What's the "first decision from a Central Bank, positive" ?

[finway]

Don't know if you guys noticed this. What's the "first decision from a Central Bank, positive"?

France wasn't the first. Holding depo's was already in 'the books'.

The first decision from a Central Bank was made a few weeks ago. Everyone will find out in a public release within 3 to 5 weeks.

Its positive.

One country in Europe has 'classified' Bitcoin. Other countries will follow, albiet slowly.

Blah!

And this guy's from tradehill.

Hi,

I hope all is well with you.

This is Adam Stradling, one of the co-founders at Tradehill.

In the past, we have used Jered's account to communicate on the forums. I have created my own account for Tradehill related items and seperate account for personal commentaries.

Can I get whitelisted?

For TH posts - username: Adam S (TradeHill)

For Personal posts - this account - username: tetra4c

Thanks again!

Regards,

Adam

[finway]

@tetra4c

Well, I know a Central Bank that made a decision on classifying Bitcoin two months ago. And I share the impression that other countries will slowly follow that. After being unhappy about that decision in the beginning I am now seeing it as "positive" for the Bitcoin community in the medium to long run.

From the grounds in the statement I conclude that the intention is protecting the persons investing money in Bitcoin from too naive exchange or wallet operators (which I agree is good for the evolution of Bitcoin in the long run). But along with that classification come a lot of requirements on possible exchange / wallet operators. (I am only talking about requirements that come on top of the PSD requirements you would already have from the money transfer business.) With a reasonable lawyer or reasonable skills it is at least possible to circumvent the banking requirement (and thus it is no "game over" decision) but it is nonetheless a hefty pile of additional requirements...

That decision should become public any day now.


Cheers
txcoin

[tvbcof]

It would not surprise me greatly if regulators decided to try to group Bitcoin with other non-state-sponsored 'chips'.  Probably with some hope of eventually being able to manage it in some manner, and that might be vaguely practical if/when an 'internet passport' is required to legally send and receive TCP/IP packets.  At least having some legacy of demanding authority over the Bitcoin system would be more helpful than not.

Of more immediate interest is, if Bitcoin is deemed to be under quasi-legal status, whether the various thefts would be subject to more active official investigation and whether the thieves will be at all protected by ex-post-facto principles if so.

Seems to me that a fair amount of value from these thefts has probably passed through the exchanges which seem to be rapidly adapting to the standards of the financial world.  And most likely an even bigger value (or at least BTC count) probably reside under control of these exchanges.  I'll look forward with morbid fascination to how all of this evolves.

[fellowtraveler]

Of more immediate interest is, if Bitcoin is deemed to be under quasi-legal status, whether the various thefts would be subject to more active official investigation

"Go on down to the station and I'm sure they'll be happy to take your report."

[tvbcof]

Of more immediate interest is, if Bitcoin is deemed to be under quasi-legal status, whether the various thefts would be subject to more active official investigation

"Go on down to the station and I'm sure they'll be happy to take your report."

I've got nothing to report.  As far as I'm concerned, having enough BTC stolen to worry about it means one is borderline retarded from the standpoint of understanding computers and financial matters, or it means that one is just lazy.  But most people are borderline retarded in some combination of these areas which is why I don't think that most people should mess around with Bitcoin at this time.

On the other hand, a lot of the thefts are probably pretty easy to solve with appropriate forensics.  A thief would have to be both a computer and financial genius to get away with things (and cash out) if anyone were paying attention.  What I think would be fantastic would be if sometime before the statute of limitations is up, it becomes a really big deal to steal Bitcoin and very significant punishment is dished out.  It would be very satisfying to me if 'Tom Williams' found himself in one of Canada's most unpleasant prisons because he got a little greedy and hurried trying to cash out to early.  And after having gone through a period of thinking he got away with it.

[the founder]

Well honestly I am all ears on this one,  because it most likely will have profound repercussions for mt.gox, tradehill, campbx and flexcoin in terms of compliance.