MIT and Coin Center Speak up against Critical Flaws in the Proposed BitLicense

The ongoing debate about the role of governments in regulating digital currencies isn't going away anytime soon. While the dustup over New York's BitLicense program continues, another front has opened up in California where a member of the state assembly has introduced a bill to regulate California's digital currencies businesses. The Washington, D. C. -based Coin Center and the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) each have lobbied hard against the New York Department of Financial Services attempts to regulate New York businesses with its controversial BitLicense....

A proposed California law to regulate virtual currency has drawn mixed reactions from industry advocates, in stark contrast to the New York BitLicense that met united industry opposition. AB 1236 sponsored by Assemblyman Matt Dababneh requires virtual currency companies to be licensed. The measure passed the Assembly in June and awaits Senate action. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), based in San Francisco, has launched a petition opposing the measure. Coin Center, a Washington, D. C. -based group, supports the bill, calling it a cautious and well-researched approach to virtual....

Nonprofit Bitcoin Advocacy Group Coin Center recently published its views on the just-released Bitcoin regulatory framework, the BitLicense, saying that it will obstruct digital currency innovations in New York. The US-based organization was one of the most frequent and active voices to push for a tech-friendly BitLicense, but today stands disappointed with some of its problematic provisions. The first and the foremost issue discussed in Coin Center's blogpost is related to the anti-money laundering requirements which ends up being rather confusing than simplified. "The new language is....

When Ben Lawsky and the NYDFS met with key players in the Bitcoin community earlier this year, there were many questions of what the committee would propose and how it would affect Bitcoin entrepreneurs, businesses and the future of the digital currency industry. For nearly everyone in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the proposed BitLicense struck a nerve. It is a hot button issue including how the proposed rules and regulations will be debilitating to the digital currency industry, how a BitLicense will stifle continued innovation and mainly, the extremely short period which the NYDFS is giving to....

MIT Digital Currency Initiative director Brian Forde has issued a new blog post in which he aims to draw attention to four "critical flaws" in the approach so far taken by the state of New York to regulate the digital currency industry. Coming one month after his appointment to the position, the piece finds Forde seeking to voice the leading US university's interest in bitcoin and the blockchain as technologies that could contribute to the global good. The DCI was announced in April following a year of additional grassroots efforts on campus. Perhaps most notably, Forde contended that the....