
California governor signs bill to bring Bitcoin and other currency into fold - tilt
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-usa-california-bitcoin-idUSKBN0F402T20140629
======
thinkcomp
This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of the
underlying statute it repeals anyway.

The bigger development is what's going on with AB 2209, also sponsored by
Dickinson--the only legislator I've ever seen censor public comments by
refusing to accept ones he doesn't like. Here's AB 2209:

[http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&...](http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&sess=CUR&house=B)

Rather than repeal the Money Transmission Act (which also governs Bitcoin),
they're adding a loophole such that money transmission is exempted from the
definition of "money transmission."

Here's some Public Records Act documents from the DBO, which enforces the MTA:

[https://archive.org/details/california-dbo-
emails](https://archive.org/details/california-dbo-emails)

They call New York regulators "fools" for "rushing" to regulate Bitcoin.

The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will still
be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has no
effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any of
the founders of those startups via federal law.

~~~
smtddr
_> >This bill is largely irrelevant and pro forma. There was no enforcement of
the underlying statute it repeals anyway._

This is true until it isn't[1].

1\. [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of-
fascis...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/560564-the-essence-of-fascism-is-
to-make-laws-forbidding-everything)

 _> >The upshot is that every Bitcoin startup in California is still and will
still be breaking multiple laws, possibly including the MTA (which AB 129 has
no effect on) and Y Combinator and other VCs are just as liable legally as any
of the founders of those startups via federal law._

And this is exactly why I'm glad there are people who use legal reforms to
chip away at situations like this. Companies & people that are operating in a
form that's technically illegal but nobody enforced the law on them. One day,
Coinbase or whatever starts getting really big then some back-room
deal(extortion) happens where someone says _" Look, you either play ball with
me or I'll start reminding powerful authority figures about Law ABC of section
123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment to a completely
unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to that would shutdown your whole
operation."_

I'd also like to see some kind of reform for the ridiculous situation created
by IRS declaring bitcoin as property without any clear process of accounting
and reporting it on your taxes. Look at this:
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance)
...what am I suppose to do here? What this really cause is the creation of 2
kinds of people. Those overwhelmed/intimidated by IRS and just quit bitcoin
altogether, then those who choose to just ignore it and thus are now breaking
a law that definitely won't be uniformly enforced. Forget about the counter-
argument _" Well, they choose to break the law so they need to accept the
consequences"_. Those who are thinking of this I invite to read the following:
[http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-
pragmatic](http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-pragmatic) . It's
nonsensical to expect everyone involved in buying/selling bitcoin to suddenly
be able to handle the tax implications in this fashion. There was a time I was
able to just create a bitcoin QRcode coupon and give it to someone without a
second thought. Now it's all mixed up with property tax or something; I
dunno.... nobody does. At least that Wiki entry isn't 100% sure and nobody
wants to be on the receiving end of IRS's wrath.

~~~
esbranson
> _Law ABC of section 123, on appendix XYZ passed 7 years ago as an amendment
> to a completely unrelated bill nobody was paying attention to_

Surely you've read all 150,000 section of the California statutes, 50,000
sections of the federal statutes, 30,000 sections of the California
regulations, and 30,000 of the federal regulations. I mean, its not as if the
government is _purposely_ not publishing the law in an _accessible_ manner.
The government spends billions of dollars to send frogs into space, so
_surely_ the law must be so easy to find and read that you can download it in
a standardized, machine-readable format from a multitude of sources, for free
(as in freedom and as in beer)..

~~~
gknoy
Is it fair to say that the laws are deliberately not published in an
accessible manner? It seems more plausible that the sheer volume of the laws
and amendments mean that it's hard to publish them in an accessible way.

If only we could adopt a git workflow. ;)

~~~
esbranson
Its often available in a standardized, machine-readable format, but
inaccessible nonetheless. _E.g._ , California's laws have been available in
XML since the 1990s or something, but they weren't accessible until 2009 or
so.[1] Inaccessibility is obviously not a technical problem.

[1] [http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit](http://maplight.org/pr_lawsuit)

------
ForFreedom
If Bitcoin is folded with other currencies then Bitcoin can have a say in the
currency value unlike the govts having a say of their individual currencies.

And that my friends is madness as one institution will have a say over the
buying value of all the people in the world.

~~~
icebraining
I understand the individual words, but I have no idea what you're trying to
say.

------
kolev
This isn't a bill about just Bitcoin, why is it singled-out in the title? Oh,
because all the Bitcoin maniacs will keep echoing like there's no tomorrow!

~~~
kordless
The only people I see getting violently insane over Bitcoin are people who are
afraid of it and unable to resolve their cognitive dissonance over it. I get
you don't like it - but that doesn't mean you have a right to make blaming
statements over it. I for one, am not a maniac.

BTW, contrary to your statement saying the bill isn't just about Bitcoin,
here's the link to the brief:
[http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_129_cfa_20140117_114927_asm_comm.html).
Bitcoin is mentioned 23 times - a good reason to single it out if there ever
was one.

~~~
kolev
I don't mind the flies... unless they start bugging me with their annoying
buzz.

