Robot chicken star wars luke gas station
39 comments
Btc e trading bot github
More than a decade ago, regulators nearly suffocated PayPal. At least three exchanges in the U. That agency has emerged as the top threat, at least in in the United States, to the decentralized Bitcoin network — moreso than the widely reported price volatility and hacker attacks. Speaking recently on The Daily Bitcoin podcast with Adam Levine, Jansen expressed surprise at how little focus bitcoin business leaders are putting on Fincen, especially considering how regulators thwarted earlier emerging payment systems like PayPal and e-gold.
PayPal obviously survived and prospered — but only after selling itself to eBay and agreeing to put restrictions on its service. E-gold was not so fortunate. And, what we've got now is a Fincen on steroids without clear restrictions from Congress," Jansen says. The guidance requires certain intermediaries that handle virtual currency to register with Fincen as money services businesses, which entails recordkeeping and reporting responsibilities.
And it says some of those businesses may additionally be money transmitters, which would mean fingerprinting of directors and officers and compliance with a patchwork of state licensing requirements. Jansen postulates that the recent Fincen virtual currency guidance was issued ex post facto as a way to set the stage for potential prosecutions in the future. We knew that these guidelines and these prosecutions were in the works even last Congress.
Ron Paul was the chairman of the House subcommittee that had jurisdiction over Fincen and he never had a single hearing on this. In a recent speech , Fincen Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said the new guidance aims "to protect [digitial currency] systems from abuse and to aid law enforcement in ensuring that they are getting the leads and information they need to prosecute the criminal actors.
But by saddling startups with compliance requirements, and making them unattractive clients for regulated banks that despair of serving MSBs, Fincen is choking these businesses that facilitate conversion of bitcoins into dollars.
On March 20 — just two days after the guidance from Fincen came out — the bitcoin exchanger bitme. Bitme was a relatively small operation, but it was widely suspected among bitcoin users in online forums that this closure resulted from difficulties related to potential regulatory compliance.
BTC Buy, another bitcoin exchange site, suspended services and closed permanently in early April, specifically citing the legal uncertainty brought up by the Fincen guidance. Most recently, the largest bitcoin exchange to halt trading was Bitfloor, run by Roman Shtylman, who blamed "circumstances outside of our control. In this case, the regulatory guidance may have had an indirect effect. Bitfloor was registered with Fincen as an MSB but was not licensed as a state money transmitter.
Shtylman surmised that Capital One had judged his business to be "not worth the risk. Across the Atlantic and presumably unrelated to Fincen, Poland-based Bitcoin suspended trading after the government there froze its bank account. It reportedly did so because a bank in Germany complained of compromised accounts transferring stolen money without identification to Bitcoin TransferWise had mostly been servicing customers in the U.
It will be interesting to watch how Fincen intends to treat one-way, fixed-rate brokers that either buy or sell bitcoin at a fixed price.
Since a two-way exchange market is not involved it could be seen as merely a typical commodity purchase or sale. The two businesses function independently of each other and neither is technically an exchange. Bitcoins Direct is frequently closed to new clients and its cash deposit feature was recently cancelled.
The fact that bitcoin survives at all with so many powerful forces lined up against it is a testament to its resiliency and tenacity.
Now, in addition to the vicious press coverage and persistent denial of service attacks on exchanges, the emerging cryptographic money has to contend with onerous and targeted regulation. With respect to bitcoin and financial regulation, Jansen warns: Not in the U. But jurisdictional competition will kick in and overseas exchanges will gain market share and liquidity. They just may not have U.
Jon Matonis is an e-money researcher and crypto economist focused on expanding the circulation of nonpolitical digital currencies. Currently, he serves on the board of the Bitcoin Foundation. Article Underwriting self-employed borrowers Freddie Mac helps lenders to better serve this expanding market segment. Partner Insights Sponsor Content From: Comment Start the Conversation, Login. Like what you see?
Make sure you're getting it all Independent and authoritative analysis and perspective for the banking industry.