We're under attack

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think it's time to let Banks to do Bitcoin exchange business.

Um nobody every prohibited any bank from exchanging bitcoins.  They never will.  Ever.  Not unless Bitcoin is already accepted by the masses.  Bitcoin is potentially (not in its current implementation but in its potential for "someday") the greatest threat banks have ever faced.  It makes them mostly obsolete and cuts them out of the trillion dollar business of collecting fees from people to "let" them spend their own money.

Banks will fight to the bloody end to kill, minimize, and disrupt Bitcoin.  When a major bank offers Bitcoin exchange service it means they have already lost.  Bitcoin has become the dominant method of global payment and continuing to fight Bitcoin is simply futile.

Until that day happens (if ever) the banks will NEVER support Bitcoin (or any alternative which undermines their very existence).

[finway]

I think it's time to let Banks to do Bitcoin exchange business.

Um nobody every prohibited any bank from exchanging bitcoins.  They never will.  Ever.  Not unless Bitcoin is already accepted by the masses.  Bitcoin is potentially (not in its current implementation but in its potential for "someday") the greatest threat banks have ever faced.  It makes them mostly obsolete and cuts them out of the trillion dollar business of collecting fees from people to "let" them spend their own money.

Banks will fight to the bloody end to kill, minimize, and disrupt Bitcoin.  When a major bank offers Bitcoin exchange service it means they have already lost.  Bitcoin has become the dominant method of global payment and continuing to fight Bitcoin is simply futile.

Until that day happens (if ever) the banks will NEVER support Bitcoin (or any alternative which undermines their very existence).

No, that's not true, when fiat money is not invented, when gold and silver is the popular money , how does banks work?   
it'll  work  mostly same way with Bitcoin.

[the founder]

I know it's not simple but what stops you guys to get licensed as a financial institution to be able to have other people deposit/withdraw funds from your accounts?

In laymen's terms..  the license is rigged.    No one here would qualify...  even if they did qualify.

[DeathAndTaxes]

No, that's not true, when fiat money is not invented, when gold and silver is the popular money , how does banks work?   
it'll  work  mostly same way with Bitcoin.

Banking profits are beyond obscence and many magnitudes higher than prior to fiat currencies.  In the US banks now make more money from fees than from actual banking (taking deposits and making loans).  Banking power has slowly become more and more centralized.  The top 4 banks in the US control 70% of all deposits. 

While banks may exist if Bitcoin became mainstream the cenentralized nature of Bitcoin means banks would lose the ability to pass every increasing bogus fees onto consumers in an attempt to be an prasitic siphon of wealth from the general economy. 

Sure banks will exist but they will be much less powerful and much less profitable under global Bitcoin scenario. 
No bank will willingly support Bitcoin.   It would be like a bank saying.  "We are voting to give ourselves less power and profits over the next 20 years".

If a bank every supports Bitcoin it means they already lost.  There is no reason for them to support Bitcoin.  They have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

[becoin]

I think it's time to let Banks to do Bitcoin exchange business.

Um nobody every prohibited any bank from exchanging bitcoins.  They never will.  Ever.  Not unless Bitcoin is already accepted by the masses.  Bitcoin is potentially (not in its current implementation but in its potential for "someday") the greatest threat banks have ever faced.  It makes them mostly obsolete and cuts them out of the trillion dollar business of collecting fees from people to "let" them spend their own money.

Banks will fight to the bloody end to kill, minimize, and disrupt Bitcoin.  When a major bank offers Bitcoin exchange service it means they have already lost.  Bitcoin has become the dominant method of global payment and continuing to fight Bitcoin is simply futile.

Until that day happens (if ever) the banks will NEVER support Bitcoin (or any alternative which undermines their very existence).

No, that's not true...

Unfortunately, DeathAndTaxes is absolutely right!

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

I know it's not simple but what stops you guys to get licensed as a financial institution to be able to have other people deposit/withdraw funds from your accounts?

We've been trying this for months and months already. It's been our main goal from day 1.

Have you considered other countries?
Forget about England or EU, that's not going to happen... but maybe Switzerland? Liechtenstein? Panama?

