Slashdot Mirror
WV Senator Calls For Ban On All Unregulated Cryptocurrencies
An anonymous reader writes "Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has called for for heavily regulation of Bitcoin. Reached for comment, his staff confirmed Manchin is seeking a 'ban' that would apply to any cryptocurrency that's both anonymous and unregulated."
Can't the free market handle this? Do we really need yet more restrictive government regulations? What are they afraid of? Could untraceable cryptocurrencies somehow encourage people who don't have a lot of money to avoid taxes, similar to what our betters do right now with offshore tax havens?
A ban on cryptocurrencies that are both unregulated AND anonymous would not apply to Bitcoin.
Have some cryptic pictures on it, like the eye in a pyramid and some cryptic reference to schizoid imaginary people and can be use anonymously.
Did it will be banned ?
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
He should really work on banning the USD. It's used for commission of trillions of dollars worth of crimes every year and there's no real means of enforcement for [bona fide] money laundering operations.
I wonder if his office knows that bitcoin isn't really anonymous?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
..how much he lost?
Probably bought at $1000 and sold at $500 and now wants to spare us all from the horrors of crypto.
Ignore/Laugh/Fight/Win
Bitcoin isn't anonymous, though, and it is quite regulated. Bitcoin is arguably the least anonymous form of value transaction we have (every transaction is publicly and permanently recorded), and if you think it is unregulated try running an exchange anywhere in the Western world.
Personally, I think the first significant threat to bitcoin will be a cryptocurrency that really is anonymous.
Something to keep in mind: they can make Bitcoin flatly illegal, but development and usage will simply go underground and continue to grow outside the U.S./Russia/China. U.S. regulations delay adoption but do not prevent it.
bitcoin is finished.
Muhuhahahahahaaa!
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
The war on terrorist currencies (as they'll call them shortly).
for his constituents http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=w%20va%20water%20crisis&sm=3
I was worried about BTC crashing, but thankfully they're looking to outlaw it.
Investment secured!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Anyone else notice Democrats are the default case in journalism? I noticed a while back that whenever a politician is mentioned and their party isn't explicitly mentioned they are always Democrat, the only exceptions I've noticed are for extremely well known Republicans like a Newt Gingrich.
heavily regulation of Slashdot editorial skills.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Really what else is this service for but money laundering and a get rich scheme for investors? No tracking of transactions is obviously a dream come true for organized crime.
Yes, the other problem with this is that the US would have a hard time regulated such a non traceable service that works Worldwide. The US has already lost the game of controlling money and if big business starts using BitCoin the US loses any ability to regulate.
Does that mean cousins to BTC are not allowed too?
I'm not a fan of crypto-currency. At the same time I'm not a fan of government involvement in regulating it.
Let the people who use it work it out. Caveat Emptor.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
WV Senator Calls For Ban On All Unregulated Cryptocurrencies
And the rest of the world calls for a ban on incest.
Alright, alright, I jest. But seriously, what do they call a girl in West Virginia who can outrun her brothers?
A virgin. :p
http://imgur.com/db0Ru7h
A banking goon wants cryptographic currency - a technological currency the banks cannot gain any control of - to be banned. How about that. What's next? A system for banning competition in business?
Let's ban it instead of actually trying to regulate it.
Playgrounds need regulation to ensure they're save, but that's too much effort, ban unregulated playgrounds.
Holy shit, this trick works for everything!
This government job is a lot easier than I thought! "Honey! I think we can get that vacation after all!"
Can someone please explain to me why a ban is the first option for some lawmakers who don't understand a certain advancement, technology or social issue. State governments seem to use the "ban it first, ask questions later" philosophy on anything they don't fully comprehend. If this keeps up we will soon start banning theoretical physics.
Sent from my TARDIS
For a ban on washing machines too
It's about as close to a currency as gold and silver are. All bitcoin is is a commodity that can be traded for good and services, or a real regulated and respected currency
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
Sorry WOW gold is illegal. No video games are allowed to have gold, money or anything tradable.
There. Problem solved.
There, just wanted to shore that one up as well.
He should call for a ban on illegal file sharing too.... oh... wait.. What an impotent petty little tyrant.
Anyone who is Christian and believes what's in Revelations, should be against regulating money. That whole number of the beast thing should be at the front of their minds when the topic of currency regulation comes up.
Bitcoin and others have come about because a need has been recognized. What is the need? A stable currency that can't be as easily manipulated at the whim of the issuing agency? Yeah, that's probably the need they're addressing.
