I have read an article on Coindesk this week that's very concerning:
http://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-trader-pleads-guilty-money-transmitter-charge/
Federal prosecutors alleged that Sal Mansy, a resident of Detroit, advertising a bitcoin buying and selling service through LocalBitcoins, conducting $2,400,000 worth of business between August 2013 and July 2015.
Mansy is the second user of LocalBitcoins to plead guilty to the unlicensed money service charge this month. Missouri resident Jason Klein plead guilty to selling bitcoin to undercover agents on five separate occasions, and a seller from Rochester, New York named Richard Petix plead guilty to the same charge a week prior.
The article does not specify what makes these specific trades illegal, is it the value of bitcoins sold and bought? is every user on localbitcoins committing a crime? or is it specific users exceeding a certain threshold?
I went to localbitcoins.com and surfed through the countless pages of FAQ / TOS / Forums and I see no mention of this at all. The website seems to be operating normally. So where did these charges come from? have those users who were charged with crimes done something different to be charged?
Even the wording in the article " Federal prosecutors alleged that Sal Mansy, a resident of Detroit, advertising a bitcoin buying and selling service through LocalBitcoins, conducting $2,400,000 worth of business between August 2013 and July 2015 "
seem to indicate that the charges may fit any localbitcoin user.
So why were they charged:
I went a little further and read the case files, it seems these users have went a little further than selling their bitcoins or simply trading. These users have started a business of buying and selling bitcoins on behalf of the public, and used localbitcoins as means of advertising their businesses. Their defense used the wrong assumption that the IRS definition of Bitcoin as property excludes it from money transmitting laws, which is totally wrong.
I found these footnotes from Mansy's case to shed some light on the issue:
FootNotes:
Specifically, the Indictment alleges,
Between about March 2014 and June 2015, in the Eastern District of Michigan, District of Maine and elsewhere [Defendants] knowingly conducted, controlled, managed, supervised, directed, and owned all and part of a money transmitting business affecting interstate commerce, which failed to comply with the money transmitting business registration requirements set forth in Title 31, United States Code, Section 5330, and the regulations prescribed thereunder, including Title 31, Code of Federal Regulations, Section 1010.100(ff)(5).
(Indictment (ECF No. 3), Page ID # 3.) Title 18 U.S.C. § 1960 provides, "Whoever knowingly conducts, controls, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of an unlicensed money transmitting business, shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both." 18 U.S.C. § 1960(a). Relevant to this matter, "unlicensed money transmitting business" is defined in part as "a money transmitting business which affects interstate or foreign commerce in any manner or degree and . . . fails to comply with the money transmitting business registration requirements under section 5330 of title 31, United States Code, or regulations prescribed under such section." Id. § 1960(b)(1)(B). "`[M]oney transmitting' includes transferring funds on behalf of the public by any and all means including but not limited to transfers within this country or to locations abroad by wire, check, draft, facsimile, or courier. . . ." Id. § 1960(b)(2). The statute does not otherwise define "money" or "funds."For a primer on Bitcoin, see Jerry Brito and Andrea Castillo, Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers, Mercatus Center, George Mason University (2013), available at https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/Brito_BitcoinPrimer.pdf/.
What you need to know:
Selling or Buying bitcoins on an exchange where you provided KYC/AML is completely legal. Starting your own little business of doing the same on behalf of others is not. If you want to go further than selling and buying bitcoins or crypto currencies outside of the registered businesses (Exchanges) you need to obtain a money transmitting license. If you are all set with the IRS, it does not mean you are not committing a crime by selling/buying outside of the legally registered channels.
Case file: http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020170512D21/U.S.%20v.%20MANSY
In my view, it no longer makes sense to attempt to think in terms of "legal or illegal". Trying to think in these terms can only work if there is some meaningful, objective difference between the two; yet there is no clear evidence this is the case. In fact, if one actually attempts to get some idea of what activities are legal or illegal on the books, she will quickly realize that almost all of our mundane, daily activities are illegal on the books, sometimes highly so, but neither average joes nor political enforcers generally realize this. Legal vs illegal seems to be completely arbitrary, and quite often, ambiguous, based on a variety of influences I will reference simply with the umbrella term 'political expedience,' so what value is there in asking the question at all? It is a question for which the answer has little value, if an answer can be consistently derived at all.
