Singapore To Regulate Virtual Currency Exchanges

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Singapore To Regulate Virtual Currency Exchanges

Posted by timothy on Thursday March 13, 2014 @05:11AM from the autocratic-state-being-one dept.

SpankiMonki writes "Following on the heels of the Mt Gox bankruptcy, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) plans to impose new regulations on currency exchanges dealing in bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Virtual currency exchanges would need to verify their customers' identities and report any suspicious transactions under the new rules.

The MAS said its regulation of virtual currency intermediaries — which include virtual currency exchanges and vending machines — was tailored specifically to the money-laundering and terrorism financing risks they posed. However, the new regulations would do nothing to ensure the solvency of virtual currency intermediaries or the safety of their client's funds."

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Oh noes! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:13 · Score: 1

It's the death of the free market, and the government will ruin everything we built!
1. Re:Oh noes! by bobbied · 2014-03-13 05:33 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's the death of the free market, and the government will ruin everything we built!
  I think the BitCoin community is doing a pretty good job of ruining the currency on their own without government help.
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
2. Re:Oh noes! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  Can you read? Seriously?
3. Re: Oh noes! by invictusvoyd · 2014-03-13 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  What's needed is ,
  1 Truly anonymous
  2 Eco friendly ( at least relatively )
  3 Sensible and sustainable ( agnostic of governments )
  4 scam proof ( at least to a large extent )
  
  You did a good job Satoshi (whoever you are ) but not good enough.
4. Re:Oh noes! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 07:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The real problem here is the knee-jerk reaction the government always has when it's unleashed upon a new frontier. TFA mentions regulations that require exchanges to properly identify themselves, and other good bureaucratic record keeping nonsense. However, TFA does not mention ONE WORD about security audits on the source code, proper firewall configuration, and other technical assurances that would solve the actual problems and prevent thieves (CEOs and otherwise) from causing a repeat of Mt. Gox.
  So no, dumb-ass, it's not the death of the free market. It's more security theater that will drive potential customers away, fail to solve the problems, reduce customer service, raise prices, charge government fees to fund the "regulators", and generally make everything worse. Of course, these things are what the government is best at doing, so there are no surprises here.
  What makes me raise my eyebrows is people like you who keep cheering while governments destroy or confiscate the best things in life, like freedom.
5. Re:Oh noes! by jythie · 2014-03-13 07:00 · Score: 1
  
  Well, it can not be their doing, it must be governments or corrupt bankers or regulation. The free market can adjust around everything! Well, except people.
6. Re: Oh noes! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 07:28 · Score: 0
  
  It already exists -- it's called Glory Coin. Go to your nearest glory hole to find out more.
  Anonymous: you don't know who's on the other side of the wall!
  Eco Friendly: Sure, I guess. Boners are a renewable resource.
  Sensible and sustainable: What's more sensible than sticking your cock into a hole in the wall and having no idea who or what is on the other side?
  scam proof: Yeah, you can use protocol 69 to ensure that you both get a blowjob.
7. Re: Oh noes! by unixisc · 2014-03-13 10:41 · Score: 1
  
  What's needed is , 1 Truly anonymous 2 Eco friendly ( at least relatively ) 3 Sensible and sustainable ( agnostic of governments ) 4 scam proof ( at least to a large extent ) You did a good job Satoshi (whoever you are ) but not good enough.
  5. Fixed value - something as constant as a meter, a gram or a second
8. Re:Oh noes! by Lord+Apathy · 2014-03-13 11:43 · Score: 1
  
  I think the BitCoin community is doing a pretty good job of ruining the currency on their own without government help
  Of course it is. You just keep right on thinking that. It's doing such a good job that you don't have scams like Mt Gox or other exchanges just vanishing in the night. Naw, nobody is out almost a half a billion dollars because of a poorly run exchange or just outright theft. Damn, skippy its doing a fine job.
  Hey, how would you like to buy a bridge? It's in New York state right outside of Brooklyn. Only 400,000 bitcoins.
  
