Bitcoin Exchange CEO Charlie Shrem Arrested On Money Laundering Charge 330
An anonymous reader writes "Charlie Shrem, the chief executive officer of bitcoin exchange BitInstant, has been arrested and charged with money laundering. 'In the federal criminal complaint, the Southern District of New York charges Shrem, the 24-year-old CEO of BitInstant, with three counts, including one count operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count willful failure to file suspicious activity report. Robert Faiella, a Silk Road user who operated under the name “BTCKing,” was charged with one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and one count money laundering conspiracy.'"
HSBC (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that the HSBC executives will also be arrested for their money laundering soon. Any time now.
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No no no...as long as they strictly follow the "rules" they can do anything else that isn't specified without fear of recourse. There are some benefits to having a laundry list of stupid rules and regulations...you can easily play dumb about anything else. /sarcasm
Re:HSBC (Score:5, Insightful)
You were sarcastic, but that is the whole freaking point of the rule of law: a list of rules such that, if you follow those rules, you won't be arrested. It makes for a far better society than one where you can be arrested whenever you annoy someone important, regardless of the rules.
Re:HSBC (Score:5, Insightful)
You are under arrest on suspicion of treason!
What did I do that amounts to treason?
What ever the king decides!
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Except the king can't decide it, because ex post facto laws are forbidden, and the king can't override that because of rule of law.
Re:HSBC (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you disagree with that... Better stay out of sight of the sky 24/7 or we might spot you "associating" with a terrorist leader and you know how that collateral drone damage works on you and your whole village... Er, neighborhood.
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Except that's exactly what used to happen until ~500 years ago.
Re:HSBC (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the king can't decide it, because ex post facto laws are forbidden, and the king can't override that because of rule of law.
Except the ones regarding telecoms companies and illegal wire tapping you mean?
Re:HSBC (Score:4, Informative)
That's the inverse case. The government can take something illegal and make it legal retroactively and then let you get away with it. This is what happened with the telecoms. And while it wasn't all that good in this case, it is a good thing in general.
The "bad" case is the opposite, where they make something legal illegal retroactively and then charge you for it. This would not be a good thing.
Re:HSBC (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that the formulation of the rules enable them to be arbitrarily interpreted, which means that the rules don't really matter. It's up to the persons doing the interpretation. The recent revelations about NSA highlights this pretty well I think. The government clearly disregards the constitution but nothing happens.
Re:HSBC (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, all quite true. I was merely highlighting that the rule of law is a good ideal to aspire to, not claiming that we had it today in America. The growing trend under by current and former presidents to simply ignore or change laws by "executive order" was proof enough of that, even before the NSA scandal.
You should be able to get away with doing something bad "merely" by following all the relevant laws, because the other way of doing things leads inevitably to dictatorial control of the state (what power has the legislative branch when laws don't matter?).
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It makes for a far better society than one where you can be arrested whenever you annoy someone important, regardless of the rules.
Or in New Jersey, if not arrested, at least not punished by the Governor's staff...
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Or in New Jersey, if not arrested, at least not punished by the Governor's staff...
Or his whip. If you're into that kind of thing.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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Rule of Law is just Rule of man plus a god damn piece of paper.
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there is no rule of law in the USA. Rule of law stipulates that a legal code is the sole determination on what a person can be arrested and punished for, and what the punishment is, and its entirely consistant.
On paper, we have rule of law. In practice its much more murky.
There is a huge discrepency, and bias in who gets arrested, prosecuted, and even convicted and jail sentances for certain crimes(note same charge), with a sole deciding factor being place i
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No no no...as long as they strictly follow the "rules" they can do anything else that isn't specified without fear of recourse. There are some benefits to having a laundry list of stupid rules and regulations...you can easily play dumb about anything else. /sarcasm
Why mark that as Sarcasm? the whole point of law enforcement is that you are ok as long as you play by the rules. If your business model is clearly outside the rules then expect them to come down hard on you. It doesn't matter how much of a scumbag you are or your business practises are as long as they are within the rules. The current laws are a mess, but it would be a far bigger mess if people got to pick and choose which laws they would follow.
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laundry list
I see what you did there.
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Meh, the wealthy and well connected have always gotten a different brand of justice then the general population.