Legal vs illegal is a crapshoot, so what are the questions worth asking? Certainly ethical/moral questions, as you may see fit to apply them. Does buying and selling crypto help to, in your view, make the world a better or worse place? In my opinion, the answer here must almost certainly be "better," but to someone else the answer might be different for some reason, and that reason could be perfectly legitimate. This is a question worth pondering long and hard for all of our activities.
And another question worth asking is "Are political enforcers going to attack or hurt me for this?" and of course the answer to this question may inform whether/how you engage in buying and selling crypto. But even the answer to this question has little to do with legal vs illegal. Legal versus illegal is so irrelevant to real life at this point, most people do highly illegal things all the time, and not only is no one bothered by this, they would be extremely bothered (if they could survive at all) if everyone did make an honest and informed effort to only behave in legal ways.
That state of ambiguity is one of the primary hallmarks of totalitarianism, and is not an accident. Some individual get a little too loud or disruptive? Simply open up the enormous index of potential crimes and search until one fits and now you have an excuse for locking people away who are inconvenient.
This is pretty much right on. Had wanted to include a blurb about this in my "EOS Highlights and Favorites from Ethereal and Consensus 2017" post, though it seems @crypt0 had deleted the video for some reason. Perhaps they asked him to take it down, but one event was "Chasing Privacy in Blockchains" with Anne Wallwork, a "Policy Director" for the US Treasury Department.
The way she described it was that basically the Treasury Department regulates all forms of wire transfers. By extension, coin exchange is also then a form of "wire transfer", and technically anyone moving money electronically for any purpose, and certainly "privately" and/or "anonymously", could be considered as running afoul of KYC (know-your-customer) regulations...
You start to get the idea. As @modprobe wrote, potentially everyone's guilty of something, if "the powers that be" choose to come after you. That's sort of how Ms. Wallwork ended it, (paraphrased) "We're just watching and observing for now, but that could change at any time, as we see fit..."
Sort of like when the IRS retroactively changes the rules and goes after people 10 years later, except here they would see it as finally deciding to "enforce" laws (for certain players, at least, to "make an example" of them), that they already believe they have jurisdiction to pursue, as they see fit. Or say, just like they did to @charlieshrem. Another story that really started "waking me up" to how bad it had all become was Martin Armstrong's story: When There is no Justice – It is Time To Turnout the Lights
And of course, there's still the IRS probe into Coinbase, which is ironic since I think many coinbase users are likely also small businesses using coinbase to accept bitcoin and immediately convert it back to cash for sales (as opposed to people trading bitcoin and raking in "huge" profits): Congress Seeks Answers From IRS About Its Bitcoin Tax Investigation.
I tend to agree, everything we do is confusing when it comes to legal or otherwise. It's painful and worrisome to find out that an act is illegal when you read that someone was charged and convicted. It's as if we have to collect all these cases and read them and deduct what is legal and what is not. I did not find it weird when people who were involved in drug trafficking were convicted, but it's not the same when it comes to trading. The government needs to present laws that clearly define this, not use laws written in 1960 to prosecute cases involving Bitcoin. Until then we try in good faith to practice what we think is legal based on outdated laws.
It's as if we have to collect all these cases and read them and deduct what is legal and what is not.
I think that to most people in western culture today, this has become how they determine legal vs illegal. In other words, illegal vs legal, in their minds, is not a function of law, but rather a function of the behavior of political enforcers.
In the words of Confucius though, The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their proper names. My first hand experience has shown me that this is completely true. Words are our minds' handles on reality. Once we clarify the meaning of our words and how we use them, our thinking becomes clearer. When our thinking becomes clearer, we understand our world better. When we understand our world better, our plans to make our world better become more effective.
Thus it is counterproductive (unless you're going into public manipulation/politics, but if you do that you must not be wanting to make the world a better place anyways, lol) to think in terms of legal or illegal; it is more beneficial to think in terms of "What's going to make the world better, at least to me?" and "What's going to get me beat up by political enforcers?" since that's what we really care about, rather than "What does some incomprehensible legal document, which no one, least of all political enforcers, has ever read, say?".
Of course it can be a bit scary to think that clearly. Many of us don't want to admit our world is that messed up. It feels much more comfortable, much more safe, to think in terms of legal and illegal. But, at some level, I think we all know that doing so is living in a fantasy. At some point I gave up on that fantasy, and although the world looks a bit darker than the fantasy, the future started looking brighter because I realized that by choosing to see the world as it is rather than as I wish it were, I gain the power to change it for the better because I plan my actions based on reality rather than fantasy. Of course, I, like everyone, still make mistakes a plenty. I have a long way to go, no doubt, but I remain convinced that this is the right path.
