Bitcoin Comes To SWIFT

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Monday, May 20, 2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/05/20/bitcoin-comes-to-swift/

Hosted at the palatial and temple-like SWIFT headquarters, this year’s TransConstellation Alumni conference featured a mix of panel representatives from both “new” payment approaches and “established” payment players. I was invited to represent the new approach in an Oxford-style debate which I gladly accepted.

As the mecca for international payments, SWIFT is situated on a sprawling green campus in La Hulpe, Belgium where deer leap through the underbrush and occasionally cross the road in front of you. The member-owned cooperative provides the communications platform to connect more than 10,000 banking organizations, securities institutions and corporate customers in 210 countries. If you have ever made an international wire transfer, it has probably run through the SWIFT network. Also, with global initiatives like Innotribe, SWIFT readily embraces the study of emerging payment paradigms and the potential for disruptive operators to alter the landscape.

It was a pleasure to watch the live bitcoin transaction feed from Blockchain.info scroll proudly across the 8-foot screen monitors at both ends of the high-ceiling reception room. That is what decentralization looks like. In the absence of third-party intermediaries, amounts and fees and transaction numbers are on display for all the world to see. Somehow, I doubt that a similar live transaction feed from SWIFT’s network was scrolling on a public web browser anywhere in the building. And from the looks on some faces, I think that realization dawned on the attendees as well.

Interactive audience questions ranged all the way from “how will Bitcoin mining nodes transition to an environment of transaction fees only” to “how can something with no backing be a store of value” to “this is the first time I’ve ever heard of bitcoin,” so hopefully some lives were changed. In general though, the audience and the panel were more aware of Bitcoin than I would have expected, but maybe that’s a result of the recent price run-up too.

The educational evening yielded no clear winner since the majority of the audience concluded that a cryptocurrency like bitcoin may indeed represent the future, but the path will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

This European Union approach to money and payments sits in stark contrast to events currently unfolding in the United States where a still-evolving payments exchanger recently had account funds seized via court order on dubious legal grounds. The EU tends to view futuristic payments as a framework opportunity rather than a target-rich environment for arrogant enforcement.

The dichotomy between EU and U.S. approaches to e-money becomes even more apparent when one looks at the uniformity of the EU e-Money and Payment Services Directives versus the almost hostile FinCEN guidance on virtual currencies and the incomprehensible patchwork of state money transmitter laws. Because of this, I estimate that the EU currently enjoys at least a five-year head start over its U.S. brethren in accommodating evolving payments efforts.

Whereas the EU strives to provide reasonably low barriers to entry without sacrificing currency choices, the U.S seems content to extinguish innovations like e-Gold in an effort to maintain complete control over money businesses and to project dollar hegemony within its borders. In Russia, now a surprising bastion for freedom of choice in virtual currencies, e-payments brand WebMoney began integrating bitcoin into their value transfer system (although U.S. customers are blocked).

The undeniable march of Bitcoin definitely left an impression on SWIFT, however Bitcoin as a network is an existential threat. Bitcoin as a non-political, non-corporate unit of account is not. Rhetorically, I posed the question: “In fifty years, would you rather own 100 euros, 100 Amazon Coins, or 100 bitcoins?”

Bitcoin plays for the long game. The very long game. Bitcoin block rewards are set to expire eventually and all units of bitcoin will be created by the year 2140, shifting the mining economics completely to transaction fees. In the end, financial and monetary decentralization will win the day because that is more simply the state of nature. I only hope that I am around to enjoy it.

Bitcoin On The PayPal Network

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Saturday, May 4, 2013

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/05/04/bitcoin-on-the-paypal-network/

PayPal has recently entertained the notion of accepting and clearing the bitcoin unit on its pervasive platform. It’s a bit like the prince joining the revolution. Is this a good thing?

Naturally, some bitcoin businesses will see this as PayPal moving in to usurp bitcoin’s popularity and momentum in the marketplace. But, depending on your outlook, it may not be all negative and it raises the identical issues that a bank would face if embracing bitcoin, especially since PayPal is now viewed as part of the legacy apparatus.

Speaking as if PayPal represented some sort of global payments umbrella, CEO John Donahoe told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s a new disruptive technology, so, yeah, we’re looking at Bitcoin closely. There may be ways to enable it inside PayPal.” I find this statement funny, particularly in light of the fact that WordPress’ reason for accepting bitcoin was that PayPal disabled certain parts of the globe for them.

Let’s examine what it could mean when something like Bitcoin, that is both platform and unit, is absorbed into something like PayPal that is just platform. Phil Archer writing at The Genesis Block categorized the four areas of likely impact — online wallets, escrow services, merchant processing, and exchange services. PayPal account funding alone is not exactly bitcoin sitting on the PayPal payments network, so that use case is not included in the analysis. Archer concludes that PayPal’s immediate advantage would be in the first two areas with eventual game-changing impact probable in the latter two.

While I tend to agree with the category choices, the analysis overlooks what the PayPal-Bitcoin world would not be getting (or, what it would be losing).

Firstly for the consumers, the new PayPal paradigm would look like a Coinbase on steroids with massive connectivity into your bank accounts and even more intrusive data collection. As a fully-regulated money services business (MSB) and licensed money transmitter, PayPal would be the undisputed gorilla in the U.S. marketplace with online wallets and fast exchange services. Of course, escrow services would be welcomed because this model is almost always needed in a free market and banks could look to provide this functionality as well.

However, what would consumers not be getting in this bitcoin nirvana? Not a huge fan of transactional privacy, PayPal would have to link your identity to your account and eliminate the user-defined privacy aspects of bitcoin. This has the effect of reducing bitcoin’s important cash-like qualities. While it may be convenient for exchange services to be an integrated part of your personal online wallet, it is fundamentally unnecessary.

Furthermore, it’s unlikely that PayPal would reach into many new countries that it doesn’t serve today because it would need the banking infrastructure to do so. By the way, that is the same situation for Coinbase too. So consumers would not gain anything in terms of worldwide access. Also, consumers would not get unimpeded access to their funds because it’s doubtful that PayPal will modify any of their current policies on account suspension.

Secondly for the merchants, the new PayPal paradigm would offer merchant processing services similar to BitPay with exchange rate guarantees for conversion into national currencies. As BitPay is more nimble with first-mover advantage and low-cost pricing, they are considered a likely acquisition target. PayPal’s distinct advantage in this area comes from leveraging its installed merchant base, however it is unclear how fee savings with bitcoin could be passed on to merchants due to the potential cannibalization of PayPal’s other revenue streams.

Larger merchants maintaining their balances in bitcoin and managing currency risk internally seems like the most efficient practice, but it’s unlikely that PayPal would offer that option for free. As part of the PayPal network, merchants would not enjoy the attractive bitcoin benefit of “no account freezing,” because without segregated bitcoin balances, a merchant’s overall funds could be ensnared in an account suspension.

