I am a certified Anti-Money Laundering agent. (AMLCA)

[jasinlee]

Dont take this the wrong way, but can I see your credentials, even just in PM?

[JusticeForYou]

Have you heard of a "Yard Sale"? Millions upon millions of people have them every week end. Yard Sale at <insert coffed shop here>.

It's funny how regulations try to solve the problems from the wrong side of the equation. You try to stop criminal activities AFTER the fact, rather than try to prevent them BEFORE the fact.

[MaxCoins]

Fascinating and informative discussion. Thank you.

[marcus_of_augustus]

As we all know it is in reality Wall St. that writes these regulations ... it looks to me like Wall St. wants a piece of the action.

They already fulfill the criteria, now they have the rules in place to their liking, they can play.

[Minor Miner]

I'm shocked (not really) that the regulators don't realize this yet.

Regulators aren't known for being able to see too far beyond lunchtime.

Don't you think that someone who invested in mt gox found it in their interest to put "another barrier" to entry up for people that plan to follow?   Using your lawyers to make it more expensive and complicated for anyone to start competing?   

[kentrolla]

does this mean selling drugs on silk road is going to be illegal soon?

[Minor Miner]

Big changes are coming to the major exchanges. I can answer any questions regarding MSB requirements, state and federal. BitPay, Coinbase, and others will be required to obtain registration as well as licensure.

Are there any UNCERTIFIED anti money laundering agents?  Would those people just be hobbyists?

[Severian]

does this mean selling drugs on silk road is going to be illegal soon?

It means that the people selling on SR are in the clear as they're not classified as MSBs. I'm sure they're very relieved.

[Minor Miner]

Big changes are coming to the major exchanges. I can answer any questions regarding MSB requirements, state and federal. BitPay, Coinbase, and others will be required to obtain registration as well as licensure.

Are you Agent Dumas from the french government?

[TheJamesFund]

So are you an private auditor for private sector or a federal agent?

Neither it is like being certified in using Microsoft word.  It is a check the box type certification so a cash handling business can say their employees were trained.  A couple hours of study (online courses available) and a multiple choice exam. 

Thanks for Clarifying.

I am a Certified Broke Ass College Boy

[WiW]

How about this for a question:

Pseudonomity gives us plausible deniability, but it's really not that hard to trace money in the network that hasn't gone through a mixing service.

Can you see any way (and I'm absolutely sure that the power that be will try as hard as they can to find such a way) using sophisticated taint analysis to track who owns what and use that as a mean to regulate?

[flyhouse]

This is all BS.

Bitcoins should not be subject to regulation by anyone! Governments should prevent crime or prosecute it in its early stages, so that it doesn't use the bitcoin network as a means of transferring money.

[01BTC10]

I don't care. US is not the world. Bitcoin is not the US. Government with their centralised nature fail to understand the meaning of decentralised. Good luck regulating Bitcoin like you did with BitTorrent.

[Merralea]

... Like I give a shit that you run a communal laundromat.  

I would just like to let you know that someone other than you appreciates this.
 

On topic: this doesn't affect anyone with a functioning brain and/or spine. Launder away.

[bitcool]

... Like I give a shit that you run a communal laundromat.  

I would just like to let you know that someone other than you appreciates this.
 

On topic: this doesn't affect anyone with a functioning brain and/or spine. Launder away.

+1. Very valuable information here.

[fwho]

I feel like this could be an attempt to regulate gold farmers (e.g., WoW Gold) just as much, if not more than bitcoin. I was going to re-read the posted "new rules", but couldnt find them in a quick skim and am too lazy to look more.

Anyways, is this a possibility? Could some major player in the entertainment industry be pushing and lobbying to get their way again and this just happens to also fit the same bill for bitcoin? If so, how does this apply to game cards? For example, if I buy a League of Legends card from Walmart, that is a specific and exclusive voucher to redeem Riot Points, a virtual currency. Will Walmart have to stop selling these cards?

[ProfMac]

I feel like this could be an attempt to regulate gold farmers (e.g., WoW Gold) just as much, if not more than bitcoin. I was going to re-read the posted "new rules", but couldnt find them in a quick skim and am too lazy to look more.

Anyways, is this a possibility? Could some major player in the entertainment industry be pushing and lobbying to get their way again and this just happens to also fit the same bill for bitcoin? If so, how does this apply to game cards? For example, if I buy a League of Legends card from Walmart, that is a specific and exclusive voucher to redeem Riot Points, a virtual currency. Will Walmart have to stop selling these cards?

New Idea:  How can it be attacked?

Print little tickets like the scratch off lottery tickets that some states sell.
The scratch off goo covers the private bitcoin key.  The pay-to address is visible, both human readable and QR code, like the paper wallet.
At checkout, the Walmart cashier activates the card with the amount of cash desired.

One weak point I can see is that someone at the printing company can acquire the private key.

[pelleb]

I don't care. US is not the world. Bitcoin is not the US. Government with their centralised nature fail to understand the meaning of decentralised. Good luck regulating Bitcoin like you did with BitTorrent.

I agree 100% with you here. However US (Persons) performing bitcoin businesses interacting with the US banking system are at a very high risk and will unfortunately need to comply or eventually face jail time.

I see there as being 2 classes of bitcoin merchant processors/wallets/exchanges:

• High KYC countries - eg US and EU
• No KYC countries - where governments can't enforce KYC requirements

What is great about bitcoin is that the US can't stop people using Bitcoin in Nigeria like they can in the regular banking system. But they can stop any company dealing with the US banking system of dealing directly with Nigerian clients.

[01BTC10]

My post was a little bit extreme. I'm in Canada and US legislation is affecting us + lots of the fiat going into Bitcoin is coming from the US.

I have an account with Virtex and they are already enforcing KYC like MtGox.

[pelleb]

My post was a little bit extreme. I'm in Canada and US legislation is affecting us + lots of the fiat going into Bitcoin is coming from the US.

I have an account with Virtex and they are already enforcing KYC like MtGox.

Any exchange in an OECD country should be enforcing KYC by now or they are probably breaking pre existing laws. Some regulators are slow to put out specific rules and could attack existing exchanges for breaking the law once they discover bitcoin and have made up their mind about it.

Now FinCEN has thought about it, the other OECD countries are not far behind issuing "guidances".

I read somewhere that BitPay think's there is an exception for them as they are a payment processor. Since they do exchange I think that is wishful thinking. Mind you it won't be hard for them to implement, though they may have to restrict the countries they support.

Having been part of Financial Crypto 1.0 back in the 90's I know that most American's (in particular us libertarians) think non US jurisdictions magically don't care about KYC. Unfortunately most mid economy countries and offshore jurisdictions have been successfully bullied by the OECD FATF since the 90s to implement considerably stricter KYC rules than we have here.

I've heard people think you can just go open a bitcoin exchange in Panama or the Cayman Islands to solve the problem. The financial services commission in the respective jurisdiction would first of all not give you a license unless you implement ridiculous KYC as they don't want to risk their banking connections to the US. Panama was cut off from the SWIFT network for half a year back in the 90's for just this reason.

Sorry for the rant.

Anyway I've posted my analysis of the FinCEN guidelines here that I think provide a pretty good background.

http://payglo.be/2013/03/22/what-the-fincen-bitcoin-guidelines-actually-say/