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Bitfloor Indefinitely Suspends Bitcoin Trading
PerformanceDude writes "Bitfloor (a New York-based online exchange for Bitcoin) yesterday made the following announcement on their website: I am sorry to announce that due to circumstances outside of our control BitFloor must cease all trading operations indefinitely. Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past. As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds. Over the next days we will be working with all clients to ensure that everyone receives their funds. Please be patient as we process your request. Roman — bitfloor.com" According to the company's Twitter account, money should be returned to users' bank accounts shortly.
the attorneys for Winklevoss and Winklevoss.
Sounds like the govenrment finally decided they didn't like money outside their control.
>> US bank account is scheduled to be closed
Clearly this is the work of the Illuminati Lizard People.
SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL!
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING
Bubble burst time
It's just as good as the USD right guise? GUISE???
Bitcoin is already down to $90, where is that $1000 bitcoin troll at now?
Money has to at least be a short term store of value. If bread costs twice as much in the evening as it does in the morning no one will want your currency. Bitcoin is not doing well on that front. I am sure all the early folks are cashing out now and laughing all the way to the bank though.
Why was their bank account closed? Did they break some law or did the bank just take offense to them?
What's is the story here?
It's your cousin, my business had to shutdown. Let's go bowling
Roman -- bitfloor.com
> Unfortunately, our US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past.
Is it me or is that the most understated sentence ever written?
The gradual government squeeze on Bitcoin, making it harder and harder to exchange for USD.
Bitcoin Miners Threaten Strike Over FED Regulations
Bifloor? Or Bitfloor?
Bitcoin is already down to $90, where is that $1000 bitcoin troll at now? ... [all the early folks are] cashing out now and laughing all the way to the bank though.
Sounds like you just answered your own question.
My work here is dung.
What's a big surprise to me is how it went up from $20 when I last looked at it. Pretty amazing for a pure virtual currency, a real measure of faith in it.
Sure it goes down when attacked, but that's really beside the point. All currencies go down when attacked, but dude $90!
If the U.S government wanted to close his account, they would have done it, not scheduled it. I smell fish!!
going to indefinitely suspend its bitcoin stories?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No one would care.
It would only hurt themselves. It would be an improvement to society at large to stop wasting valuable resources on this.
Whoosh!
No sig today...
Are you sure that's not an Onion repost?
Let's call them what they are: BitLy coins. Why? Because you have to short them!
In all fairness they are a silly idea anyway and the incredible volatility just goes to underline why nobody should pay any attention to them.
I wasn't suggesting that 'cashing out' was the attack, I was suggesting the attack is to ask the bank to close the US$ account. Not to mention the endless whining 'bitcoin is evil' stuff I read in the mainstream press.
Once that attack is done, it is still tradeable on other exchanges for other currencies (which in turn can be turned into dollars), and for goods and services and as a pure unit of exchange. It can still be mined even. So this measure alone can't really prevent it.
Certainly more solid that a derivative warrant (they're garbage sold to idiot traders), and grows faster and more protected than a paypal credit 'coin'.
It'll be an interesting test for the currency, I'm tempted to mine some.
All the time, our customers ask us, "How do you make money doing this?" The answer is simple: Volume. That's what we do.
Q: What do Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Iran, the EU and BitCoin have in common?
A: They tried to sidestep the US dollar and have been stomped on.
The BitCoiners (and the EU) are lucky the US didn't try to impose democracy on them.
"Closing the bank account of someone not following money laundering laws is not an attack of any kind."
No charges have been laid, let alone anyone guilty of them. It's interesting that Paypal is essentially the same thing, a token exchange, and yet perfectly legal it seems since nobody closed their account. Paypal can be used for US to US accounts too.
So yes it certainly is an attack.
I hadn't taken it seriously before, the last time I looked it was $20 and I thought it would disappear over time. Yet here we are, $90, bank accounts of one trader under attack. Time to take a closer look at this me thinks.
What's Bifloor? Like, two floors?
The two are different orthogonal concept.
The point of Money Laundering is to make so the government loses track of the money.
At the end you still got a standard money which is controlled by a government (USD, EUR, or whatever). But along the way you jumped through so many hoops, and take a so complicated path, that it's not possible for the government to follow the path and have a clear idea where the money came from.
It's about lying and covering your source.
If you want a slashdot-friendly mental image: think of this like onion routing - at the end of the day you don't know who is communicating with whom, but government can still eaves drop the (now anonymous) traffic at the end-point.
