Everyone is a victim not just the Gox customers

[leopard2]

Unfortunately bitcoin and all alt currencies in general are fighting an uphill battle against corruption/fraud/scams within its own community.  Forget about governments or government regulation.  There's enough scams and corruption on any btc or alt coin forum/website to make a grown man paranoid to the point of schizophrenia. 

Absolutely.

So no.  I don't place the blame on governments. 

Well, you should.

Just ask yourself the question, why are there so few exchanges that accept money worldwide, from US and non-US people? It is easy to acccept  SEPA, Swift and national transfers and send out BTC. A 12 year old can do that. It is not the technology, it is the aggression from governments, mainly USG, that stops entrepreneurs from doing that. They are afraid that one day, they will be kidnapped and abducted to the USA and spend 20 years in prison for a crimeless crime, even if they operated from a foreign country.

Or shops that accept cash and send you BTC, right away? Cash for BTC is 100% safe, all that is needed (technically) is a cash checker.

In theory there is nothing difficult about renting a small shop and doing that, then expanding to other locations to start a chain of cash-to-btc cafes. But sure enough, AML and KYC horrors will stop anyone from doing that as well.

There are BTC ATM's but even those require ID, fingerprints and so on - again that is not a technical requirement at all, technically all is needed is a cash checker and a bitcoin address.

If anonymous BTC ATM's would be everywhere, that alone would reduce scam dramatically. Only real cash for real btc, without the need for risky unknown counterparties or complicated AML procedures at an exchange.

What is holding BTC back today, is 10% private scammers and 90% government scammers IMHO 

[1714789657]

1714789657

[BittBurger]

exchanges just like Gox that would let us trade in USD and withdraw the USD

Huh???   Nobody is withdrawing in USD from Gox here in the USA.   Nobody has been for months, and months.  At least not without waiting months and months to get their money.  Its hardly the exchange that the USA has been using.  Totally dead opposite in fact.  What are you talking about?

we wouldn't rely so heavily on gox.

Who is relying heavily on Gox?  ??   Definitely not "we"  (USA).  They had their US bank accounts frozen 9 months ago.

Gox has only been repeatedly referenced in the media because their price is always the highest, and its fun to say "BTC is worth $1100!" when its actually trading at 900 on all the other exchanges.

it was the only exchange that attracted all the big investors

Huh??

The big investors (wall street, etc) have used SecondMarket and exchanges like CoinBase in the USA.  

The big investors in China used BTC-China.

Man ... your information is so way off in so many ways.

:-/

-B-

[LilGhost]

... A reasonable limit...

with this statement you are establishing regulations. You may not mean it intentionally, but you're calling for no regulations and then contradicting your original petition by saying this should be a rule. While I do agree that regulations should be toned down, I just wanted to point out this issue that I noticed.

[eurotalker]

.. [...] ..

Law enforcement? Military? Public education? Health care? Public goods? etc.

Who needs them? .. [...] ..

That's a bit of a philosophic question, but..

But isn't that a bit of a misconception?
To think that without law enforcement or Military people would not defend theirselves?  That without Public education children wouldn't be educated anymore? That without Health Care people could not get treatment for diseases? Without public goods there wouldn't been build any roads or bridges? Or, without money people would not trade any more?

All the things you name are (or should be) to the benefit of people, and controlled by people. But, well ... that is Utopia. It seems. ..  

[leopard2]

... A reasonable limit...

with this statement you are establishing regulations. You may not mean it intentionally, but you're calling for no regulations and then contradicting your original petition by saying this should be a rule. While I do agree that regulations should be toned down, I just wanted to point out this issue that I noticed.

OK maybe I was not clear enough. In many places there is a limit for cash transactions to prevent money laundering. For example in Germany shops can accept up to 10 000 EUR in cash, per day and per customer, without ID. No problem for normal people, but certainly a hurdle for a criminal with a suitcase full of cash 

So the existing limits of that nature (typically $10K or 10K EUR) are fine. A store could take $10 000 from each customer, daily, and convert it into BTC. Trouble is, the legislation and justice system is so hostile against BTC that no one can do that in practice...

Example is that Florida case. AML limit is $10K but the other law really limits cash transactions to $299. Or zero, if the buyer makes a dumb joke. Not cool...

[smoothie]

Victim mentality = Entitlement mentality.

[eurotalker]

.. to prevent money laundering. ..

Just one question? How could someone launder digital money? I can not think of any way.
If not possible, there is no need for regulation to prevent it, right?