Your argument is based on the assumption that people do highly illegal things routinely, but you don't provide any example. What are examples of highly illegal things people are doing routinely?
This is a well documented phenomenon known as overcriminalization. I will not attempt to summarize it here, but there are abundant examples readily available by searching online, or even just randomly opening a major state's code books (the United States Code being a fairly canonical example) and thinking about whether the contents are a sane way to run a society or not. You might also find the book Three Felonies a Day instructive, which was written by a lawyer who became concerned at the 'crimes' and convictions he began to see in his daily work. I have not personally read this book, though, and know it only by reputation.
I am aware of the concept. I'm actually quite in agreement with Ayn Rand's view that law is intentionnally designed to criminalize an always higher number of people so that they may be controlled through their own guilt, fear and shame, and increasingly through direct blackmail and legal bullying thanks to all the dirt that the all watching eye of the NSA is capturing and storing forever in their data vault.
What I was pointing to is the fact that not everyone is convinced of that, and that without clear, real-life examples, the argument isn't very convincing.
I'll give one example based on my own circumstances. Where I'm living, the tax code states that long term capital gains are gains from profits made on a "long enough" period of time, "depending on specific circumstances" and "the nature of the activity". None of what I put in quotes is defined at all anywhere in the tax code. And calling the IRS doesn't help because they just explain that it is determined case by case, and there is no precise guideline. In other words, if you are actively managing a financial portfolio, you are routinely misreporting some of your gains because no matter what you do, an IRS agent can always arbitrarily decide that your definition of "long term" is too short to his liking, or that your circumstances are the type of circumstances where you can't claim long term capital gains, and find you guilty of misreporting your income. The only way to be safe is to volunteer to declare all your trading as short term trading income and pay more taxes. And even then, you'd still be potentially doing something illegal: reporting more income than you actually made is a false declaration. As soon as your inflated tax statements start being used to increase your credit card limit or get a loan, you could be found guilty of fraud.
I'd be interested to hear a better everyday life example that more people can relate to though. Speeding perhaps?
Brilliant example! I agree, real world stories of the harm of the state are indeed important. Pathos is a technique of persuasion I have not mastered yet.
As for me, I think I've always felt at some level that if I chose to become savvy at that system, I'd be embracing my slavery to an extent I simply wasn't comfortable with. At that point I would be choosing to develop myself within and through that system because it is the 'safe' choice. I instead chose to pay the higher extortion rates on ignorance of that system and that pain motivated me to end my enslavement sooner rather than later. I now have detached myself from it and consent to it no longer.
So I have few stories of mishaps with the state. I have, for the most part, left it behind me now.
Part of the reason is that these local traders are stepping on the toes of an established and licensed industry. Those who have jumped through the hoops and paid the toll are not going to look kindly upon every man and his dog starting to take a cut of their regulated trade. Vested interests are always going to be an antagonist towards change. A negotiation and dialogue will need to take place to facilitate that process in the best scenario. Otherwise I guess it is just a knock down and beat em up fight to see who is still standing when the dust settles.
Bitcoin is money or digital asset?
Crazy. I work for an AV company here in Springfield Missouri. We sponsor a group called AITP (association of IT professionals,) meaning we take in a pa and projector and screen every month for the meetings. Imagine our surprise last meeting when the president of the group Jason Klein resigned due to pleading guilty to illegal Bitcoin trading! I never got a chance to ask him what happened, but he sure ain't the criminal type. Wild.
anything which is not mandatory is prohibited comrade...Shirley you knew that?
Truer words were never spoke. Dunno why I hadn't followed you yet. Fixed now.
welcome a bored.
Being a carpenter by trade, I generally welcome a board by cutting, beating, and otherwise abusing it to the extent necessary to achieve it's compliance.
Thanks!
(blink)
why..
why...
what a nice thing to say..
Don't call him Shirley.
caught it did you? good man!
I guess it's that time where bitcoin finally finds it's place in the world. Must say that i preferred the old rogue-ish reputation of bitcoin but now law enforcement is starting to meddle that's a thing of the past.
