Quote from: schmokel on April 21, 2013, 07:28:10 AM

there was basically no advance warning of his intentions. As a result, a lot of people were stuck with USD in their account.

exactly. there are people with usd balances willing to buy bitcoins (and overpay greatly even) to get the funds out as bitcoins. there are others yet today willing to sell their bitcoins at bitfloor and withdraw usd balances as ach, even after this bank issue.

so the only difference of leaving the exchange open for trading is noticed by who would be withdrawing a usd balance. and why would bitfloor care about that. in fact, bitfloor should prefer this as there would be fewer accounts with usd balances left to process withdrawals for.

therefore, it is becoming pretty clear bitfloor got "advised" that it was operating as a money transmitter and to stop immediately until registered as one. that advise included how to comply, no withdrawals would be allowed unless identity was verified. there's no other explanation that makes as much sense.

and look at all the scenarios where this happens. how did you get your bitcoins out of glbse? sendt in id verification. how do you get your bitcoins out of instawallet today? send in id verification. now how do you get your usds out of bitfloor? send in id verification. see a pattern? these services get advice and all of a sudden they need your id.