So if government legislators and politicians are concerned about the US Dollar, they should address the problems of the US Dollar instead of attacking the competition.
On the plus side, we could 'regulate' Mt. Gox's little 'accidentally disappearing into the night with ~$350 million unaccounted for' misunderstanding with the same seriousness that we employed to show HSBC that (blue collar) Crime Does Not Pay (~0.001%, and no pesky criminal charges) for about $3,500. A Small Price To Pay For Rule Of Law!
Instead of trying to ban it, they should instead just be having a chuckle at the goofs who invested in it like it was a real thing. Bitcoins barely hurt any of the real financial institutions, mucking with this category of thing seems like it would be troublesome and pointless territory, and anyway people who are willing to experiment with this sort of thing should be permitted (not encouraged) in case they actually come up with a good idea the real monetary systems can use.
I'd usually ask what the hell is in the water down there for them to be pumping out (and electing, no less) such fine specimens of humanity; but seeing as this is West Virginia, and the locals get to ask the same question, often, would that be in poor taste?
How about a ban on politicians, think of all the problems we could solve
Isn't that kind of a contradiction in terms?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The way I see it, Bitcoin is the baseball card of the new generation. If I've got a card worth as much as an exotic sports car, and the current owner of that car wants my card, we can trade. However, if I've got Bitcoin, and the owner wants Bitcoin... there's a problem?
American Senators sure have a lot of time to spend on impossible tasks and tilting at windmills, instead of learning about technology and displaying adaptability.
If he wants to look good for banning some scary technology thing, maybe he should start with something easier - like getting porn off the Internet.
Why ban it? Just ignore it.
How is the public interest served by spending any energy on worrying about bitcoin.
Largely because I'm tired of hearing about it, moreover tired of hearing justifications for it based upon people who have no understanding of money outside of what some Austrian-economics kook told them.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
When did VW get a senator?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because that's going to work. Perhaps they should ban all foreign currencies while they're at it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Remember the Senator that set out to ban salt in restaurant cooking?
Douche
"Any industry that is unregulated, good, or service, and might provide profits a useful function or benefit for some group of the population, is hereby banned."
I don't see why the government should worry about these cryptocurrencies. As long as they don't back the currency, then the whole market for that currency is "enter at your own risk" and people who decide to use it are (or should be) doing so fully aware of that fact. Regarding it being anonymous, isn't USD cash also anonymous? What's the difference? In fact, probably bitcoin is less anonymous than cash.
I don't personally like bitcoin and I have no desire nor reason to try to use it, but there's no good reason it should be illegal.
...the socially comforting sound of a hammer meeting the nail.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
This may, of course, require modifications to CPU hardware architecture to override any attempts to subvert the reporting drivers, but no measures are too great to protect the public good.
Seastead this.
How the media (and politicians) would perceive cash if it were invented today:
http://ledracapital.com/blog/2...
It is truly amazing how when new technology comes along that gives the government greater control in visibility into our private lives that so many people just go along with they idea that we couldn't function as a society if government didn't have these new-found powers. In this case it is it is the prevalence of electronic cash transfers and credit card payments that has made people forget the government still caught criminals before 1980 these existed, and even before the mid 20th century when checking accounts became prevalent. Now if you are using cash for more than than tiny purchases you must be a criminal, and the government must know ever detail of every financial transaction to fight terrorism for the children.
As banning online gambling did. And we all know how well that worked.
It worked pretty damn well, actually.
Best Slashdot Co
Notably cash is anonymous in legal transactions, but only up to a point:
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/...
I wonder if the IRS considers this applicable to *coin equivalent transactions as well.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
He's a Democrat. You can tell that because they didn't post his party affiliation in the article. Had it been a Republican it would have read "Republican xyz who is a Republican from the Republican party did .......". To be honest, I'm surpised they didn't do the usual "Rep Joe Manchin" like they usually do in order to confuse people when a Democrat acts dishonestly
If the Senator has all the time in the world on his hands, maybe he could do something to provide clean drinking water to his constituents? ...
Just a thought
Also know as Federal Reserve corporation Ltd.
What jurisdiction has the authority to regulate inherently global cryptocurrencies? The UN perhaps?
I suppose every federal jurisdiction has an ability to regulate some things about how the currency is used inside their borders (e.g. how exchanges physically located there work and how they have to report),
is the definition of an unregulated currency a currency that no federal jurisdiction anywhere in the world, nor the UN, has regulated explicitly or implicitly yet?