You have it backwards. They're fighting now out of desperation. It was easy to dismiss bitcoin when it was only a few dollars, but now they're starting to understand that it's not stopping. These cases are completely without merit because bitcoin doesn't even fit their definition of money. The US government is like a dying dragon - its gonna die, but its death flailing is going to take some people out along the way.
It's also a good time for people to start paying attention to what approach they take to trading crypto currencies.
Definitely. Though in my country (the netherlands) even if you want to "play it straight" you cannot. On your taxes you can only list bitcoin's like an asset (gold, silver, etc). It doesn't even register as a fiat currency, which it kinda is nowadays.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling that more people are going to break this law in the future, especially as the demand for cryptocurrencies increases worldwide. Thanks for creating this post, it's incredibly fascinating
Why is that unfortunate? Trading bitcoins for dollars is NOT against the law anyway - the government's case is completely without merit. This is purely an act of desperation by the Feds. They see that they are losing control of currency itself and are terrified. Make no mistake, the criminals in this case are the ones with badges and costumes.
I think that the problem here in the post is that the people who are benefiting from the money transmitting are not the people actually conducting the transactions. When a money transmitter is unlicenced, they might accidentally launder money, forget to pay taxes, or break other laws unknowingly. These have larger implications of course.
People should educate themselves and stay above the law while conducting business, especially when it's other people's money that's valued in the millions...
I feel compelled to address the money laundering issue here, but suddenly realize that, while your statements regarding licensing are canon per license issuers, they are utterly vacuous.
Please do not mistake my dismissal of the canon as in any way reflective on you personally, but as an indictment of a system that is dependent on exactly the things you have stated as reasons for licensing.
Not so long ago (okay, probably a long time ago) Warren Buffet remarked that he, and his wealthy ilk, paid less taxes than the average wage earner, because he could afford competent tax preparation services.
Anyone that does not know that all the proceeds of black markets are laundered by banks simply doesn't grasp the concept.
As to other laws, I will leave that to independent researchers, like George Webb Sweigert, who seems to have considerable evidence of most of them being violated routinely, by the most trusted organizations extant.
Trusted, at least, by the financial system itself.
I, at last, must be left with only one reason to support licensing, and that is to limit the size of the market, to protect margins.
I absolutely agree with you that people should take care when conducting business, and particularly when doing so with other people's assets. It's just the right thing to do, after all.
However, when it comes to my money, I reckon the only hand on it besides mine I will trust, is God's.
Thanks!
costumes! lol
Breaking the law is not a good idea. If someone is smart enough to get into bitcoin, then he should be smart enough to do it within the legal boundaries.
Absolutely, I agree. You would think people taking millions of dollars of currency would stop and think about the federal requirements... I wonder how many people who get arrested for this will even know they're breaking a law...
You are new to crypto and probably don't know this, but bitcoin was designed to make government obsolete. This is EXACTLY why government is so scared of it being traded and used as currency.
That's true and also one of the reasons I'm interested in learning more about it, however that doesn't mean that people should try to avoid their government's laws for financial gain. But obviously it's going to happen with more frequency in the future
You tell me, why should you avoid taxes and bull**** permits every chance you have? I'm not telling you to murder, I'm telling you to pay your taxes.
Follow the laws you believe in and suffer the consequences. It's that simple.
Government's will try hard to restrict people from dealing with bitcoins, as they know once it is accepted by masses.. government will go bankrupt.
you mean they will run out of money they print up out of thin air after we have deposited our hard earned labour into our bank accounts to be taxed on which they then take off us to fund their wars and send us off to fight them onto to come back with one arm and one leg and end up homeless on the street....... yep perhaps they do need to go bankrupt......
This is not about what the government is trying to do, this is about keeping yourself protected from violating any laws.
yep. government crackdown on cryptocurrency was predicted and planned for in the design from the very beginning of bitcoin.
The more they try to shut us down is the more we will find a way to win.
I will just copy and paste the main sentence : " These users have started a business of buying and selling bitcoins on behalf of the public, and used localbitcoins as means of advertising their businesses." :)
This is why I never post a listing of my own to buy or sell on localbitcoins, because as soon as you do that yes you are engaging in a business of it.
Reading about all the financial and tax regulations of the US makes me glad that I am not a citizen there.
Living in a country that's pretty much center of the world has its downsides. When it comes to finance, a little unregulated, irrelevant country is preferable.
So if USD->Bitcoin is money transmission, if I were a store and sold an iphone for Bitcoin that's not money transmission, even though two things of basically the same value are being traded. What if I sold gold for Bitcoin? What if I sold gold jewelry?
