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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!"
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.
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.