US Government Begins BitCoin Crackdown

US Government Begins BitCoin Crackdown

Tyler Durden on 05/15/2013 14:02 -0400

As we first noted here (regulation) and here (supervision), the US government has been gradually encroaching on the independence and freedom of the virtual currency. This week, as The Washington Post reports, the government escalated. The feds took action against Mt. Gox, the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange. Many people use Dwolla, a PayPal-like payment network, to send dollars to their Mt. Gox accounts. They then use those dollars to buy Bitcoins. On Tuesday, Dwolla announced that it had frozen Mt. Gox’s account at the request of federal investigators.

It’s the first federal action against the currency. CNet has confirmed that the asset seizure was initiated by Homeland Security Investigations (which among other things is responsible for enforcing the laws associated with money laundering and drug smuggling).

As this crackdown begins, many argue that “you can’t put the genie back into the bottle,” as far as shutting down the ‘network’ of open source transactions; but as one Bitcoin enthusiast added (sadly), “I hate to say it, but the Bitcoin community needs to start lobbying, it needs to start educating policymakers, lobbyists and influencers about the pros of Bitcoin and the impossibility or the difficulty in getting rid of all the bad uses.”Considering the great antipathy the central planners have toward such legacy money as gold and silver, is it any surprise that they would move aggressively and rapidly to halt the emergence of yet another alternative to fiat, especially one which the ECB made it very clear will not be tolerated in an insolvent world. Because all is fair in preserving the FIATH…

Via The Washington Post:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) described Bitcoin as an “online form of money laundering” and called for the authorities to shutter the Bitcoin-based drug market Silk Road. Yet until recently, the feds have taken a relatively hands-off posture.

That hands-off stance may have started to change this week when the feds took action against Mt. Gox, the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange. Many people use Dwolla, a PayPal-like payment network, to send dollars to their Mt. Gox accounts. They then use those dollars to buy Bitcoins. On Tuesday, Dwolla announced that it had frozen Mt. Gox’s account at the request of federal investigators. It’s the first federal action against the currency.

CNet has confirmed that the asset seizure was initiated by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among other things, that agency has the power to enforce laws against money laundering and drug smuggling.

Jerry Brito, a scholar at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University, urges federal regulators to tread lightly.“Bitcoin has the potential to be a boon to the economy and a boon to merchants,” he argues.

Moreover, he says, “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.” In his view, the federal government would have as much difficulty shutting down the Bitcoin network as major content companies have had shutting down peer-to-peer file sharing. A major crackdown would merely drive the network underground, where it would continue to be used for illicit transactions but would be off-limit to ordinary consumers.

“I hate to say it, but the Bitcoin community needs to start lobbying,” he says. “It needs to start educating policymakers, lobbyists and influencers about the pros of Bitcoin and the impossibility or the difficulty in getting rid of all the bad uses.”

The coming political battle over Bitcoin

By Timothy B. Lee, Updated: May 15, 2013

Given that Bitcoin first broke into mainstream attention when Gawker explained how to use it to buy drugs, perhaps the surprise is that it took federal regulators this long to take action against it.

In the wake of the Gawker story two years ago, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) described Bitcoin as an “online form of money laundering” and called for the authorities to shutter the Bitcoin-based drug market Silk Road. Yet until recently, the feds have taken a relatively hands-off posture. Agencies have issued guidelines and signaled that they are monitoring the situation, but none have taken active steps to force Bitcoin intermediaries to comply with federal regulations.

That hands-off stance may have started to change this week when the feds took action against Mt. Gox, the world’s leading Bitcoin exchange. Many people use Dwolla, a PayPal-like payment network, to send dollars to their Mt. Gox accounts. They then use those dollars to buy Bitcoins. On Tuesday, Dwolla announced that it had frozen Mt. Gox’s account at the request of federal investigators. It’s the first federal action against the currency.

CNet has confirmed that the asset seizure was initiated by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Among other things, that agency has the power to enforce laws against money laundering and drug smuggling.

The government refused to say more about the ongoing investigation, so we don’t know if the feds have targeted Mt. Gox itself or one of its customers. But either way, the move isn’t very surprising.