Also, when it comes to specific merchant categories being restricted like online casinos or prescription drug sites, a PayPal-Bitcoin world is unlikely to remove the blocks on those merchants. It is a symptom of having one foot in the old banking and credit card world and one foot in the new decentralized and nonpolitical currency world. Perhaps, the PayPal executives view bitcoin as creative destruction but somehow I don’t think so.

My advice to PayPal and other conglomerates “looking into” Bitcoin with a shoehorn approach is to understand how authorization, clearing, and settlement occur nearly simultaneously within the Bitcoin distributed transaction network. Enhancing, rather than diminishing, that feature is the key to success. Bitcoin doesn’t need PayPal to be mobile, but PayPal probably needs Bitcoin to become seamlessly mobile.

About the best that could be said of any potential arrangement between PayPal and bitcoin is that it would bestow public credibility on bitcoin as a “unit of account” or new currency code. However, squeezing only the monetary unit portion into a legacy payments platform inserts an intermediary into a decentralized system and dilutes the value of the whole. Not to mention that Bitcoin will simply outlast PayPal.

Patrick Murck Discusses Bitcoin With Financial Crime Specialists

General Counsel at the Bitcoin Foundation and VP of Business Development and General Counsel at CoinLab, Patrick Murck, recorded a podcast on April 26th, 2013 with the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists, a group connecting the global financial crime community. The talk was entitled: "Bitcoin’s promise and perils: What financial institutions should know about the new virtual currency."

From the ACFCS website:

Until recently, the virtual currency of Bitcoin may have had almost as many critics, skeptics and naysayers as it had actual users. Much has changed in the past few months. With the value of Bitcoins exploding, its exchanges doing a lively business, and more and more merchants accepting it as payment, Bitcoin now seems close to fulfilling its potential as a widely used, decentralized online currency.

One thing that has not changed, however, are the concerns over money laundering and financial crime risks that have swirled around Bitcoin since its inception. To delve into the mechanics of the online currency and explain how it interfaces with financial institutions worldwide, ACFCS is joined by Patrick Murck, General Counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation, on this Financial CrimeCast. He explains the inner workings of Bitcoin, and describes what steps the currency and its exchanges are taking to mitigate financial crime risks.

He also analyzes the impact of recent guidance by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that lays out suggested regulations for virtual currencies for the first time, and explains what financial institutions should know about doing business with Bitcoin users.

Fincen's New Regulations Are Choking Bitcoin Entrepreneurs

By Jon Matonis
American Banker
Thursday, April 25, 2013

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/fincen-regulations-choking-bitcoin-entrepreneurs-1058606-1.html

More than a decade ago, regulators nearly suffocated PayPal. Now it looks like they’re trying to squelch another disruptive, innovative payments system.

At least three exchanges in the U.S. that traded the digital currency Bitcoin have shut down, apparently as a result of guidance issued last month by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. That agency has emerged as the top threat, at least in in the United States, to the decentralized Bitcoin network – moreso than the widely reported price volatility and hacker attacks.

"They've been the single biggest factor for stomping out currency competition," says Bradley Jansen, a former assistant to Rep. Ron Paul and director of the Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights. Speaking recently on The Daily Bitcoin podcast with Adam Levine, Jansen expressed surprise at how little focus bitcoin business leaders are putting on Fincen, especially considering how regulators thwarted earlier emerging payment systems like PayPal and e-gold. PayPal obviously survived and prospered – but only after selling itself to eBay and agreeing to put restrictions on its service. E-gold was not so fortunate.

"Fincen was able to stop currency competition with technical innovations in the 90s even before their expanded powers under the U.S. Patriot Act. And, what we've got now is a Fincen on steroids without clear restrictions from Congress," Jansen says.

The guidance requires certain intermediaries that handle virtual currency to register with Fincen as money services businesses, which entails recordkeeping and reporting responsibilities. And it says some of those businesses may additionally be money transmitters, which would mean fingerprinting of directors and officers and compliance with a patchwork of state licensing requirements.

Jansen postulates that the recent Fincen virtual currency guidance was issued ex post facto as a way to set the stage for potential prosecutions in the future.

"It's a failure of Congress to do its job. We knew that these guidelines and these prosecutions were in the works even last Congress. Ron Paul was the chairman of the House subcommittee that had jurisdiction over Fincen and he never had a single hearing on this."

In a recent speech, Fincen Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said the new guidance aims "to protect [digital currency] systems from abuse and to aid law enforcement in ensuring that they are getting the leads and information they need to prosecute the criminal actors." She reiterated that the guidance does not apply to everyday users who pay or accept bitcoin for goods and services.

But by saddling startups with compliance requirements, and making them unattractive clients for regulated banks that despair of serving MSBs, Fincen is choking these businesses that facilitate conversion of bitcoins into dollars. Fewer exchanges and more red tape will make it harder for merchants or consumers (who, after all, must still pay the bills with dollars) to take advantage of the Bitcoin payment system’s speed, privacy and competitive costs.

On March 20 – just two days after the guidance from Fincen came out – the bitcoin exchanger bitme.com suspended operations indefinitely. Bitme was a relatively small operation, but it was widely suspected among bitcoin users in online forums that this closure resulted from difficulties related to potential regulatory compliance.

BTC Buy, another bitcoin exchange site, suspended services and closed permanently in early April, specifically citing the legal uncertainty brought up by the Fincen guidance.

Most recently, the largest bitcoin exchange to halt trading was Bitfloor, run by Roman Shtylman, who blamed "circumstances outside of our control." His New York operation had average daily trading volume of about $300,000 (depending on the exchange rate), with U.S. dollar deposits and withdrawals running through a Capital One bank account – which the bank unilaterally closed.  "I had very little time to act between receiving the account closure letter and the account being closed," Shtylman told PaymentsSource.

In this case, the regulatory guidance may have had an indirect effect. Bitfloor was registered with Fincen as an MSB but was not licensed as a state money transmitter. Shtylman surmised that Capital One had judged his business to be "not worth the risk."

Across the Atlantic and presumably unrelated to Fincen, Poland-based Bitcoin-24 suspended trading after the government there froze its bank account. It reportedly did so because a bank in Germany complained of compromised accounts transferring stolen money without identification to Bitcoin-24. Also, U.K.-based TransferWise, a foreign currency intermediary, ceased transfers to any bitcoin exchanges at the request of its banking partners. TransferWise had mostly been servicing customers in the U.K., Poland, and Spain.

It will be interesting to watch how Fincen intends to treat one-way, fixed-rate brokers that either buy or sell bitcoin at a fixed price. Since a two-way exchange market is not involved it could be seen as merely a typical commodity purchase or sale.

Tangible Cryptography LLC, which registered as an MSB this month, operates FastCash4Bitcoins for selling bitcoins and Bitcoins Direct for private off-exchange purchases. The two businesses function independently of each other and neither is technically an exchange. Bitcoins Direct is frequently closed to new clients and its cash deposit feature was recently cancelled.

