Bitcoin press hits, notable sources

[Spekulatius]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-02/16/bitcoin-exchange-shuts

The ars technica article published on wired.co.uk

[Spekulatius]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/bitcoin-exchange-shuttered-nerds-rattled-02172012.html

just a sum up of the ars technica article

[Spekulatius]

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2012/02/16/4697/bitcoin-idea-about-money-borrowed-future/

Just Matthew DeBord talking live on "the air show" about bitcoin

[istar]

Bank technology News

Bitcoin Exchange's Crisis Bodes Ill for Payment Innovation

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/177_34/bitcoin-tradehill-exchange-digital-currency-risks-licensing-1046795-1.html?pg=1

Quite well written article.

[Technomage]

Bank technology News

Bitcoin Exchange's Crisis Bodes Ill for Payment Innovation

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/177_34/bitcoin-tradehill-exchange-digital-currency-risks-licensing-1046795-1.html?pg=1

Quite well written article.

Indeed. This quote is interesting:

"To get around stringent state regulations, Bitcoin firms might switch from acting as a floating exchange, which TradeHill was, to a fixed rate exchange, Matonis says.

Floating exchanges hold customer funds while they match buy and sell orders. In this sense, they act as financial institutions. Fixed rate exchanges do not. They simply buy and sell Bitcoins like a commodity. Such an exchange would be exempt from state money transmitter regulations, Matonis says."

[kiba]

 

The process of registering with FinCen as a money services business, and of getting money transmitter licenses from the 43 states that require them, is time-consuming and costly, often running between $750,000 and $1 million.

Each or total?

[Spekulatius]

I have no clue about US law making something illegal is one thing BUT is it even possible to prohibit US customers to send transfers to floating exchanges abroad and receive their payout (at least as BTC, so that they can then convert their coins back to USD via any fixed rate exchange)??

[cbeast]

The process of registering with FinCen as a money services business, and of getting money transmitter licenses from the 43 states that require them, is time-consuming and costly, often running between $750,000 and $1 million.

Each or total?

And is that a one time fee or daily?

[farfiman]

[

"To get around stringent state regulations, Bitcoin firms might switch from acting as a floating exchange, which TradeHill was, to a fixed rate exchange, Matonis says.

Floating exchanges hold customer funds while they match buy and sell orders. In this sense, they act as financial institutions. Fixed rate exchanges do not. They simply buy and sell Bitcoins like a commodity. Such an exchange would be exempt from state money transmitter regulations, Matonis says."

We call that a "CHANGE" like you see in most countries (not us) on every street corner...

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Robert Murphy, a prominent economist of the Austrian School talks about Bitcoin in a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyUNdzLwte4&feature=player_detailpage#t=900s, between about 0:15:00 and 0:31:50. It's the most thorough treatment of the Mises' Regression Theorem with respect to Bitcoin from a professional economist that I know of (I've been thinking about this for months and my opinions are very close to those of professor Murphy). He mentioned Bitcoin in the past as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsciXd1EH50&feature=player_detailpage#t=1437s.

Just to explain where he's coming from, Professor Murphy as well as the rest of the Austrian School criticise the production of money through the central banking and government interference in money (e.g. legal tender laws), and most of them are sympathetic to money that has an inelastic supply and an economy with a falling price level (i.e. what colloquially is referred to as deflation). George Selgin (whose draft paper that refers to Bitcoin was published two weeks ago and was mentioned on the forum here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62659.0) as well as Detlev Schlichter (who wrote about Bitcoin in June, mentioned here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1958.msg314375#msg314375 and was at the Bitcoin conference in Prague) also belong to the Austrian School.

[molecular]

Robert Murphy, a prominent economist of the Austrian School talks about Bitcoin in a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyUNdzLwte4&feature=player_detailpage#t=900s, between about 0:15:00 and 0:31:50. It's the most thorough treatment of the Mises' Regression Theorem with respect to Bitcoin from a professional economist that I know of (I've been thinking about this for months and my opinions are very close to those of professor Murphy). He mentioned Bitcoin in the past as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsciXd1EH50&feature=player_detailpage#t=1437s.

Just to explain where he's coming from, Professor Murphy as well as the rest of the Austrian School criticise the production of money through the central banking and government interference in money (e.g. legal tender laws), and most of them are sympathetic to money that has an inelastic supply and an economy with a falling price level (i.e. what colloquially is referred to as deflation). George Selgin (whose draft paper that refers to Bitcoin was published two weeks ago and was mentioned on the forum here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62659.0) as well as Detlev Schlichter (who wrote about Bitcoin in June, mentioned here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1958.msg314375#msg314375 and was at the Bitcoin converence in Prague) also belong to the Austrian School.

gibt's einen thread wo wir das passend dikutieren könnten? Ist vielleicht nicht viel dazu zu sagen, aber vielleicht doch... die Sache mit dem "Regression Theorem" ist mir jedenfalls nicht ganz klar.

Vielleicht könntest du nen thread machen für dieses video und dann diskutieren wir das? Was meinst du?

[hazek]

More accurate translation:

Do we already have a thread going where we could discuss this topic appropriately? Perhaps there's not much more to discuss, but maybe there is ... I definitely still don't quite understand the "regression theorem".

