184

Got it! Thank you

14kJqAfnhAEyhxsXU7Xam6yfM3DdtAJmCZ

thanks!

User: QueenElizabeth

nice concept and thanks!

QueenElizabeth

Thanks!

dingb.at accepts credit cards for small purchases, just not right now because they're changing providers. Excellent customer support, but it's a very small operation so don't expect it to work like a full-fledged exchange.

I'm not a BTC-e customer but I wanted to commend you on an awesome username.

Well, of course if they don't declare any profits they're not going to pay any taxes - I was just pointing out that Bitstamp might have decided to move their legal residence to the UK because of lower tax rates compared to what they would face if they declared profits in Slovenia.

Yes it does. It means that your company is paying its taxes in the UK (probably lower rates than Slovenia) and whatever euro area regulation there is does not apply to you. In some countries, fictitious relocation for tax purposes can be prosecuted, but I'm not sure about how aggressive the Slovenians are with respect to these cases.

The company is incorporated in Reading, Berkshire. They probably don't have any staff there, but they're still operating under British law. I suppose that they moved the legal registration in the UK for tax purposes and because they anticipated that Bitcoin regulation would be lighter compared to whatever might happen in the Euro area as soon as the authorities decide how to act.

Legally speaking, Bitstamp is British, not Slovenian. They used to be a Slovenian company but that changed. Their staff and their bank are Slovenian, but the company operates under UK law.

Bitstamp deposits fiat on their Unicredit bank account, not BTC. And Unicredit, like every regulated financial institution, is going to subject their customers to KYC. Every company banking with anyone has to go through it.

I've done some research into the matter and here's what I found:

1. Bitstamp is incorporated in the UK and, based on FCA/HMRC statements made in 2013, Bitcoin businesses in the UK do not require any specific license. They have no legal obligation to request KYC/AML information to their clients, as far as British law goes. They are requesting it because they want to, as confirmed on the Bitstamp site: "Whilst Bitstamp are currently unregulated and do not fall with the scope of the AML/CTF obligations in the UK the senior management have implemented systems and procedures that meet the UK AML legislation."

2. Bitstamp - much like every other exchange - uses a traditional bank, Unicredit in Slovenia, to conduct their operations. Unicredit has a legal obligation to subject Bitstamp to KYC/AML, and they're going to be fined in case Bitstamp does something dodgy (see the 1.9bn fine paid by HSBC for not monitoring their clients as they should have done).

3. This has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with the fact that Bitstamp is a Bitcoin-related company. There's no EU, euro area or Slovenian law governing Bitcoin businesses. The ECB and the EBA issued warnings about Bitcoin, but a warning is not regulation. Probably there will be regulation in the future, but right now there is not. Any requests made by Unicredit to Bitstamp are simply in compliance to obligations a bank has with respect to any customer, Bitcoin or not.

4. Bitstamp - much like every other company - would incur sanctions if they were discovered to be involved in money laundering (duh). Again, that's not because they're a Bitcoin business. If the authorities discover someone is laundering money through a real estate business, they'll go after them (duh #2).

So where does this leave Bitstamp users? Here's some options:

a) Bitstamp's bank is subjecting the company to extended KYC and Bitstamp is in turn asking customers for the necessary data.

b) Bitstamp is anticipating new regulation (e.g. they believe they will be required to apply for a money transmitter license in the UK or similar) and they're trying to gather what they believe to be necessary documentation to be fully compliant with UK law as it applies to money transmitters.

c) Bitstamp suspects some customers are laundering money through their services and they want to kick these people out before the subpoenas start coming, leading to account freezes, and hence damaging image and revenue. They have a right to do so; they're not obliged to provide their service to anyone.

These are the good options which should leave all users pretty much relaxed, provided they're not doing anything awful. Of course the questionnaire is pretty invasive and some Bitcoiners might conclude it's at odds with crypto ethics; in that case they should just move their business elsewhere, much like a vegan would not finance a meat-producing company.

However, there are not-so-good options too.

d) Someone at Bitstamp is building a new service / product based on the wealth of data they have, e.g. anything along the lines of data mining for marketing purposes, and they're gathering as much information as they can so that they can improve the service / product and sell it for a higher price. Not particularly scary, although this would violate the privacy policy in case a third party is involved in the handling of personal information ("Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested by the customer"). It would be borderline legitimate if they're using the service / product internally, as per "We may use your Personal Information for the following purposes:

    To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs);
    To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you);"

e) Bitstamp is undergoing financial difficulties, maybe connected with the recent downward swing in prices (they overextended themselves? They fractional-reserve'd customer money without telling anyone and now they can't make ends meet anymore?), and they're hiding between KYC/AML to buy time.

Also, I wouldn't underestimate the abilities of British law enforcement. This is neither here nor there - personally, if I were a Bitstamp user I wouldn't be bothered by the police reviewing my data/transactions to see whether I have been giving money to terrorists or mobsters, but I understand that many members of this community would object to this as a matter of principle even if they don't have and never will have anything to do with criminal activity.

Hello!

My 2nd week with the C-D signature is coming to a close... am I entitled to another bonus if I keep it?

If yes: I want BTC on my CD account
Userid: Player_630

Assuming this is true, it's kind of weird, as it does not look remotely similar to KYC questionnaires handed out by traditional banks in the euro area. Of course some of the questions would have to be different, but a bank is not allowed to ask a customer where his/her funds come from. In some countries, tax authorities have the power to go through banking records and ask this very question even in the absence of a subpoena; what banks can do is transmit information on suspicious transfers to the proper government offices, but they are not directly interacting with the client on the matter of where the money comes from.

I would be more worried about malicious use of this data on the part of Bitstamp than anything.

The request about mining equipment specification baffles me entirely.

I'm thinking ABM with heterogeneous agents... hoarders, traders etc.; you might run a toy model in StarLogo or any other such easy prototyping tool and if it looks promising you could try a bigger one with NetLogo and eventually go all out. But yeah, ABM or nothing, IMHO. This is not something that can be predicted by GARCH or whatever-traditional, in the short run.

Or, on account of the huge number of data points, you could run a two-variable Nadaraya-Watson with something likely (market sentiment as measured by some aggregate indicator?) and something unlikely (price of gold?) and see what happens.

I'm not even sure this suggestion makes any sense, it still looks too idiosyncratic to work, i.e. your ABM wouldn't have sensible behavioral rules no matter how hard you tried. And now of course you whetted my appetite for excessively nerdy stuff.

+1000.

Aside from the obvious ethical value of the point made by OP, frothing at the mouth is also quite unproductive. I never even registered on MtGox, but if I were affected by this very unpleasant situation I would try to put together a class action lawsuit against Karpeles rather than fantasize about killing him.

After all, Pirate@40 was found guilty in a regular court of law, even if his scam was based on bitcoin. In this case, the company is Japanese so it might be more complicated, but creditors should be able to recover a part of their deposits through legal means.

IMHO it's going to be very hard to forecast the price of cryptos based on aggregate daily information. I never paid attention to order books for cryptos other than Bitcoin, but in the case of Bitcoin, a lot of wild swings have happened within a single day, driven by the sequence of large orders. I think your best bet would be any methodology for high-frequency panel data where you analyze order books in real time.

Ice-Dice.com is awesome!

Off to read it, will give you feedback asap!