DHS Shuts Down Dwolla Payments To and From Mt. Gox 302
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from BetaBeat:
"The Department of Homeland Security appears to have shut down the ability to use Dwolla, a mobile payment service, to withdraw and deposit money into Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin trading platform. ... A representative for Dwolla told Betabeat that the company is 'not party' to this matter and encourages those with questions to reach out to Mt. Gox or the DHS. 'The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a 'Seizure Warrant' for the funds associated with Mutum Sigillium's Dwolla account (a.k.a. Mt. Gox),' he said. 'In light of the court order, procured by the Department of Homeland Security, Dwolla has ceased all account activities associated with Dwolla services for Mutum Sigillum while Dwolla's holding partner transferred Mutum Sigillium's balance, per the warrant.'"
It's started... (Score:5, Insightful)
The government finally decided to care and used the one achilles heel of BitCoin...conversion to and from dollars. If BitCoin had some innate value, it wouldn't be a problem, but since it's primary use is as an exchange currency for dodging taxes and selling goods on the black market, this change is going to seriously impact the value of the currency.The government can't control BitCoin, but it can control US financial institutions and other companies that need to interact with those financial institutions.
We'll now see how well the BitCoin market can operate as a completely stand-alone entity.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Informative)
Flash-news for you, there are other currencies apart from the $$....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Walmart also has lawyers & lobbyists protecting them.
Re: (Score:3)
Walmart also has lawyers & lobbyists protecting them.
Give it time. There will be lobbyists who advocate for Bitcoin eventually, and there certainly are constituencies involved.
Unfortunately at the moment, most of the people who use Bitcoins are either irrelevant (die-hard libertarians and anarchists) or don't bother even casting their ballot in the first place (many computer nerds and younger people eligible to vote). As a result, the constituents are really pretty much ignored.
Regardless, Bitcoins are trading more than almost any other alternative currency
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you're going to compare BTC to MMO currencies, don't forget Linden Dollars. Those are still kicking somehow.
They're shutting down the exchanges on those, too:
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/05/lindens-no-outside-currency-trading/ [hypergridbusiness.com]
http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2013/05/currency-venues-fight-for-survival/ [hypergridbusiness.com]
Of course, Secondlife still has it's own exchange which can convert into dollars; but will probably be monitored up the wazoo if it continues to exist.
Posting anonymously because I need to get a first life, not karma.
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't you heard? Online poker is on its way back but now the government gets its cut by licensing and taxing it which was what the ban on offshore online poker companies was all about...
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds great to me. I always paid my taxes on online poker winnings anyway. I just want to be able to play a tourney at night every now and again.
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Informative)
You make is sound like unregulated gambling was a good thing. Only an idiot would bet at an unregulated house.
While not all, a good number of the offshore houses WERE regulated in their respective countries. It was just the US government not liking that others were getting a slice of pie and they were going hungry.
Re: (Score:3)
Avoiding bad publicity (Score:2)
I think you're giving them too much credit. The DHS, like the TSA, is a very stimulus-driven organism. More likely they discovered some suspicious activity was utilizing Dwolla with Bitcoin, and decided to break the link between the two. The intelligence community in the US generally avoids bad PR as long as possible.
Which is why the TSA is so beloved of us all, and why none of us cheered when Yukari Mihamae groped the TSA agent back...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/17/yukari-mihamae-61yearold-_n_900969.html [huffingtonpost.com]
The only real surprise in that case is that you can't buy T-shirts with her face on it.
Re:Avoiding bad publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
All anyone needs to know:
I've often wondered why TSA seems so unresponsive to the American public, and this book offered me a plausible explanation. Hawley seems to view TSA almost exclusively as a weapon in the US war against Al Qaeda. When TSA implements policies that seem crazy or ineffective to the rest of us, it doesn't use outside opinions to judge the effectiveness of its policies. Instead it uses information gathered from the intelligence community unavailable to outsiders. A policy change is considered effective if Al Qaeda reacts in a desirable way. For example, if a TSA operation deploys VIPR teams at public transportation centers and suspected Al Qaeda operatives leave the US afterwards, the operation is considered successful.
