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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.
"Papers Comrade!"
Enjoy. You made it that way.
Alternately, don't do business in California.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
If you look at the state, it's deeply in debt and politically utterly dysfunctional. Educational performance has fallen to nearly the bottom of the nation. The infrastructure is falling apart. Taxes are sky-high. The prisons are overcrowded and an embarrassment to the nation. Everything is regulated, from putting a shed in your backyard to how the hens are kept that produce your eggs. People and businesses are moving out of the state if they can.
California weather and scenery will mean that it will always remain a playground for retirees and the wealthy. And its widespread crony capitalism will keep some corporations around. But anybody with half a brain, and anybody who actually wants to innovate and accomplish something will move elsewhere.
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.
Bitcoin contains features known to the State of California to cause untraceable transactions, speculation, and other financial harm.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
As is the idea of tech blogs, which are perennially stupid when it comes to actually understanding the legal system, posting articles without understanding the subject matter. 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". I don't see how it seems unreasonable. Given bitcoin exchanges' track records it seems like a downright good idea, and it might help shake off the terrible reputation that bitcoin has outside of crazy people.
From the text of the bill:
26004. The following are exempt from the licensing requirement described in Section 26002:
(6) A merchant or consumer that utilizes virtual currency solely for the purchase or sale of goods or services.
This bill has nothing to do with people who wish to buy or sell goods or services in bitcoins. It is intended to regulate bitcoin exchanges, presumably to avoid another Mt Gox scenario. The bill is still in its very, very early stages, and so I'm sure there are problems with the verbiage. But the headline and summary are absolute bullshit, intended to drive readers into an anti-government rage, and thus generate clicks.
Yes, it's sadly common. Ask anyone who owns a strip club or an adult bookstore or a pawn shop, or even a bar in some places. The government doesn't usually make them illegal outright*; instead, they make them regulated. Then they draft regulations stating that those businesses can only operate in a certain zone of town. Oh, and you need a license, but it's going to run you half a million dollars, and they'll only grant one license every 10 years, or one license per 250,000 citizens (in a town of 30,000), or some other hurdle that's insurmountable enough so as to make your business effectively illegal.
Your second point reminds me of the marijuana tax stamps that are still law in 20 or so states. You incriminate yourself just by asking to buy the stamp in the first place.
*Because then the mayor couldn't accept an enormous campaign contribution in exchange for issuing a special license now and then.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
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.
Lots of communities CITIZENS don't want strip clubs or pawn shops or porn shops or Walmarts or whatever; but they aren't illegal and the community can't outlaw them outright.. so the local government's mazes of red-tape to make opening such a business in the community difficult are simply a reflection of what the community wants implemented with the tools they have available to them.
This is pure and complete bullshit. If the community's citizens didn't want such a business there, the business would get no customers and close down naturally. What actually is happening is that a cabal of Bible-thumping prudes who wish to impose their sense of morality upon others forces these laws through in order to control the larger population.