Sorry to carry the bad news, but if this news checks out:
http://www.bighaber.com/haber/bitcoin-exchanges-offer-anti--money-laundering-aid-929817.htmlRather start to redesign exchanges, Mt.Gox is pretty much dead. This got to be a hard blow in the trust, the "aid offer" will be taken not only for bust drug dealers but to let the government stuck its nose on all BTC economy, from drugs and guns up to undeclared T-Shirt sales, making bitcoin the unsafer currency around.
So you expect an exchange that wants to be legitimate to not cooporate with authorities, no matter how "right" you may think it is as long as it is legal. Please explain how you expect it to work in the real world.
I'm with padrino on this one. It's not reasonable to think BTC is going to operate without any government intervention at all. Most people just really aren't thinking this through.
If I buy a shirt from padrino and send him BTC and he mails me a shirt, I have a shirt and no one's the wiser.
If I send Mt. Gox 1,000 BTC and sell them on the market and the gov gets involved well now what?
If I go to Forex.com and trade currency I'm expected to pay capital gains on my profit. No one likes taxes but it's the way it is. If you're hoping BTC is going to provide you a life of no taxes and freedom from from gov you are in the wrong century.
If BTC is going to be legitimate it needs to operate the same way a currency does and the community needs to grow up about this. No one likes to hear about any form of criminal activity but on what grounds can they "ban" BTC because someone wants to launder cash? You would have to ban cash itself!!! Gov may want to regulate it but criminalising BTC could be very dangerous for them.
It wouldn't go away for one. It would heighten people's awareness of it. And it would crystalize the black market and force the participants to refine and advance their methodologies. BTC is here to stay so "they" have to deal with it just as we have to deal with "them".
Like it or not.
What we need to put thought to as a community is: is BTC a commodity or currency? What's the cost basis for profit determination?