anonymity

2013-09-01 Crypto-Timeline

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

The  Key August 2013 Crypto-Events were:

• 8/1/2013 – Tangible Cryptography (FastCash4Bitcoins) suspends Bitcoin-related transactions
• 8/2/2013 – Federal Judge declares Bitcoin a currency
• 8/12/2013 – New York State Department of Financial Services examines virtual currency practices
• 8/12/2013 – New York subpoenas Bitcoin firms in proble on criminal risk
• 8/12/2013 – U.S. Congress starts looking into Bitcoin
• 8/14/2013 – Top US compliance experts and industry players meet in first virtual currencies compliance conference [speakers and some presentations are listed here.]
• 8/15/2013 – Commonwealth Bank closes CoinJar’s business and founders’ personal accounts
• 8/18/2013 – Germany officially recognizes Bitcoin as ‘private money’
• 8/19/2013 – Mercatus Center publishes a Bitcoin Primer for Policymakers, a fine compendium of its Continue reading →

Is Bitcoin Selling its Soul to the State?

[Reading Time: 5 minutes]

This question or some variation of it has actually been posed to me by many virtual currency enthusiasts over the past few months.  It so happens that the financial services regulations applicable to many new virtual currency businesses have been seen as impinging upon the core features that make Bitcoin so innovative and potentially disruptive.

First, the hope for complete anonymity was shattered by the statutory obligation to implement know-your-customer procedures at the currency translation points.  Second, the irrevocability of transactions was dampened by the federal consumer obligation to provide for delayed executions, cancellations and refunds.  Is financial privacy next? 

One of Bitcoin’s most salient and innovative attributes is that its block chain, the public ledger where the entire history of every transaction ever conducted is stored, is publicly viewable by anyone with the right tools.  Given this unique window into their virtual currency wallets, are Bitcoin users not at risk of giving up the right to the private use of a currency that cash affords them today?  I say at risk because it may still be possible to Continue reading →

The End of Bitcoin as We Know It

[Reading Time: 7 minutes]

(Or as hard-core Bitcoiners want it, I should say.)

“U.S. crypto-preneurs who don’t factor in regulation could under-budget their ventures by, at a minimum, a quarter of a million dollars annually.”

Rocky week for the crypto-currency world this past one!  All of the following happened over the course of the last seven to ten days:

• Liberty Reserve (LR) was shut down, and its management indicted and arrested, in what is being described as “the largest money laundering case in U.S. history.”  A short video at the bottom explains how the case went down.
• FinCEN designated LR as entity “of primary money laundering concern,” and proposed a rule to order that all large financial institutions freeze any and all of LR’s assets. Continue reading →