Bitcoin's age of legal competence

[Bialke]

In my country (Germany) it is not legal to do business with children in the age 0 to 18.

From 0 to 7 it is forbidden, and from 7 to 18 there are some minor differences, But overall and away from everyday life things, in Germany it is not allowed to sell children (age 11, 12, 13) and young people (age 14, 15) bigger things. For example, if I want to sell a television set to a 13 years old person, it is not allowed and I have to give back the money the 13 years old was paying me for the TV set.

In the case a 13 year old is selling me something with Bitcoin, it is easy to handle. I get the TV set back (from my example) back, and I have to pay back the Bitcoin or the money therefor (at the market price).

But my question or my reason to discuss:

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

[jackg]

You can't mine with bitcoin core. You'd have to purchase or rent electricity and hardware which could be refunded the same way (from the conpany they bought them off).

Can children under 18 work there and be paid?.if so that's probably how a lot of ways to come across crypto are treated.

I'm from the UK and started here when I was about 14, it was hard to get crypto aside from using faucets and then my sig space on here because of the restrictions (I merely wanted to test how it worked). We don't have the same restrictions on buying things though, I remember first using a debit card when I was 13 to buy a game for my DS.

Can children purchase things from abroad there, how is that handled?

[zasad@]

In my country (Germany) it is not legal to do business with children in the age 0 to 18.

From 0 to 7 it is forbidden, and from 7 to 18 there are some minor differences, But overall and away from everyday life things, in Germany it is not allowed to sell children (age 11, 12, 13) and young people (age 14, 15) bigger things. For example, if I want to sell a television set to a 13 years old person, it is not allowed and I have to give back the money the 13 years old was paying me for the TV set.

In the case a 13 year old is selling me something with Bitcoin, it is easy to handle. I get the TV set back (from my example) back, and I have to pay back the Bitcoin or the money therefor (at the market price).

But my question or my reason to discuss:

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

Do not worry about my criticism, but I wonder if everyone in your country follows stupid laws?
I understand the ban on the sale of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, weapons to children, why TV? Can't he take it home?
There are no age restrictions for mining and for using bitcoin.
My 5 year old has a debit card in Russia. He can go to the store's website and order TV for home delivery.

[HeRetiK]

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Why would it be illegal for a 13 year old child to mine BTC in Germany?

Mining coins may generate income, but I doubt that it counts as labour as defined by the Jugendarbeitsschutzgesetz. A child receiving interest on its savings account is also legal, isn't it? Except that of course the child probably can't access the money without their parents consent until it is old enough.

There's also no legal contract in place, so the child's Geschäftsfähigkeit being limited isn't really relevant either. One could argue that using a mining pool under the age of 13 is problematic since they can't legally agree to the ToS without a parents consent but that's true for every website and App these days and has nothing to do with mining itself. The amount of children watching YouTube videos or installing Apps on their phones without their parents oversight is probably a couple of magnitudes larger than the amount of kids that try to sign up for a mining pool.

[LoyceMobile]

If you don't want your kids to mine Bitcoin, don't let them have a mining rig.

[HeRetiK]

If you don't want your kids to mine Bitcoin, don't let them have a mining rig.

That sounds a bit like a 90s PSA 

"You wouldn't download a bank!"

[zasad@]

If you don't want your kids to mine Bitcoin, don't let them have a mining rig.

When the amount in the electricity bill grows, then you should start worrying about mining. As a rule, when a child uses his PC for mining, the parents pay for his expenses. For a child, this is a 100% way to make money. But maybe then the child will achieve great success in mining.

[joniboini]

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

I've never heard of an app with something like that even outside of crypto. Even a gambling app will just notify you that you need to be 18 years old or something to use it. Sure, they can use KYC to filter out their users, but why would you expect something similar on mining software?

At best it would be just a notice as mentioned above (which is never gonna be effective), at it worst they'd need you to face cam or do something similar to see if you're really 18+ years old or not. I doubt that would be popular. Legality aside, I believe the dev would rather spend their time improving some bugs or adding new features to the network. Heck, I doubt they'd even care if a 5-year-old mine some sats on his papa's computer at home.

[dansus021]

If you don't want your kids to mine Bitcoin, don't let them have a mining rig.

Very Simple yet very true 

what LoyceMobile was right don't let them have a mining rig or if you find there is children sell to you bitcoin don't buy it if you care about legal

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

and I don't think there is a statistic about how many coins were mined by children or I don't even have no idea if there is a "mining protection"

It might illegal to mine bitcoin in Germany especially if you were kid but there is actually lot of kid that do crypto and mining on youtube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kid+mining+bitcoin

[Husires]

This legislation is strange in the sense that how can you know the age of a 15-year-old from an 18-year-old? Does Bitcoin fall under the items that are legally prohibited to be sold to children?
Germany is one of the countries that legalized Bitcoin a long time ago, and I did not find articles talking about problems related to buying children.
Bitcoin mining is also not a simple thing that a child can do, let alone find a place, pay electricity bills, buy mining hardware, save money for it and overcome the hype.

Refunds can be made in Bitcoin.

[$$Atik$$]

Bitcoin is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, permanent, and decentralized ledger. In order to add to the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger. The protocol specifies that the entry indicates an amount of a token, bitcoin with a minuscule

[Kryptowerk]

In my country (Germany) it is not legal to do business with children in the age 0 to 18.

From 0 to 7 it is forbidden, and from 7 to 18 there are some minor differences, But overall and away from everyday life things, in Germany it is not allowed to sell children (age 11, 12, 13) and young people (age 14, 15) bigger things. For example, if I want to sell a television set to a 13 years old person, it is not allowed and I have to give back the money the 13 years old was paying me for the TV set.

