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Bitcoin Is Officially a Commodity
Taco Cowboy writes: According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Bitcoin and other all virtual currencies have been officially categorized as commodities, just like crude oil or wheat. The CFTC on Thursday announced it had filed and settled charges against a Bitcoin exchange for facilitating the trading of option contracts on its platform.
By this action, the CFTC asserts its authority to provide oversight of the trading of cryptocurrency futures and options, which will now be subject to the agency's regulations. In the event of wrongdoing, such as futures manipulation, the CFTC will be able to bring charges against bad actors. If a company wants to operate a trading platform for Bitcoin derivatives or futures, it will need to register as a swap execution facility or designated contract market, just like the CME Group. And Coinflip—the target of the CFTC action—is hardly the only company that provides a platform to trade Bitcoin derivatives or futures In other Bitcoin news, reader McGruber notes that the CFO of BitPay, a Bitcoin payment service, was successfully phished, costing the company $1.8 million worth of Bitcoins. The company is attempting to recover the money from its insurer.
By this action, the CFTC asserts its authority to provide oversight of the trading of cryptocurrency futures and options, which will now be subject to the agency's regulations. In the event of wrongdoing, such as futures manipulation, the CFTC will be able to bring charges against bad actors. If a company wants to operate a trading platform for Bitcoin derivatives or futures, it will need to register as a swap execution facility or designated contract market, just like the CME Group. And Coinflip—the target of the CFTC action—is hardly the only company that provides a platform to trade Bitcoin derivatives or futures In other Bitcoin news, reader McGruber notes that the CFO of BitPay, a Bitcoin payment service, was successfully phished, costing the company $1.8 million worth of Bitcoins. The company is attempting to recover the money from its insurer.
Technically, this means BTC futures can only be manipulated with CFTC permission.
Not that they would ever allow such a thing.
If tulips suddenly started being speculated upon in the style of a commodity, the regulators would treat tulips the same way. This is not the government blessing or recommending Bitcoin, merely recognizing that trading it fits certain regulatory laws and structures.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You should launch your own, I bet no one else has done that yet.
with officials receiving MILLIONS in compensation for looking the other way during their time in office.
For example, if the state's Attorney General or Governor has a close relationship with someone accused of wrongdoing.
I have categorized bitcoins as flibbywhatxits, and my organization, the flibbywhatxits trade commission, is therefore in charge of all bitcoin trading and exchange and anyone trading or operating an exchange must do so by my rules.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Tulips?! No one wants tulips. Now, lupins on the other hand..
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
The funny part is where they think they are in control.
It's all fun and games until someone brings a gun to the party.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
The impotent rage of true believers. The fantasy that a basement full of graphics cards will grant you wealth, power, prestige, and women.
Wwwwait.... there's gonna be women down here? Mama's not gonna approve of that... no, Mama's not gonna approve of that at all.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
"In other Bitcoin news, reader McGruber notes that the CFO of BitPay, a Bitcoin payment service, was successfully phished, costing the company $1.8 million worth of Bitcoins."
If there's one thing I learned from the job I just quit, if the president/CEO is an nontechnical moron with a low intelligence level who can't make proper decisions or perceive threats correctly, you should leave immediately. Ready for the scary part? Amazon and Newegg use bitpay to power their bitcoin payment backend.
I tend to not think of Bitcoin as currency. A commodity fits rather well but isn't quite perfect.
I view it as a medium for the transfer of value. That gives it some value since it is competing with costly and complex alternatives such as credit card processors.
Everything else that people do with it can be seen as being derived from that. Speculation and trading are natural consequences of anything that people ascribe value to.
When used as an individual not wanting to engage in futures or investment, but only in the exchange of value for goods and services Bitcoin is interesting.
People mining bitcoins are the facilitators of that exchange, hence the reward for mining a block. The focus for many has been on the act of mining, but the actual use of it in buying / selling is much more compelling for most. You can use the exchanges to turn money into bitcoins and vice-versa and then use them to buy goods or services.
You're right that is isn't money, but that is the goal. To take it from a commodity-like to a full blown fiat currency. It is a great experiment.
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
True, but bitcoin doesn't have shareholders. There are also no big profits or lucrative post-government job offers to bribe regulators.
When it comes to the federal government, "selective enforcement" is the name of the game. If you're a government employee, banker, big corporation or just plain wealthy and you pay your protection money, the laws and regs don't apply to you. Bitcoin users and exchange operators don't fit that criteria, so there's nothing to prevent Big Brother from cracking down on them at every opportunity.
This. Bitcoin is a medium of exchange. The blockchain is the new and interesting technology that is independent of Bitcoin.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The US government, which has proven it cannot and will not prosecute any form of wrongdoing whatsoever in the financial rackets, sorry markets, and which thereby loses all claim to legitimacy, now appoints itself to be in charge of prosecuting wrongdoing in Bitcoin futures markets? Harr deee harrr.
It's definitively not a commodity, that simply describes a market where the product is generic like say coal but it's still being sold from producers to consumers. It's a pseudo-currency, but more like a collector's item like (expired) stamps than a bottle of whiskey. You're not really sure why they're valuable in the first place since they don't have any inherent value, but as long as there's collectors who want them they can be bought and sold as a substitute for money. The more interesting part is that the "transfer of value" works no matter what the stamps are worth, it's only the people gathering or selling their collection who care if a stamp is $10 or $100 or $1000. The transactions where A buys bitcoins with cash, transfers bitcoins to B who sells them for cash again are net neutral. So the price is basically all speculators speculating against each other on what they'll do.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Commodities don't have shareholders either, and those have been manipulated up the wazoo. The same will be done to bitcoin, given half a chance.
A blockchain cannot function without verification ("mining"). There needs to be incentives for "mining" to occur. Those tokens of incentives don't need to be called "coins" - but they must have some sort of value.
Thus, for any blockchain to be successful it needs to have have "coins".
it's in my head
There's blockchain technology being developed by big banks that don't require miners in the Bitcoin sense. The blockchain is there to show, for instance, that document x was signed at a set date/time by parties a,b and c.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
err not really. Hash cash, which the current bitcoin is, is really just a method of selecting who gets to stamp the next block. It doesn't need to be billions of hashes, it can be something different. There are other algorithms proposed, and they don't have to be non centralized (bitcoin nutters not withstanding). As for the resource of running a server/blockchain stamper whatever the fuck you want to call it. There are many reasons outside earning "coin" to run one. Banks love the idea of getting rid of visa/mastercard for example. To participate you agree to run X amount of official servers or whatever.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
... and you're unable to secure that blockchain without mining. Without it it's just another, regular, database.
it's in my head
Mining is a proof of work there need not be a reward ("bitcoin") attached to it. Banks and large entities can mine, expand the blockchain, in order to prove the validity of contracts - not necessarily in order to "mine" bitcoin.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
There's no added security in that scenario compared to a regular database. That is, they must contractually agree not to try to outmine (thus risk a rogue bank doing double spends) each other. From that follows they cannot be sure that an external actor won't outmine them unless they keep the blockchain secret. From that follows ...
https://www.myblockchain.xyz/
it's in my head
Thanks! That was funny.
A blockchain (seriously now) is a distributed database. It allows multiple parties to "own" and validate the data. There is a value to this beyond bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
If multiple parties distribute the block-chain, how do you protect it from validation unless mining is an arms race? ... and the incentive for an arms race will be a token of value. It doesn't need to be named a "coin", but will in effect be one.
(PoS etc are nice theories but we're back to the equivalent of a regular database in effect)
it's in my head