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DHS Shuts Down Dwolla Payments To and From Mt. Gox
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.'"
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.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
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?
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!
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.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
And if they use the revenue to fund military research, they could call it DERPA.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
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.
lucm, indeed.
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.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I had no love for Bush, but I think it's quite a smear to compare him to Obama. Bush's administration wiretapped suspected terrorists. They never sank so low as to wiretap reporters. And you'd have to reach back to Nixon to find an administration using IRS to target political opponents. I also don't recall Bush starting any wars without Congressional approval (albeit approval obtained under very, very questionable auspices).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
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.
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.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.)
Kid-proof tablet..
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.)
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.
"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
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.