HB 436 Can Make Bitcoin Users Exempt From Money Transmission Regulation
What is rather intriguing about this proposal is the proposed definition of virtual currency. Regulating companies active in the bitcoin world have proven to be quite challenging. In most cases, bitcoin startups dealing with customer deposits are labeled as money transmitters. New Hampshire legislators are now seeking an exemption for bitcoin startups through the HB 436 proposal. It remains unclear if their proposal will be approved, as it will set an intriguing precedent for other US states. Under the HB 436 proposal, New Hampshire regulators want to add a formal definition for bitcoin to....
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The Texas Department of Banking on Thursday released a supervisory memorandum on the topic of virtual currencies, chief of which include bitcoin. The five-page document serves to outline the Texas Department of Banking's policies toward virtual currency and express the Department's interpretation of the Texas Money Services Act with reference to virtual currency. The memo makes note of the following (condensed for the sake of brevity):"Exchange of cryptocurrency for sovereign currency between two parties is not money transmission." "Exchange of one cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency....
The State of California has passed legislation that should make it easier for bitcoin startups to do business in the state. AB 786, passed in the house last week, amends the California Money Transmission Act with some key provisions. The state's original Money Transmission Act (MTA) classified certain companies doing business in California as money transmitters, imposing stringent requirements on them before they could do business in the state. This legislation is enforced by the Department of Business Oversight (DBO), part of which until July 1 was known as the Department of Financial....
The Bitcoin Foundation has published a reply to the cease and desist order that the organization received on May 30 from California's Department of Financial Institutions. The cease and desist order was a vague one, telling the foundation to "cease and desist from the business of conducting money transmission in this state" without specifying what the foundation was actually doing that qualified as money transmission. There was little to go on; the Bitcoin Foundation is simply an advocacy organization that "standardizes, protects and promotes the use of Bitcoin cryptographic money for the....
The lawyer representing Anthony Murgio in an ongoing case regarding his now-closed firm Coin.mx argued today why he thinks the law being used to prosecute his client needs to be changed. Speaking on a panel with six other digital currency regulation experts during the final day of Consensus 2016, Brian Klein, a partner at law firm Baker Marquart, explained what he called the "most important" regulation pertaining to criminal money transmission that he said most people have never heard of. Called the Prohibition of unlicensed money-transmitting businesses – 18 USC 1960, the....
U.S. bitcoiners can now make tax-exempt donations to fund Bitcoin development.