The fact that bitcoin survives at all with so many powerful forces lined up against it is a testament to its resiliency and tenacity. Now, in addition to the vicious press coverage and persistent denial of service attacks on exchanges, the emerging cryptographic money has to contend with onerous and targeted regulation.

With respect to bitcoin and financial regulation, Jansen warns: "I think the lesson from the 90s was that you either become what Fincen wants you to be or you're not going to be."

Not in the U.S., that is. But jurisdictional competition will kick in and overseas exchanges will gain market share and liquidity. They just may not have U.S. customers.

FinCEN's Director on Virtual Currencies

By Bradley Jansen
FreeBanking.org
Saturday, April 20, 2013

http://www.freebanking.org/2013/04/20/fincens-director-on-virtual-currencies/

Earlier this week, FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery addressed the National Cyber-Forensics Training Alliance CyFin 2013 Conference.

She explains again how the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) gets its data from the reports it mandates that banks use to spy on their customers against them. Lots and lots of reports.

But she promises:

"However, right now this is long and arduous work as analysts sift through hundreds and sometimes thousands of reports. Very soon, new capacities made possible by our internal technology modernization will allow our analysts to deal with such data sets to find leads in a fraction of the time previously necessary. Very soon, we will be able to point law enforcement and other stakeholders precisely to where they should be looking. Our analysts, working hand- in-hand with our superb technology team, are now putting these new capacities into place."

But her talk really focused on "Emerging Payment Systems." Her comments have echoed mine (from an entirely different perspective) that technology (and specifically mobile apps) offer great opportunities (for free banking) and that those not well served by our current system (the "unbanked" in the US--immigrants, poor, racial and ethnic minorities--and people in countries with less mature financial systems or sound currencies) are a great target market.

"As we all know, during the past decade, the development of new market space and new types of payment systems have emerged as alternatives to traditional mechanisms for conducting financial transactions, allowing developing countries to reach beyond underdeveloped infrastructure and reach those populations who previously had no access to banking services. For consumers and businesses alike, the development and proliferation of these systems are a significant continuing source of positive impact on global commerce."

Don't worry, FinCEN is working to strangle these initiatives in their crib with their regulations. She pays special attention to "crypto-currencies" in her talk.

"We’re viewing our analytic work in this space as an important part of an ongoing conversation between industry and law enforcement. While probably most of today’s audience understands what these emerging payments systems are and how they work, many line analysts, investigators, and prosecutors in law enforcement may not, and part of FinCEN’s role is to help be the bridge to explain these new systems. FinCEN is dedicated to learning more about digital currency systems, along with other emerging mechanisms, to protect those systems from abuse and to aid law enforcement in ensuring that they are getting the leads and information they need to prosecute the criminal actors. As our knowledge base develops, in concert with you, we will look to leverage our new capabilities to identify trends and patterns among the interconnection points of the traditional financial sector and these new payment systems.

In addition to developing products to help law enforcement follow the financial trails of emerging payments methods, FinCEN also develops guidance for the financial industry to clarify their regulatory responsibilities as they relate to emerging areas."

And, as our Bitcoin fans know--at least those who follow my posts here or my rants on our Facebook page, FinCEN has "virtual currencies" in their sights. And, remember too, it was FinCEN that shut down e-gold back in the day and crippled the crypto-currency movement last century.

I'll quote her in the entirety of her virtual currency remarks:

"In fact, just last month, FinCEN issued interpretive guidance to clarify the applicability of BSA regulations to virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin, which has in recent weeks gained significant attention. The guidance responds to questions raised by financial institutions, law enforcement, and regulators concerning the regulatory treatment of persons who use virtual currencies or make a business of exchanging, accepting, and transmitting them.

FinCEN’s rules define certain businesses or individuals as money services businesses (MSBs) depending on the nature of their financial activities. MSBs have registration requirements and a range of anti-money laundering, recordkeeping, and reporting responsibilities under FinCEN’s regulations. The guidance considers the use of virtual currencies from the perspective of several categories within FinCEN’s definition of MSBs.

The guidance explains how FinCEN’s “money transmitter” definition applies to certain exchangers and system administrators of virtual currencies depending on the facts and circumstances of that activity. Those who use virtual currencies exclusively for common personal transactions like receiving payments for services or buying goods online are not affected by this guidance.

Those who are intermediaries in the transfer of virtual currencies from one person to another person, or to another location, are money transmitters that must register with FinCEN as MSBs unless an exception applies. Some virtual currency exchangers have already registered with FinCEN as MSBs, though they have not necessarily identified themselves as money transmitters. The guidance clarifies definitions and expectations to ensure that businesses engaged in similar activities are aware of their regulatory responsibilities and that all who need to, register appropriately."

The second half of her speech talked about account takeovers via malware, risks with third party payment processors, improvements they are making to their analytical work (after some false starts!), their public-private partnerships with industry, and her personal initiative "The Delta Team" ("The purpose of the Delta Team is for industry, regulators, and law enforcement to come together and examine the space between compliance risks and illicit financing risks. The goal is to reduce the variance between the two.").

And let's not forget FinCEN's dreams of global domination. They are in a partnership of 130 other "Financial Intelligence Units" as part of the Egmont Group.

The text of her remarks is available at the following link:
http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/speech/pdf/20130416.pdf

Reprinted with permission.

FATCA Is Far from a Done Deal

By Jon Matonis
American Banker
Monday, April 1, 2013

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/fatca-is-far-from-a-done-deal-1057947-1.html

Largely affecting those banks outside of the U.S., the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act requires all foreign financial institutions to report the activities of their American clients to the Internal Revenue Service. But given the recent demands from other nations hinting at reciprocity, the overreaching legislation could impact banks and financial institutions in the U.S. as well.

Now, there is the additional element of certain key countries rejecting FATCA outright, and the Asia-Pacific region could end up holding the most sway.

Cited as a hindrance to foreign investment that would ultimately dampen U.S. economic growth and threaten American jobs, the FATCA penalties for noncompliance provide a strong incentive for overseas investors to avoid U.S. depository institutions altogether. Tax Management International Journal cites 11 reasons why FATCA must be repealed. Reason number one is "the height of arrogance."

It is either the reciprocity angle or the cascade effect of China's reluctance that has the greatest potential to derail FATCA.

"The United States should be moving toward full reciprocity," Georgetown Law School Professor Itai Grinberg, a former Treasury official, told Reuters. He added that it would be "deeply hypocritical" for the U.S. to ask for information on American taxpayers "without offering some kind of reciprocity."

Because direct reciprocity may mean foreign banks violating the privacy laws of their own jurisdictions, the Treasury Department has started negotiating bilateral agreements so that foreign governments can aggregate the bank data necessary for the IRS.

Attorney Brian Mahany of Mahany & Ertl, a law firm specializing in offshore reporting and compliance, believes that reciprocity is a bit misleading. "We are one of the few countries that tax based on worldwide income. Reciprocity isn't as important to most other nations," he added.