The point of bitcoin is make a money which isn't controlled by the government (and by no other government). Think of it as a foreign currency, except it's a "special" currency which isn't controlled by any government, and also is defended not by laws but by strong cryptography.
You could pretty document every transaction you've performed to you government, and government couldn't do much about it, because bitcoins fall outside of their jurisdictions, they can't control it. (Just as they couldn't do much about what you do with a foreign currency).
In term of internet metaphor, think about end-to-end encryption: you see that both endpoint are communicating, but you can't interfer with the exchange itself.
Now of course this is theory. In practice, the middle steps of money laundering can benefit of a uncontrollable intermediate to make it harder for the government to track it.
And on the other side, bitcoins have some level of secrecy/untraceability built-in.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Go to MTGox.com click that gray strip on top of the screen and select 1month.
Yes there are spikes, but who in their sane mind didn't look bigger picture when dealing with it? It's remarkably stable when averaging over several months.
Seriously they scammed their customers.
This is exactly what happened to the other major exchange based in California about 2 years ago. Their bank accounts were closed due to banking secrecy act violations when they just barely reached the volume limit that the US gov set for that law. Obviously the feds were waiting for that to happen and gave them zero warning.
In this sense it's like Gold, except:
* probably more vendors take BitCoin than gold as payment (i.e. both gold and BitCoin have some value as a currency/barter, and BitCoin may actually have more, but neither is primarily a currency)
* You can't make jewelry, do dental work, or make Monster Cables with BitCoin (i.e. unlike the shiny metal, it has no inherent value)
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
". Inflation is a good thing, it encourages spending, hoarding wealth is not good for the economy."
Ultimately, your taking value from my money and giving it to someone else for zero work from them. That's great if you're the someone else that's getting that value, otherwise its just a tax on wealth creators that's paid to Wallstreet.
So if I buy US $ today, and I buy bitcoins, one is absolutely guaranteed to be worth less in coming years, and one absolutely guaranteed to reach its finite limit and thus the only way to increase the value, is to increase the unit value.
I use US $ because USD is for currency traders, and $ does not distinguish it from AU$ or C$, I'll add a space if it makes it clearer.
Not surprised at all that they suspended any involvement with bitfloor ATM. Anyone out there with an average credit score try to get a loan lately? Well, your dollars have been suspended as well. I think most are looking at this whole thing backwards if USD was so strong they would still have money to play with, right? This says more about the American dollar than it does bitcoin I'm afraid to tell you.
uh, couldn't Bitfloor open an account with another bank in the U.S.A.? Transfer your $$ via cashier check to HSBC, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Bank of Seattle, Ect...? All you need to open an account in the United States of America is a valid state ID, passport and Social Security Number. Am I missing something that the article doesn't mention? Just askin'
USD = fiduciary money. Bitcoin = non-fiduciary, just like gold. Und just like with gold, bankers hate it when you deal in non-fiduciary currency. The influence of banks upon national governments being so scandalously high these days, this news is not so surprising: banks thrive on fiduciary currency only. Or, to quote Jefferson:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
The money supply does not have a direct relationship to GDP. A high-velocity currency (one that trades hands frequently instead of being stored) will have a low value in relation to GDP. A low-velocity currency would behave the opposite.
When reporting the size of the money supply, you will see references to M0, M1, MB, and M2. They are different ways of measuring the supply and are used for different purposes.
I suspect it was Transaction Reporting requirements, along with Know Your Customer regulations that did them in. The government doesn't care if you are shoveling Benjamins, BitCoins, Euros, Pesos, or British Pounds, across the counter or over the wire... if you want to trade in heavy quantities of Cash or Cash Equivalents, you have to comply with money laundering laws. If their bank felt they could not keep the account open and still comply with those laws... ker-chop!
Did the fact that BitCoins were being traded have something to do with it? You bet. But they would have been equally eager to shut down an operation dealing with physical currency and numbered accounts... they don't like anonymiity combined with large volumes of untracable cash.
Banks don't hate BitCoins (or gold) because it's non-fiduciary... it's because it's a Pain In The Ass to deal with. Banks are more than happy to let an independent entity (as in, not them) deal with BitCoin transfers and storage if they so choose. Agreeing to accept deposits in BitCoins (which due to their volatility are currently utterly incompatible with fractional reserve banking) is a task that would earn them only tiny transaction fees... it's simply not worth the bother.
