Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoin in France: first legal decision directly related to Bitcoin?
by
MagicalTux
on 04/09/2011, 14:21:06 UTC
What matters is not what you say, but what the law says.

Okay, but if the law comes out in your favor, all the people saying "Bitcoin is money" are basically not telling the truth?

How much harder would it be for you to do what you do, if the court comes back and says it is money? Because if I'm not mistaken, that would be the favorable outcome for everyone who's not an exchange, right? Everyone else here, it sounds like, would really love for a court anywhere to rule "yep, it's money" so that all the people saying "Bitcoin isn't money, no one recognizes it as money except a couple hundred libertarian nutters" will finally shut up.

If bitcoin is an electronic currency, it means we will have to report to the different countries of origin of our customers the identity of anyone buying, selling or owning bitcoins, how much they own, etc. just like banks are doing in most countries.
Not mentioning that exchange or online storage of bitcoins would require to be a bank, which involves a lot of fees and time (can take up to 5 years to create one). Banks as we know can do that as they run fractional reserve and can spend the money you put with them, but bitcoin won't allow that (it's here to prevent this kind of nonsense from happening).

It would also make transit of bitcoin between countries subject of customs declaration requirement, and a lot of more crap that would be bad for everyone.


Bitcoin is not a money, it's bitcoin. Don't try to interpret it with current laws, we'll most likely need a new set of laws to accommodate the way it works and the anonymity required.