REGULATION: Allow me to give you an Idea of What Is at Stake/a Day in the life

[BruceFenton]

Those regulations only apply to brokers and exchanges - people who handle other people's money. If you're trading for yourself, or mining Bitcoin, you don't need to qualify as a broker.

Over half of Bitcoin exchanges have failed, often disappearing with customer funds. That's what happens with no regulation.

Right and regulations like this on Bitcoin companies would affect the entire community, the starup environment, VC investment etc etc etc. all in very negative ways.

Will people fail and "disappear with customer funds" with no regulation.  **Yep**

But if you think regulation will stop crooks then you only need to talk to a victim of Bernie Madoff who scammed more than six times the entire value of all Bitcoin on earth to see the answer.

[Nagle]

But if you think regulation will stop crooks then you only need to talk to a victim of Bernie Madoff who scammed more than six times the entire value of all Bitcoin on earth to see the answer.

If a victim of Madoff lost less than $500,000, they got it back from the Securities Investors Protection Fund insurance.  Above that, money has been slowly clawed back from Madoff's cronies who made big profits, and the bigger Madoff victims are getting about half their money back. Meanwhile, Mr. Madoff is Prisoner #61727-054 at Butner Federal Correctional Institution.

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

[BruceFenton]

But if you think regulation will stop crooks then you only need to talk to a victim of Bernie Madoff who scammed more than six times the entire value of all Bitcoin on earth to see the answer.

If a victim of Madoff lost less than $500,000, they got it back from the Securities Investors Protection Fund insurance.  Above that, money has been slowly clawed back from Madoff's cronies who made big profits, and the bigger Madoff victims are getting about half their money back. Meanwhile, Mr. Madoff is Prisoner #61727-054 at Butner Federal Correctional Institution.

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

I was responding to what you said above which is that "without regulation" exchanges go under.....the implication is that regulation prevents this.  It doesn't.   Instead of backing up that argument by saying yes regulation does prevent people like Maddoff, you've moved to a different argument which is that regulation helps people get money back and makes criminals go to jail.   I also disagree with this...the overwhelming majority of people who lose money in these types of situations do not get it back....and people who commit fraud and are caught go to jail with or without special new regulations.

[LostDutchman]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo many people wanted to "bring Bitcoin to the public" and now they have.

They will also reap what they have sown.

My $.02.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This post is not a diss toward the OP, for I was with you the entire way till I reached the bottom of the post.

Please join the Bitcoin Financial Association

With all that education and thought that went into this, I bet you don't see the error made in naming the entity as you did, do you?

In fact, there are two issues.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

Excellent example of changing the subject after losing the point.

[jbreher]

If a victim of Madoff lost less than $500,000, they got it back from the Securities Investors Protection Fund insurance. 

IOW, it came out of my pocket. Thank you sir, can I please have another?

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

I had nothing at Intersango. I have funds at MtGox that seem to be safe for the time being. I got all my money back from TradeHill - twice. I guess I'm doing just fine on the 'getting money back' point.

[ax123man]

I didn't read everything but I get the point. Too much regulation is never good.

With that said,  trying to compare it to the regulation of the finincal industry might fall on deaf ears. Even with all the regulation the finincal industry has they've still found a way to game the system and make insane profits at the expense of others. Regulation didn't stop them 

Do you really think the purpose of regulation is to prevent gaming the system and making insane profits at the expense of others?

The purpose of regulation is:

1) to give politicians a plank for elections
2) to favor big business by making it difficult for startups/small business

If anything, in the long run, regulation favors "insane" profits by eliminating competition.

bitcoin is a threat to established business. those established business will go to washington with dollars and, in turn, politicians will use the excuse of the need for regulation to squash bitcoin in order to favor those established businesses.

That's how the system works.

[jbreher]

How is getting money back from Intersango working out for you? Or Tradehill? Or Mt. Gox?

I had nothing at Intersango. I have funds at MtGox that seem to be safe for the time being. I got all my money back from TradeHill - twice. I guess I'm doing just fine on the 'getting money back' point.

Update - prince on Gox just tanked. Took this opportunity to convert all USD but $16.xx on that exchange to XBT. Then withdrew all my XBT. Transaction processed immediately. So again - the wild-west regulation-free exchanges are working just fine for me.

[BruceFenton]

This post is not a diss toward the OP, for I was with you the entire way till I reached the bottom of the post.

Please join the Bitcoin Financial Association

With all that education and thought that went into this, I bet you don't see the error made in naming the entity as you did, do you?

In fact, there are two issues.

The word "Bitcoin" and the word "financial"?

We wanted Bitcoin because that is what is in the news and that is what people are turning to (bad) sources like Professor Williams from the NY hearings for.

It would not surprise me if we change the name in a few years to Crypto-something along those lines...but for now this gets us rolling.


Financial was more because its a focus on financial aspects (which are almost everything) versus non financial aspects such as the backbone code or blockchain security.