(From here [slashdot.org].)
Which, really, is despicable and absurd all on its own.
But it does lend a lot of strength to the theory that all strange law enforcement actions of agencies created by or in the spirit of the PATRIOT Act are actually direct responses to some form of undesired activity.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Insightful)
Referring to the DHS as a legitimate member of the intelligence community is beyond laughable. They're effectively a domestic secret police outfit that operates at the behest of the executive branch, and they can't seem to get most of that right, let alone serious intelligence work. The CIA, NSA, and FBI comprise the effective intelligence apparatus of the United States, and with any luck DHS activities will be severely curtailed in coming years. Incidentally, the TSA is a child agency of the DHS.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the last time, when the Republic Revolution frehmen impeached a guilty Clinton, they were removed from office by the Management.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Funny)
Remind me again why Obama hasn't been impeached yet?
Because then Biden would be President.
Re: (Score:3)
As true as that maybe but i feel that it has to due with the fact he is black. Think about it how would it look if the 1st black president (even if elected twice) was impeached? The anti-racist crowd would eat it up quicker then a fat kid with an all you can eat pass at a candy store.
Oh gimme a break! He hasn't been impeached because he hasn't done anything to deserve impeachment, the constant streams of lies from right-wing nutjobs notwithstanding. Not liking a guy is not a reason to impeach.
Re: (Score:3)
You're saying a president authorizing the killing of American citizens without due process isn't deserving of impeachment. Please defend that position, and be sure to consider how you'd feel if you or a family member were the target of such a killing, along with consideration of the consequences for the foundations of what we consider the core of our nation's principles of justice. Let's see if you can just address the issue straight, without any attempt at bringing up other politicians to deflect attention from it. I doubt you'll be able to.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's legal. Look "here." [wikipedia.org]
You just don't like the other guy using this same power you gave the previous one.
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to defend him, but the last guy ordered capture and detainment. The current guy by far prefers drone strikes, most of which include civilian casualties, and many of which are ONLY civilian casualties (i.e. no terrorist was hit in the strike.)
http://www.policymic.com/articles/16949/predator-drone-strikes-50-civilians-are-killed-for-every-1-terrorist-and-the-cia-only-wants-to-up-drone-warfare [policymic.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/world/asia/pakistan-us-drone-strikes [cnn.com]
Also, the last guy didn't lie about WMD's. Yes, t
Re: (Score:2)
Increased drone strike at a time when the tech/cost ration begins to maximize? I'm shocked.
No, he isn't. You are comparing a type of attack that wasn't common under the previous guy to all innocents killed.
Under bush over 100K innocents where killed using non drone technology.
Drone tech is more precise, cheaper and easier to use. Is it perfect? no, but either where pilots flying aircraft in the fields.
The fact that drones are an issue only underlines how desperate the republican media is to pin anything on
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to talk about innocents being killed, the current guy is much worse. That, and he himself made the argument that he has the right to hit Americans with drone strikes without due process. Personally I'm happy with the one time that this has been done because that asshole had it coming, but it still sets a bad precedent.
Emphasis Added
More than 92,000 civilian deaths in Iraq via armed conflict from 2003-2008 [iraqbodycount.org]
4000 deaths by drone strike since 2004 [thebureaui...igates.com]
Please! Get some facts straight there friend.
Blowing my mod points on this thread as you clearly need correcting.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
why do you think Europe were so anti invasion?
Primarily because the leading politicians were pocketing large amounts of cash from Saddam Hussein's government (or did you miss the revelations about how much money various European politicians were discovered to have received from that government after its fall?).
Re: (Score:3)
(or did you miss the revelations about how much money various European politicians were discovered to have received from that government after its fall?).
Raises hand.
Sources please?
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme#Beneficiaries [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither does gold, by that logic.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Even that "innate value" is only value because of the uses we apply to it. It is not an intrinsic property to the gold itself.
