Concern for Japan’s Bitcoin Regulation: Is It Worse than BitLicense?
As Japan prepares to enforce a bill that mandates the regulation of bitcoin and virtual currency exchanges in the country, it raises the question as to whether this will do more damage to the bitcoin/blockchain space like what the BitLicense has done to New York? In a recent blog, Koji Higashi, co-founder of bitcoin and crypto platform IndieSqaure, said that he had serious doubts about the law bringing long-term benefits to the Japanese community, going so far as to say that it could ‘set a bad precedent.’ Yet, bitcoin has had a bad reputation, particularly in Japan, following the fiasco....
Related News
While regulatory approval and compliance is a selling point for Bitcoin companies, the costs do not outweigh the benefits. New York is a great place for tourism, but not so much for entrepreneurs running a Bitcoin business. Things have gotten progressively worse since the BitLicense was introduced. As it turns out, the licensing process for BitLicense has been clogged up, and Bitcoin innovation has come to a halt in the stat.e not entirely surprising, as regulation following traditional guidelines is not the best course of action for Bitcoin. When the state of New York introduced....
The recent hacks at ShapeShift, a sort of vending machine for altcoins, has been one of the biggest stories in Bitcoin for the past few weeks. Although the hacks were a serious hit to the exchange, CEO Erik Voorhees claims things could have been much worse if the startup had decided to comply with BitLicense regulations in New York. Traditional Regulations Won’t Work. Voorhees was recently on a panel related to disruptive Bitcoin companies at Consensus 2016. OB1 CEO Brian Hoffman, Blockstack Labs co-founder Ryan Shea, and Lightning CEO Elizabeth Stark were also featured on the panel. The....
The Bitcoin regulation in New York will be affecting many digital currency companies for quite some time to come. And by the looks of it, one company is already halting all of their services in the state of New York, as a protest against the BitLicense regulation. ShapeShift feels the time has come to take a stand against this “immoral and unethical” regulation of Bitcoin. When the final version of New York’s BitLicense was revealed, many Bitcoin enthusiasts were rather unhappy with the outcome. It goes without saying this regulation could be very harmful to Bitcoin-related companies....
MonetaGo, one of the US-based Bitcoin exchanges, has announced they will be shutting down for good. The company tweeted that regulation was a key hurdle it could not overcome. UPDATE: MonetaGo confirmed they will only shut down the exchange part of the business. As most Bitcoin enthusiasts are well aware of, running a financial company in the US requires....
The process of getting all of the paperwork and legal documentation together is both time-consuming, and costly. But that is not the biggest concern, as BitLicense requires companies to keep an extensive amount of details on all of their customers. Two more companies are on the brink of obtaining the infamous Bitlicense, which makes Coinbase and Ripple compliant Bitcoin entities in the state of New York. Both companies applied for their license several months ago, but it looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel. According to a source familiar with the matter, both Ripple and....