In the case a 13 year old is selling me something with Bitcoin, it is easy to handle. I get the TV set back (from my example) back, and I have to pay back the Bitcoin or the money therefor (at the market price).

But my question or my reason to discuss:

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

The same way a kid can go to a river in the German alps to sip through stones and sand for some dust of gold, he/she can try mining on their laptop or gaming rig / whatever. What should be illegal about any of these activities? Does it need specific protection? I don't think so.
Keep in mind, without the right (expensive and hard-to-get) ASIC hardware you will pay 10000x or more for energy consumption vs. the returns of your mining efforts.
With current consumer-prices for energy in Germany I doubt it's even possible to stay net-positive if you own some of the latest ASICs.

Regarding ETH/similar mining with graphic cards, it could be possible to earn a few bucks per month. But probably any newspaper-distribution-job once a week will be more lucrative for any teen unless they could afford 10 or more of the latest graphic cards.
All in all I don't really get what you are concerned about. Legally and child-protective-wise... Nothing to worry about here. 

[karmamiu]

You can't mine with bitcoin core. You'd have to purchase or rent electricity and hardware which could be refunded the same way (from the conpany they bought them off).

Can children under 18 work there and be paid?.if so that's probably how a lot of ways to come across crypto are treated.

I'm from the UK and started here when I was about 14, it was hard to get crypto aside from using faucets and then my sig space on here because of the restrictions (I merely wanted to test how it worked). We don't have the same restrictions on buying things though, I remember first using a debit card when I was 13 to buy a game for my DS.

Can children purchase things from abroad there, how is that handled?

Same here, I started using faucets when I was merely 16 yrs. old out of curiosity. Here in my country too, it is forbidden to do transactions below 18 years old. I remembered using my mother's bank account way back years ago to receive the money I earned working here on signature campaigns. IDK from other countries but, as what I have noticed from today's world is that, mobile phones are easily accessible for teens nowadays, so I think some are already doing transactions with minors.

[noorman0]

There is no imagining what kind of risks are trying to protect against bitcoin mining for children. Now reading that there is such a law that applies that counts as a business, and that is Germany. So what if the mining activity involves adults (at least to supervise)?
Sorry to say, I thought Germany would be more supportive of business activities if it was done by children.

[goldkingcoiner]

In my country (Germany) it is not legal to do business with children in the age 0 to 18.

From 0 to 7 it is forbidden, and from 7 to 18 there are some minor differences, But overall and away from everyday life things, in Germany it is not allowed to sell children (age 11, 12, 13) and young people (age 14, 15) bigger things. For example, if I want to sell a television set to a 13 years old person, it is not allowed and I have to give back the money the 13 years old was paying me for the TV set.

In the case a 13 year old is selling me something with Bitcoin, it is easy to handle. I get the TV set back (from my example) back, and I have to pay back the Bitcoin or the money therefor (at the market price).

But my question or my reason to discuss:

If a 13 year old children is mining BTC this is not allowed in Germany. The question of the hour is, not just for Bitcoin - for all POW coins: How to protect chuldren from mining coins? Is there a statistic about how many coins (BTC) were mined by children or persons under 18 years? And how to compensate this unlawful behavior?

Is there a mining protection for children on the Bitcoin core?

its impossible to stop children from mining Bitcoin as that would have to fall under the responsibility of the parents. And lets face it, most parents are not responsible. One thing that the government can do (And does) is reinforce KYC (Know-Your-Customer) identity checks. But that otherwise pointless identity check will not stop the child from selling its Bitcoin. It could sell it in many various ways which the government cannot see or control. It could trade in the coin for an item. So it does not have to be limited to fiat.

So fortunately, these kids will learn the struggle of obtaining Bitcoin and the pain of losing them. If you ask me, I think its best to let life teach them how to handle money.
Every mistake is an educational fee.

[Bialke]

There is no imagining what kind of risks are trying to protect against bitcoin mining for children.

Instead of playing a kid could sell all the playthings and did not mine anything or just a little bit. So no plaything, depressed child. The child could make a fortune but can not see the tax rules.

But really? Do you let a child buy a house? Or let you work your child at uncles factory? (Just doing the computer stuff.)

Now reading that there is such a law that applies that counts as a business, and that is Germany. So what if the mining activity involves adults (at least to supervise)?

Child labor (under 13) and business with childs (under 7) are forbidden or (under 14) forbidden without the allowance of the parents AND just in (tiny) amounts of the pocket money in Germany. (With some tiny exceptions.)

The laws are:

- Kinderarbeitsschutzverordnung (KindArbSCHV): https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kindarbschv/ (law against child labor)
- Jugendarbeitsschutzgesetz (JArbSchG): https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/jarbschg/ (law against child labor)
- Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB): https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/ (paragraphs about legal competence, f.E. §104 BGB)

The same way a kid can go to a river in the German alps to sip through stones and sand for some dust of gold

In Germany it is forbidden. // As a game yes, it is not forbidden. But as a work or as a business it is not allowed!

[noorman0]

-snip-
But really? Do you let a child buy a house? Or let you work your child at uncles factory? (Just doing the computer stuff.)

My government has several welfare programs for the population but in practice they don't quite reach all layers, so I am used to seeing children work as laborers because of economic demands.
Speaking of legal issues, this is permissible as long as there is no high risk in terms of physical and psychological health, as well as several other requirements. The rules also stipulate that children are not allowed to operate hazardous equipment (including electrical). It is somewhat ambiguous whether bitcoin mining falls into the category of electrical equipment because in practice the risks associated with electricity are minimal. I just found this news.

Moreover, no legal action against a child's legal-business(in a general sense) is based on one's own initiative.