  --
  Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
9. Re:Oh noes! by flargleblarg · 2014-03-13 14:31 · Score: 1
  
  I think the BitCoin community is doing a pretty good job of ruining the currency on their own without government help
  Of course it is. You just keep right on thinking that. It's doing such a good job that you don't have scams like Mt Gox or other exchanges just vanishing in the night. Naw, nobody is out almost a half a billion dollars because of a poorly run exchange or just outright theft. Damn, skippy its doing a fine job.
  Lord Apathy, I don't think you read very carefully. Bobbied said that it was doing a pretty good job of ruining the currency [on its own without government help], not that it was doing a pretty good job.
10. Re:Oh noes! by Lord+Apathy · 2014-03-13 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  Yes he did. I really should have taken that remedial reading class in kindergartner.
  
  --
  Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
11. Re:Oh noes! by bobbied · 2014-03-17 01:26 · Score: 1
  
  Not to worry, even though I had written the work "ruining" and knew what it was supposed to say, I had to re-read it a few times to make sure it didn't say "running" which is really similar looking. It's an interesting insight into how our minds actually do this reading task. Many times we see what our minds are expecting to see even though something else is really there.
  You should see the moderation history of my post. I expected some disagreement but general agreement, but nothing like what happened. It's apparent that you where not the only one who skimmed though the post and likely saw a different word than what was there. It was dueling "Flame bait -1" and "Insightful +1" for as far as the eye could see. That post drew about 15 - 20 mod points but got nowhere in the end. Where I'm not surprised in the outcome, I was very surprised about how many people chose to use their points on this post and I'm guessing it was because many misread it.
  
  --
  "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Remember by ADRA · 2014-03-13 05:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is Singapore, the country continually rated as one of the world's greatest countries for economic freedoms... soo

--
Bye!
1. Re:Remember by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  You are free to receive a caning.
  You are free to be charged with the importation of chewing gum
2. Re:Remember by amicusNYCL · 2014-03-13 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  It seems like they've brought it full circle too.
  
  Virtual currency exchanges would need to verify their customers' identities and report any suspicious transactions under the new rules. ... tailored specifically to the money-laundering and terrorism financing risks they posed
  Step 1: create an anonymous currency to allay the paranoid fears that governments are tracking everything you do with your own money.
  Step 2: create rules that anyone using the currency has to be identified to the government to allay the paranoid fears that anyone could send money to anyone else anonymously.
  Well done, Singapore.
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
3. Re:Remember by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 09:59 · Score: 0
  
  So you can see that rating systems have a weakness. Characterizations that we use can mean different things. A tax haven can be freedom for one yet a ball and chain for those who have to provide for the government services. Singapore has a strong police presence and has public canings. The warping of expression where a tax haven thrown on top of an authoritarian police state suddenly makes a country a place of freedom is something I reject. It is an abuse of reason.
KYC by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:29 · Score: 0

Great so more identities can be stolen. just like when mtgox sold off the personal info to the highest bidder
With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:30 · Score: 0

... the fetish dream of anonymity. Once these silly currencies are regulated and exchanges required to get details of their customers, what is the difference (and/or benefit) of using crypto currencies over fiat chedda?
1. Re:With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  The main benefits are: the government is not allowed to print money (devaluing what you own), and there is no centralized middleman that is able to block your transactions or freeze your assets (as Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal usually do).
2. Re:With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:41 · Score: 0
  
  ... and the ledger is public, everyone can check for possible corruption schemes. And the cost per transaction is much lower.
3. Re:With regulations goes... by Ralph+Wiggam · 2014-03-13 05:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  ... and the ledger is public, everyone can check for possible corruption schemes.
  How is that working out in the Mt. Gox investigation? It seems like nobody knows shit.
4. Re:With regulations goes... by lister+king+of+smeg · 2014-03-13 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  MtGox would be a footnote if people had not been using them as a online wallet. With bitcoin you are supposed to be using a local wallet.
  
