11–20 of 31 posts
It's nice to see they defend Bitcoin itself as well as themselves. But then this nice thing might happen that governments can do when they're said to be unjustified in a request: they just change the law and then close you down instead of warn. Might be interesting to try and see them seize Bitcoin itself, but the Bitcoin Foundation is a legal entity that _can_ be shut down.
really really tl;dr: bitcoin's not money; bitcoin exchanges aren't money transmitters; even if they were, we don't do that; even if we did that, we're not subject to California's jurisdiction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a third possibility, which is that the BF argument is flawed and the DFI is actually correct. I'm not at all sure about this and have yet to check, but I have my doubts about whether BTC/$ exchange can truly be called a Foreign Exchange transaction as BTW are not issued by a sovereign entity and thus may not be considered a Foreign Currency for the purposes of this law.
They're still wrong because the foundation is not an exchange in the first place.
It's not obvious from the website what corporate structure the Bitcoin Foundation has, for example. If it's a nonprofit, it has yet to file a 990 tax form. I find it understandable the the CA regulator wants to know what sort of entity it is dealing with.
Also surprising that a reputable law firm wouldn't have known that as of July 1, 2013, the DFI no longer exists, and has been merged into the California Department of Business Oversight.
I'll be interested to see how the DBO responds, or if this comes up at the AB 786 hearing tomorrow.
tl;dr 1. We are a foundation that promotes bitcoin use, we do not accept or remit or transmit money. 2. We are not incorporated in nor doing money transmittal in California are therefore are not under your jurisdiction. 3. Bitcoin does not seem to fit California's legal definition of money, unit of exchange, or store of value. 4. "Currency Exchanges" do not seem to meet California's legal criteria of "Money Transmitt…
But they do accept donations, and acknowledge as much (page 2). If you're going to tl;dr please do so accurately.
I speculate that the purpose of this publicized cease and desist letter was just to send a message about DFI's disapproval of Bitcoin and ward off adopters of the awesome crypto.
Dissecting it with web developer tools, apparently they parse the PDF content server-side and rewrite it as HTML. So you can't just view source and find the link to the PDF file, or intercept the download with a proxy -- you really do have to log in to get the PDF from them, AFAICT.
Can anyone provide a direct link?
This site sucks. It requires an account or Facebook login to access the PDF. I refuse to do this. Dissecting it with web developer tools, apparently they parse the PDF content server-side and rewrite it as HTML. So you can't just view source and find the link to the PDF file, or intercept the download with a proxy -- you really do have to log in to get the PDF from them, AFAICT. Can anyone provide a direct link?
This site sucks. It requires an account or Facebook login to access the PDF. I refuse to do this. Dissecting it with web developer tools, apparently they parse the PDF content server-side and rewrite it as HTML. So you can't just view source and find the link to the PDF file, or intercept the download with a proxy -- you really do have to log in to get the PDF from them, AFAICT. Can anyone provide a direct link?
There's a link right under the blue FB login [ Sign up without Facebook ] that should allow you to download the pdf, that's worth a try.
tl;dr 1. We are a foundation that promotes bitcoin use, we do not accept or remit or transmit money. 2. We are not incorporated in nor doing money transmittal in California are therefore are not under your jurisdiction. 3. Bitcoin does not seem to fit California's legal definition of money, unit of exchange, or store of value. 4. "Currency Exchanges" do not seem to meet California's legal criteria of "Money Transmitt…
we do not accept or remit or transmit money But they do accept donations, and acknowledge as much (page 2). If you're going to tl;dr please do so accurately.