The BitLicence Regulation is Eight Months Old - One Has Been Granted To Date

[alyssa85]

See

https://reason.com/blog/2016/03/20/bitlicense-bitcoin-lawsky-red-tape

In June 2015, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) established a new regulatory process for firms working in the cryptocurrency space. Applying for a so-called BitLicense involved submitting reams of paperwork, hiring expensive attorneys, and onerous reporting requirements. Critics said the process would put an enormous burden on small startups, and indeed many firms responded to the new regulation by announcing that they were no longer serving customers in the Empire State.

The NYDFS has only issued one BitLicense under the regulatory framework, which it provided to bitcoin services firm Circle in September 2015.

According to figures provided to CoinDesk by the NYDFS, this means as many as 21 industry startups are now operating under the BitLicense's safe harbor provision, but waiting for a formal confirmation that they are licensed bitcoin services providers in New York.

Even some of the industry’s more well-funded applicants, such as bitcoin exchange Coinbase and bitcoin storage specialist Xapo, indicated that their applications are still being processed.

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[unamis76]

Just goes to show how easy and fast it is to apply to BitLicense and how popular it is

[alyssa85]

The whole thing is designed to price out start-ups, and when there are none, some of the old-school Wall Street firms will step in as regulated bitcoin operators.

Monopolies tend to use expensive barriers to entry to prevent new entrants - I wouldn't be surprised if BitLicence was introduced because Wall Street lobbied for it.

[Kprawn]

BitLicence were only introduced to slow down the Bitcoin disruption and to benefit the individual who introduced it. He {Lawsky} made this licensing so difficult that companies

had to outsource services, to help them to adhere to it. {He then went to work for these services} A question should then be posted, to ask what happened to the funds of the

many other, who applied for these licenses and failed. I think they made a terrible mistake, in doing this... because a lot of startups just moved out of the state, and continued

doing business... taking job opportunities with them, and also tax income. 

[Bitcoinpro]

Under the CryptoCurremcy Constitutuon which is international institution

and regulates Bitcoin across the globe, this BitLicense scheme

may be highly illegal and can only regulate Fiat transfers,

All proponents and people promoting this scheme as such

could be fraudulent including anyone allowing the posting of such

material in a publicly visiible space.

[gentlemand]

Looks like quite a few companies are operating under the grace period. Does anyone know how long that lasts?

[AgentofCoin]

Looks like quite a few companies are operating under the grace period. Does anyone know how long that lasts?

The NY Bitlicense went into effect August 8, 2015 with a 45 days grace period for bitcoin exchanges to file for license.
The "safe harbor provision" means they are awaiting a response from the Superintendent for approval or denial of license.

(b)Approval or denial of application.
The superintendent shall approve or deny every application for a license hereunder within 90 days from the filing
 of an application deemed by the superintendent to be complete. Such period of 90 days may be extended at the
 discretion of the superintendent for such additional reasonable period of time as may be required to enable
 compliance with this Part.  A license issued pursuant to this Part shall remain in full force and effect until it is
 surrendered by the Licensee, is revoked or suspended, or expires as provided in this Part.

According to the above, the "safe harbor provision" is 90 days but can be extended at their discretion.

Seems like the superintendent is sitting around with his thumb up his ass if only one has been approved so far.

[7788bitcoin]

I think many companies are still in the look&see mode when it comes to bitlicence. Many are too small to engage legal services to handle the BitLicence applications- so many has left NY for the time being.

[BellaBitBit]

The whole thing is designed to price out start-ups, and when there are none, some of the old-school Wall Street firms will step in as regulated bitcoin operators.

Monopolies tend to use expensive barriers to entry to prevent new entrants - I wouldn't be surprised if BitLicence was introduced because Wall Street lobbied for it.

I hope this is not the case but it makes sense.  I am sure the paperwork is cumbersome and what a pain to wait this long.

[navaman]

You have a lot of finance that is trapped by this regulation because few will do any business with anybody in NY especially given the penchant for the state attorney general to claim a supervisory role of his own over the financial world.  Nobody cares about Circle since it is small retail with thin margins.  My guess is that the banks lobbied for this just as the people above say, to maintain their customer base.  Wall Street relies on opacity just as much as anything to make profits and auction markets or exchanges serve as a mechanism for price discovery.  The Chicago derivative markets have benefited the modern economy tremendously through process this while NY trades OTC with it's customers and the fat edge that comes from them.  They send orders Chicago to lay off their own risk or when their customers don't want to be tickled as it is put on JD.  The information of the order still has value as a known place of open interest and identifiable risk.  The same issue is involved with Dodd-Frank, they traded a part of their proprietary trading profits to eliminate some foreign competition.