opposite, most users make excuses for the scammers after people lost their funds and they say the person answering the ad should have known better.  After thousands of complaints they started putting up a disclaimer next to the ads.

I will also point out that many of the losses occurred where the sites displayed the Bitcoin Foundation logo (Mt. Gox, Input.io/Coinlenders, etc.) so users should be extremely cautious of anyone who displays that logo.

3 pages on this thread and only a couple half-way decent replies.  A meme was posted that claimed most people don't understand the financial system and this thread proves that:

-Legal Tender means places are required, by law, to accept Bitcoin.  This is incredibly unlikely and would be essentially a law forcing people to take Bitcoin.

-The IRS has no authority to declare anything to be legal tender.  Congress does that unless they delegate that authority to someone else like the IRS.

-The IRS has put an advisory opinion that Bitcoin transactions would generally be considered the bartering of property.  It does leave open the possibility that your specific situation may be different or that it may change in the future. This is perfectly valid advice for me at this time.  Last year I had many more transactions at exchanges than I did buying goods and services. 

-The IRS did not "declare" anything or create any new laws or orders, they simply gave advice based on their current rules.  Such a ruling in not binding other places or affect other definitions such as those by FinCEN or the Courts (Shavers and Silk Road).  There are phone numbers on the IRS notice and I have spoken with the women who is handling how digital currencies are reported and she is very helpful.  I had called her about the issue that the guidance was issued so late in tax season that it caused me to file an extension.  I had hired some local accountants and they screwed everything up so I ended using Tyson Cross.

the claim was that the black market is "increasing dramatically."  Another hyperbolic claim.

The claim is by the Bitcoins Not Bombs people in a panel hosted by Stephanie Murphy that Bitcoin is currently increasing exponentially.  If you look at things like number of transactions. merchant adoption, etc. you can see mostly linear growth.  They are promoting their agenda and they think the success of Bitcoin is going to prove their ideas to the rest of the world.

The claim was that is increasing dramatically.  That means it was a certain value before and now it has "increased dramatically."  Where does that come from?

Where do you come up with the claim that the black market is expanding dramatically?  That sounds like the people who keep claiming Bitcoin is expanding "exponentially."

I have already explained that I agree with limited government and reducing their power.  I have also explained that any discussion about Bitcoin reducing or ending wars and many of the economic arguments are based on an assumption that the entire economy will switch over to Bitcoin.  Those discussion are, for the most part, are interesting as thought experiments but otherwise worthless.  I am not going to waste my time arguing minute details about that stuff.  The real discussion is when Bitcoin gets some significant percentage of the economy how that will effect the economy and policies of things like central bankers.  That is the rational discussion.  it is discussed now and then but most of the discussion if that we have almost 100% government fiat or 100% Bitcoin.

I would agree that the fringe wackos like Vorhees, Shrem, Mayer, etc. don't represent the majority but they are the loudest and they get the most coverage.  My issue is that people like that are making it difficult to present Bitcoin to the general public.  While they were champions early on they are now detrimental to the adoption of Bitcoin and are making it weaker.  Many Bitcoiners don't realize that because they don't interact with the public at large and they just call the public all stupid because they don't understand Bitcoin and generally like State-run institutions.  It is like an election where one candidate gets wiped out at the polls and their supporters stand around all confused because "everybody" they knew supported the losing candidate.

No, it means I did research and I listened to people who knew what they were talking about and not a bunch of people on discussion boards who repeat meme's.  I generally don't talk about economics.  Most of the economics discussion on here is based on the claim that the entire word will switch over to Bitcoin so they are just thought experiments and not realistic discussions. 

The issue is you don't know how to argue about with a Bitcoin supporter who doesn't agree with your ideology.  The arguments usually are that someone is a Bitcoin hater so, therefore, they are stupid and any objections to our arguments are because they are stupid.  Well I am a huge Bitcoin supporter and I say the Bitcoin protocol is great ... but I am also saying that the so-called "heroes" of Bitcoin are not just wrong, they are delusional and the loudest voices don't even do basic research beyond their self-serving discussion boards about what they are trying to talk about. 

I never realized that Free State project was so bad until I got involved in Bitcoin.  In fact, I used to think it was a good thing.  Apparently they have isolated themselves from the real world and they sit around reinforcing each other with nonsense and then they act like the rest of world is stupid.  Right, we are all stupid and we can't read dictionaries and we can't read experts in economics. 

I am one of those people who knows that there are unabridged dictionaries that show many different definitions of the work "fiat."  I am also aware that people who study economics have written articles where they use the general definition and discuss Bitcoin as "fiat" currency as opposed to the more specific "government fiat" where there is no ambiguity.

I am only mediocre in English though.  I got a master's degree in Physics and bachelor degree in Physics and computer science from Rutgers so I spent most of my educational time doing math formulas and writing code.

Do you have a degree in meme-based debates on reddit?

Erik Vorhees and Roger Ver have no relation to those people.

I once tried to explain to Vorhees that "fiat" has more than one definition.  Government fiat current is based ona government decree/law.  Another definition of "fiat" is more general and means it just has the faith of its users.  Some say Bitcoin is the ultimate fiat currency since it is just based on the faith of its users.  Vorhees jumped in and said we had to coordinate one definition and he pulled out a link to an online dictionary to "prove" his case.  I had to explain to him that there is no definitive dictionary and that there were more complete dictionaries than the web site he linked to.  From that point on I knew that Vorhees had no idea what he was talking about and he just repeats meme's and cute slogans.