More practically, the "innate value" you describe is very low, and comprises a teeny percentage of the gold we mine and stockpile.
Re: (Score:3)
That said, yes, gold current value comes more from it being used as a cur
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Iridium is rare, hard, doesnt corrode, and is very durable. There are other metals as well. As a conductor, copper is better. In fact, I believe physically, silver generally has superior properties in most regards.
The question of why gold has value today is probably best answered "because it had value yesterday". If you go far enough back, Im not sure what that answer would be, but Im pretty sure "it was the best possible choice" isnt it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's always been funny to me, I find it silly that Humans all but worship Element 79, other Metals and Paper. The only value any of it has, is the value given to it by feeble Human minds.
Re: (Score:3)
The only value any of it has, is the value given to it by feeble Human minds.
Well yeah, but that's the value that matters. The whole point of currency is that you can trade it for goods and services from... humans (including their feeble minds).
Re: (Score:2)
So so silly, it's a pretty good element.
It's a good conductor of electricity and heat
It's easy to work with.
It's non-toxic.
It plays nice with other elements.
Its very "non-reactive" only certian acids will dissolve it.
It's used in industry, electronics, food and medicine.
Re: (Score:2)
BY you're logic sand should be the currency. /. not know jack about currency:
not that I am surprised to see yet another person on
Fiat money is money that derives its value from government regulation or law. SO it has value, even innate value.
Innate is not the word you want. 'intrinsic value' is what you are looking for; look up intrinsic Value theory.
When talking economic, value USUALLY means An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable.
SO fiat money has value, by defini
Re: (Score:2)
Fiat money does have value, and again, nowhere I said or implied it does not, but it has no innate value, in the very same way bitcoins do not.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
" Fiat currencies have absolute no innate value."
Nonsense. If you choose small Italian cars as your unit of currency, they can always be driven, (providing value) no matter how much you've devalued them.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, and paper money can be used to do origami, and pennies can be used as floor tiles. It just happens that we currently value gold-based jewelry and electronics more than origami, but I don't assume this will necessarily always be the case.
Anything can be used for something if you're creative enough.
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Insightful)
News flash: all currencies are "fiat", and nothing has any "innate" value.
Actually, that would be news if it was true. You are simply wrong.
Gold, silver, and other commodities can and have been used as currencies (even cattle... hence stock certificates) where those commodities are not only exchanged as money but also have value in and of themselves even if they weren't money. I've even used long distance minutes (another commodity) as a genuine currency for purchasing items that had nothing to do with its actual "innate value" like talking to my mother on Mother's Day.
There are fiat currencies though, like the U.S. Dollar and Euros. Those can't be used for anything other than money. But there are plenty of non-fiat currencies as well.... as the U.S. Dollar used to be once upon a time.
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course a stock certificate has no intrinsic value - it's value is proportional to the ability of the issuer to redeem the certificate for actual livestock. Gold and other precious metals do have value in and of themselves; we value them for their appearance and physical properties, which are suitable to manufacture of jewelry and (today) certain electronic components, nanoparticles, etc.
As a currency, however, gold and silver have always required a state actor (i.e. "fiat") to guarantee metal content and enforce demand through taxation. This fact was made especially clear in the early Middle Ages. After the Roman Empire had collapsed in the West, gold coins (the solidus and triente) virtually disappeared from Europe, with silver denarii arising only as regional governments gained sufficient strength to enforce taxes. At first, these taxes would be paid "in kind" (essentially, food - the "in kind" produce of the land). Subsequently, taxes would be collected in coin, but only after the government had begun minting them and distributing them into the hands of citizenry.
Even during the "free minting" period, the value of currency vis-a-vis raw metal was determined via the mint fee and seniorage; free mints were free as in speech (if you had silver), rather than beer.
One important qualification is the low labor productivity at that time. The vulnerability to famine which obtains when the average worker produces just 1.8 person-years of food per year creates a high bar to any potential currency.