[flipstyle]

Unfortunately bitcoin and all alt currencies in general are fighting an uphill battle against corruption/fraud/scams within its own community.  Forget about governments or government regulation.  There's enough scams and corruption on any btc or alt coin forum/website to make a grown man paranoid to the point of schizophrenia.  

Absolutely.

So no.  I don't place the blame on governments.  

Well, you should.

Just ask yourself the question, why are there so few exchanges that accept money worldwide, from US and non-US people? It is easy to acccept  SEPA, Swift and national transfers and send out BTC. A 12 year old can do that. It is not the technology, it is the aggression from governments, mainly USG, that stops entrepreneurs from doing that. They are afraid that one day, they will be kidnapped and abducted to the USA and spend 20 years in prison for a crimeless crime, even if they operated from a foreign country.

Or shops that accept cash and send you BTC, right away? Cash for BTC is 100% safe, all that is needed (technically) is a cash checker.

In theory there is nothing difficult about renting a small shop and doing that, then expanding to other locations to start a chain of cash-to-btc cafes. But sure enough, AML and KYC horrors will stop anyone from doing that as well.

There are BTC ATM's but even those require ID, fingerprints and so on - again that is not a technical requirement at all, technically all is needed is a cash checker and a bitcoin address.

If anonymous BTC ATM's would be everywhere, that alone would reduce scam dramatically. Only real cash for real btc, without the need for risky unknown counterparties or complicated AML procedures at an exchange.

What is holding BTC back today, is 10% private scammers and 90% government scammers IMHO  

Put down the tin foil cap for a sec, bud.

I don't think you truly have a grasp of the situation.

The ONLY reason the government wants to partake in this endeavor, is because people are converting BTC to fiat, and many are not claiming taxable income on their earnings.  You really think any government would be cool with their citizens selling hundreds of millions (and potentially billions) of digital currency for fiat under the books?  You are truly living in a fantasy world.

With regulation comes responsibility.  Right now the BTC world is still basically a huge Silk Road bubble waiting to happen.  The ugly fact of the matter is that a great deal of the bitcoin users are using them for illegal methods or to attain illegal goods/services or simply scamming others out of their hard earned coins (without legal consequence)...and it's not something that is a positive contribution to society.

You can argue up and down about the government and their suppressive illuminati police state measures, but at the end of the day, we all are the ones living on their lands and using their resources.  Some on here may actually claim earnings on their convert btc stakes, but I'd say a good majority don't.  

And until they all do, the government will consider btc and all alts a threat to circumvent the taxation system.

We need a system of controls badly, else what happened with Silk Road and Mt. Gox will ultimately become the norm in this virtual currency world and spell its demise.

[thetruth]

It's better to reduce governments and eliminate their income once and for all. But by just not paying taxes the governments would not shrink. They print the money they need through Central Banks. So they always can hire police or army to impose some regulation or tyranny.

[DaFockBro]

I'm loving all the recent bad news and price dropping.

Hopefully Mtgox completely implodes and we can get some sub-$500 bitcoins!

[justusranvier]

I'll just leave this here:

http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html?m=1

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

While I don't want too much regulation , it's lack of regulation that have allowed so many scam sites and questionable companies operate in the bitcoin field the last few years.  Again I don't want too much regulation, but I've never seen any evidence that allowing something to be the wild wild west would somehow limit the number of bad actors.

While I don't want too much mercury in my body, it's a lack of mercury that has allowed me to catch colds and other infections. Again I don't want to ingest too much mercury, but I've never seen any evidence that allowing my immune system to learn and adapt in Wild West fashion could somehow limit the number of diseases I get.

[igorr]

Countdown is begun,

Tokio/Japan GMT, 23:45
Peking/China  GMT, 22:45

[zeetubes]

"Put down the tin foil cap for a sec, bud.
I don't think you truly have a grasp of the situation."

>>Aha....

"With regulation comes responsibility.  Right now the BTC world is still basically a huge Silk Road bubble waiting to happen.  The ugly fact of the matter is that a great deal of the bitcoin users are using them for illegal methods or to attain illegal goods/services or simply scamming others out of their hard earned coins (without legal consequence)...and it's not something that is a positive contribution to society."

>>No it's the banks (and the government) that are currently exhibiting zero responsibility and scamming others out of their hard earned cash.

"You can argue up and down about the government and their suppressive illuminati police state measures, but at the end of the day, we all are the ones living on their lands and using their resources.

>> No, the government is living on our lands and using our resources. They are supposed to represent the electorate last I heard. That's why they are referred to as Public "Servants."