  --
  ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
5. Re:With regulations goes... by Cro+Magnon · 2014-03-13 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, you're supposed to cut out the middleman. Let the hackers steal directly from you instead of going through a third party.
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
6. Re:With regulations goes... by unimacs · 2014-03-13 05:57 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  A bigger problem in my mind than government controlling money, is money controlling governments.
  
  Anyway it seems that you are far more at risk of not being able to access your wallet with Bitcoin than you are to having your assets frozen with traditional currencies, - assuming that you aren't actively engaged in some illegal activity. And it would also seem that Bitcoin has found a number of very effective ways of getting devalued in spite of the fact that you can't print more of it.
  
  There are a lot more things that a currency needs to be protected from than just the government.
7. Re:With regulations goes... by Ralph+Wiggam · 2014-03-13 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  That's irrelevant. 6% of the total bitcoins were involved in a "possible corruption scheme". In theory, the public blockchain in supposed to shed light on the situation. But that does not seem to be happening.
8. Re:With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 06:14 · Score: 0
  
  Don't forget the downsides... if someone compromises the exchange, the wallet, your machine, or just coerces you into handing over wallets, you are hosed, period.
  I wouldn't be surprised, if BitCoin got popular, for home invasions to be a lot more common. A thief could just hold someone at knife/gunpoint and demand a copy of the wallet + the unlock passphrase. Then, the thief can create a few wallets, transfer the coins, then sell the wallets as a way to launder coins.
  Currently, yes, Visa can block my transactions, but if someone swipes my card, charges get reversed.
9. Re:With regulations goes... by unimacs · 2014-03-13 06:15 · Score: 1
  
  ... and the ledger is public, everyone can check for possible corruption schemes. And the cost per transaction is much lower.
  I thought that verifying the transactions took a lot longer and that currently there's a cap on the number of transactions that the Bitcoin network can handle. So while the fees charged today might be lower, the real costs of handling Bitcoin transactions is high and it may not be scalable enough.
10. Re:With regulations goes... by Connie_Lingus · 2014-03-13 06:42 · Score: 1
  
  it would be pretty hard to steal from my BC wallet if it was on a thumb drive in my pocket all the time...
  
  --
  never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
11. Re:With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 07:15 · Score: 0
  
  Inflation devalues your money without even trying; Bitcoin is like a (presently very small) foreign currency or foreign company stock.
  The true insanity was treating an exchange like a bank when your self being the bank is the single major point of Bitcoins.
12. Re:With regulations goes... by unimacs · 2014-03-13 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  Inflation devalues your money in a predictable way. While that may not be optimal, it is much better than not knowing how much your currency can buy you from one minute to the next.
  
  Having people be their own bank is fraught with problems and is not a realistic approach to storing currency. How many people do you know that even have adequate backups for their personal data? Why do you think banks exist in the first place?
13. Re:With regulations goes... by AuMatar · 2014-03-13 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, it takes a brand new invention called a pickpocket. Or a weapon. True, that happens with cash too- but it happens to a fraction of what you own, because the rest is in a bank. With the wallet on a USB stick, its your life savings.
  
  --
  I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
14. Re:With regulations goes... by rogoshen1 · 2014-03-13 07:52 · Score: 1
  
  of course they can and do, steal real wallets at knifepoint. also, knife wielding home invaders aren't the most technologically adept demographic, and are more likely to just steal your laptop and pawn it.
15. Re:With regulations goes... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 08:27 · Score: 0
  
  In theory, the public blockchain in supposed to shed light on the situation. But that does not seem to be happening.
  "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." (unknown)
16. Re:With regulations goes... by TsuruchiBrian · 2014-03-13 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  You are supposed to encrypt your wallet. In fact you should be able to leave your encrypted wallet in a public place it doesn't need to be on a thumb drive. You can have it freely available on a website.
17. Re:With regulations goes... by _merlin · 2014-03-13 09:25 · Score: 1
  