[Serge]

I know it's not simple but what stops you guys to get licensed as a financial institution to be able to have other people deposit/withdraw funds from your accounts?

In laymen's terms..  the license is rigged.    No one here would qualify...  even if they did qualify.

I don't believe that until I guess it comes with solid 100% proof that it's the case.
We can try rationalize their hidden motives all we want, but there are strict rules and regulations to follow in order to operate with other people's money,  either you can comply with that or you can't.

[P4man]

No bank will willingly support Bitcoin.  

Id like to qualify that statement; no traditional western bank. As I understand it, bitcoin seems rather compatible with islamic banking, and a a few small western non traditional interest free banks might be interested too. Like this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAK_Members_Bank

Im sure there are similar institutions in many countries.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

I don't believe that until I guess it comes with solid 100% proof that it's the case.
We can try rationalize their hidden motives all we want, but there are strict rules and regulations to follow in order to operate with other people's money,  either you can comply with that or you can't.

hehehe

Man, accept it. State regulations exist to block competition. That's their main purpose. The financial sector is probably the most regulated of all economic sectors, no wonder why you don't see new banks being created very frequently - and yet, that's what would normally happen in any economic sector in which profits are so high... more and more people should get in to try to have some of these profits.

[Serge]

Guys, you are hilarious to some degree

no bank will talk to you (support you) weather you are doing bitcoin exchange or wanting to run something like paypal does without being properly licensed to handle other people's money.
same thing as you can't buy a car put a taxi sign and start making money that way without getting taxi licence first, at least in civilized countries .


the commodity we are trading isn't particular interest to finance establishment yet nor it's something they care about, they won't be able to prevent you when you get proper permissions to handle others money and facilitate exchanges between accounts. in this regard everyone has to follow same rules.

[cypherdoc]

I think it's time to let Banks to do Bitcoin exchange business.

Um nobody every prohibited any bank from exchanging bitcoins.  They never will.  Ever.  Not unless Bitcoin is already accepted by the masses.  Bitcoin is potentially (not in its current implementation but in its potential for "someday") the greatest threat banks have ever faced.  It makes them mostly obsolete and cuts them out of the trillion dollar business of collecting fees from people to "let" them spend their own money.

Banks will fight to the bloody end to kill, minimize, and disrupt Bitcoin.  When a major bank offers Bitcoin exchange service it means they have already lost.  Bitcoin has become the dominant method of global payment and continuing to fight Bitcoin is simply futile.

Until that day happens (if ever) the banks will NEVER support Bitcoin (or any alternative which undermines their very existence).

this is true.  Genjix, you are better off devoting your time and energy on developing Bitcoin and ways to get around the current system.

[thisisgil]

We don't have any problems getting DialCoins to our clients because we don't use banks!

I don't know if that helps you guys...

Well, seeing as I just looked at your site, and you appear to be selling 0.6BTC for £5 ($7.99), I'd say no, it really doesn't help "us guys".

[robocop]

Don't speculate with bitcoins but invest in bitcoins by P-2-P exchanges like as bitmarket.eu.
It is not for big trades or for speculation but i understand the bitcoin as an investment and alternative currency without the trading to win USD EUR or other fiat money.

I think thats one of the reason that a lot of guys dont have trust in  bitcoin. Too much guys see the bitcoin as an trading object and too less guys buy hold and use the bitcoins.

But i'm sure that the bitcoin will go the way to sucess because there is no better alternative to banks-dominating fiat money.

[bracek]

genjix, I sent you PM and you didn't reply,

for the love of bitcoin, you could at least try to listen what I had to say...

[genjix]

genjix, I sent you PM and you didn't reply,

for the love of bitcoin, you could at least try to listen what I had to say...

Sorry, I didn't see your PM as it isn't very obvious when you have new messages. Answering now.

[Nagle]

Gotta agree here.  This has little to do with Bitcoin per se and everything to do with offering financial services without the appropriate licences.  You accept and hold user deposits or transmit funds between users and you're going to need a licence - even if you're accepting those funds so people can trade Beanie Babies.  People have been bringing this issue up for months and the response of the exchanges has tended to be that they don't need a licence because...Bitcoins.