Only if I have enough lawyers and subtle political threats to explain why a corporate fine is more appropriate then jail time.
The word you are meaning to use is "than": "...than the general population." "...than jail time." "Then" means something else entirely.
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HSBC was not a party to the money laundering. They were fined for insufficient oversight, which allowed other people to launder money.
In this case, the guy is being charged with direct involvement in the money laundering.
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If they were sending messages back and forth with the launderers and fellow executives about their direct involvement in it, you are probably right.
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They should really use the non-prosecution of HSBC execs during their sentencing phase to point out that any jail time would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
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Guys at that level get out of jail by writing a letter to the government stating that they'll be good next time and that they really, really mean it.
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I'm sure that the HSBC executives will also be arrested for their money laundering soon. Any time now.
Nah, they're too busy telling depositors they can't withdraw their money. [bbc.co.uk]
Interestingly enough, in some of the currency market circles they're already making noise that this is to limit a run that's already going on. Being a trader myself, I put it at a 40% chance that it's true...it's enough to make me jittery on anything that they're involved in.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... [bloomberg.com]
Plenty of others on google
Re:HSBC (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, actually, they did; and further, they actively conspired with Iran to circumvent international sanctions.
And yet, we don't see any of their executives behind bars as a result...
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And yet, we don't see any of their executives behind bars as a result...
Oh, but they had to pay *several* hours worth of profits in fines!
Can we stop pretending now that the banksters don't control the first world governments? I mean, Christ, the US, France and Britain went to war with Libya and had their soldiers anal rape their leader to death with a broomstick because he threatened to offer a better deal than the Bretton Woods regime.
Did people not get the message loud and clear?
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HSBC paid fines equal to 5 weeks of total corporate profits- not just the unit that violated the regulations. If I was docked 5 weeks of income, that would sting really badly.
I like how you ignore the part of the story where Khaddafi murders tens of thousands of people, because it doesn't fit with your narrative.
Re:HSBC (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop trying to pretend this is a used car deal ("don't worry about the total, it's just $179 a month!"), let's just put the actual numbers out there - they were fined $1.9B for laundering $680B. The government isn't punishing them by "taking their future profits", it's giving them a massive break by forcing them to give up a small fraction of the profits they already made on illegal activities.
If you were fined 5 weeks of income (and no jail time) after having made a shit-ton of money in the last 4 years doing something illegal, it wouldn't sting at all. In fact, you'd almost be motivated to try it again...
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"5 weeks of income" vs going to jail in GITMO for money laundering to terrorist regimes, yeah 5 weeks of PROFITS would be so much worse...
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I'm sure losing 5 weeks of income would sting less than 20 years in prison, losing your job, house, relationships, and probably losing income for the rest of your life.
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Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation. Kind of makes me wonder what authority the US government has to regulate Chinese banking. Also kind of makes me wonder why a USian would want to invest in a bank in China.
HSBC has been just "HSBC" for 25 years, and it's headquartered in London. Maybe you should get a basic grasp of the facts before spouting conspiracy theories.
I was wondering when that would happen (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a competing currency. The marketplace says "we have no faith in your dollars." Government says "so?" The marketplace says "we will replace the dollar." Government says "no."
I just wonder how it took so long.
Re:I was wondering when that would happen (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were doing what they are alleged to have been doing using Yen, or Dollars, or Pounds, or whatever, it would still have been money laundering. Bitcoin doesn't change that.
Re:I was wondering when that would happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Those money laundering rules apply to any currencies handled by US businesses, including casino chips. The government is not trying to shut down the casino industry. They just require you to record information from your customers.
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Those rules have been in place for decades. If you don't like them, then don't start a business in America. The fact that BitInstant was incorporated in New York is shocking.
Re:I was wondering when that would happen (Score:4, Insightful)
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Who the fuck is modding this moron up?
Do you even realise this action agaist specific people who provided Bitcoin exchange services for Silkroad, not Bitcoin per se? Did you even read the complaint?
It's not some vague accusation, the guy - who was in charge of money-laundering laws compliance - and his boss had pretty much literally talk like this: "Hey, this guy's from Silkroad, shall we ban him again?" - "He brings a lot of business" - "Maybe we should just drop an advertisement at Silkroad?" - "Just leav
Not one single action... (Score:5, Interesting)
..has been proposed or enacted by the federal government on bitcoin.
