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Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

bitcoin.co.th

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Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#51

Post by mjn »

cs702 wrote: post #42

Thailand's "Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department" has advised that, quoting from the OP: "the following Bitcoin activities are illegal in Thailand: buying Bitcoins; selling Bitcoins; buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins; selling any goods or services for Bitcoins; sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand; receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand." We c…

You may be interested in: http://www.bot.or.th/English/ForeignExchangeRegulations/FXRe...

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#52

Post by lrem »

cs702 wrote: post #42

Thailand's "Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department" has advised that, quoting from the OP: "the following Bitcoin activities are illegal in Thailand: buying Bitcoins; selling Bitcoins; buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins; selling any goods or services for Bitcoins; sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand; receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand." We c…

This law in the USD version was/is in force in some pretty major parts of the world. It kind of screws up the actual exchange rates - you're paying premium for the illegality. Around the time (80's) I was born you could buy a bottle of vodka for $0.80 in an USD-accepting (high-margin) shop.

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#53

Post by bencollier49 »

rorrr2 wrote: post #24
kordless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really surprising someone is using an ad hominem argument again?

That's not an ad hominem attack. Ad hominem is "You're an idiot, therefore what you said is incorrect".

Call it an ad humum then? :-)

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#54

Post by 3am »

tpatke wrote: post #15

The key factor to the success of any currency is liquidity. You are only willing to put money in if you can take money out. If the government of Thailand says it is illegal to transfer money in or out - that will effect liquidity in Thailand. How will this be enforced? First, banks and reputable institutions doing business in Thailand will not be allowed to trade with companies involved in bitcoin exchange. Of course…

To the point of your edit, you see identical behavior on Gold investor boards in the typical sites (Motley Food, Seeking Alpha, et al). Everything is good news for gold. If "A" is good for gold, so is "!A". This money flowing in to ETF, inventory levels, chart technicals... almost anything. In the event that something is difficult to justify immediately as good news, it is the product of a malicious conspiracy (market makers, central banks).

I'm only comparing the group dynamic and the hostile reaction to any suggestion that triggers cognitive dissonance. I haven't checked the chart on Mt Gox in ages, last I saw 1 BTC was ~ 125 USD. As a disinterested observer, this Thailand development doesn't seem very important one way or the other, but it's hard to interpret as positive.

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#55

Post by clarkmoody »

Nursie wrote: post #43
clarkmoody wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the person in question is running a Bitcoin wallet, that is. Receiving and sending via blockchain.info online wallets would require masking website traffic only, and there are lots of ways to do this. Receiving via offline wallet would be completely untraceable, unless the addresses were know a priori by the authorities. Checking the balance on a web-based blockchain viewer could tip off the watchers, but the same…

Receiving via an offline wallet... You mean effectively a savings account that is inbound only? Sure, no traffic needs to come to you then. I'm sure there are ways to secure the traffic. As it stands, however, running your own node, mining, and sending BTC is pretty detectable.

Of course.

The important thing here is that the receive-only scheme provides a way around two of the six points mentioned by dreen above: selling goods/services for Bitcoin and receiving Bitcoin from anyone outside the country.

Actually, from that list it looks like running a node and mining would not be illegal. And if you're mining with a pool, make sure the payout is added as part of the generation transaction, not sent as another transaction later.

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#56

Post by stonemetal »

northwest wrote: post #23

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it applies to any nation that the government always retains the monopoly of "issuing" a currency. EDIT: ...which probably means that sooner or later, bitcoin will probably be outlawed everywhere.

They haven't outlawed chuck e cheese coins, or any other arcade that uses its own currency instead of dollars. Why would bit coin be any different?

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#57

Post by dobbsbob »

No problem. Start an Okpay exchanger in Thailand and ppl can use it to buy coins.

Thailand is already so corrupt laws are basically meaningless there. If you get caught somehow trading coins then just bribe the cop $100 and walk away.

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#58

Post by wilfra »

tomelders wrote: post #33
stef25 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that paedo-tourists are effectively given a free pass in Thailand Really necessary to drag that in to the discussion?

Maybe not necessary, but I don't think it's out of place. It paints a picture of what the Thai government deems important and with a country like Thailand, with the issues it faces, comparing this non issue against a real issue makes mockery of Thailand's leadership. And they deserve to be made a mockery of.

I'm not sure where you are getting your information, but it isn't accurate. Paedophiles are regularly sent to prison in Thailand.

There is also some misunderstanding about who declared bitcoin illegal. The Central Bank deals specifically with monetary transactions - and they were asked for their opinion by a private company, and they gave that company their opinion.

That is the extent of what happened. The government of Thailand is not on a crusade against bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand

#59

Post by gamblor956 »

cs702 wrote: post #42

Thailand's "Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department" has advised that, quoting from the OP: "the following Bitcoin activities are illegal in Thailand: buying Bitcoins; selling Bitcoins; buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins; selling any goods or services for Bitcoins; sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand; receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand." We c…

No need to control Bitcoin itself--they can control the users. That is ultimately more effective, because as with historical foreign exchange prohibitions in other countries have demonstrated, the prohibiting country generally has no control over the prohibited currency.

EDIT: Also, it seems that this is not an actual prohibition. Rather, it is merely a legal advisory memo from the national Bank of Thailand to a Bitcoin company regarding the current legal status of Bitcoin transactions in Thailand. According to the BoT, Bitcoin transactions may not be legal under the current law, so the BoT will not provide banking services to individuals or companies that will use the services for Bitcoin-based transactions or services.

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