As for Roger Ver, just look at his videos about Mt. Gox and Bitcoin Bounty hunter.  No wonder he ended up in jail over fireworks.

If you listen to people like Free State Radio or Roger Ver they would explain that the people that helped you were really the murderers and the violent ones.  http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2k22av/silk_road_prevented_violence/clhcglw

I think it means it is set to minimize on exit so the node is still running.  You can change that setting if that is what you want but each time you start the blockchains downloads will have to catch up.

This is the kind of total nonsense you get from the pseudo-liberals.  Anyone who points out flaws in their argument is working for "the man."  I could not wait to get out of that job and if I had to sit through one more useless staff meeting I would have gone nuts.  I called in sick my very last day and I mailed my stuff in because I didn't want to sit there one more day.  I think 30% of the FAA can be eliminated and nobody would notice.  However, there are some very smart people there and most people want them to provide the services they perform.  I did research for explosives/weapons detection systems and we sometimes did airport tests.  I ran into all kinds of brilliant researchers with the FAA, Sandia Nation Labs, etc. 

I can assure you the vast majority of people want more security and more intrusive searches and people don't wantgovernments eliminated as you claim with your hyperbole.  You are one who is brainwashed because you get your info from internet discussion boards and meme's and you don't interact with the public at large.  I live in New Jersey and many people here want the government to do everything for them.  People in my town see a candy wrapper on the beach and they want the government to send out a helicopter to pick it up.  In any case I made enough on my side Internet businesses so I don't have to work anymore and I can just do Bitcoin all day.  I don't miss Washington, DC ... except for the 930 Club.

It is funny that you claim the arguments have been "thoroughly defended."  How is that?  Posting stuff to reddit? That is comical.  The arguments are not totally wrong, they are just so over-the-top that the exaggerations make the whole thing sound ridiculous.  Government is too big and too intrusive in people's lives but it does not follow that everybody wants government eliminated, that everyone is going to switch to Bitcoin because of it, that people want the Silk Road guy released if he is guilty, and that this whole process of using Bitcoin will end wars.

That is exactly the impression I got after spending 5 minutes on here.  One of the first posts I saw was this big long explanation about Bitcoin and how I needed to be a member of World of Warcraft and how I needed to read Vorhees' blog to understand what Bitcoin is.  I was thinking, "what the hell is this?"  Most people would end their interest in Bitcoin right there.  I was able to poke through all that and look at the technology but that is a difficult bridge to cross.  

Theymos had a tremendous opportunity with this forum and look what he has done.  People selling accounts, endless scams, etc.  If you read his stuff about things like GLBSE he talks about virtual companies and I have often said he sounds like he lives his life in a video game.  Almost nothing that goes on in this forum happens in the real world.  One of these clowns advocated breaking into the FBI computers because he said they were too stupid to keep the Silk Road bitcoins secure.  Guess where the guy works?  For the State of Maryland.  This stuff is beyond ridiculous.  These people think that because they promoted Bitcoin early on that they know more than the rest of the world or that somehow everybody owes them something.

I also noticed that many here are not up on things outside of video games and reddit.  It was comical to watch Ver and Vorhees say how great their honey badger billboard was.  When people pointed out almost nobody in the general public will understand it they argued the opposite.  

I also did a Bitcoin public event once at the Philly Punk Rock Flea market.  Most of the Bitcoin Philly group would not come because I refused to allow them to hand out "Bitcoin Not Bombs" stuff at my table.  I talked to a large number of people who mostly never heard of Bitcoin.  Not a single person asked about collapsing banks, ending wars, replacing the dollar, or any of the other nonsense you see here on a daily basis.  Just try it yourself.

I retired from my job as a federal employee of 27 years for the FAA..  I worked on research of explosives and weapons detection systems and then on information security requirements for large FAA systems.  While I was a researcher rather than regulator I worked in the system for a long time, including 9 years in Washington, DC.  I also participated in many of these public comment things involving privacy and I testified at a few FTC workshops such as the first couple "spam summits" back in the late 90's.  I can say with absolute certainty that comments like Erik Vorhees makes about the Bitlicense and the motives of regulators is completely wrong and his meme-based arguments are going to be disregarded.  He has a few correct points here and there but his arguments don't fit together.  Patrick Murck is pretty good be he still works for the Foundation and Vessenes.  Jerry Brito and Coincenter.org is the place to watch because he is good and I think he is independent or at least more independent than Murck.  




 

Yes, but if they want their holding to be more valuable they are forced to allow others in.  What good is a developer's coin if nobody uses it?  I think most of the people involved have worked on software projects in small groups and dealing with large numbers of people/ideas is out of the normal things they do.  You can tell when they try to shoehorn everything into Github and IRC chat.

That is not a concept of Bitcoin, that is a way in which Bitcoin is used by people.  Bitcoin is open source and can be easily copied and reproduced.  Nothing within Bitcoin itself gives it an advantage over altcoins or copies.  If people decide that Bitcoin "is the one" then wealth will be preserved because Bitcoin is capped at 21 million but if people decide that the copies or altcoins are equal or better then wealth will not be preserved.