Also, the U.S. is one of the worst offenders globally when it comes to tax havens and "secrecy jurisdictions." For instance, Mahany said "many people, including Chinese nationals, hide money here." While President Obama has asked Congress for reciprocity, he is dealing from a position of weakness. "The support for FATCA is not very strong," Mahany added.

However, with global financial transparency on the increase and more countries considering taxation on citizen's worldwide income as a way to combat growing budget deficits, reciprocity with U.S. financial institutions starts to look appealing.

On the China issue, Mahany concedes that the U.S. government will never get every nation to join FATCA and the Asia-Pacific countries are heavily influenced by Beijing. He states, "China is certainly an important player. Currently, none of the Asian-Pacific countries are signed up, although Japan will probably be the first. Without Singapore, China, Hong Kong and Macau, FATCA faces real challenges."

James Jatras of the Repeal FATCA campaign claims that Hong Kong, like the People’s Republic of China, is not even on the list of 50 countries the Treasury claims to be negotiating with.

There will probably be so few U.S. citizens holding bank accounts in China that the cost of implementing FATCA outweighs the benefit to China's financial institutions. Also, the Chinese taxpayers with U.S. bank accounts appear to be of minimal interest to the Chinese government, according to Lisa Smith of iExpats.com.

"Before rushing to safe keep all your money in Communist China, remember that even if China elects to ignore FATCA, they may still cooperate with the IRS on a case-by-case basis," according to Mahany. China and the U.S. signed a Mutual Legal Assistance Agreement in June of 2000.

However, none of this potentially disruptive turmoil means that financial institutions should put FATCA-related IT infrastructure plans on hold until China makes its decision, because foreign banks and other financial institutions are currently ill-prepared for FATCA.

According to Mahany, "Implementation has been delayed once but folks should not depend on that happening again. The penalties for not complying outweigh the risks of noncompliance."

Meredith Moss of Finomial believes "that a technology solution is the only way to go, given the tremendous amount of data, PDFs and paper documents to sift through." She says that banks moving forms online and creating a comprehensive FATCA audit trail will demonstrate diligence to the regulators and that "due diligence should be underway by January 2014 and completed by July 2014."

Although experts in the FATCA preparation business tend to agree that moving forward with expensive FATCA compliance plans is the prudent and logical step to be taking now, a comprehensive and worldwide FATCA rollout is far from a foregone conclusion. For those financial institutions and their shareholders offended by the overreaching legislation and lack of respect for mutual sovereignty, the cost savings alone may start to make FATCA's non-compliance penalties look tolerable.

Expect Blowback if KYC Rules Are Expanded

By Jon Matonis
American Banker
Tuesday, February 26, 2013

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/expect-blowback-if-kyc-rules-are-expanded-1057055-1.html

The uncovering of an alleged $200 million credit card fraud scheme has triggered calls to expand know-your-customer rules. Those who prescribe ever-greater surveillance should be careful what they wish for.

In what was described as a sprawling criminal enterprise stretching across dozens of states and numerous countries, fabricated identities were used to obtain credit cards and doctor credit reports to borrow large amounts of money. At the heart of the alleged scheme were the merchant processor accounts used to accept and process the cards with stolen identities, authorities announced on Feb. 5. ATM withdrawals involve video surveillance and direct purchasing of merchandise doesn't yield cash. So the fraud ring allegedly used merchant accounts, mostly those of jewelry stores, since it is easier to obtain cash in a bank account using a fictitious sales transaction.

In some instances, sham companies were created and then those businesses established the direct relationship with the merchant processor and purchased the credit card terminals, the FBI said. Involving 25,000 fraudulent credit cards, 7,000 fake identities, and 1,800 "drop addresses," the conspirators allegedly wired millions overseas to Pakistan, India, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Romania, China, and Japan.

For the duration of the probe, account information was known about the senders of international wire transfers, but not much was known about the recipients.

That is why experts are now pointing to this alleged scheme as justification for the expansion of Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering regulations to include the identification and scrutiny of the recipients of funds associated with high-risk transactions.

Micah Willbrand, director of AML and compliance for LexisNexis' North American Financial Services Markets, told a trade publication, "Laws and regulations today only require that the bank have KYC [know your customer] in place for the sender, not the receiver of money."

"But card fraud schemes demonstrate why it's imperative to have KYC controls in place for both senders and recipients," he adds. As a result of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, "all countries are realizing we need to know more about who's receiving the money. We need to be more transparent about how money is moving around the world, and that is something everyone is coming around to."

That is a very optimistic assumption, especially since considerable resistance already exists regarding global standardization of information-sharing. Ultimately, compliance would require a lot more legwork and due diligence on the part of banks, and financial institutions have been reluctant to move in this direction. If banks were required to replicate the current KYC controls for recipients as well as senders, the jurisdictional challenges would be complicated and expensive.

Willbrand justifies the investment cost in a subtle Risk.net advertorial “article”: "The implementation of FATCA will guide financial institutions … globally by providing them with a reference on what verification is required of their customers and the level of due diligence required from them based on their asset transfers. FATCA will, therefore, enable FIs everywhere to create a standardised customer onboarding process that will clearly define risk tolerances and accepted practices for engaging with customers."

Expanding KYC guidelines to include the recipient of funds would require a massive uniform international process that is continually monitored and updated. Additionally, the cross-border sharing of customer information could realistically lead to equally determined calls for reciprocity on the part of U.S. financial institutions. U.S. banks that act on behalf of the recipients of international funds could find themselves swarmed with overseas requests for KYC information prior to any funds transfer.

For Willbrand, it's a Big Data problem of not enough domestic and international information available to detect anomalies and potential risks earlier. Automated third-party systems are more efficient than the manual review systems in place at some banks today. Willbrand says, "Data about identities is not combined internationally. The only way to get an accurate profile is by cross-checking public records with utility bills and bank accounts around the world."

Willbrand's call for expansion of money transfer surveillance powers represents an overreach that merely attacks the symptom of the problem. Privacy and data security rules vary, and sometimes conflict, in the many jurisdictions around the world. Big Data might be the answer, but it should be Big Data at the front end, during the credit card account opening process and the determination of spending limits – not Big Data that extends privacy violations worldwide.

Coinbase: Swapping Bitcoin Privacy for Banking Convenience

By Jon Matonis
PaymentsSource
Tuesday, February 19, 2013

http://www.paymentssource.com/news/swapping-bitcoin-privacy-for-banking-convenience-3013278-1.html

I've always had this nagging feeling about Coinbase’s exchange service and I just couldn't quite put my finger on it.

The San Francisco startup receives praise for its simple method of acquiring and selling bitcoins, a digital currency, via one’s U.S. bank account. In fact, Coinbase, founded in June 2012, is now selling over $1 million worth of bitcoins per month. The firm apparently ran out of inventory last week.