  Then you have the same problem with the encryption keys. Someone will compromise your keys or the encryption and you'll be fucked.
18. Re:With regulations goes... by TsuruchiBrian · 2014-03-13 10:12 · Score: 1
  
  Encryption is harder to crack than other ways of stealing from people. We use encryption for almost all e-commerce and banking right now. It's not impossible to circumvent it, but it's hard enough that it happens only rarely.
  The best you can do is make the human the weakest link in the chain (i.e. everything else is stronger), and mitigate the number of things that a human must do correctly to achieve proper security.
19. Re:With regulations goes... by Connie_Lingus · 2014-03-13 15:11 · Score: 1
  
  of yeah...becuz of course most junkie pickpockets are looking for nerdy thumb drives and not cold hard cash and credit cards.
  and on top of it, of course my thumb drive..in the pocket...with my bitcoin wallet...is going to be nicely encrypted with a 1024-bit key
  
  --
  never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
20. Re:With regulations goes... by ed1park · 2014-03-14 00:46 · Score: 1
  
  Money controlling governments can be used to control money controlling people.
Ripple effects by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:34 · Score: 1

Virtual currency includes that stuff they use in video games... so watch out.
1. Re:Ripple effects by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 06:51 · Score: 0
  
  Virtual currency includes that stuff they use in video games... so watch out.
  Watch out for what? I don't trade real currency for game currency. I don't like people who do. So, I guess it's only good things I need to watch out for fewer gold farmers? Fewer pay to win newbies? One could only hope.
2. Re:Ripple effects by Lennie · 2014-03-13 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  I forgot which one, but there is a country where game currency earned needs to be mentioned when doing taxes because the government see this as income and wants to get income taxes on it (even if you don't get real money from it).
  
  --
  New things are always on the horizon
Oh noes! by mapkon · 2014-03-13 05:43 · Score: 1

The currency was ruined in design and philosophy. Don't blame the gov't
MtGOX by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 05:44 · Score: 0

it's an acronym, you morons.
slashdot = stagnated
Keeping it regular by korbulon · 2014-03-13 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny

I made a similar currency: I call it '$hitcoin'. It's not the first one I made, but version number two.
It's a craptocurrency, but one based on alimentary, time-tested economic principles, real old-stool. IANAL, but it rests on a strong fecal foundation, with minimal risk of law sewage.
Predicted This A While Back by TheNarrator · 2014-03-13 06:22 · Score: 0

See my comments a couple months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

You bitcoin guys think you can push buttons on your computer and code around the system. So naive.
Sorry to be a pessimist, but they can just say anyone transferring bitcoin to another party without going through a KYC compliant intermediary is money laundering and then send the swat team out to whatever ip they can track down via NSA whatever. Game. Set. Match. Banks win as usual, all done. They'll take it down just like Pirate Bay, etc.
Can someone tell me how people think the cryptonerds can win here? I'll be over here munching on my popcorn thank you.
1. Re:Predicted This A While Back by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 06:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  *yawn* Pirate Bay is still up. And thanks to namecoin, it always will be.
Not anonymity by morgauxo · 2014-03-13 06:29 · Score: 1

Lower transaction fees.
Conquer the heart of your dear mother on Mother&rs by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-13 19:14 · Score: 0

The people of India have mind blowing opportunity to make stunning surprise to their loving mother. Send same day cakes to India
and pamper your dear mother. Your mother will be highly delighted after getting such a beautiful gift.
Did Maddof own it at one point? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-03-14 06:55 · Score: 0

Maddof alone lost about 57 billion of investors money...
MtGOX used to trade magic the gathering cards. I am not sure they are on the same level as the professionals.
Then let's look at the regulated firms that caused the 2008 crash, the manipulation of the Argintinean dollar, Solyndra (Which I had hoped would succeed but yeah.)...
Approximately 22 trillion loss from the 2008 debacle? Yeah. I am sure some people that had a hand in those problems saw how much an amateur could screw up and said challenge accepted.