I don't think currently there is anyone have enough knowledge about BTC from legal point of view, it is a totally different mindset when working with an internet currency, lot's of things are virtual, and our traditional laws mostly apply to physical things
See this is a misnomer
If buying drugs with dollars on the street corner is illegal, then buying drugs over the internet using bitcoins is just as illegal. Bitcoin doesn't "magic" away laws simply because ... Bitcoin.
Likewise if GLBSE was (and it was) accepted USD deposits and was in violation of US securities law then accepting Bitcoins didn't magically put it out of the jurisdiction of the law. So a potential business owner has two options. Make your business legal within the lat (MtGox) or accept it is illegal and take steps to ensure the law can't reach you (Silk Road). GLBSE did neither. It was blatantly in violation of US securities law yet remained publicly known and operated from a state with close ties to the US.
+1
This exactly. BTC had nothing to do with what happened to GLBSE, and what will (I personally hope) eventually happen to Silk Road and other illegal sites. Doesn't matter what currency they are using, they were and are doing illegal things. Businesses selling legal products and services, and charities accepting legitimate donations have never had legal problems because of BTC as far as I know. MTGOX legal cases seem to be going in their favour.
Bitcoin will be in a lot of trouble for a long time if all it's known for is selling drugs and laundering money. We need a lot more real business and charitable successes if we are going to make BTC a legitimate, accepted currency... which I see as one of the main goals.
I understand the idealism of running an underground site like Silk Road with hidden money, but I don't think that's really what bitcoin is good for. When the US really puts effort into shutting down silk road, they'll do it. I'm not trying to be a buzz kill, I am not a drug prohibitionist, but using BTC for illegal drug dealing is not only bad for bitcoin, it's fucking dangerous for the people who buy it, and there are 30 year federal prison sentences waiting somewhere for a few really smart college stoners who had a brilliant idea one night. While we are all still physically governed by the laws of our respective states, we should work to end drug prohibition, rather than trying to use bitcoin to skirt local laws.
You summed up GLBSE perfectly. He was in the right place at the right time and exposed what turned out to be the massive potential of a BTC securities exchange, but how he expected to run something so complex without visiting a lawyer first I can't understand. Expense number one when setting up a financial services company: legal fees. It was such a great platform and such a needed tool that people jumped all over it without thinking it through. He had no plan to operate a legitimate security exchange in the country he was based in, let alone the countries of the people he was allowing to buy securities. It's an extremely regulated market globally for obvious reasons, and GLBSE went into it with a script and a virtual office. As mentioned we need either a tightly regulated exchange where everyone plays by the rules, or a totally anonymous one where everything is hidden, and people have the risk of being shut down at any time. I think the former would be better for BTC, but the market will probably create both. Hopefully we'll have many exchanges so we have competition... or someone can crack the code of creating a P2P exchange.
