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Comment by eduardordm | Hacker News Reader

Because bitcoins are illegal in my country, I'll keep my personal domains on namecheap but will certainly move my company domains out of there until I figure out if there's a chance I have problems with this.

I like bitcoins just like everyone, but there are laws you need to abide by and bitcoins are illegal in many countries.

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I don't see your concern being very realistic. I very much doubt doing business with a foreign company that accepts Bitcoins is illegal in any country as long as you yourself are not involved in Bitcoin trade. I mean, obviously you can be as cautious as you want, but it seems unreasonable to assume that NameCheap is forcing any liability onto its customers.

My only concern is the company credit card getting blocked by my bank, last time it took days to solve this.

I pasted the law and even a case to some other replies, I wouldn't just throw that if it wasn't true.

The laws your links were about appear to address doing business in foreign currencies, with dollars being used in those particular cases. NameCheap already did business in dollars, so why do you think adding Bitcoins presents an additional problem? As long as they're not forcing you to use Bitcoins or dollars for payment, I have a hard time imagining any country getting its knickers in a twist.

Like I said, obviously you should do what you think is best for your business. I just don't think it's fair to imply that NameCheap are forcing liability on people without hard evidence.

Do tell more! I was unaware of any country having officially stated Bitcoin as illegal.

I too don't know of any such country, but he might be living in a country that bans all foreign currency. (That's how it was in communist Romania.)

You can make an argument that Bitcoins is not a foreign currency as it can be mined domestically in your own country.

In fact, is it even known which country bitcoin originated in?

The law I pasted to some other replies just states that the only currency that can be used for commerce within the country is the national one. Also defines that national currency is the one created and regulated by the central bank.

> Do tell more! I was unaware of any country having officially stated Bitcoin as illegal

Bitcoin itself may not be illegal, but the encryption schemes may be illegal for private citizens to use in some countries, especially ones that don't want their citizens communicating in secret.

In Bitcoin protocol there are no encrypted messages. The only thing that may or may not be encrypted is your own private keys. But it does not concern legislation of encrypted communication because you don't communicate those keys to anyone.

I am not aware of any country that has made bitcoin illegal. Are you sure you have your facts right?

Yes, I researched this, and my wife is also an experienced lawyer and works in the judiciary system, prior her current job at family tribunal, she worked in commercial sections.

There are many laws here that forbids using any currency that's not the national one, from consumer's laws to financial laws.

OK, so this is your logic:

1) By your interpretation, there's a law in Brazil that prohibits the use of any currency that is not Brazil's national currency.

2) Because Bitcoin is not Brazil's national currency, you are now worried because NameCheap is now using Bitcoin, and will drop your company accounts with them.

So my main question is: why weren't you worried when Namecheap started accepted US Dollars (i.e., since their founding)? After all USD are not Brazil's national currency. Does this law distinguish between USD and other currencies? This is not the case according to the case you cited.

Most importantly, the law you refer to above, and the case you cited, all seem to involve government payments. And you've cited no other specific laws, other than this one (LEI Nº 4.595, DE 31 DE DEZEMBRO DE 1964), which is basically the law governing the establishment of a national currency. So according to this law, you have to pay the Government of Brazil in Brazilian currency (reales) for taxes, government contracts, etc. This is entirely reasonable; the US Government has a similar law. In the US, at least, this law does not outlaw the use of other currencies. And since multinational corporations do business in USD in Brazil every day of the week, it seems to me extremely unlikely that this outlaws the use of foreign currencies in Brazil. You just can't pay Brazilian government taxes or for other government services in other currencies.

Even though I do have credentials to keep this discussion going forever, I'll refrain from further comments on this thread. You are not willing to understand what I'm saying so my comments are pointless.

As far as I can tell, you have yet to explain how what Namecheap does with other people could effect you, if you simply choose to not use bitcoin to pay them. You haven't given us anything to fail to understand...

Sorry dude, you have several people asking you what country your in and you give no answer. What you said (That Bitcoins are illegal in your country) is complete FUD until you provide some proof.

As far as I am concerned, until you tell us where your country is, it seems your trying to damage namecheap's and /or Bitcoin's reputation for no reason.

Please provide the country and law cited. Cheers.

Maybe he meant planet ?

Eduardo is from Brazil.

Perhaps he was referring to this?

http://silvervigilante.com/bitcoin-attacked-by-brazils-secur...

My country is in my contact information, I didn't answer because I went to sleep.

This is the law that complete forbids using any currency other than the national for internal commerce and disposes about how forex must work, which bitcoins do not comply.

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L4595.htm

This is a case where people were using dollars to pay for national contracts:

http://jus.com.br/revista/texto/8566/da-impossibilidade-de-p...

Thanks for replying, I can't read the links however I have a question: Is buying a domain from namecheap considered internal commerce? Also many other items bought with Bitcoins would be external to your country.

Surely you can buy a wordpress account with USD without being arrested? What makes buying wordpress / namecheap with Bitcoin any different? Or maybe i'm misunderstanding something. (Honest I probably am missing something, this happens to me a lot :)

Where is bitcoin illegal? I don't think Bitcoin is illegal in any country.

I hesitated adding those links here because of the very high amount of downvotes I'm getting, which means most of you don't like the message I'm passing, anyway, I think you are acting out of emotion, there you go:

Contains links to laws in the US that can be used against bitcoins:

http://www.usmint.gov/consumer/?action=archives#NORFED

Thesis showing that most parallel currencies are illegal (including in the US):

http://repositorio.bce.unb.br/bitstream/10482/9485/1/2011_Ma...

Bank Palmas created a 'social currency', it is a crime here, they escaped jail in 2003, but then in 2011 things got ugly:

http://empreendedorsocial.blogfolha.uol.com.br/2012/07/11/um...

I assume they still accept real cash.

Um, are you saying they don't accept real cash anymore?

You appear to be from Brazil, in which case you're flat out wrong. Bitcoins are not illegal in Brazil, or in any other country that I'm aware of. The government securities commission in Brazil recently suspended operations of a Brazil-based Bitcoin investment company ("Grupo de Investimento Bitcoin") that they said was an investment company operating without government approval, but that's a far cry from barring Bitcoin.

http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L4595.htm

Yes, they are. Any currency other than the national currency cannot be used for commerce.

This is a case where people were using dollars to pay for national contracts:

http://jus.com.br/revista/texto/8566/da-impossibilidade-de-p...

The only kind of parallel currency that is acceptable under the law are called 'social currencies' which are just food stamps.

Move out of Elbonia.

These companies advertised on the frontpage of HN as "taking Bitcoins" aren't taking Bitcoins directly, y'know.

Why does it matter that they are using a third party system to accept payments?

Because his concern is that they are "taking bitcoins", which they are not.

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