Maybe you could create a new thread just for this video so we can discuss it? What do you think?

[FreeMoney]

More accurate translation:

Do we already have a thread going where we could discuss this topic appropriately? Perhaps there's not much more to discuss, but maybe there is ... I definitely still don't quite understand the "regression theorem".

Maybe you could create a new thread just for this video so we can discuss it? What do you think?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12428.0

[phatsphere]

[herzmeister]

lol 

.
.
.

oops... sry 

[SgtSpike]

Bank technology News

Bitcoin Exchange's Crisis Bodes Ill for Payment Innovation

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/177_34/bitcoin-tradehill-exchange-digital-currency-risks-licensing-1046795-1.html?pg=1

Quite well written article.

Indeed. This quote is interesting:

"To get around stringent state regulations, Bitcoin firms might switch from acting as a floating exchange, which TradeHill was, to a fixed rate exchange, Matonis says.

Floating exchanges hold customer funds while they match buy and sell orders. In this sense, they act as financial institutions. Fixed rate exchanges do not. They simply buy and sell Bitcoins like a commodity. Such an exchange would be exempt from state money transmitter regulations, Matonis says."

Interesting indeed.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to be a fixed rate either... just so long as the entity isn't holding on to customer funds.  Just base the price on some funky supply/demand curve, where the price will move X amount up for each Bitcoin bought, and X amount down for each Bitcoin sold.  The market will naturally keep it mostly balanced, albeit likely biased one direction or the other compared to a floating exchange.

[FreeMoney]

Bank technology News

Bitcoin Exchange's Crisis Bodes Ill for Payment Innovation

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/177_34/bitcoin-tradehill-exchange-digital-currency-risks-licensing-1046795-1.html?pg=1

Quite well written article.

Indeed. This quote is interesting:

"To get around stringent state regulations, Bitcoin firms might switch from acting as a floating exchange, which TradeHill was, to a fixed rate exchange, Matonis says.

Floating exchanges hold customer funds while they match buy and sell orders. In this sense, they act as financial institutions. Fixed rate exchanges do not. They simply buy and sell Bitcoins like a commodity. Such an exchange would be exempt from state money transmitter regulations, Matonis says."

Interesting indeed.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to be a fixed rate either... just so long as the entity isn't holding on to customer funds.  Just base the price on some funky supply/demand curve, where the price will move X amount up for each Bitcoin bought, and X amount down for each Bitcoin sold.  The market will naturally keep it mostly balanced, albeit likely biased one direction or the other compared to a floating exchange.

If you are going to have a fixed rate that changes, why not just make it change to what it will cost you to replace the coins/dollars plus a fee? As long as there is one actual market even if it has onerous AML crap anyone who can trade there can run their own "not really an exchange" site.

[SgtSpike]

Bank technology News

Bitcoin Exchange's Crisis Bodes Ill for Payment Innovation

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/177_34/bitcoin-tradehill-exchange-digital-currency-risks-licensing-1046795-1.html?pg=1

Quite well written article.

Indeed. This quote is interesting:

"To get around stringent state regulations, Bitcoin firms might switch from acting as a floating exchange, which TradeHill was, to a fixed rate exchange, Matonis says.

Floating exchanges hold customer funds while they match buy and sell orders. In this sense, they act as financial institutions. Fixed rate exchanges do not. They simply buy and sell Bitcoins like a commodity. Such an exchange would be exempt from state money transmitter regulations, Matonis says."

Interesting indeed.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to be a fixed rate either... just so long as the entity isn't holding on to customer funds.  Just base the price on some funky supply/demand curve, where the price will move X amount up for each Bitcoin bought, and X amount down for each Bitcoin sold.  The market will naturally keep it mostly balanced, albeit likely biased one direction or the other compared to a floating exchange.

If you are going to have a fixed rate that changes, why not just make it change to what it will cost you to replace the coins/dollars plus a fee? As long as there is one actual market even if it has onerous AML crap anyone who can trade there can run their own "not really an exchange" site.

Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of if all floating exchanges were banned.  But that doesn't really make sense looking at my last statement, "compared to a floating exchange."

[barrymac]

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23440

"Finextra verdict: Taken at face value, Paxum's decision to cut ties with Bitcoin is worrying. From the blockade of WikiLeaks to the attempts by US politicians to debarr Iran from the Swift network, it now seems acceptable for politicians and payment scheme incumbents to use their muscle to switch off infrastructural support for potential trouble-makers. At what point does a legitimate business decision become an abuse of power? We're treading a fine line here people"

[molecular]

gibt's einen thread wo wir das passend dikutieren könnten? Ist vielleicht nicht viel dazu zu sagen, aber vielleicht doch... die Sache mit dem "Regression Theorem" ist mir jedenfalls nicht ganz klar.

Vielleicht könntest du nen thread machen für dieses video und dann diskutieren wir das? Was meinst du?

lol. I'm sorry guys. I screwed up. This was meant to be sent a a PM to lonelyminer but I accidentally posted here.

I tried to no spam this thread... and what did I do?