The problem is that this marketplace doesn't want a competing currency, they want a way to electronically move money around "anonymously".
The government is saying no to sidestepping financial regulations and other laws. You're right about one thing. I seemed to take much longer than expected.
Re:Not one single action... (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent up. A U.S. Senate commitee held a hearing on Bitcoin a few months ago. All the regulatory agencies were there.
FinCen: We're watching it, no big deal.
DEA: the big cartels aren't using it, the street dealers aren't using it.
FBI: We took down Silk Road, which was using Bitcoin, and Bitcoin didn't make it harder to do that.
Secret Service: No big deal.
Homeland Security: terrorists don't seem to be using it.
IRS: Taxable income is taxable income; we'll deal with it.
SEC: Trading Bitcoin is just like trading anything else. We busted one guy running a Ponzi scheme with Bitcoins and the judge agreed that using Bitcoins didn't make it special.
Conclusion of the Senate committee: no need for special Bitcoin legislation.
All the US law enforcement action involving Bitcoins has been for doing routine crook stuff. Now, China is cracking down on Bitcoins, but they have exchange controls; you have to get permission to swap yuan for dollars or euros. The US has an open market in foreign currencies; you can swap dollars for yen without asking anyone's permission. There are reports to make to FinCen, but they just log the info.
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This is really monumental IMO - not because of bitcoin per se, but because the government is finally realizing that if the law already covers X, you don't need new laws for X on the internet. It's about time,
Re:Not one single action... (Score:4, Insightful)
Our big challenge isn't to get the 1st and 4th amendments applied to the internet. The problem we have to resolve is how to expand our 1st and 4th amendment protections to cover all the information that can now be collected without making it illegal to walk down the street.
What the NSA is doing for the most part is collecting all the information that sits outside of what is actually protected by law, most of it has always been legal because it wasn't possible to use that mass of information to actually determine anything, now it is.
It's always been perfectly legal for the police to follow you everywhere you go on public property and write it down, it just wasn't cost effective to do it and the cops stuck out like a sore thumb, today we've all quite happily placed GPS tracking devices in our pockets so the police can get all that information without having to actually do any work and with modern computers they can actually process it.
Tin foil hat time (Score:2)
It's a competing currency. The marketplace says "we have no faith in your dollars." Government says "so?" The marketplace says "we will replace the dollar." Government says "no."
I just wonder how it took so long.
There are a finite number of bit coins. You can only get more by getting them from other people. Let me guess - you're one of those gold standard people too, right? The dollar is in no danger of being replaced by bitcoin, as if such could ever happen. Shrem seems to have believed that he could act as an intermediary for transactions that he knew were in violation of US law and not be held responsible. He can test that assertion in a court of law. When bitcoin exchanges that don't have ties to Silk Roa
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Some people think bitcoin is deflationary because there is a cap to the supply. That's naive of course - the money supply has little to do with the amount of physical currency, and everything to do with fractional reserve banking. But then, people make the same mistake about gold. For bitcoin to "go mainstream" there would need to be BTC-denominated savings accounts and CDs, meaning fractional reserve banking would be happening (well, 0-reserve banking would be happening, but USD is the same way).
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Bitcoin will eventually be deflationary because of the limited supply cap. The fact that we have things like fractional reserve banking increases the amount of time it could theoretically remain non deflationary, but there comes a point where if you made any more imaginary money the whole system will collapse and you need to make some more real money which bitcoin doesn't do.
The major problem with bitcoin however is that a fairly small number of people already have the vast majority of coins that can ever b
Re:Tin foil hat time (Score:5, Insightful)
You completely bypassed the point I was making.
The money supply has almost nothing to do with the amount of physical currency, because of fractional-reserve banking (and other games without handy names). Do you think inflation in America has anything to do with the umber of printed dollar bills in circulation?
For bitcoin to be mainstream, used by ordinary people for shopping, there will need to be BTC-denominated savings accounts, CDs, and credit cards (and likely insurance policies as well). In other words: fractional-reserve banking.
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You mean, "How much longer it will take", since this has nothing to do with Bitcoin except as a buzzword tangentially related to the case, and has no bearing on the current or future viability of Bitcoin as a currency.