I highly recommend Peter Spufford's Money and its Use in Medieval Europe, which goes into insane-but-captivating detail on the above issues. It's an essential read if you want to understand the nature of pure fiat, metal-backed (convertible, less than 100% coverage) and metal-based (coins = weight of metal) currencies, and what features are shared by all three currency regimes.
Re: (Score:3)
There have been and still are private mints which produce coins. It certainly doesn't require a government to certify the purity and weight of a coin (although that can help in many cases). Government monopolies on coinage are quite common though and private mints have always been a little tricky (even today).
As for certificates of deposit of various kinds (including gold and silver certificates), while the certificates may not in and of themselves have intrinsic value, they do represent items which posse
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Right. So if you see a gold nugget or a piece of gold jewelry on the ground I expect you not to pick it up because it has no value.
Here is a better analogy: If you could manufacture unlimited quantities of Gold with your handy replicator which rearranges atoms on the fly with transporter technology..... would you still be using gold or silver? This is assuming of course that the Mr. Fusion home reactor operating off of tap water also provides unlimited cheap energy to power the replicator.
A society with such devices wouldn't give a damn about things like Euros, but gold and silver would still have some value. In fact, a gold nugget
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, but other people have already stated and demonstrated a willingness to accept gold as payment. It's quite circular to say that this is the origin of its value.
What is more interesting are the conditions which led to the first gold-accepting person accepting gold (before which gold did not have "intrinsic" value.
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Insightful)
All value is subjective.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Insightful)
Boom.
Seriously, I am tired of the circular logic underlying much of these arguments. Whatever initial condition led to acceptance of gold, etc. in lieu of in-kind payments, it was not "because I can buy stuff with it."
Funny Money (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no such thing as innate value. Value is context-dependent. All money is funny money. It's just a question of what brand of humor you prefer.
The US Dollar is like Jay Leno. Dull and unimaginative, but shows up for work on time every night.
Bitcoin is like Richard Pryor. Offensive, unstable, unpredictable, implicated in tax-evasion, and prone to setting itself on fire.
Where's the funny? (Score:2)
There's no such thing as innate value. Value is context-dependent. All money is funny money. It's just a question of what brand of humor you prefer.
The US Dollar is like Jay Leno. Dull and unimaginative, but shows up for work on time every night.
Bitcoin is like Richard Pryor. Offensive, unstable, unpredictable, implicated in tax-evasion, and prone to setting itself on fire.
So where does the "funny" bit come in for Bitcoin? Only I remember Richard Pryor actually making me laugh.
Cheers,
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Bitcoin is like Richard Pryor. Offensive, unstable, unpredictable, implicated in tax-evasion, and prone to setting itself on fire.
And dead?
Re: (Score:2)
There's no such thing as innate value. Value is context-dependent. All money is funny money. It's just a question of what brand of humor you prefer.
So, basically you're saying it has inane value instead?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It's started... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you consider that an achilles' heel? Those of us using BitCoin use it because it blows the dollar away for convenience in certain types of transactions (by which I don't mean "drugs" - Tide Unscented remains the king there, followed by US cash). In particular, any movement of small amounts of money (in the $100 range) between countries typically takes upwards of 50% of the total in various fees (and that assumes 1st-world countries with more-or-less legitimate banking and postal systems on both ends of the transaction).
So, for the reasons I would choose to denominate a given transaction in Bitcoins, the ability to convert it directly to USD has little to no value.
We'll now see how well the BitCoin market can operate as a completely stand-alone entity.
So far, the exchange rate (even if "exchange" may have just become a lot harder) hasn't even dipped outside the normal standard daily swings for USD:BTC. We'll see if the market panics tomorrow, but I wouldn't count on it. I don't use BitCoin because of its value in dollars, and neither, I suspect, do most of its (non-speculating) users.
Re:It's started... (Score:5, Informative)
In what way does gold have innate value?
In a rare display of insight, yahoo answers actually explains why the whole premise is absurd...