Then, it hit me. This is just like buying bitcoins from your bank – or from the Internal Revenue Service. If a bank offered a bitcoin purchasing option from its website, it would look like Coinbase. If Coinbase cut them in on the commission, it could probably white-label the service directly to banks.

Nothing wrong with that, but it means Coinbase fails to leverage the unique financial privacy aspects of the Bitcoin network. I do not fault founder and CEO Brian Armstrong, because he’s launched a much-needed Bitcoin service at a critical point in the digital money's evolution. Here's the rub: to address the fraud and compliance issues around the irreversible sale of a privacy product, Coinbase has simply removed the privacy.

Currently, Coinbase provides its exchange service in the U.S. only and it offers two methods for linking a bank account, “instant account verification” and “challenge deposit verification.” For those who are uncomfortable providing their private online banking usernames and passwords to Coinbase, the alternate method offers a typical challenge deposit process similar to linking a bank account to PayPal. (In challenge verification, a company makes two small deposits to the user’s account, and the user proves she is the accountholder by entering those amounts into the company’s site.) Coinbase does not allow for other less-intrusive payment methods, such as a cash deposit at a bank branch, via an intermediary like TrustCash, or cash bill payment at a retail location, through a network like ZipZap.

(Coinbase also signs up merchants to accept bitcoin and landed Reddit as a client last week.)

Coinbase is not licensed as a money transmitter in any state, nor is it registered as a money services business with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. I applaud the company for dispensing with these formalities because, since it is only selling a cryptographic token and not a financial instrument, such registration and licensure is not legally required.

The company says it has an anti-money laundering program, but it was not listed on their web site, and again, it is not a legal requirement for this business. Besides, the majority of what constitutes an AML program is already covered via Coinbase's strong relationship to the user's financial institution, with one of the exceptions being the identification of aggregated transactions from multiple bank accounts. But even this would be easy enough for Coinbase to determine based on the additional user data collected.

According to its privacy policy, Coinbase collects data about visitors to the site sent by their computer or mobile phone (e.g. IP addresses) and device information including but not limited to identifier, name and type, operating system, location, mobile network information and standard web log information. Those who sign up for the service may have to provide their name, address, phone number, email address, and bank or credit card numbers. Before using the service, customers may further have to give a Social Security number or birthdate, and they are subject to credit checks or identity verification by third parties.

Furthermore, there is no indication that Coinbase deletes the internal bitcoin wallet transfer logs or the associated bitcoin address logs. With more observable data points, the privacy of all bitcoin transactions can become cumulatively degraded.

By criticizing the collection of personal information for the purchase of bitcoin, a harmless cryptography product, I am not simply "letting the perfect being the enemy of the good." Caution is strongly advised when dealing with Coinbase. The potential exists for enhanced surveillance and network traffic analysis enabled by the supreme identity management that comes built-in with Coinbase. For instance, it would not be advisable to play Bitcoin casino games or poker with Coinbase-acquired bitcoins that weren't properly "mixed."

Of course, not everyone requires privacy in their transactions, so Coinbase may suit some users’ purposes just fine. However, Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, didn't sit down and code the decentralized protocol because he was upset about banking efficiency and trusted third parties. He wrote Bitcoin as a value transfer system that could survive hostile attacks.

When Armstrong says, "our goal is to make [B]itcoin easier to use, and (longer term) to help bring fast, cheap, international payments to the whole world" and "Bitcoin represents a fundamental leap forward in payment technology and it’s going to bring massive efficiencies to many areas of commerce," he's playing only to the low-fee, frictionless attributes of Bitcoin. He doesn't mean that Coinbase's goal is to facilitate payments for the anonymous and safe purchase of WordPress features in authoritarian countries or to bypass a politically-motivated blockade against WikiLeaks.

When it comes to the financial privacy and censorship-resistant payment attributes of Bitcoin, Coinbase falls short, and that, I think, is likely to impede the startup’s growth. The firm seems not to care. Its privacy policy states, "We may share your personal information with law enforcement, government officials, or other third parties when we are compelled to do so by a subpoena, court order or similar legal procedure."

When that time comes, you better believe that Coinbase will have a lot to share.

EU Court Strikes Down Swift's Blockade Against Iranian Banks

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Friday, February 8, 2013

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/02/08/eu-court-strikes-down-swifts-blockade-against-iranian-banks/

Reuters is reporting that a European Union court has ruled against the EU banking sanctions imposed on one of Iran's largest banks, which extends to the payment sanctions imposed by Swift in March of last year. This represents the second such judgment against the banking sanctions and brings into question the legitimacy of using the Swift payments network as an economic weapon.

On Tuesday, the EU's General Court ruled that, in the case of Bank Saderat, there was insufficient evidence demonstrating that the bank was involved in Iran's nuclear program. Last week, the court issued a similar ruling in the case of Bank Mellat, the largest private sector lender in Iran. Boycotted by the EU since July 2010 and blocked out of Swift since March 2012, the two banks had filed suit with the European court to challenge those sanctions. EU governments now have two months to appeal the recent decisions.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, is a worldwide financial messaging network to facilitate the interbank transfer of funds. Speaking after a news conference in Dubai, Swift's chief executive Gottfried Leibbrandt indicated that talks are continuing with European regulators about the appropriateness of requiring Swift to impose sanctions on countries such as Iran.

A global network for the transfer of funds loses some of its effectiveness once its neutrality becomes tarnished, because any member of the network could be similarly targeted without recourse.

Leibbrandt said, "There is a dialogue going on around the trade-off between using us as a sanctions tool for other countries and impeding our role as really serving as a global infrastructure mechanism." He added that "there are lots of alternatives to Swift" and international transactions can still be executed by sending instructions via telephone or email, but such alternatives are "not as secure as Swift and [lack] the convenience factor."

One such alternative is the gold bullion trade. Buyers of Iranian oil and gas must deposit payment in a local bank account and it cannot be transferred abroad. Iran sells natural gas to Turkey and receives payment in Turkish lira, which are then used to purchase gold bars in Turkey. Couriers using hand luggage carry the bullion to Dubai, where it is sold for foreign currency or shipped to Iran.

Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said, "We will continue to make our gold exports this year to whoever seeks them. We have no restrictions and are not bound by restrictions imposed by others." Turkey was granted a six-month U.S. waiver that exempted it from financial sanctions against Iran but the waiver is due to expire in July. Also in December, the U.S. Senate passed expanded sanctions on trade with Iran which included restricting trade in precious metals.

Caglayan maintained that Turkey's state-owned Halkbank will continue its existing transactions with Iran but some other banks had pulled back in response to U.S. pressure since those private banks had activities in the U.S.

Also, Washington has warned Moscow on the implications for Russian banks and has sanctioned the parent company of Russia's Mir Business Bank, state-owned Bank Melli Iran, claiming that the Moscow-based bank has become a conduit for Iranian's seeking to keep trade flowing. "Only problem is Russians don't care what we think," according to Jim Rickards, author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Crisis.