You would have heard the exact same story if he had helped Silk Road exchange Yen for Dollars... Well, except that you wouldn't have heard of it because run-of-the-mill laundering doesn't make the news, but HURP BITCOIN DURP!
Re:I was wondering when that would happen (Score:5, Informative)
All the same, if I were operating an exchange, right now I would be looking through and making sure I'm complying with the law exactly. Just like bankers do.
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Wrong. They don't care. (Score:4, Informative)
The US Govt. literally Does Not Care what currency you use to transact your daily life. You can use USD, EUR, JPY, Gold, Seashells, whatever, or yes, BitCoins.
As long as you pay your taxes, and, if operating a money transfer business (like a bank or currency exchange) you comply with a very long list of money laundering laws, you are in good shape. Ignore those laws at your peril.
And complying with these laws is hard. Banks have entire large departments that do nothing but shuffle that particular bit of paperwork; it's not a trivial task, and .com entrepreneurs setting up shop from scratch are rather unlikely to get it right (Mt. Gox didn't), if they pay attention at all.
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Unless people want to turn bitcoins into actual money, of course.
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Or even money into bitcoins.
Doesn't scratch any itches (Score:3, Insightful)
Bitcoin can not be stopped
Bitcoin doesn't have to be stopped. It just has to be ignored which is what most people are doing. For 99%+ of people out here in the real world, bitcoin does not solve any real world problems for them. Bitcoin does not allow me (or anyone I know) to do any transactions I currently do easier, cheaper, faster or safer. Most people who use it are either doing so for ideological reasons (hate the Fed, etc) or because they are looking to avoid legal scrutiny of their transactions (money laundering). It's p
Re:Doesn't scratch any itches (Score:4, Informative)
It actually does let you do stuff cheaper, faster, and safer. Cheaper because you don't have to pay money transfer fees. It is WAY faster than most forms of sending payment. It is also much safer insofar as a business cannot arbitrarily reverse the transfer.
Crypto currency is clearly better. The problem is that bitcoin is abstract. Most people don't realize that the money system they are using has no underlying foundation. Those pieces have paper are valuable because people agree they are, not because they are backed by any product or valuable ore. Bitcoin is no different in that respect. Only, it is very clearly abstract while people are able to lie to themselves (or just be ignorant) about the US dollar. People are uncomfortable with bartering using stuff they thing is "worthless" (not backed by anything). Bitcoin hasn't hit the threshold of adoption which most people require to believe something is safe.
This is entirely separate from all the other problems such as volatility, the 51% exploit, and etc.
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Cheaper because you don't have to pay money transfer fees.
Until you can pay 100% your housing, utilities, food, and other expenses in BTC, there will always be a price (direct or indirect) to exchange them.
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It is WAY faster than most forms of sending payment.
Really? As opposed to, say, swiping a card or handing over a $20?
Crypto currency is clearly better.
Clearly? Care to back that up?
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Clearly? Care to back that up?
Why? It's clearly better.
Clearly. Better.
Evidence would be redundant.
</sarcasm>
Bitcoin savings go to merchant not consumer (Score:3, Informative)
Cheaper because you don't have to pay money transfer fees.
In the U.S. consumers don't pay the transaction fees on credit and debit cards, and in many states merchants are prohibited from adding a surcharge to cover this fee or offering a discount for a cash transaction.
Bitcoins only allow merchants to avoid the credit/debit transaction fee and receive a greater profit margin. Note merchants tend to convert bitcoins to USD immediately upon receipt, the fee for this conversion is usually far far lower than the credit/debit card fee. Sometimes even a flat fee for
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Bitcoin can not be stopped.
Is this where I'm supposed to laugh?
Will bitcoin last? I have zero clue. But the amount of absolutes I see used by people describing bitcoin and how it works, makes my bullshit detector go off.
Re:I was wondering when that would happen (Score:4, Funny)
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There is quite a difference between something being counter intuitive and being bullshit.
And maybe one day you'll learn having a good bullshit detector will get you through so much of life.
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I have a bullshit detector, I just don't depend on it for "knowing" new things. For that I use the part of my brain that can learn new things I don't already know.
Maybe you should try learning things? Or maybe not, if your bullshit detector says learning is bullshit because you already have a bullshit detector.