If you still wanna buy Bitcoins in the UK, directly without intermediators on ebay or other middle men (with huge fees) is difficult, I made this guide with an easy process:
http://howtogetbitcoinsuk.blogspot.co.uk
Maybe they just decided they can't make money on this?
Despite their recent problems, it looks like Mt.Gox is back online...they claim to handle over 80% of BC trade...
"Huh? And with deflation, keeping money means taking value from everyone else - mostly newcomers - and giving it to you for zero work from you"
The reason deflation is painted as the bad guy in the USA, is because USA runs at a loss, borrowing money, then paying it back in dollars worth less than the money they borrowed.
In effect USA borrows a billion chickens and repay 800 million chickens later, eating 200 million chickens. Of course that's painted as borrowing $1 billion and repaying $1.05 billion, it just happens that the time they pay it back, it buys a lot less chickens.
Tax is tax, you want some sort of social benefit, tax them and give it based on benefit, taking the value from my money and giving to rich bankers is great for rich bankers, nobody else.
Hello Paul
It seems obvious to me exactly what is going to happen. If I'm wrong, well, good for all those who got into bitcoins.
Sometime within about 1 year from now, someone is going to hack bitcoin. Either
a) The goal will be simply to destroy it and render it worthless.
or
b) The hackers will make a lot of money before bitcoin in rendered worthless. Before anyone realizes what is going on and can stop the hackers, bitcoin will have been ruined.
The end result in both is that bitcoin will be rendered worthless. This attack or hack will be in a way that nobody saw coming, but after the fact everyone will slap themselves in the head and think "How did we not realize that this was possible?" I am not claiming to have any idea how this will all happen. I simply predict it will happen.
When this happens, people like me, Steve Forbes and others will say "Told you". The "true believers" (the anti-government nut jobs) will erroneously conclude that the entire idea was perfect and if they only fix the specific nature of the attack that destroyed bitcoin, then bitcoin2 will be able to start up and it will never, ever be compromised. Right.
..at you idiots who invested money in hardware and electricity for rediculous ButtCoins, only to have all of it rendered valueless and useless, if you aren't outright jailed for money laundering and tax evasion. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA xD
"Speculative" commodity is redundant.
You can't make jewelry, do dental work, or make Monster Cables with BitCoin (i.e. unlike the shiny metal, it has no inherent value)
You can use it for secure time stamping right now, and countless weird new crypto ideas they propose on the forums.
Correct... banks do not like to deal in large cash volumes (it's expensive, for starters.) However, those businesses for which it makes sense to have a large cash intake still do have access to the banking industry, although a closer eye is kept on them than customers that don't move large cash volumes.
A bank providing services to a BitCoin exchange? Neither the bank nor the exchange has any flipping clue where the BitCoins came from, and unless the exchange sets up a mechanism to find out, then yes, the bank is going to drop the exchange for fear of running afoul of Know Your Customer rules. A few large cash transactions running through the exchange and a whole lot of "I dunno" answers leads to all sorts of uncomfortable meetings with regulators.
You could also add the Liberty Dollar to that list.
BECAUSE... It's the one thing that can create the Digital Wallet here and now! Don't you wanna swap your Android and Apple phones over things and other phones to pay and get paid? This technology makes it super easy to do that!
in general a US person cannot control a foreign investment corporation (such as your Cayman shell corp) and not pay tax on its income
Enter the trust. The shell company is controlled by outside member parties(usually lawyers or trust manager in said tax haven) not the person the set the trust up for this purpose.
Bob, pays an offshore management company to establish a trust/shell company that holds his assets and the trust/management company "runs" the foreign shell company. Bob is not an official owner/manager/member of the shell company. Therefore Bob has no tax liability from the company. The company then provides Bob with the aforementioned tax free "loans" and Bob is his own uncle. :p
Now, some genius will note that the official trust managers could abscond with Bob's money as, he has no direct legal claim to it. And, they definitely could. A few indeed have. But, there is too much opportunity in legitimately serving thousands of insanely wealthy clients rather than stealing Bob's money and going out of business. There are also local(tax haven) laws and regulations to try to prevent the tax haven from developing a bad reputation.
It all works. It is legal. It is way beyond the means of you or me so, don't concern yourself with a filthy-rich man's game. You just keep on fudging those "charitable contributions".
Keep embarassing yourself Jeremiah Cornelius http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 since you posted that using your registered username by mistake (instead of your usual anonymous coward submissions by the 100's the past 2-3 months now on slashdot) giving away it's you spamming this forums almost constantly, just as you have in the post I just replied to.