Here is what we will see in 2014. Companies like circle.com with $9M invested, Coinbase.com with $25M invested and any of the other companies that receive significant investment moving quickly to spend a lot of that money to become licensed in all the US State.
That is possible but they are going to stop all business and wait 6-9 months? For a license they may or may not need?
By definition apply for a license (a defacto admission that unlicensed activity is unlawful) while engaging in unlicensed activity is not smart. I can't see any state granting a license to an entity which is operating without a license while seeking said license. The time required to obtain a license is an obstacle.
And another issue with NO federal regulator is the there is ABSOLUTELY no list of all the money transmitters in every state that requires licensing so there is really no way to tell.
Not sure what you mean by this. There is no unified list but pretty much all states make licensure a public record and most (all? I want to say all but there may be one or two exceptions) make these records available online. If xyz claims to be a licensed money transmitter, license #12345679 it is pretty hard to verify if there is no way to verify.
Examples:
CA money transmitters:
http://www.dbo.ca.gov/Licensees/money_transmitters/money_transmitters_directory.aspVA money transmitters:
http://www.scc.virginia.gov/bfi/reg_inst/trans.pdfNY money transmitters:
http://www.dfs.ny.gov/about/whowesupervise/simoneyt.htmPretty much just google "[name of state] money transmitter" and you can find a list within a link or two.