irrevocability

What Would a BitLicense Look Like?

[Reading Time: 7 minutes]

Last November, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a notice communicating its intent to hold a hearing on virtual currencies, with the purposes of reviewing “the interconnection between money transmission regulations and virtual currencies,” and considering “the potential issuance of a BitLicense specific to virtual currency transactions and activities.” The hearings are scheduled to be held on January 28 and 29 in downtown Manhattan.

I thought it would be useful to start a conversation on this topic by offering my experience-based perspective on the New York state licensing and examination process, and by posing a few trigger questions.

By way of background, the reason virtual currencies, New York and licensing appear in the same sentence is that in March of 2013, the United States federal government issued guidance equating virtual currency exchangers and administrators with money transmitters, a category of non-depository financial institution that in the United States, to the chagrin of crypto-preneurs worldwide, is subject to licensure by individual states.  Licensing is intended to subject industry participants to a supervisory authority primarily for purposes of Continue reading →

The Hidden Rule that Could Kill Bitcoin’s Irrevocability

[Reading Time: 5 minutes]

If federal anti-money laundering rules ‘killed’ Bitcoin’s anonymity, could consumer protection rules ‘kill’ its irrevocability?

Last March, the crypto-currency world was struck dumb when the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the United States federal agency responsible for enforcing anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulations, issued the now famous interpretive guidance equating exchangers and administrators of ‘convertible virtual currencies’ to money transmitters.

Although some of us saw it coming, crypto-preneurs are just now slowly waking up to the reality of what it really means to be this particular species of non-bank financial institution.  See the final section for a compendium of risks and obligations.

One set of regulations that I included in the laundry list of obligations last April but has yet to come to the fore are the federal consumer protection rules emanating from the Dodd-Frank Act and being enforced by the Continue reading →