I was always under the impression that an altcoin exchange which only deals with altcoins wouldn't fall under money transmitter laws but Amph's link shows that the situation is actually far from clear.
Interestingly, Poloniex is registered as a MSB despite not touching any fiat currencies (unless you count USDT as being a fiat currency):
An Open Letter from Tristan D'Agosta
Dear Poloniex Community,
I wanted to take a moment to address some of the feedback we have received with regards to the recent changes at Poloniex. There are a fair number of rumors circulating around on social media, and I'd like to try and separate fact from fiction.
We are a Money Services Business (MSB). Accordingly, we are bound by the rules and regulations defined by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and regardless of how other businesses operate, we are legally obligated to follow the rules of FinCEN to the best of our ability.
Starting on May 21, 2015, we will require your name and country for all withdrawals. To withdraw more than $2,000.00 USD equivalent within 24 hours, we will require your address and phone number. It is only if you need to withdraw more than $7,000.00 USD equivalent in a 24-hour period that we will require identity verification such as your social security number or photo ID. We are taking these measures to protect ourselves and you from potential criminal activity that could force a shutdown of our services.
To be clear, any and all profile information we collect from you is collected in order to be compliant and to discourage people from using Poloniex unlawfully. None of the recent changes are to share or sell your data for marketing or advertisement purposes.
While we are saddened by customers who have threatened to cease using Poloniex as a result of these changes, we have chosen the unpopular path of following the regulations that apply to us because we believe it is the right thing to do. We are grateful to our loyal customers who will continue to use Poloniex as we grow and innovate.
It is unfortunate that the changes to our withdrawal policies have overshadowed the incredible work the Poloniex team has done to bring Margin Trading to the altcoin community. Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the amount of Margin Trading activity we have seen in such a short period of time, and are excited to be a part of this new era of alt trading.
Tristan D'Agosta
Founder of Poloniex
Why not try out VPN and try to show that exchange is working from different country instead of US?
There might be no problems I guess if you do it like that.
I don't think it really matters where the hosting server is.
If you operate within the U.S. then it makes it their jurisdiction.Besides remember Ross?
His server was in France and the feds still took an image of it.
Then what about direct trading exchanges like LocalBitcoins.com or
www.100bit.co.in ? I dont think they need money transmitter license.
They are not exactly an exchange are they.
And to be honest, I do not know if they need a license and what kind of license.
That being said, I am not from the U.S. so I wouldn't know much about your laws there, but I see a lot of things.
Let's not forget than FinCEN asked Mircea Popescu to give them information about his exchange.
He has nothing to do with the U.S.
Conclusion, you never what to expect from the government(s).
There are many similarities though. Both LocalBitcoins and traditional exchanges connect buyers with sellers. LocalBitcoins also has a built-in escrow system so they handle BTC deposits and withdrawals as well.
