Congressional Leaders, Foundation Praise FinCEN Guidance
FinCEN's rulings on cryptocurrency compliance yesterday have drawn praise from a congressional leader. He nevertheless cautioned government agencies to continue working together on a cohesive strategy to deal with virtual currency. Senator Tom Carper (D-Del) praised the Treasury-based agency for releasing the two rules, which exempted miners from MSB licensing, and also clarified rules for businesses that wanted to buy and sell bitcoins for their own purposes. "I am glad that FinCEN is working to release rulings in order to provide more clear, consistent, and timely guidelines to potential....
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Forget price volatility and hacker attacks. The biggest threat to bitcoin's future - at least in the United States - could be the little-known Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Writing in American Banker, Ecoins researcher and Bitcoin Foundation board member Jon Matonis describes how at least three US exchanges that trade bitcoins have shut down as a result of guidance recently issued by FinCEN. Citing a podcast from The Daily Bitcoin, Matonis quotes Bradley Jansen, a former assistant to Ron Paul and director of the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights, as saying,....
In the wake of reports linking the closure of several bitcoin exchanges with recently released guidance by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), CoinDesk spoke with Bitcoin Foundation general counsel Patrick Murck about the impact of the FinCEN regulations. (Murck is also a principal and founder of Engage Legal, with expertise in legal and regulatory issues governing the use of bitcoin and virtual economies.) CD: Are you surprised that the regulations are (directly or indirectly) leading to exchange closures? Murch: "No, I'm not surprised. Since long before the guidelines came....
Do the FinCEN virtual currency regulations apply to Bitcoin miners in addition to exchanges? No one seems sure, but now, one consultant wants to find out. A US consulting firm has written to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the US, asking it to clarify its position on bitcoin mining. Atlantic City Bitcoin (ACB), registered in the state of New Jersey, has requested an administrative ruling to determine once and for all how the FinCEN rules, announced in March, apply to mining. ACB's beef concerns what it highlights as a disparity in FinCEN guidance. The guidance says: "A....
FinCEN has released two new Virtual Currency Guidance notes today. FIN-2014-R011 and FIN-2014-R2012 both detail FinCEN's response to requests "for Administrative Ruling on the Application of FinCEN's Regulations to Virtual Currency" Trading Platforms and Payment Systems. FinCEN has clarified that both would require a money transmitter license under their federal rules. FinCEN's clarifications, presented by Jamal El-Hindi, the Associate Director of FinCEN's Policy Division, may be the precursor to a new wave of Bitcoin company crackdowns. Recently, the SEC revealed that there were ongoing....
Lawyers, analysts, academics and government officials debated the regulatory implications of bitcoin today - and none of them seemed to agree. In a panel at the Inside Bitcoins conference, one of the big sticking points was FinCEN's attitude to miners. One speaker even suggested that the whole guidance could be challenged. Following the release of the FinCEN guidance for virtual currencies on March 18, people began questioning whether bitcoin miners would be categorized as money producers. "FinCEN will be fairly stable" said Jacob Farber, senior counsel for lawyer Perkins Coie LLP. "There....