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120303200416AABp0fx [yahoo.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Gold surely has an innate value, but it isn't nearly as high as it's current asset value which relies on people valuing its ability to 'hold' wealth, like land, jadda jadda... any other asset.
But certainly, people wear gold, and electronics and various other industries use gold for its amazing maliability and conductivity.
Re: (Score:2)
But certainly, people wear gold, and electronics and various other industries use gold for its amazing maliability and conductivity.
Minor nit-pick, gold is actually not a great conductor, it's prized property is that it doesn't generally corrode, that's why connectors are usually gold plated, and not entirely gold. the plating keeps the corrosion at bay, and the underelying metal conducts better.
Gold is "valuable" for it's uses in many industries, including electronics, chemistry, and jewlery. People also drive the price up because they think it will protect them from a crash of fiat currency, but I don't really believe that people woul
Re: (Score:2)
How about this: Gold's innate value is about 3 to 5% more than Copper's innate value, but less than silver's innate value.
Re: (Score:3)
The voted-best answer is a shit answer. Any answer that complains about something assuming anthropocentricism is a bad answer if it comes from a human. Of fucking course "intrinsic" value means "intrinsic value to humans", what did he think it meant, intrinsic value to algae? Or perhaps meerkats?
Gold has intrinsic value to humans (two words which I will henceforth omit because anyone who is not a complete asshole understands them to be assumed) because it has unusual properties and you can make it into stuf
Re: (Score:2)
The dollar does not have innate value. Fair dealing, honesty, people working together for good, charity, hope, investment, diligence: these things have innate value.
Once upon a time, the dollar was a mathematical variablerepresentation of these things. At that time, it appeared to have innate value. However, as people started to value it as having its own innate value, they separated the dollar from its represented values, and its actual innate value has started to become apparent.
It is entirely possible t
Any bets on whether its a tax issue? (Score:5, Interesting)
A warrant from the district court of Maryland, does anyone know whether thats likely to be a state tax issue? If it were truly a federal concern, youd think the warrant would come from a federal court....
Can any lawyers comment?
It's federal, not state (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not a lawyer, but I used to work in a law library, and that's know enough to know that "U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland" is a federal court, not a state one.
Re: (Score:3)
If it's a tax issue then DHS wouldn't likely be involved. That would likely be the IRS or DoJ, because anything that's likely to violate state tax laws is probably also going to violate federal tax laws as well. Most likely it would be people hiding taxable income.
DHS would probably be involved because there's money being sent into and out of the country without it being properly reported to customs. ICE itself being a part of the DHS these days.
Re: (Score:2)
See! It it's not just a waste of tax payer money. (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, I think we need a new Department: DERP - Department of Earnings from Role Playing. Then we can finally shut down the other online currencies like WoW Gold that threaten the almighty buck!
Re: (Score:3)
they can have half my gold from killing goblins as long as i dont have to share the rest of the loot.
Re:See! It it's not just a waste of tax payer mone (Score:5, Funny)
And if they use the revenue to fund military research, they could call it DERPA.
Market manipulation. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, why shouldn't they? It's not like BTC aren't already being exploited by pump and dump con artists.
Re:Market manipulation. (Score:5, Funny)
I think maybe some one from DHS wanted to generate some bad publicity for bitcoins. Now they can buy some and make a little money.
If your explanation for this situation was part of a list of 50 explanations where the 49 others are redacted and I had to gamble every dollar I have, I would definitely pick at random one of the other 49.
Yes, that's how bad I think your explanation is. It's like a bad plot for a Steven Seagal movie except instead of being a former Special Ops operative trying to save an orphan from a ukrainian pedophile ring he would be the owner of an indian-friendly BitCoin exchange that throws a fit when he finds out that a retarded intern at the DHS has added the name of his exchange to the no-fly list in order to damage his business and make money. The movie would end with no explanation as to how exactly the retarded intern was planning to make money with this scheme because even while they were high the writers could not find an explanation that would make sense to their undemanding audience.