In the meantime, over 30 cases are still pending at the EU General Court, including cases filed by the Central Bank of Iran and the National Iranian Oil Company.

Largest Bitcoin Payment Processor Raises $510,000 Angel Round

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Monday, January 7, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/01/07/largest-bitcoin-payment-processor-raises-510000-angel-round/

BitPay, Inc. announced today that they have completed a seed funding round of $510,000 from several angel investors demonstrating that bitcoin can attract the capital necessary to encroach upon legacy payment methods. Similar to merchant processors for credit and debit cards, BitPay is a Payment Service Provider (PSP) specializing in eCommerce, B2B, and enterprise solutions for virtual currencies.

Investors participating in the seed round include SecondMarket founder Barry Silbert, Spotify investor Shakil Khan, Jimmy Furland, Roger Ver, and other Internet entrepreneurs. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed but co-founders Anthony Gallippi and Stephen Pair will retain majority ownership. Investors Silbert and Ver also participated in the April 2012 funding round for mining pool operator CoinLab.

CEO Anthony Gallippi says, "BitPay plans to use the funds to move the headquarters from Orlando to Atlanta and to hire additional developer talent for enhancement to the BitPay platform." With proximity to other financial technology companies and several leading universities, Atlanta provides an excellent base for expansion.

Gallippi added that the WordPress decision to begin accepting Bitcoin via BitPay for certain features is "what really accelerated this funding round because investors saw it as the ideal time to move forward." Since the November 2012 WordPress deal, BitPay has seen new merchants increase by nearly 50% to over 2,000.

The total dollar value of all bitcoin transactions processed by BitPay in 2012 was over $3 million, which represents average quarter-to-quarter growth of 50% over the past four quarters for transaction volume.

"With very little resource, BitPay has already taken the place as market leader in the bitcoin payment processing ecosystem, and along with the other investors, I am very excited to help the founding team scale up and take it to the next level," said London-based Shakil Khan, an early investor in Spotify and SecondMarket.

The value proposition to merchants is clear -- eliminate fraud and chargeback risk, accept transactions from any country in the world, and increase profitability by saving on processing fees and PCI Compliance costs.

"Credit cards were never designed for the Internet," stated Gallippi. Using a credit card over the internet is a situation known as card-not-present.  "It was never intended when credit cards were designed, and when we try to use them this way it carries higher processing fees and substantially higher risk. Payment fraud represents nearly 1% of our GDP [$100 billion] in the United States." Shockingly, the large majority of that is a direct hit to the retailers.

So far, BitPay's notable competition in the space is Denmark-based WalletBit and Colorado-based Paysius. Also, the proof-of-concept AcceptBit solution takes things in a different direction altogether with a trust-free payment processor.

Although BitPay is the worldwide leader now with payment plugins for the most common eCommerce shopping carts and multilingual support in over eight languages, they will have to continue innovating with superior features and expanded settlement currency options.

The overwhelming majority of BitPay merchants settle in U.S. dollars because the company does not yet offer direct settlement into other currencies. Furthermore, as almost all merchants start out converting 100% of their Bitcoin proceeds into U.S. dollars, the company acknowledged that the trend is heading towards 50% or less as merchants increasingly decide to maintain proprietary Bitcoin balances.

While that may be good for the future of bitcoin, it alters the business model for payment processors like BitPay because they are forced to rely more on the Bitcoin-only processing spread which is justified by customer support and user-friendly plugins. Also, they risk being seen as just an unnecessary intermediary.

In a bitcoin-only world for selling and buying without conversion to national fiat currencies, the line between processors and wallets becomes blurred. If the bitcoin payment processing industry is indeed headed towards sophisticated, feature-rich deterministic wallets and built-in risk management functionality, the leading processor should have a great advantage in steering the transition.

Egypt Imposes New Cash Controls At Border

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Thursday, December 27, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/12/27/egypt-imposes-new-cash-controls-at-border/

Currency controls are now in place and there is a ban on traveling with more than $10,000 in cash. Egyptian officials are becoming worried as savings account withdrawals increase in the face of a depreciating pound and public rumors of central bank confiscation of deposits.

On Tuesday, Presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali confirmed the government's decision which limits all travelers from "bringing foreign currency into the country or carrying it out to only $10,000." Ali added that "any funds over US$10,000 must be transferred electronically" and the decision also forbids sending cash through the mail.

Previously under the original law, any amounts above $10,000 or their equivalent in foreign currencies simply had to be declared to authorities.

With foreign investors and tourists holding back now, the post-revolutionary Egyptian government of Mohamed Morsi is finding it difficult to maintain control over its finances and budget deficit. As a result, Egyptian officials have delayed the high-level talks that are necessary to secure a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

New thinking at the International Monetary Fund now accepts that capital controls are sometimes necessary to prevent destabilizing capital flows. It is not clear from the IMF Survey if this new view would apply to the control of outflows from Egypt which has seen its foreign currency reserves fall from $36 billion in 2010 to $15 billion today dangerously close to the IMF's recommended coverage of three month's of imports. Estimates put hard currency reserves at just about $4 billion.

After visiting one exchange office that had run out of dollars, Cairo resident Mahmoud Kamel said, "I want to exchange money because I'm afraid the Egyptian pound will not have any value soon."

Furthermore, due to the cumulative limit of $100,000 in effect from nearly two years ago, many wealthier Egyptians have maxed out and are unable to send money abroad.

The Central Bank of Egypt said Tuesday that the Egyptian pound was trading at 6.20 per U.S. dollar compared to 6.00 during the first half of the year. Without necessary currency reserves to fund imports, it is likely that the pound will fall in value sharply.

Payoneer Quietly Enters Gibraltar Prepaid Market

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Monday, October 15, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/10/15/payoneer-quietly-enters-gibraltar-prepaid-market/

Payoneer, a New York-based global payments and money transfer company, has quietly launched an EU subsidiary situated in Gibraltar having been approved by the financial regulator there in mid-2012.

Payoneer (EU) Limited is steadily building out its infrastructure and it is not clear when, or if, they intend to migrate their prepaid card portfolio to the Gibraltar location. Howard Gibbs is Managing Director with Lisa Ah-Moye as Finance Director and Mark Taylor as Money Laundering Reporting Officer.

In addition to facilitating global low-cost money transfers to over 200 countries, the EU subsidiary is focusing on payout solutions for international corporates, multi-level marketing companies, and affiliate networks.

Payoneer maintains its R&D center in Tel Aviv, Israel and is a privately-held venture with funding from Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures and Crossbar Capital. They are most known for their Prepaid Mastercard product that corporate customers use to pay staff, affiliates, freelancers, and other service providers. However, since Payoneer is not a licensed banking institution they have had to outsource their card issuing business.

The self-governing jurisdiction of Gibraltar changes all of that. There are only three non-bank E-money institutions authorized under the Financial Services (Banking) Act for issuing means of payment in the form of electronic money. In addition to Payoneer (EU), the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission lists Wave Crest Holdings and Transact Network.

