search

shea256 / proposed-bitlicense-regulations

The Proposed BitLicense Regulations for The State of New York (Thanks to Patrick Murck for the idea + support to convert this to markdown)
28 stars 18 forks source link

Changing definition of Virtual Currency Business #10

Open markdavidlamb opened 9 years ago

markdavidlamb commented 9 years ago

Receiving virtual currency for transmitting it on to someone else is a dangerous expansion of scope. A lawyer, hedge fund, bank could easily fall into this category - they should be covered by existing banking/legal/fund regulations, not additional Bitlicense regs. Same goes for holding/storing/securing bitcoin on behalf of others. Should a law firm that holds escrow or stores bitcoin for someone need a bitlicense, when they already have a license to practice law? Should an escrow agency or arbitration agency need a bitlicense? There are a number of other similar examples of where this will apply.

wendydnew commented 9 years ago

Agreed. A bitlicense should be for someone holding bitcoins for someone else (in NY) as their primary business, not for any business that ever touches bitcoin. So that it would exclude instances where bitcoin is used in businesses for internal purposes, for mining or where they didn't have the entire private key and the risk of losing their customer's bitcoin is nonexistent. If this is for customer protections, it should be limited to those risk and not become a power/information grab.

vogelito commented 9 years ago

:+1: The only thing I would add is that "controlling, administering, or issuing a Virtual Currency" is extremely vague. Are miners "issuing" a Virtual Currency? Was Satoshi "administering" a Virtual Currency? What is the definition of "controlling"?