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The thing is, however, that Bitcoin spreads by the same mechanisms that allow(ed) FOSS to become so enormously successful. Hence and ergo: Bitcoin can not be stopped. Certainly not by some rednecks paid by the US government.
FOSS did not compete with the government. Bitcoin does. Trivialising this difference renders your analogy moot.
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More to the point, the market has very good reason to have faith in dollars and very little in Bitcoin: Dollars are quite stable, and backed by one of the largest organizations of any kind on the planet. Bitcoins are extremely volatile, and backed by nobody. Which would you pick?
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Read the full complaint before comparing to HSBC (Score:2, Informative)
I recommend reading the full complaint before quickly firing off a reply comparing Shrem to HSBC. Shrem was deeply involved in avoiding AML controls.
Full complaint here:
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/January14/SchremFaiellaChargesPR/Faiella,%20Robert%20M.%20and%20Charlie%20Shrem%20Complaint.pdf
Re:Read the full complaint before comparing to HSB (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed.
When BofA and HSBC, etc. screw you over, they do it by the book.
The book they helped to write.
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Seriously, read the fucking complaint.
They were operating fine with "AML controls", and would be still operating fine - just like any other fucking Bitcoin service that is not shut down by "jackbooted thugs stomping on little man" and all despite boldly operating in Totally-Sticking-It-To-The-Man currency - but they didn't even try to pretend they didn't know they're dealing with Silkroad.
Yes, it's in there, with all the subpoenaed emails about how it's ok working with drug dealers, just tell them to keep i
Charlie Sheen arrested?! (Score:2, Funny)
WINNI...
Nevermind.
Money Laundering? (Score:2)
Perhaps I just don't understand what "money laundering" means, but I don't really see how bit-coin is of any use whatsoever for money laundering.
Money-laundering, as I understand it, means to disguise the true origin of ill-gotten funds, so as to make the income appear legitimate.
I think there's confusion in the two different means of the word "disguise". In one sense, it means simply to hide or obscure. In another sense, it means to make something or someone appear to be something else.
Bank robbers wear
Re:Money Laundering? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you need to understand is very simple: financial privacy is illegal in the United States. If you run a bank, or any other form of money-transmission service, then you are legally required to report all transactions over a certain amount (I think it might be $10,000, but I'm not sure) to the U.S. government. You are also required to obtain and keep personally-identifiable information on all of your customers, and to report if someone is "structuring" transactions to get in under the limit.
If you don't do these things, you can get arrested even if you knew nothing about the illegal activity your customers were involved in.
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Sure, I can hide the origin so it's not obvious where the money came from. So, if I'm a high-school chemistry teacher, and I used this bit-coin trick to "launder" the millions of dollars I made selling meth, then can I just go out and buy a mansion and fleet of Lamborghinis, and expect to stay out of jail? I think not...
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Bitcoin exchanges are run by flakes. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is about normal for Bitcoin exchanges. All of them are flaky. Most of them don't even have a legit business address. About half of all Bitcoin "exchanges" so far have failed. The problem is that they're not just exchanges, they're also deposit-taking institutions holding customer funds. With no regulation. A sizable number of Bitcoin "exchanges" just took the money and ran. With the arrest of the CEO, "bitinstant.com" dropped offline.
Right now, the formerly biggest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, in Tokyo, is tanking. They stopped US dollar withdrawals back in June 2013, then EUR withdrawals slowed down, then JPY withdrawals, and now Bitcoin withdrawals. There's much discussion over whether they're broke, crooked, or merely incompetent. Right now, Bitcoins on Mt. Gox are priced 25% higher than on the other exchanges, because if you sell Bitcoins on Mt. Gox, you can't get the money out, and that spread has been climbing rapidly for the last few days.
Irrevocable anonymous remote transactions are the scammer's dream. Scammers can rip people off without ever meeting the marks and with a low chance of getting caught. That's Bitcoin's big problem. It takes ten honest people to support one crook, and Bitcoin's ratio of crooks is much higher than that.