Or is this another case of someone conveniently forgetting that there is a whole world out there outside of the US of A.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I don't get how buying and selling Bitcoins is any different than doing the same with Beanie Babies, Baseball Cards or mp3 files (that you have the right to sell). What is the legal definition of "Cryptocurrency"? New ones are popping up all the time. Where were the legislators crying for regulation when the bottom fell out of the Beanie Baby market?
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
How do you actually ban something that isn't run by any one entity? I guess you can make it illegal to use crypto currency for any exchange by the government controlled entities but that doesn't actually ban Bitcoin or anything else.
It all starts at 0
Boolean logic may not apply to natural language.
JPmorgan. The most outspoken company against crypto currencies Donated over $30k to his campaign. https://www.opensecrets.org/po...
The problem for this gentleman is that he doesn't understand HOW it is regulated. Mister Senator feels that it should be centrally regulated by his faction, but, that's not how regulation works in the Bitcoin world. Regulation of Bitcoin is done through protocol consensus, it's entirely based on the individual users and stakeholders who are actively part of the Bitcoin network. This is a truly strange argument against Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is neither anonymous nor unregulated. It's pseudonymous and uses a crowd regulated model. Perhaps Mister Senator should look into the idea of laws and regulations being created through consensus of the people, because I feel that he and his coworkers might benefit from the idea.
Bitcoin and the others aren't anonymous. Not when everyone has access to the record of every transaction. Just because they don't have names on them doesn't mean anything. All law enforcement has to do is figure out the people involved in one transaction and they can start tracking their way back through all of them.. unlike normal cash.
With the amount of information that DHS has on all of us they should have no problems doing this. Makes me kind of wonder about the identiy of Satoshi Nakomoto.
Idiot Senator, as the power hungry pro government anti-freedom a$$hole that all of our politicians are he should be praising Bitcoin!
All your bitcoin are belong to us!
Did he propose banning all crypto-currencies or only the high-powered, high-capacity ones?
The movement of which can be pretty much anonymous and unregulated.
+1 to this - too bad no mod points today.
Do they really think they can force Obama to sign this like they forced him to sign their horrible ACA insurance scam. It's not going to happen. We know the Democrats will fight this horror.
be in America.
Mt Gox (Even before this debacle) + WV Senator involvement is just more evidence that BTC really is just a joke currency.
Then there's the BTC mining ASIC hardware that's being sold. If they were that effective, the manufactures would be using them themselves and selling the BTC rather than selling the devices.
We don't need any more fucking fascists fucking people in this country any more.
The free market has already handled this. The senator has been bought and paid for, to the tune of $30,000 in campaign contributions from J.P. Morgan Chase. The same J.P. Morgan Chase that is strongly against bitcoin. That weakens the senators argument a bit IMHO.
C|N>K
> For example, I think it has potential for a "free" way to do high volume B2B settlement among international entities... but I never hear anyone talk about this.
If you mean mainstream media, they are clueless about other uses for bitcoin besides speculation and buying drugs. The core innovation in bitcoin is using chained hashes with proof-of-work to create provably unaltered databases. Bitcoin happens to use it to record monetary transactions, but the same technology can be used to record *any type of data whatsoever*. Think about that for a minute. You can encode a business contract with a currency payment script included (bitcoin transactions are actually scripts, you can program them). Then when one party completes their side of the contract, they automatically get paid. No having to send an invoice, wait for the check in the mail, etc.
I'm working on distributed automated production (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seed_Factories/WWF), where different automated machines with different owners produce parts of a product. A method like the above would be an excellent low-overhead way to coordinate work across a network. But hubris and being brought low is a classic story, so the fall of Mt.Gox or Silk Road is a much more attractive story to the media (who are basically story-tellers). The work of making production more efficient doesn't make the news, and your basic bitcoin saving retailers 5% on sales barely rates a mention. That comes from reduced bank fees, fraud, and chargebacks.
The GOP wants to ban everything that threatens their Wall street buddies.
Last I heard, the SCOTUS said money WAS speech, therefore if Bitcoin IS money, it's speech and constitutionally protected, if it's not money... then what's the problem?
Just like the mainstream media, when it's something that won't be popular, you guys leave off the party affiliation of the Congress-critters that are normally on *your* side. It should read 'Sen. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia..........'.
applies to personal bets on sports events as well
Sometimes it's hard to tell the idiots from the scoundrels.
I had a bet with myself about this particular one. It was pure chance that I got his party affiliation right.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.