Why is this significant? For starters, it's a relatively small number of firms and it is not a new regulatory designation for Gibraltar as it falls under the EU E-Money Directive of 2009 which amended the 2006 and 2005 Directives that repealed the 2000 Directive. The E-Money Directive is transposed into law and applied nationally by the various member countries within the EU Single Market.

It is surprising that the Directive is not being leveraged more by the established U.S. players because it grants a license and the authority to issue prepaid Mastercard and VISA products directly after attaining card association membership thereby dramatically lowering the barriers to entry. Furthermore, it gives international brands an issuance platform throughout the whole European continent.

Previously, non-banks in the U.S. would have to negotiate a contract with a chartered, regulated banking entity like Choice Bank Limited in Belize or First Covenant Bank in Georgia or MetaBank in Iowa for their prepaid card issuing. Now they can become an issuer themselves.

In related prepaid debit card news, Delaware-based The Bancorp, Inc. has agreed to acquire the assets of Transact Network Limited, the largest e-money licensee and prepaid issuer in Gibraltar.

Frank Mastrangelo, President and COO of The Bancorp stated, "The acquisition of this platform from Transact Network, a well regarded Pan-European electronic money institution, will establish a European Payment Solutions presence for Bancorp and facilitate European expansion for many of Bancorp’s existing 'Payment Solutions' clients. It will also enable Bancorp to leverage its current BIN Sponsorship and Program Management Platforms for a wider set of European Payment solutions and offer enhanced products, flexibility, capability, and scalability. We will utilize our success and experience with our US payment solutions platform to grow our European presence."

Blackmail And A Briefcase Of Bitcoin

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Tuesday, September 6, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/09/06/blackmail-and-a-briefcase-of-bitcoin/

The anti-cashists are right about one thing. A briefcase full of paper cash is a dirty, inefficient way to move money around.

Upon hearing the news that a hacker had seized presidential nominee Mitt Romney's prior year tax returns and was asking for $1,000,000 to destroy them, you could be excused for thinking that you had stumbled into a Dr. Evil film. But, this blackmailer was demanding payment to be made in the cryptocurrency bitcoin, not dollars. A bitcoin receiving address was provided so that the public could monitor the progress.

But, is blackmail really an illegitimate act? In the fictitious case of Dr. Evil's demands, he was threatening a violent crime as a consequence. With the Romney tax hacker, the consequence of merely revealing the truth is not a crime. If the alleged hacker(s) acted alone to break in and obtain the information from PricewaterhouseCoopers, rather than discovering the information, that break-in would of course be considered a criminal act. However, the act of blackmail itself is a separate issue.

Professor Walter Block of Loyola University New Orleans reflects on the old axiom that "the truth shall make you free" and says that a blackmailer is simply setting the truth free to do whatever good or bad it is capable of doing. In his book Defending the Undefendable, Block suggests:

"We will find, however, that the case against the blackmailer cannot stand serious analysis; that it is based upon a tissue of unexamined shibboleths and deep philosophical misunderstandings.

What, exactly, is blackmail? Blackmail is the offer of trade. It is the offer to trade something, usually silence, for some other good, usually money. If the offer of the trade is accepted, the blackmailer then maintains his silence and the blackmailee pays the agreed-upon price. If the blackmail offer is rejected, the blackmailer may exercise his rights of free speech and publicize the secret. There is nothing amiss here. All that is happening is that an offer to maintain silence is being made. If the offer is rejected, the blackmailer does no more than exercise his right of free speech."

Professor Block also posits some good effects of blackmail, such as diminishing real crime (robbery, murder, rape) because it increases the penalty associated with crime if a criminal has to share the loot or pay up to avoid the reporting of an 'anonymous' tip. The legalization of blackmail could also have a beneficial effect on non-aggressive actions that are generally at odds with societal mores such as sadomasochism and adultery, according to Block.

Vitalik Buterin of Bitcoin Magazine extends that thinking to the potential beneficial effects on governments and the corporate world:

"Although the tools of communication and financial privacy are granting the small thieves an unprecedented ability to carry out their business with impunity, the large thieves that have so far been able to hide in the bureaucratic shadows of governments and large corporations are finding themselves more and more thrown into the limelight. This is the world we are moving towards: one that is perhaps more anarchic, and in some respects more dangerous, but one that is at the same time more just."

It is not yet known whether the threat to disclose tax return information is a real threat, but I suppose we will all know on the expiration date of September 28th. For its part, PricewaterhouseCoopers stated "we are working closely with the United States Secret Service, and at this time there is no evidence that our systems have been compromised or that there was any unauthorized access to the data in question."

Transactional privacy in the digital age is a double-edged sword. It has the potential to liberate individuals from many aspects of political tyranny but it also creates new challenges as the physical cash drop-off point is no longer a deterrent to getting caught. Regulating a bitcoin is like regulating an air guitar. The only thing we know for certain is that it's not going away.

For further reading:
"Blackmail as a Victimless Crime", Walter E. Block and Robert W. McGee, July 13, 2011

Argentina Begins Tracking All Credit Cards

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Tuesday, September 4, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/09/04/argentina-begins-tracking-all-credit-cards/

In an eerie glimpse of what a cashless society enables, the government of Argentina has taken the drastic step of mandating banks to report every credit card purchase to the tax authorities, AFIP. Also introduced on Friday, another measure adds a 15 percent tax surcharge every time a purchase is made outside the country using a credit card issued by an Argentine bank.

This action targets those people that have been using credit cards as a way to purchase at the official rate rather than the black market rate, in effect creating a dual credit card exchange regime. Capital flight is high in Argentina due to the depreciating peso and currency controls are becoming more and more aggressive.

The black market peso price has spiked as the government has tried to close off any and all avenues for people to legally convert out of pesos and into US dollars. A 15 percent tax surcharge will close some of the gap between the regulated official rate and the black market rate, currently at 4.63 pesos per dollar and 6.39 pesos per dollar respectively. In theory, this new surcharge is deductible against future taxes owed so it's really an advance payment. But in practice, its real value as a deduction will have been eaten up through inflation and it's meaningless for those that don't earn enough income to owe taxes.

On Monday, this new rule was broadened to include debit cards and purchases at any online site outside the country, which targets Amazon and eBay purchases.

But the measures go much farther, according to Michael Warren of Associated Press, "giving the government powerful new tools to combat widespread tax evasion." He writes:

"Tax and customs agents now will be able to compare better what Argentines declare to the customs and tax agencies with what their credit card bills say. Before, the reporting requirements applied only to expensive charges of more than 3,000 pesos (about $645). Now, every single purchase by every co-signer must be reported. And if the totals show people are living large while claiming to be paupers, they could get into big trouble."

Even the socialist President Jose Mujica of Uruguay called the new measures "crudely protectionist" in a radio interview from Montevideo. Tourism and investment to the area has already been suffering.