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Exactly - bitcoin is always talking about how it is anonymous blah blah blah - well, what do you think happens when people can start moving money around, across international borders, with anonymity? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict who is going to flock to it. And since when is it a good idea to put ones money into completely anonymous 'banks' (read - 'bitcoin exchanges') which are who knows where, run by who knows whom with no oversight or recourse for fraud? When the sheep decide to go sl
He messed up. (Score:2)
Oh myyy (Score:3)
Why just pick on HSBC? (Score:3)
Wrimming! (Score:3)
Did anyone else see that as Charlie Sheen?
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Maybe you missed the comment "If the price keeps going up, he could have a million dollars in that ring!â
If he doesn't even have a few 10s of millions of dollars, why would he have free speech? What country do you think he lives in? Seriously, when they said money is speech, they certainly didn't have anyone like him in mind.
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Seriously, when they said money is speech, they certainly didn't have anyone like him in mind.
Holy Federal Reserve, Batman, if that's not one of the most damn insightful statements I've seen in some time...
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No, it isn't.
Free speech is the right to express any opinion. You do not get to break other laws in order to exercise your rights. Murder is not free speech. Racial discrimination is not free speech. Slander is not free speech.
In fact, the currently-held test for whether an expression is protected is whether it directly causes lawless action. If the expression is lawless in itself, that counts, too. What you can do, however, is write essays and stage legal protests announcing that you feel money laundering
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If the expression is lawless in itself, that counts, too
With this logic, you could make criticism of politicians illegal, and this country would still have free speech. After all anyone who criticizes a politician is committing a crime and their speech is no longer protected by the 1st amendment.
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We did pretty much exactly that, with the Sedition Act of 1918. It was just about as bad as you make it sound, and was eventually repealed, but before that it was upheld [wikipedia.org]. The logic used to pass it was that expression was still free, but it had to be done nicely during wartime, so as to not undermine the American war effort.
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Well, My statement above was obviously sarcasm, but when you start adding words to The Constitution to defend your statement, I have to discount your position. Speech is not limited to opinion. Its not limited to verbal expression. Art is speech. Porn is speech. Comic books are speech. Humor, in whatever form it takes, is speech. In the case of CU, money is speech. You can try to turn all of those things in to political statement in order to protect them, but the reality is, whether you understand it,
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Isn't money laundering just another form of anonymous speech and therefore a protected activity?
Only if you're a corporation.
Re:And so it begins... (Score:5, Informative)
Not really. he allegedly did some shady deals which he failed to report. [wired.com] So business as usual in financial circles except he got caught.
Re:And so it begins... (Score:5, Interesting)
since bitcoin isn't a currency so much as it is a ledger where everything is tracked and traceable, it does not seem like the ideal venue for illegal transactions. The "paper trail" is going to be out there.
One article I recently read described Bitcoins as "prosecution futures". I think they might have been right.
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Death and taxes...
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Death and taxes...
Yep. If they suspect you should be taxed and aren't paying any taxes, they'll not like it one bit.
Further, if you are operating in a sphere outside policy makers (the ol' boys club) they don't like it they can't manipulate or borrow against your assets (interest free).
Lastly, those b*tards in the banking sector, the ones who whine and complain about too much government restriction on their smoke-n-mirrors games resent like heck anyone operating outside those restrictions. Honestly, BitCoin could be playin
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were intended to be used to promote and support unlawful activity, to wit, narcotic trafficking on the "Silk Road" website.
It doesn't say what evidence they have make this assertion, but I can't imagine not having to prove intent.
Simply because a hunting rifle can be used in a murder, it is not likely I would be charged for selling your homicidal brother my 30
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Knowing the way the law works, failing to file suspicious activity reports will be the crime with the most jail time. It's piss easy to prove, where's your activity report, needs no intent and tends to make a lot of the other fraud harder to accomplish.
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I actually consider this a feature and not a bug.
Re:And so it begins... (Score:5, Funny)
If they treat him the same as HSBC, he'll be OK. Slap a minor fine on him (5 weeks-worth of profit [globalpost.com]) and the government take their cut of the proceedings.
Now, the government wouldn't treat individuals charged with wrongdoing differently to multi-million/billion dollar businesses, would they?
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The beginning of the end?
Well, if you accept the premise that bitcoin's value is predominantly in libertarian imagination of circumventing laws, it is, maybe.
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Should have had Charlie Sheen as CEO. The business would've been running on tiger's blood!