Hacker News Reader

Comment by mateuszf | Hacker News Reader

Haven't heard of any problems with bitstamp. Did you?

I have not either, beside the usual phishing and DDoS. That said I've not had any experience with them except for hearing the name in passing. Remember that a comment like this is possibly a false positive, they could be incompetent until we know that it's 100% true, we can't ever prove that they aren't incompetent.

I have heard that they are extremely well-run and everything works as it should - however, they ask a lot of questions if you make bigger transactions.

For example, they need to know where do you get your money from, and if it's from mining, they want copies of bills for the mining rigs, and so on.

Maybe, but that's like me calling you incompetent because there is no proof you always are competent.

True, but I'm not handling financial transactions.

It doesn't matter. With your definition of competence no one could be called that way ever.

A measure of competence is usually down to trust and demonstration of experience. We can take blockchain.info, a slightly similar service, and use them as an example. With no other knowledge I can see that their ready to go PHP developer examples have SQL injection vulnerabilities. That's not an issue with the service itself-that's closed source-but we now have a measure of the incompetence of the websites owner. There's no way of knowing what their system looks like internally, but that's enough to make me cautious relying on their data feeds as being 100% reliable.

It's quite possible to demonstrate robust systems.

But you have to have robust systems first.

There is some problems funding for some people, as some banks consider Slovenia to be under financial embargo/blacklist.

There is also the huge problem that they do not have MSB licenses in the US, so it's only a matter of time until Florida or NY sues them, or demands the arrest and extradition of the owners for not complying with US laws yet still allowing American customers.

Bitstamp is outside of NY or FL jurisdiction.

US law changed where nobody is outside their jurisdiction anymore with these new MSB laws, which is why a lot of foreign services stopped dealing with US residents. FL can petition whatever federal government agency to go after them like they did foreign Liberty Reserve exchangers.

Stop spreading FUD. The MSB rules only apply to exchanges incorporated or physically located in the US, including its outlying territories. They don't apply to foreign exchanges, i.e., MtGox or most other current major BTC exchanges.

Foreign services stopped dealing with US residents because last year new FBAR and FATCA compliance rules went into effect, requiring US taxpayers to provide more information about their foreign assets, and the US signed numerous new agreements with most major nations to share data about U.S. account-holders (agreements under which either nation could demand specified information about account-holders in the other nation as if they were domestic institutions) Many European banks stopped doing business with Americans because it was a paperwork nightmare to deal with the compliance.

1 CFR 1010.100(ff). An entity may now qualify as a money services business (MSB) under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) regulations based on its activities within the United States, even if none of its agents, agencies, branches or offices are physically located in the United States. Relevant factors include whether the foreign-located person, whether or not on a regular basis or as an organized or licensed business concern, is providing services to customers located in the United States.

The Final Rule requires each foreign-located MSB to appoint a person residing in the United States as an agent for service of legal process with respect to compliance with the BSA and its implementing regulations.

Translation: Bitstamp, if they take $1 from an American customer are now required to register with FinCen, possibly apply for licenses (nobody has figured this out yet at the bitcoin foundation) and have an agent based in the US to oversee legal compliance. I haven't heard of Bitstamp doing this. Use at your own risk.

But Bitstamp isn't in the US, so they don't give a crap about that law.

Just like you don't worry about crazy laws in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait that prohibit drinking alcohol.

US can change their laws all they want, they still can't shut down a bank in Slovenia because it has a British business account.

They can try and press the UK, but that, at best, will only result in Bitstamp moving its headquarters to a different country, which would result in a ton of taxes leaving too.

> US can change their laws all they want, they still can't shut down a bank in Slovenia

They can and do go after banks that have subsidiaries in the US. They also can pressure those banks that don't by going after their affiliates that do.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com