For years, Bitcoin supporters have touted the currency’s potential to resist government surveillance and censorship. They point to the example of Wikileaks, the whistleblower Web site whose access to funds dried up after the federal governmentapplied informal pressure to intermediaries such as PayPal to cut off payments. The Bitcoin network is fully decentralized, so there is no one with the ability to monitor the network and block illicit transactions. If Wikileaks had funded itself through the Bitcoin network, the government wouldn’t have had such an easy time freezing its funds.

That’s a feature for people concerned with press freedom, but it looks more like a bug for government officials charged with enforcing the nation’s drug, gambling, counter-terrorism, and money laundering laws. The government relies heavily on financial institutions to help them monitor their customers’ financial activities and flag or block potentially illegal transactions. The lack of intermediaries makes Bitcoin an attractive technology for those who want to evade government scrutiny. It was only a matter of time before authorities started to give the technology some unwelcome attention.

Jerry Brito, a scholar at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University, urges federal regulators to tread lightly. “Bitcoin has the potential to be a boon to the economy and a boon to merchants,” he argues. He believes it could “disrupt traditional payment networks that have not been innovative for a very long time,” reducing the costs of financial services.

Moreover, he says, “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.” In his view, the federal government would have as much difficulty shutting down the Bitcoin network as major content companies have had shutting down peer-to-peer file sharing. A major crackdown would merely drive the network underground, where it would continue to be used for illicit transactions but would be off-limit to ordinary consumers.

Brito, a Bitcoin enthusiast, worries that the Bitcoin community will be caught flat-footed if this week’s enforcement action turns out to be the first step in a broader Bitcoin crackdown. “I hate to say it, but the Bitcoin community needs to start lobbying,” he says. “It needs to start educating policymakers, lobbyists and influencers about the pros of Bitcoin and the impossibility or the difficulty in getting rid of all the bad uses.”

May 15, 2013, 4:37 p.m. ET

U.S. Officials Freeze An Account Linked to Bitcoin Exchange

By JEFFREY SPARSHOTT And ROBIN SIDEL

WASHINGTON—U.S. officials dealt a blow to the fledgling digital currency calledBitcoin, freezing an account tied to the largest Bitcoin exchange just months after regulators warned such entities should follow traditional anti-money laundering rules.

The Department of Homeland Security obtained a warrant Tuesday to seize an account tied to Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based exchange that says it handles 80% of all Bitcoin trading. The warrant alleges the company and a subsidiary were conducting transactions “as part of an unlicensed money service business.”

The scrutiny comes after the Treasury Department ruled in March that firms issuing or exchanging online cash, including currencies not backed by a central bank, would be subject to the same money-laundering rules as traditional providers like Western UnionCo. WU +0.98%

The Treasury unit that fights money laundering requires such companies to register as “money services businesses,” and subjects them to a variety of rules and reporting for transactions of more than $10,000. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also is considering whether to regulate so-called virtual currencies.

U.S. authorities accused Mt. Gox and its U.S. subsidiary, Mutum Sigillum LLC, which held the account, of failing to register with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCen. The account was held at the online-payments firm Dwolla, according to the warrant.

A number of firms have registered as money-transmission businesses since the agency issued the guidance, but Mt. Gox hasn’t done so, according to a FinCen list. The agency doesn’t have authority to take on Mt. Gox directly because it is based in Tokyo, but has fired a shot across the exchange’s bow by going after its U.S. subsidiary.

The DHS action appears to be the first salvo in government efforts to make sure companies comply with anti-money-laundering rules, said Jon Matonis, a director of the Bitcoin Foundation, an industry-backed group that works to promote the digital cash.

Nicole Navas, a spokeswoman for DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm, said the account seizure was the first such move “involving virtual currency in the agency’s history.”

Dwolla, based in Des Moines, Iowa, said it had informed users. “We appreciate the sensitivity and frustration caused by the situation,” but the company considers the matter between Mt. Gox and the DHS, said a spokesman.

Mt. Gox couldn’t be reached for comment. A statement on its website said the company had “read on the Internet” about the warrant.

The rising popularity of virtual currencies is being fueled by Internet merchants, as well as users’ concerns about privacy, jitters about traditional currencies in Europe and efforts to move money for illicit purposes.

Bitcoin has been on a wild ride since March, ranging between $125 and $98 over the past 10 days and rising as high as $230 in April. It was trading at about $112 Wednesday on the Mt. Gox exchange.