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California Looking To Make All Bitcoin Businesses Illegal
An anonymous reader writes A new law has been proposed in California that would effectively outlaw all Bitcoin-related businesses that don't first get "permission." The details are vague within the bill itself, which is part of what makes it dangerous. If you're doing anything with virtual currency, you may have to go line up in Sacramento to get permission first.
Or is so unfamiliar with the US Political process they really shouldn't be commenting on bills. In Westminster-style democracies a bill being introduced by the government has a virtually 100% chance of becoming law, so it's very important when such a bill is introduced. But in the US there is no body in the state Legislature with the same role as the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, so all bills are the equivalent of Private Member's Bills in Canada/the UK/etc.
Which means that it's very important to know who sponsored this bill? Are they a Republican or a Democrat? What's their political point of view on the issue? What are their relationships with the rest of the State Assembly? The Senate? The Governor? These are all very important facts that the original story does not tell you, probably because the author does not know how the US Legislative process work.
The answers seem to be this was authored by Matt Dababneh, who represents a slice of the "Valley Girls" Valley in greater LA. He's a Democrat. The latter is good for the bill's odds of passage, the fact he has no Senate cosponsor is not because if it's not introduced in the Senate it can't become law. His point of view seems to be that you can use Bitcoin as a money-transfer service so any business based on changing dollars into BTC should follow the same banking rules that write-transfer services do.
The guy who wrote the original piece does not understand the Legislative process. He does not understand bills.
This particular law is supposed to make any BTC-based business acting like a wire-transfer service follow the same laws dollar-based-witre-transfer-services follow. Since paying for things, and accepting payments, do not result in you having to register you McDonald's as a wire transfer service and comply with financial regulations; most BTC-using businesses will be fine.
If you were setting up a newer, better Mt. God, or a tumbler, or something like that you've got extra paperwork.
People keep saying that. California is doing fine. And will continue to do so in the future. If you lived there, you would understand.
I live in California, and I certainly don't understand. Every year, California becomes more and more anti-business. Companies are leaving the state. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in America. There are still many business here, including many "hubs" for tech, entertainment, aerospace, etc. But we are slowly choking the goose that lays the golden eggs.
cf. http://www.8thcivic.com/forums...
This looks like a simple case of a blogger not knowing what the fuck he is talking about. Nothing being banned in the legislation, seems to merely be trying to ensure virtual currency is regulated in the exact same way as dollars. If anything you could say this is a positive for bitcoin, but it seems the tards that support bitcoin look at anything that takes away there opportunities for fraud and tax evasion as the government stomping on their god given rights.
If you read the text it mainly says "if you're going to act like a bank, we're going to regulate you like a bank, even if you claim cryptocurrency makes you immune because it isn't real".
So to be clear, they're going to let people lend against bitcoin? Because what makes a bank is that they're allowed to take your money and then loan it out multiple times.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/...
California ranks #4 in terms of overall tax burden, just behind NY, NJ, and CT.
California also has the top marginal income tax rate in the country; even worse if you life in SF.
Facts, you should try getting them sometimes.
Oh, and if you make less than $150k/year, you are barely middle class in the Bay Area.
But you're right: economically, Alabama is pretty lousy too. The fact that California sucks doesn't mean that some other states suck as well.
I used to. I was born there. Moved out awhile back when it became apparent I'd never be able to own a house that wasn't less than a 2 hour drive from work. I did live there, and I did not understand.
Perhaps if you lived somewhere else *you'd* understand.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
NewEgg has a warehouse in City of Industry. Wonder how this will effect them.
It probably wouldn't even if passed. Many merchants who "accept" bitcoins in fact never touch them. They pay a bitcoin exchange to do so. The merchants tell the exchange the $ amount. The exchange creates a payment address and a BTC amount to give the buyer. When the coins show up at this address and are verified the exchange credits the merchant's account for the exact amount of $ originally stated by the merchant. The merchant does all pricing and accounting in $ and has no risk from BTC price fluctuations.
It seems the only thing necessary would be for the exchange not to be in California.