Archive for

“Bitcoiners Are Repeating Forgotten History, and Are Accordingly Doomed”

[Reading Time: 8 minutes]

Interview with Aaron Greenspan, Harvard graduate, original creator of “The Facebook,” payments innovator, and autodidact non-lawyer.  (PART TWO)

Aaron was generous both in his time and in his responses, which led me to split the interview into three parts.  In PART ONE: REGULATION AND INNOVATION IN THE UNITED STATES, Aaron talks about United States money transmission laws and identifies, with uncommon clarity and depth, what he believes to be wrong with them.

Read on for Aaron’s point of view on Bitcoin, preceded by the intro to the first post for the benefit of those who haven’t read it, yet.

Having been a teen tech entrepreneur, during college at Harvard in 2003 Aaron created the predecessor to Facebook, Inc., which also happened to be called “The Facebook.”  In 2009, he entered into a settlement agreement with Facebook, Inc. as well as his classmate Mark Zuckerberg, and then had the opportunity to figure out what he wanted to do next, so he followed a long-standing interest in payment Continue reading →

“US Money Transmission Laws Are Worthless and Unconstitutional”

[Reading Time: 10 minutes]

Interview with Aaron Greenspan, Harvard graduate, original creator of “The Facebook,” payments innovator, and autodidact non-lawyer.  (PART ONE)

Having been a teen tech entrepreneur, during college at Harvard in 2003 Aaron created the predecessor to Facebook, Inc., which also happened to be called “The Facebook.”  In 2009, he entered into a settlement agreement with Facebook, Inc. as well as his classmate Mark Zuckerberg, and then had the opportunity to figure out what he wanted to do next, so he followed a long-standing interest in payment systems and decided to try and tackle mobile payments.  From 2008 through early 2011, he invested essentially every piece of time, energy and capital at his disposal into making his payments initiative, called FaceCash, widely regarded as a success—until he was told that he would be thrown in federal prison by a state bureaucrat.

As you will soon see, to say that Aaron does not mince his words is the understatement of the century, so I am aware of the risks I am taking by presenting his strong point of view here. However, even Continue reading →

2014-09-01 Crypto-Timeline

Here is a log with relevant legal, regulatory, law enforcement and business risk milestones in the race of crypto-currencies to maturity with links to trusted sources.

Quite an uneventful month this past one has been.  The number of crypto-events reached a 13-month low.  Could it be that Bitcoin is finally getting “boring?”

The  Key AUGUST 2014 Crypto-Events were:

• 8/4/14 – France inches closer to Bitcoin regulation
• 8/4/14 – Kyrgyzstan: Bitcoin payments violate state law
• 8/5/14 – Russian Ministry of Finance drafts bill banning Bitcoin
• 8/5/14 – Argentina’s only bitcoin exchange loses its bank accounts
• 8/11/14 – US CFPB now accepting complaints against bitcoin businesses
• 8/14/14 – Singapore head regulator: digital currencies ‘have a role to play’ despite risks
• 8/15/14 – Hackers steal $1.65 million in NXT from BTER exchange
• 8/19/14 – Australia issues guidance on bitcoin taxation
• 8/27/14 – Australian government portal publishes bitcoin business guidelines

Continue reading →