
Germany Sets Standard for Bitcoin Regulation - guruz
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/germany-sets-standard-for-bitcoin-regulation/
======
dmix
Why does every government agency dealing with business have an obsession with
"detailed business plans"?

The key to regulating companies is clearly to require them to write 30 pages
of creative writing detached from the reality of how the business will operate
a few months later.

How about a few page summary of the business with profiles of the team
members, or pitch deck, without all the useless detail.

~~~
rayiner
Governments think of the financial system the way ATT or VZN think of their
cellular networks. Nobody is going to let you plug in your new cellular device
with just a pitch deck about how it works.

Also: to filter out ponzi schemes and the like.

~~~
oleganza
"Ponzi schemes" are like "pornodrugterrorists" \- just a pseudo-reason to
protect the monopoly in the eyes of the voters at their own expense. Maybe if
people were allowed to decide whether they want to pay for "protecting" them
from ponzi schemes, we would know how these problems could be solved most
efficiently. However, the taxes are not paid, but extracted, so we cannot
really find out what is the better way to protect ourselves.

~~~
rayiner
Financial fraud duping people is extremely common. You can argue about whether
people should protect themselves, but at the end of the day, these laws were
demanded as a response to people getting robbed.

~~~
oleganza
Is it a proof of government inefficiency at fighting fraud? Or a call for more
regulation?

We would never know that until people are allowed to decide for themselves how
they want to protect themselves. Right now we have two problems: 1) we are
forced to allocate huge amounts of money for various "protection" of dubious
quality, so we don't have much money left for extra protection that we
ourselves may choose; 2) various business models that might explore
alternative ways to protect people are either prohibited or kept away from
existing monopoly markets protected by the state.

In short: while there are state guns, we cannot know if they do us any good.
And I very much suspect that any person who constantly coerces you "for your
own good" without a good proof is always an evil sadist. (Parents may force
children to take a medicine because they can then demonstrate that it was
actually helping. Like you may drag me by force from under a running bus and
then tell me why you did it. But constant abuse without a proof and religious
brainwashing is pure sadism.)

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Rudism
Forgive me if I'm just being ignorant on the matter (I'm not super familiar
with Bitcoin), but wasn't one of the founding principles of Bitcoin the idea
that it wasn't/wouldn't be regulated?

~~~
lmkg
Ehhh... One of the founding principles was that it doesn't have a central
issuing authority. The _supply_ of bitcoin can't be controlled, which makes it
immune to politically-convenient devaluation or debasement, unlike government-
issued fiat currency. Or in laymen's terms: The fed can't just print more
bitcoins.

Starting from the above, an extended game of Telephone resulted in some people
thinking that Bitcoin can't be regulated at all. This is a silly belief.

~~~
cracker_jacks
Can you explain how can bitcoin be regulated? Regulation defined as the
ability to control transactions.

~~~
brazzy
The same way transactions in any other currency are controlled: by making laws
that say what you must and cannot do and what penalties apply if you don't
comply.

~~~
cracker_jacks
You can regulate things around bitcoin (ie exchanges), but you have no direct
control of whether or not a wallet is able make transactions. You can't freeze
a bitcoin address and associating an address to a real-world identity would be
easily circumvented.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You can regulate things around bitcoin (ie exchanges), but you have no
> direct control of whether or not a wallet is able make transactions.

In this respect, this is no different than most things government regulates,
including money-in-the-form-of-coins-and-scraps-of-paper.

~~~
cracker_jacks
The difference is ease, physical currency is much harder to break apart and
move around in large sums without eventually going through something the
government regulates. If you kept your transactions entirely in bitcoin, I do
not see how anyone could control what you do.

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mrb
Note that the reporting on this story is not very clear. Those requirements
listed (730,000 EUR minimum capital, etc) are only for _Bitcoin exchanges_.
These regulations do not apply to, eg. businesses merely selling
products/services for bitcoins.

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JonSkeptic
>Inter alia the following conditions must be met:

-Initial capital of 730.000 Euros

-Management must be professionally qualified

-A detailed business plan must be submitted

-Capital adequacy standards must be met

-AML mechanisms must be implemented

-Reports must be submitted to BaFin regularly

Well...are there any bitcoin exchanges that meet those requirements in
Germany?

~~~
rb2k_
bitcoin.de has some sort of cooperation with a German Bank:

[https://blog.bitcoin.de/en/bitcoin-de-und-fidor-bank-ag-
vere...](https://blog.bitcoin.de/en/bitcoin-de-und-fidor-bank-ag-vereinbaren-
weitgehende-partnerschaft)

    
    
        As from the start of the cooperation, which will be
        activated upon the registration with the German Federal
        Financial Supervisory Authority, Bitcoin Deutschland GmbH
        will become Fidor Bank AG’s so-called “tied agent” to
        conduct the bitcoin trading for Fidor Bank AG on
        bitcoin.de.
    

That might help them with most of these things.

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ferdo
Thus far, government efforts to regulate ones and zeroes haven't met with
great success.

~~~
rayiner
Almost all traditional finance today is just ones and zeros, and its all quite
successfully regulated.

~~~
ferdo
Bitcoin's ones and zeroes don't originate in a central bank.

~~~
mpyne
Neither do the others. There are very many "central banks" out there, and the
U.S. creates money out of thin air just as successfully as people mine
Bitcoins out of thin air.

~~~
ferdo
Unlike the creations of the central banks, there's an end to Bitcoin's
creations. The value in this model is seen in Bitcoin's steadily rising and
holding price.

~~~
brazzy
If you believe that speculative bubbles constitute value, sure...

~~~
ferdo
All monetary systems are speculative bubbles. Some just have the backing of a
government to give support to the bubble. The last guy out of assignats
probably felt a little foolish.

~~~
brazzy
Apparently you have no idea what a speculative bubble is.

~~~
ferdo
I know enough to have already exited the bubble market that's not too far from
busting.

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perlpimp
Hm interesting, I wonder if bringing such rules to the bitcoin currency
trading, at least in Germany would somewhat legitimize it. Stricter
requirements might dissuade some but on the flip side of the coin it may well
bring even more serious players to the bitcoin market thus making it more
substantial and well balanced. Just guessing though.

my 2c.

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Houshalter
That's ridiculous. You shouldn't need millions to just trade bitcoins. Some of
those requirements are arbitrary and needless hurdles like being
"professionally qualified". And then some are just track people that use
bitcoin and what they are doing with it.

Does this apply to all bitcoin companies like it said, or just exchanges?

~~~
PeterisP
What do you mean by "all bitcoin companies" ?

This regulation would apply just as normal financial service regulation - to
companies that make bitcoin/money transfers on behalf of others, as a payment
service provider (like paypal is regulated); that hold bitcoins on behalf of
others (like any deposit-accepting bank is regulated) or those that buy/sell
bitcoins from public (like currency exchanges are regulated).

~~~
Houshalter
That's better, but still ridiculous.

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ton10
What about alternative coins?
[http://coinmarketcap.com/](http://coinmarketcap.com/)

~~~
yxhuvud
The article mentions Litecoin and Ripple as well, so regulation would probably
apply to them as well.

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Fuxy
Well the regulations are a pain but at least bitcoin will be more readily
available if it gets recognized.