This article is the third in an ongoing series of country focus pieces where the cashless society utopia has actually advanced the cause of financial repression. The SWIFT monetary blockade of Iranian banks was the first report and MintChip digital currency in Canada was the second report.

These are brutal, important lessons in why a cashless society should not strip everyone of their transactional and financial privacy. For those people in Argentina that want to bypass currency controls and also shelter their money from government-induced inflation, this Buenos Aires exchange community claims to buy and sell bitcoin for Argentine pesos. And, the mercaBit.eu exchange sells bitcoin for Ukash vouchers which are available in Argentina.

For further reading:
"Argentina tightens grip on credit card purchases abroad", Ian Mount, Financial Times, August 31, 2012
"Cashless: The Coming War on Tax-Evasion and Decentralized Money", Cris Sheridan, March 30, 2012

WikiLeaks Bypasses Financial Blockade With Bitcoin

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Monday, August 20, 2012

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/08/20/wikileaks-bypasses-financial-blockade-with-bitcoin/

People shouldn't fear their government; government should fear its people. Publishers and journalists will not be intimidated nor silenced. Now entering day 626 of the financial blockade against WikiLeaks, Julian Assange sits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London awaiting safe passage.

Following a massive release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables in November 2010, donations to WikiLeaks were blocked by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union on December 7th, 2010. Although private companies certainly have a right to select which transactions to process or not, the political environment produced less than a fair and objective decision. It was coordinated pressure exerted in a politicized climate by the U.S. government and it won't be the last time that we see this type of pressure.

Fortunately, there is way around this and other financial blockades with a global payment method immune to political pressure and monetary censorship.

On its public bitcoin address, Wikileaks has taken in over $32,000 equivalent in more than 1,100 separate bitcoin donations throughout the blockade (1BTC = $10.00). But these amounts may be significantly higher, because it does not even include the individually-generated bitcoin addresses that WikiLeaks provides for donors upon request.

Also announced last month, WikiLeaks appears to have found another way around the VISA and Mastercard blockade by using the French national credit card system, Carte Bleue, to process these payments (at least temporarily).

According to WikiLeaks, VISA and MasterCard are contractually barred from directly cutting off merchants through the Carte Bleue system and the French non-profit FDNN (Fund for the Defense of Net Neutrality- Fonds de Défense de la Net Neutralité) has set up a Carte Bleue fund for WikiLeaks.

Time Magazine declares that WikiLeaks "could be as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act."

It used to be that people had secrets and the government was transparent; now it's the people that lack privacy and the government has secrets. Freedom of payments is an extension of financial privacy and digital cash-like transactions without financial intermediaries become a critical piece of that foundation. Money was never intended to act as a form of identity tracking or payments restriction and this is why the option for anonymous and untraceable transactions is so vital as society moves to a world of digital currency.

"It is the privatization of censorship, because this is being done because of extreme pressure by the U.S. Government," says Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for WikiLeaks. "It’s extremely important to fight back and stop this process right here and now so that we won’t see in the future, ....where we have the financial giants deciding who lives and who dies in this field."

To those that don't support freedom of payments, consider this financial blockade invoked in the name of political correctness before you dismiss the inherent value of a nonpolitical unit of account and of a decentralized medium of exchange. It should be offensive to most free-minded people that you are not the final arbiter of how and where you spend your money. Bitcoin restores the balance.

Top 10 Bitcoin Statistics

By Jon Matonis
Forbes
Tuesday, July 31, 2012

 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/07/31/top-10-bitcoin-statistics/

The concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency without political borders can be challenging at first. Bitcoin forces us to adjust the way that we think about money and value transfer. Fortunately, the bitcoin community has been excellent at consolidating informational data through a loosely-integrated group of dedicated volunteers.

Here are the top 10 bitcoin statistics in no particular order. I have intentionally omitted certain statistics like bitcoin miners' revenue and mining operating margin because they focus on a subset of the user community. Also, I have tried to provide alternate data sources where available to broaden the statistic's usefulness. If you don't see your favorite listed here or if I have missed any important statistics or charts, please feel free to let me know in the comments below.

1. Market Capitalization - This displays the historical number of total bitcoins in existence multiplied by the exchange rate for that day in US Dollars. It can be considered the bitcoin monetary base.

2. Price Chart - This chart displays the last trade price for bitcoin (BTC) against a number of currencies and ranks the exchanges by 30-day volume. Advanced charting capability is provided here. The price depth chart of BTC/USD on the MtGox exchange is usually the best indication of overall market price.

3. Exchange Volume Distribution - This pie chart displays trading volume distribution by exchange and by various bitcoin currency pairs.

4. Network Hashing Rate - This displays hashing difficulty and the estimated number of Giga hashes per second (computation speed) that the network is performing for various time windows. Calculated by dividing maximum target by current target where target is a 256-bit number, difficulty measures how difficult it is to find a new block compared to the easiest it can ever be. Difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks (or two weeks) and to find a block, the SHA-256 hash of a block's header must be lower than or equal to the current target for the block to be accepted by the network.

5. Hash Rate Distribution - This pie chart is an estimation of hash rate distribution amongst the largest mining pools. It is important to monitor because the integrity of the network depends on a single actor not exceeding 50% of the overall hashing power. A more detailed alternate chart using a different data source, IP address that first relayed the block, is Block Origin.

6. Number of Daily Transactions - This chart displays the total number of unique bitcoin transactions per day. An alternate version is also provided that excludes transactions with the top 100 popular bitcoin addresses based on number of outputs. The advent of Satoshi Dice has probably been most responsible for the surge in nominal transaction count since late April.

7. Daily Transaction Volume - This measures the estimated transaction volume per day in US Dollars. An alternate graph visualizes bitcoin network activity in real-time, including transactions, block creation, and currency trade measured in BTC.

8. Bitcoin Days Destroyed - Applying a 7-day average to the non-cumulative chart calculation, Bitcoin Days Destroyed for any given transaction is calculated by taking the number of bitcoin in a transaction and multiplying it by the number of days it has been since those coins were last spent. Bitcoin Days Destroyed attempts to provide a reliable indication of transaction volume that strips out transfers to oneself and immediate account reorganizations since a high value for days destroyed indicates less hoarding and more old bitcoin on the move. It can be considered a measure of monetary velocity. The cumulative version can be found here.

9. Average Transaction Confirmation Time - This measures the average (mean) amount of time in minutes that it takes for a transaction to be accepted into a block. Reasonable estimates differ on the amount of time and confirmations for a transaction to be considered cleared and 'good' but that appropriate risk level would be associated with the transaction's value. Also, see this excellent chart that displays transactions with fees paid against those with no fees paid.

10. Largest Recent Transactions -  Culled from the last 50,000 transactions, this top 100 list gives an indication of actual transaction sizes in bitcoin occurring on the network.

Another useful site with real-time statistics and tools that I like is provided by Bitcoin Block Explorer.