Also, some dude in Panama who has registered over 10,000 domains with a dictionary word and Bitcoin...seriously.


Where those the two problems or are there two more?    Thanks. 

[franky1]

i think they are doing it in a different way. calling it C4 which is part of the blockstream collective

https://cryptoconsortium.org/

[BruceFenton]

Yep, Bitcoin Association still exists.

Despite its past problems Bitcoin Foundation still has a reach and depth that is hard for a new organization to match.   Many have tried, so far none have become as broad or large as Bitcoin Foundation -- this is why I think it's worth rebooting and launching fresh without scrapping the name, membership etc.

[franky1]

Yep, Bitcoin Association still exists.

Despite its past problems Bitcoin Foundation still has a reach and depth that is hard for a new organization to match.   Many have tried, so far none have become as broad or large as Bitcoin Foundation -- this is why I think it's worth rebooting and launching fresh without scrapping the name, membership etc.

blockstream seems to have stolen alot of bitcoin foundation folk.

even the bitcoin foundations education director: Charles Hoskinson
and other names like Peter Todd, Andreas Antonopoulos, etc
https://cryptoconsortium.org/about

[BruceFenton]

blockstream seems to have stolen alot of bitcoin foundation folk.

even the bitcoin foundations education director: Charles Hoskinson
and other names like Peter Todd, Andreas Antonopoulos, etc
https://cryptoconsortium.org/about

What makes you think the CryptoConsortium is run by Blockstream?   Afaik is run by Michael Perklin who is also a new board member at Bitcoin Foundation

[franky1]

blockstream seems to have stolen alot of bitcoin foundation folk.

even the bitcoin foundations education director: Charles Hoskinson
and other names like Peter Todd, Andreas Antonopoulos, etc
https://cryptoconsortium.org/about

What makes you think the CryptoConsortium is run by Blockstream?   Afaik is run by Michael Perklin who is also a new board member at Bitcoin Foundation

oops you are correct. i was thinking of andreas's involvement with blockchain.com.. (me stupidly thinking it was part of blockstream.com)

so i guess c4 is part of the bitcoin.com & blockchain.com which i assume is still part of TBF powerhouse , rather than blockstream powerhouse

[Gleb Gamow]

Bruce, don't hesitate to link bitcoinfinancialassociation.org found in the OP which redirects to http://bitcoinassociation.org/. We all know that you oversee http://bitcoinassociation.org/ and wouldn't necessarily think lesser of you if you would've made it easier for us by including the actual link to your endeavor.

This post is neither a rip on your character nor satire, the latter barring... it's hard to rip a dude who doesn't make grammatical errors.

[mtnsaa]

If you are implying that regulations are not needed you are fooling yourself. I won't quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman, but really, if Bitcoin will hold such power and become a world's leading method of payments and transactions it will be also be subject to great scrutiny if you will hehe. It's just the way it goes because if not you will have the same problems we have right now with scamming sites, casinos and "investments" opportunities, it's the wild west.

[BruceFenton]

oops you are correct. i was thinking of andreas's involvement with blockchain.com.. (me stupidly thinking it was part of blockstream.com)

so i guess c4 is part of the bitcoin.com & blockchain.com which i assume is still part of TBF powerhouse , rather than blockstream powerhouse

No, haha, I think that's incorrect also.

Bitcoin.com is owned by Roger Ver who I don't think has anything to do with C4 / consortium
Blockchain.com shares a common investor (Roger) with Bitcoin.com but I don't think either of them have anything to do with C4
Andreas was an advisor to both...I don't think he's that active with Blockchain now but I don't know

In any event - I don't think there is much of a tie between them

[BruceFenton]

If you are implying that regulations are not needed you are fooling yourself. I won't quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman, but really, if Bitcoin will hold such power and become a world's leading method of payments and transactions it will be also be subject to great scrutiny if you will hehe. It's just the way it goes because if not you will have the same problems we have right now with scamming sites, casinos and "investments" opportunities, it's the wild west.

This is a very old post that's been bumped to the top.

I think we should have regulations (preferably laws voted on by legislature) for those actions which actually have a victim:  theft, hacking, breech of privacy, fraud etc.

Most regulations today are not made by lawmakers but unelected bureaucrats with little accountability and most of these regulations IMHO do very little to stop bad acts and usually have no bearing on any act with an actual victim.

[BruceFenton]

Bruce, don't hesitate to link bitcoinfinancialassociation.org found in the OP which redirects to http://bitcoinassociation.org/. We all know that you oversee http://bitcoinassociation.org/ and wouldn't necessarily think lesser of you if you would've made it easier for us by including the actual link to your endeavor.

This post is neither a rip on your character nor satire, the latter barring... it's hard to rip a dude who doesn't make grammatical errors.

Bitcoin Financial Association changed its name shortly after launch to Bitcoin Association - partly due to a suggestion on this very thread over a year ago and partly due to a generous donation of the BitcoinAssociation.org domain name by someone also on this very board.