"We need a system of controls badly, else what happened with Silk Road and Mt. Gox will ultimately become the norm in this virtual currency world and spell its demise."

>> Agree with this. Satoshi solved a major problem but many other exist. Gox is a blight on the bitcoin landscape. Incompetent fucks.

[leopard2]

With regulation comes responsibility.  Right now the BTC world is still basically a huge Silk Road bubble waiting to happen.  The ugly fact of the matter is that a great deal of the bitcoin users are using them for illegal methods or to attain illegal goods/services or simply scamming others out of their hard earned coins (without legal consequence)...and it's not something that is a positive contribution to society.

....

And until they all do, the government will consider btc and all alts a threat to circumvent the taxation system.

Ah stupid me, you are right of course. What a horrific idea, that people spend their own money on what they want, instead of handing it over to the government. Which in turn spends that money to define what people can do with the small rest that has not been stolen from them. Or positive contributions to society such as the NSA 

Now you have noticed that scamming is very popular in the BTC world yet those scammers are hardly arrested; arrested are the honest traders. Simply because those in power are OK with scammers, scammers damage the BTC too.

Again, the scamming is not due to wild west but due to regulations. What is safer? Drawing BTC from an anonymous, public ATM for cash? Or buying BTC from a person you don't know? The problem is that ATM is not permitted.

No one would have to take risks at places like localbitcoins, if regulations would allow banks & others to buy and sell BTC freely.

[leopard2]

but at the end of the day, we all are the ones living on their lands and using their resources.

 

Just noticed that. Have you just timewarped from the Medieval? We are using THEIR resources? Isn't it supposed to be just the other way round in a democracy...unless you think that we are bondslaves, living on our master's land? Wow such royalism    

[compile]

There is no such thing as good government.  The only difference between a monarchy and "democracy", is that people are convinced that their vote means anything. Democracy is still run by the select few that look out for their own interest (or those of friends/family).

How can 2 people in Florida go to prison for money laundering (a very small amount) yet CEO's, government officials, Senators etc just lose their public image and get a slap on the wrist for doing the exact same thing but on a larger scale.

As a Canadian I remember Paul Martin, a person that was elected as Prime Minister.  This person had not paid income tax in Canada for over 20 years because he moved his shipping business to the Caribbean. He stole $250 million dollars, his ships were caught smuggling thousands of tons of cocaine into North America and all he got was his title as Prime minister revoked. If this was an average person they would have faced jail time. Look at what the current Ontario provincial party in power has done. They have stole more then $2.5 billion, and everyone focuses on a mayor that may oray not have a drug problem.

It's time the average citizen on this planet stand up for what is right. The current governments are NOT democracy, it's a republic where those elected do what they want. We need to reform and create true democracy where every piece of law, legislature etc must be voted on by the people and not by the select few who have alterior motives. But the common person can't be bothered by following politics.

Bitcoin trading is no different then trading electronics for cash (kind of). Some speculate that in 10-15 years of you do not have an Engineering or medical/math degree you will not find any work. The stock market is no longer about the performance of a company (look at Apple for example who turns a profit every quarter, yet because they don't reach a certain market target (which is influenced by people not spending money they don't have), their stock price drops, EVEN though they are profitable).

People need to tell their government that they work for them and not the other way around.
  

[Vandroiy]

The OP is correct but missing one detail.

In a world where finance isn't regulated to death, you don't need Bitcoin. Just pick a bank and use it to convert commodities into whatever asset you need to pay with, or vice versa. Bitcoin's only real use is to combat red tape. Without this, it's easily beaten by many other systems, for example a payment processor plus gold exchanges.

That's not to say Bitcoin is a bad idea. It may or may not be a decent weapon against man-made idiocy; time will tell.

[russokai]

yep, and it continues on all levels: cash deposits being restricted = safest method outlawed = excellent for scammers using stolen accounts

Any regulation that creates a victimless crime, makes the world less safe. That is my theory.

Yes very true and well said

[justusranvier]

Bitcoin's only real use is to combat red tape. Without this, it's easily beaten by many other systems, for example a payment processor plus gold exchanges.

Bitcoin provides censorship-resistance (which you mentioned) and also freedom from counterparty risk (which you did not).

Backed currencies fail because you can't trust the people holding the backing to actually perform as promised. On a long enough timescale, the percentage of vaults that start defrauding the holders of their notes by performing undisclosed fractional reserves (a.k.a embezzlement )approaches 100%.