The Feds Are Cracking Down On Mt. Gox, Not On Bitcoin | Hacker News Reader

The Feds Are Cracking Down On Mt. Gox, Not On Bitcoin

forbes.com

47 pointsaustengary18 comments

  | Bank of America refused to send a transfer
  | to the Japanese account

It's a little off-topic (from the meat of the article), but why? Is this just a part of some generic BoA policy, or something specific to the account?

They've had this policy for over 2 months. Not sure why.

Right on topic. It may be only a little sidenote in the article, but that is an interesting revelation that is worth investigating further.

It is very strange for a bank to not allow a standard wire to an international account. A refusal with no real reason could be because there is a Justice Department sealed order to not allow money transfers into Mt Gox, or it could be a simple mistake.

Only one way to find out - ask Bank of America.

I've been waiting five days for an "international wire transfer" the other way around - Mt Gox to BoA - to go through. A month ago, the same transfer took two days.

The article mainly discusses Dwolla's connection (I'm not using Dwolla), but also mentions a Wells Fargo account that was also seized, and I'm wondering if that's the account where my money is supposed to come from.

(And not on Mt. Gox but on Mutum Sigillum - a subsidiary) Gox still works OK - all wires to and from Mt. Gox work with the only exception of the path from Dwolla through Mutum Sigillum.

This is the go after the ammo strategy (gun control reference). The Feds could never literally stop Bitcoin, but they can endlessly assault the Bitcoin network via the global banking infrastructure that Bitcoin requires to function properly (currency exchanges, bank transfers and wires, and so on). In doing so they'll drive up the cost of the Bitcoin network to the end users, making it less appealing.

There are quite a few Bitcoin supporters who believe that an independent Bitcoin economy is possible and that Bitcoin can survive without exchanges. I guess this will be a small test of that theory...

Sure, you can just sell cupcakes for bitcoins without a single dollar changing hands, but then the feds will just shut down your cupcake shop.

How would that work?

Let's hope we don't get the opportunity to find out.

First, all my bitcoins in bitcoin-24.com got frozen, then in bitfloor and now the same thing will happen to mtgox?? Seriously, it took a month until I could access them again. Good that I know better now, because now I will withdraw all my bitcoins from mtgox immediately and transfer to coinbase...

I'm getting mine out of MtGox and keeping them in an offline paper wallet. I would not hold them in ANY online wallet these days, especially Coinbase, given their recent problems.

Yeah I should probably do that instead. Thx for the tip and also with Coinbase!

Is there a wallet that is in the cloud and safe of being shut down, because what if my hard drive crashes?

You need to look up what a paper wallet is.

Backup? Paper wallet?

Really, there's just no reason to keep all your bitcoins any one place. Keep a couple in an online wallet for convenience, some on your hard drive for quick access, some on your phone and some in paper wallets. Or spread them across multiple computers. The flexibility is part of the appeal.

Why are you constantly keeping bitcoins in these exchanges? If you had dollars locked up there, I could understand. i.e. you were in the process of purchasing bitcoins. But to repeatedly have your bitcoins locked up when you could have almost instantly transferred them to your own wallet at any time seems odd.

Store them in a local encrypted wallet, I wouldn't leave them on any remote service.

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