Re: Bitcoin in France: first legal decision directly related to Bitcoin?
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).
Not true. Where I live (Bucharest/Romania) there are dedicated exchange houses which are not banks. You go in, give cash, get cash in another currency. I've seen these in other countries.
These are regulated in the EU, and you need a licence to operate one. Moreover, Romania is a recent addition to the EU, so it is possible that the relevant legislation is just being implemented (accession countries had a grace period to implement legislation).
It's possible, I don't know the legal status of these. But I am pretty sure that they don't need to follow the same rules, don't need to pay the same fees and most definitely will not take years to create one.
The point of my comment was that I don't believe the issue to be as bad as MagicalTux implied. There are solutions to open an exchange other than become a bank. There are also other countries other than France in the SEPA zone. Even Romania, why not?