Exactly. As I pointed out months ago, MtGox should be licensed as a money transfer firm in Japan, and audited by the Financial Services Agency. The regulations aren't that severe; they were revised a few years ago to encourage Internet and phone-based payment systems.  However, they do require that customer funds be kept in a separate account, and that gets audited.  They also require identity checks of key employees, which means that taking the money and disappearing is no longer an option.

MtGox is subject to Financial Services Agency regulation even if they didn't register.  At some point, this will probably bite them.

[repentance]

I know it's not simple but what stops you guys to get licensed as a financial institution to be able to have other people deposit/withdraw funds from your accounts?

In laymen's terms..  the license is rigged.    No one here would qualify...  even if they did qualify.

The real problem is that no Bitcoin exchange is going to have a moat.  Jessy Kang explained it well in regard to the adult services industry, but the same principles apply here.  Because there's nothing unique about Bitcoin exchanges, if Bitcoin ever became widely adopted and the masses were screaming to be able to use it in every day life, it would be a trivial matter for large financial service providers to open their own Bitcoin exchanges and integrate them with their existing services.  Adding Bitcoin to existing infrastructures would be a trivial expense for them whereas creating the same kind of infrastructure as modern banking uses is a huge financial challenge for Bitcoin exchanges.

While I don't really knock the exchanges for trying to avoid the costs associated with regulatory compliance as long as possible, they should always have had a contingency plan and been preparing for the day when they would have to become compliant.  If their businesses were only viable for as long as they weren't being forced to comply with general financial services regulations, then they were doomed to fail anyway.

[bracek]

We don't have any problems getting DialCoins to our clients because we don't use banks!


please, enable it for Croatia

[P4man]

If their businesses were only viable for as long as they weren't being forced to comply with general financial services regulations, then they were doomed to fail anyway.

Of course that depends not on their business model, but completely on how much revenue they could generate. Such compliance likely isnt cheap and therefore this is a perfect illustration of my point: bitcoin simply isnt ready for this. The economy is way too small and we have way too many exchanges and other speculation tools (and too many speculators (ab)using them)  for what is mostly still a nonexisting economy.

Speculation is helpful if it helps predict, hedge and stabilize a real economy, its devastating when the speculation  becomes bigger than the economy itself, as speculation becomes about predicting speculation rather than the underlying economy. As a results its a casino with non stop bubbles and bursts with little or no relationship to any underlying fundamentals, and that is putting a great brake on bitcoin's acceptance as anything other than a casino chip.  Its a catch 22, because this extreme volatility attracts the gamblers.

If rulings such as these help turn back that clock and help to limit bitcoin's purpose again to being a tool to conduct trade, even if its just peer to peer trade of second hand goods, thats perfect for me. Let the economy grow, and only once its big enough to support these kinds of (regulated) financial service companies, then these companies can also serve a constructive role rather than providing the tools with which the fools destroy bitcoin.

[repentance]

If their businesses were only viable for as long as they weren't being forced to comply with general financial services regulations, then they were doomed to fail anyway.

Of course that depends not on their business model, but completely on how much revenue they could generate. Such compliance likely isnt cheap and therefore this is a perfect illustration of my point: bitcoin simply isnt ready for this. The economy is way too small and we have way too many exchanges and other speculation tools (and too many speculators (ab)using them)  for what is mostly still a nonexisting economy.

I  largely agree with you on that.  I doubt that any of the exchanges which existed before the Bitcoin bubble had planned for such rapid growth.  They probably weren't capitalised for it and so are entirely dependent on revenues to fund it (they could raise outside capital, but that's another story).

There's no excuse for new exchanges to have the same issues though. It's ridiculous to start a new exchange now without enough starting capital to fund proper security, regulatory compliance, etc - such ventures deserve to fail.  I'm not suggesting that it would be cheap - on the contrary, I'd expect any new exchange to have a minimum of several hundred thousand dollars in start-up capital - but it's crazy to start an exchange on a wing and a prayer now and simply hope that revenues will cover both your initial investment plus your ongoing costs.