I think the answer is :
Congratulations @joseph!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following categories:
Technically it can be on either side of the law, it all depends on the perspective of the prosecutor. That's the most important part I'd say (if you were to ever get caught up in a case revolving BTC).
This is concerning!
It is. But its also something we all knew would happen eventually. If bitcoin achieves mainstream adoption, government is screwed. So an attempted crackdown was inevitable. Problem for the government is that the more they crackdown, the more obvious the source of their power really is, and the more people will want to buy it and drive up the price. We're about 2/3 of the way through the "then they fight you" stage.
Yes I think you are right. Still sucks though. I am confident they will not win in the end - although they may be able to put some roadworks in the way.
The problem i see is that newbies like me will make a misstep and all the sudden you have helicopters over your house and you can see yourself on the news....we need more solid direction than we are getting about how all this works.
The big problem is that it is a legal grey area. The authorities themselves are not certain how to proceed most of the time. They just know they don't like it!
My prediction is that as the government loses relevancy, they are going to lash out in so many ways that many good and careful people will still get hurt.
Is making a Steemit blog post or comment legal?
Are we honestly asking these questions, like being enslaved to the state is somehow a moral thing?
My friend, I am a slave to the bank that owns my house, I am a slave to the bank that owns my car, I am a slave to my credit cards companies. So far I broke my chains on the car and credit cards, soon will also break the chain on my house. But if you think modern slavery will ever end because we do not like it, you are not a realist. It is by our own hands we sign our modern slavery agreements. We do not need to blame the government for everything we do wrong.
He's not talking about credit. He's talking about the fact that to live you have to buy food with money and to buy food with money you have to work for "the capitalists" like the serfs had to work for royalty and a slave has to work for his master.
I hope we never see the day when people are on the street dealing bitcoin like cocaine.
As long as the operations will be performed incredible fast, I have no problem to pay a tax. The banks didn't manage to speed up their operations.
This is not about the TAX, even if you pay taxes, you could still be charged with a crime,
Then, let's not do things on behalf of others!
That would truly sound frightening hearing that news on 2014 or 2015. What I've learned from this article is to first register myself if ever I want to transact bitcoin in exchange for fiat or any commodity, unless deemed by our own government as a legal currency just like what Japan did recently. Am I right about this?
The fact that Bitcoin is not considered legal currency does not protect you from money transmitting laws. The law itself does not define money, and in many court cases, Transmitting Bitcoin is equal to transmitting money.
Actually, everything in law is defined, even money. There is Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's where you can look up legal definitions.
Educate yourself. You know much less than you think you do.
I am talking about a specific law, not general law. Money transmitting laws, does not need money to be defined for charges to take place. There are numerous cases already where the definition of money had no impact on court proceedings considering the transmission of Bitcoin.
We're past the point where the law as written really matters anyway. Nowadays, the law is what they tell us it is.
Thanks for this post. Information that all crypto holders should be aware of
That means it will become centralized soon.Thats a good news.
the reality is that at the moment there is no law for trading Crypto currencies world wide. so it must be taken under-law as in near future the main battle will be in between crypto currencies and market bank currencies. nice article and good topic to discuss.
Batgirl??
I look at it as a bartering trade in which the value must be in the traffic of commerce, a very valuable commodity. One thing about block chain is, it is not confiscatable unless they pull the plug and cripple themselves.
Thanks for the overview! Good to know.
Do they classify every virtual currency as "money" or "funds"? Even ones that cannot be traded directly to USD?
Or what about IRS coin? The Proof of stake coin that taxes itself.
The government clearly has ZERO case as bitcoin isn't even defined as "money" in any legal definition. This is just pure desperation on the part of the government to maintain their monopoly on money. They will lose.
Need I remind you that in every case so far, the defendants plead guilty. Bitcoin is not "money" is only assumed from an IRS document which has no bearing on the legal proceedings. Some laws are written in a way that the definition of money or funds does not impact the law itself. Courts in many cases have already convicted defendants based on these laws, and the definition of Bitcoin, did not help. It's good to for people to know that now, and not fall victims to wrong assumptions.
Wait..isn't the IRS an illegal entity and in violation of the Constitution?
Oh sure, any case the Feds bring, they will make sure they win it. You almost have to take a deal.