Could be looking at this all wrong. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
guess they already know (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:guess they already know (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is more correct to say that the Obama administration can be as GWB-like as it wants, and its reputation will remain amazingly high with Democrats. It's proof that Democrats didn't hate GWB's policies, they just hated GWB personally.
Re:guess they already know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
So tell me, do pubs just not have the ability to remember anything after the guy is out of office? It's like as soon as the term is up you people purge all negative data.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is completely and totally wrong. The NSA has been wiretapping every single US citizen for the past decade. This is well known. And Bush started it. Obama is only making it bigger. Now the NSA has to build a new, gigantic data center out west to house all the data they're collecting.
You can believe that one if you like.
Do you honestly thing the government (choose whichever one you want) started to listen in just a decade ago? I got some real estate between Manhattan and Brooklyn to sell to you if you believe that one. At best, Bush Jr. only expanded earlier efforts that were well under way and expanded that to include scanning nearly every IP packet transmitted more than a couple hops.
Nixon did plenty of wire tapping himself without warrants, and the technology wasn't even new with h
Re:guess they already know (Score:5, Insightful)
Up to the GWB administration wire tapping was a case by case basis, after 911 the Bush administration asked for direct links to all the telecom operators. ATT, Verizon and all the others provided direct fiber optic connections to their networks and funneled copies of everything going across their network directly to the government. This is the reason Congress was forced to give them immunity because if they didn't the class action suits would have sunk the phone companies. The need for immunity alone should point to just how serious of an expansion in wire taping occurred under the Bush administration.
In fact as the previous poster said, it was those very links that caused the creation of the Data Center in Utah. I live in Utah and I can tell you that Data Center was already planned and sited in 2008 when Obama took office. The formerly 2-lane highway leading up to Camp Williams (where the data center is) was upgraded in 2008 in anticipation, new power lines were installed at the same time (the data center uses more power than the entire salt lake city valley). Though Obama has done nothing to stop this massive expansion of federal power it most certainly did start under Bush. And though I agree that the government's been spying on people for a long time, the passive acceptance of full monitoring of every single communication didn't start till after 9/11/2001. You are arguing that tapping a few phones here and there is no different than recording every single phone call/text/internet traffic going across the network. And there is a very big difference.
Re: (Score:3)
The telecommunications access points (usually at central offices) and forced engineering of telecom equipment standards that required ease of monitoring are things I remember happening in the Reagan administration and certainly were encouraged under Bill Clinton and Bush Sr. as well.
I'm just saying dumping all of this on George W. Bush when there was ample evidence of this kind of thing happening well before he became president is uncalled for.... even though the "war on terrorism" did provide plenty of ex
Re:guess they already know (Score:5, Insightful)
Love it -- hope you get a plus 5 insightful. That was a nice reworking of the "calling him an idiot is an insult to the wider idiot community" type quip.
I totally agree that Obama has been worse than GWB but what is even more disturbing is how Democrats don't even want to know about it and have gone totally silent now that it is their guy doing the abuses.
Re: (Score:2)
Did they? We'll never know, because Congress moved to shield the collaborators from any sort of legal action.
Re:guess they already know (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that no wiretapping occurred.Records of calls to and from AP were obtained.
This rises to the level of wiretapping. This information was enough to figure out who the reporters' sources were. Which is the only type of information which otherwise stays secret as a result of such a phone call. All news-worthy information contained in such phone calls gets published. Only the sources stay secret. So the content of the call actually is less secret than identities of the individuals making the call.
Re: (Score:3)
Whether the Patriot Act is a little vague and far-reaching is a different question entirely.
A little? I'd say it needs to be scrapped entirely.
Re: (Score:3)
I voted for Jill Stein and for my cat, because I won't cast a vote in favor of evil. Besides, the difference between Romney and Obama was literally, only skin deep.
Sci-Fi Supervillain (Score:4, Funny)
I can't believe we've gone this many comment and nobody has mentioned that "Mutum Sigillium" sounds like the name of a inter-galactic criminal from Dimension X.
Re: (Score:2)
That's because it sounds more like a nasal fungus.
