[2013-01-28] REUTERS New York may offer virtual currency regulations this year

[2dogs]

Jan 28 (Reuters) - New York's top bank regulator on Tuesday revealed new plans to regulate businesses handling transactions in bitcoin this year, saying the state may issue new financial services licenses tailored to virtual currencies.

Benjamin Lawsky, New York's financial services superintendent, raised his idea for a "BitLicense" in a hearing a day after a prominent bitcoin entrepreneur was arrested on money laundering charges.

"The first job is to get rid of money laundering," said Lawsky, speaking to panelists at the hearing whose panelists included the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and the venture capitalist Fred Wilson.

Officials from New York's Department of Financial Services asked panelists how they could best imagine businesses handling bitcoins meeting regulatory requirements equivalent to those directing other financial firms to combat money laundering and keep track of customer activity.

While bitcoin experts testifying in the hearings said they agreed with the need for regulation, they warned an overly arduous system could stifle innovation and push startup companies and bitcoin transaction activity offshore.

Read more:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/usa-bitcoin-newyork-idUSL2N0L211420140128

[Carlton Banks]

MAN PROPOSES THE SAME THING HE SAID MONTHS AGO, AGAIN
                       NO ACTION TAKEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. AGAIN

[Onews1990]

These NY people are just itching to do it though I doubt it would happen. can't they just accept that people don't want to pay taxes or follow silly requirements when taking there own money from banks like what HSBC did.

[TraderTimm]

MAN PROPOSES THE SAME THING HE SAID MONTHS AGO, AGAIN
NO ACTION TAKEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. AGAIN

Nicely done, gave me a good laugh.

I love how they think a decentralized system like Bitcoin can be easily controlled and regulated. The ensuing lulz will be rather fun to watch.

[Carlton Banks]

MAN PROPOSES THE SAME THING HE SAID MONTHS AGO, AGAIN
NO ACTION TAKEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. AGAIN

Nicely done, gave me a good laugh.

I love how they think a decentralized system like Bitcoin can be easily controlled and regulated. The ensuing lulz will be rather fun to watch.

glad to return the favour.

It's pure cat & mouse. The front of technical progress in the system is always that bit too far ahead for anyone but the most technically proficient/creative to see. By the time the regulators have grasped the situation from 2 years ago, the bitcoin wizards are well into the next level of innovating sideways out of any effective control measures.

When will they realise that the client software is the level at which the control is exerted? And that Satoshi designed a system that can't be turned off, that is highly resistant to being hacked or otherwise subverted, that can't be cheated or bribed? You can't coerce well designed logic. The only option to defeating bitcoin is to outcompete it, and that would mean something even more liberating.

[marcus_of_augustus]

So has anybody attempted enlightening this jumped up Lawsky about fungibility and censorship-resistance being desirable properties of money?

He's the regulator of money right? Shouldn't he know what is good money and bad money? Why does he want bad money, that is broken and doesn't work properly?

[2dogs]

MAN PROPOSES THE SAME THING HE SAID MONTHS AGO, AGAIN
                       NO ACTION TAKEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. AGAIN

Hope you are correct on this one.

[TheButterZone]

Totalitarian eventually realizes he can't stop the signal, other than genocide of all cryptocurrency hodlers.

[PaperLess]

Fungibility.
So regulations make every satoshis future your responsibility.
Donate 1 satoshi to wikileaks and you join Bradley Manning.
The coffee shop employee donates 1 satoshi you once owned to wikileaks and you join Bradley Manning.
The one satoshi you sold for cash was later used to by some grass and you join Charlie Shrem.

[Carlton Banks]

MAN PROPOSES THE SAME THING HE SAID MONTHS AGO, AGAIN
                       NO ACTION TAKEN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. AGAIN

Hope you are correct on this one.

well, it was true on the 29th of January, and it's also correct today.

The goalposts have moved anyway, the wording of the previous announcement said that businesses that use bitcoin need to be licensed, that implied any business. The hearings clarified this to mean businesses specifically doing exchange, which is, like, really cracking down, seeing as those regulations exist for any processor or currency exchange already, and that most bitcoin businesses have got that accreditation anyway. So much for the "bitcoin civil war", everyone knew that their exchange was going through licensing and using AML and KYC for the longest time now.

Once again, welcome to 2012, Mr. Lawsky