I mean the Feds will lose the currency war in the long run - that's what matters.
welp, considering how it would be in the best interest of government to take down Bitcoin... i'm surprised this is as far as they went.
I'm agree with who thinks it's legal.
But surely is not the most secure.
You need to trust in people... And I don't do ever...
When the people fear their own government you have tyranny.
I believe others have been caught in this trap for selling more than $10K at a time.
interesting post to read my freind
i like it. very nice. Best regards from emonandels
@joseph Curious to hear your KYC/AML thoughts on an investment club for cloud mining. The club accepts bitcoin and purchases cloud mining contracts with internal distribution/liquidation guidelines. I'm of the thinking once it's in Bitcoin, KYC/AML is non-applicable.
As you can see from my post and comments I am more confused than knowledgeable about these things. I am afraid I can not give you any legal opinion. You need to check with the club itself and what their legal representative says.
Thank you for the feedback and I will look into it further. Keep up the great posts!
resteem and upvote for your post....
thanks for the information...
Localbitcoin closed the doors for german customers some time ago to prevent money laundering. You can chose a city in NL and still see some german vendors. The android app mycelium still works.
I keep on saying that the central banks hate bitcoin and will find a way to prosecute those who use it in the long run. They will try and force each state to make it illegal to use and classify it as a form of money terrorist use. Once they convince the public that this is not money and it shouldn't be used its game over. They will never allow bitcoin to take over the big banking system. I keep seeing companies trying to start visas tied to bitcoin and I wouldn't trust this at all because this could be a tool to track all those who have and use bitcoin. This is just my opinion and if anyone hears of any news regarding making bitcoin illegal to use should share this news quickly!
With the concerted efforts by The Powers That Be to strip away anonymity (hence the increasing call for a "cashless society" to fight "terrorism"). I wouldn't be surprised to see a big push at this type of prosecution as a warning. It also won't take long for them to invoke the Interstate Commerce Clause either.
Big Gubmint doesn't like competition.
Great article.
I guess I first noticed this logo was on the movie The Accountant.
Wether Cryptocurrencies are Legal or Illegal is a bit of as red herring question. The reality of Cryptocurrencies is that their existance is a direct attack upon upon the cental banks and their debt based fiat currencies. Cryptocurencies are also a form of fiat currency but with a big difference, they are not (to my knowledge) debt based. Debt is the chain used to bind us to their system. Resist in any significant way and your debt will be used to crush you. Cryptocurrency is a method of exchange that is not regulated by debt. If we transfer the wealth we individually generate to a cryptocurrency in signifigant amounts then the debt based fiat currencies will begin to lose relevance. The debt based slavery will become threatened. Expect there to be a major assault on cryptocurrencies in the near future and be prepared to confront that assault. The fact that you use cryptocurrencies makes you an outlaw in the bankster's view. They just have to come up with a way to stamp it out that will not bring the sheeple into awareness of their debt based slavery thus causing a major upheaval in their hegemony over the masses.
Legal or illegal? In the eyes of the Bankster run governments, the word Justice is misspelled and should really be written Just-Us.
I generally stay clear of LBC as much as possible. Not that any US laws has any implications in my country.
It is really bad at the moment! All the time we have to consider is something legal or not. It is to complicated. Everyone brakes a lot of rules on a daily basis. I want to be reliable for my actions, but I do not agree that some things are bad, what is told me.
I use this site in Asia, hope it can help https://goo.gl/gsP3hb
Best regards @mrstaf
It also sounds like they are recognizing it in a way so it's it's not nessesarily a lose lose situation for crypto currency. He wasn't charged for scamming people. He was charged for operating without proper liscense. Which makes me wonder if the would have approved such liscense.
Bitcoin is a digital Asset and Not Real Money!
✨🙏✨
I appreciate very much your posting this article, and the research you have undertaken to understand the issues.
My participation in Steemit is the full extent of my interaction with cryptocurrency, because I know I don't know enough about them. It is articles like this which will continue my necessary education to the point where I feel competent to graduate from the monopoly money, to the real value inherent in cryptocurrency.
Thanks!
A man in Toronto (I believe) was recently brought up on criminal charges on something similar. I'm hoping to look into this in a future post.
Thanks for the read.
“unwilling to punish a man for selling his property to another, when his actions fall under a statute that is vaguely written that even legal professionals have difficulty finding a singular meaning”.
What's not mentioned... 👉 In every case, the original charges stem from"Promoting illicit activity". They plead down to the MSB charges.