Popcorn please! (Score:2)
Is this really a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
The likelihood that Mt Gox was complying with the "Know Your Customer" anti-money-laundering rules that apply to all financial institutions that handle currency was approx. zero. I'm not surprised in the least. If a bank was doing what Mt. Gox was, (as in, not even pretending to comply with the law), the same thing would happen.
(That's not to say that disobedience of money laundering never occurs, just that experienced banks are substantially better at hiding it.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, other information is required sometimes (Score:5, Informative)
For a small customer like yourself, nothing more than ID is required, which you've supplied. Once you start moving decent amounts of cash, the institution receiving the money is required to know something about the activities the cash came from. It doesn't matter that the currency was BitCoins; the same rules still apply. There are reports to file, records to keep, etc. For instance, a bank is expected to report activities like a hot dog cart suddenly depositing stacks of $20's well out of proportion to a plausible amount of sales.
Not complying with these rules (which is "Financial Institution Regulatory Framework 101") is not going to end well.
Mt. Gox was a shoestring operation that got in WAY over its head. (As in, actual banks have entire departments of employees dedicated to pretending to comply with these kinds of rules, warehouses (or tape libraries) full of documents stored away, etc.)
Re:Is this really a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
The likelihood that Mt Gox was complying with the "Know Your Customer" anti-money-laundering rules that apply to all financial institutions that handle currency was approx. zero.
Mt.Gox is not US company. This is not mt.gox account being closed, this is Dwolla account being closed.
What japanese anti-money laundering regulations does Mt.Gox violate? I don't know about any. I read that they are fully compliant with japanase KYC laws. But you probably have more information if you could write that they have almost zero probability to be compliant. Please share it, otherwise, it's just FUD.
That webpage is not the whole story. (Score:2)
Yes, Mt. Gox had some anti-money-laundering measures in place. But the legal requirements go far beyond merely verifying the legal identities of your customers, which is all that page covers. (If that was all KYC involved, banks would not need entire large departments dedicated to that function.)
Re: (Score:3)
Um, you have no clue what you're talking about. Mt Gox has bent over backwards to comply with all these rules. They not only do ID verification, they freeze accounts suspected of criminal activity, they have co-operated with the police in the past (notably, the German police), they do risk analysis of transactions and all the other things that banks do. This is by no stretch of the imagination "not even pretending to comply with the law". If you're really going to try and paint Mt Gox as some kind of rogue
Mt.Gox initial response (Score:5, Informative)
"MtGox has read on the Internet that the United States Department of Homeland Security had a court order and/or warrant issued from the United States District Court in Maryland which it served upon the Dwolla mobile payment service with respect to accounts used for trading with MtGox. MtGox takes this information seriously. However, as of this time MtGox has not been provided with a copy of the court order and/or warrant and does not know its scope and/or the reasons for its issuance. MtGox is investigating and will provide further reports when additional information becomes known.
Regards
Mt.Gox Co. Ltd Team."
https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130515.html [mtgox.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Not really, in the US we have the USD because prior to that there was an ad hoc system of state currencies and there was nobody in charge of managing it or deciding what was and wasn't acceptable as a form of payment.
As much as I loathe and despise the Federal Reserve, the current still better than having random people creating currency which may or may not be usable next month. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USD#History [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bound to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean "theft through inflation carried out by the Federal Reserve Bank."
(Pro-Tip: The Federal Reserve, despite its name, is not a government entity.)
Re:Not really news (Score:4, Insightful)
I've bought some pretty nice stuff with bitcoins that I've mined.
Anyways, people like you are the suckers who will let the government do anything it chooses because the evil thing they do only targets ( kiddieporn | gambling | drugs ) so they should be allowed to do it as they please, because clearly only those people will be affected.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say Chuck Schumer was pissed off because when he ordered the DoJ to cease a certain domain name and related servers, they couldn't possibly oblige even if authorized to use nuclear weapons. That guy is known for getting verbally pissed off at anything he can't control.