Greetings and salutations Bitcoin community.
With much uncertainty as to how the government will regulate Bitcoins, and as a bootstrapped Bitcoin startup concerned that potential regulatory burdens will be too large to overcome, it behooves us (all) to continue seeking clarifications and guidance as to the requirements we must meet.
Searching the Web leaves you wanting as to how best to structure a FinCEN request. There are probably plenty of Bitcoin startups who could use some clarification regarding their business plans (well, those who have business plans, that is), but might not know the best place to start outside of a high-priced lawyer. Don't know about you but, with limited funds, this startup's hard-pressed to want to spend them on lawyers writing letters to governments that apparently take about 8 months just to respond (
http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/rp/rulings/html/FIN-2014-R001.html). (8 months?! Do they even realize that 8 months is a lifetime when it comes to technology?!)
FinCEN provides a process to make an administrative ruling request (
http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=2440152cb966a4be2bab5b29ecedb5cc&rgn=div5&view=text&node=31:3.1.6.1.2&idno=31#31:3.1.6.1.2.7), titled 31 CFR Part 1010, Subpart G. But that might be risky as it could lead to the imposition of new regulations. (If you are looking for an example request for an administration ruling, you can find one here:
http://cointext.com/fincen-ruling-requested-for-bitcoin-mining.) The first draft of valME's request to FinCEN is posted (
https://valme.io/alpha/c/bitcoin/20qqs/crowdsourcing-a-bitcoin-fincen-request-for-clarification-and-guidance) within our alpha test site (authentication: valme/makeworldbetterplace). It provides an example of how you might go about requesting clarification and guidance. (Apologies in advance if you see something that's still broken.)
The first rule of coding is to reuse. In hopes that some of you might already have been through this process and could offer advice on wording, structure, questions that aren't asked but should be, questions that are asked but shouldn't be, etc., please do chime in. It would be useful for others to start asking the questions in a more formal way.
