I wonder why isn't there even one cool country government in the whole world. We only see lame ones.
Switz might be an exception, or Iceland perhaps, but both too constrained by neighbours and political bonds.
Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
71–80 of 107 posts
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#72It will be interesting to see how actively they enforce this new ruling. Given that paedo-tourists are effectively given a free pass in Thailand I find it odd that Bitcoin would work it's way to the top of the agenda.
Why wouldn't something that is apparently seen as a way to circumvent government control get near-top priority?
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#73No 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.
It's a problem for businesses though
Bitcoin is the least of your problems if doing business in Thailand. Also they didn't ban zerocoin, or litecoin :P.
What about Thaicoin a currency backed by bitcoin?
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
If someone proposes this kind of law in the US, would it be compatible with the US Constitution? It seems to me hard to enforce in some western countries. How can you enforce people not to buy or sell something, unless you decide it's a scam. Regulations could be enforced, I suppose, the same way short-selling can be 'paused' in situation in which the market is going crazy or volatility is too high. But unless you us…
>> How can you enforce people not to buy or sell something, unless you decide it's a scam. Drugs, weapons, precursors/ingredients for those things.... Certainly some of the worst and most controversial parts of modern legal codes in the west, but governments ban stuff they don't like all the time. Where you're dealing with financial instruments, there is just so much law in place already that it seems to me it would…
No, I agree, and I mean exactly what you meant.
Either you say that something is dangerous (as in your example, drugs, weapons... etc), or it has to be considered a scam.
I may be wrong and I would like to understand this better, but I don't see how they can declare it illegal to buy unless they find a loophole (money laundry, etc).
But just saying you're not allow to buy it, without associating with it a motivation (which could eventually be challenged via various Courts), doesn't see easy to me in the US.
They can't even manage to ban weapons really.
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#75Bitcoin was not ruled illegal. The Bank of Thailand has no legal power. A few senior members of the bank saying something is illegal does not make it illegal. The Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department are merely departments of the bank, not branches of the legislative government.
In other words the title "Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand" should be changed to "Bank of Thailand wishes Bitcoin to be illegal", or "Trading suspended due to Bank of Thailand advisement" which is the original title.
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#76- 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 I think what they mean is that its impossible for a company to do any of the above things legally. Its not possible to enforce this on the individual level.
>> Its not possible to enforce this on the individual level. Why not? From what little I understand it's pretty easy to spot bitcoin related traffic on a network, transactions in particular. Thailand already has some sort of national filtering/porn censorship set up IIRC.
You can tunnel it through Tor.
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#77Earlier 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.
Noticeably, "mining bitcoins" was not on the list of prohibited activities in Thailand on the article. Of course, mining bitcoins is relatively useless unless you can eventually send, receive, or otherwise exchange them...
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, no…
Actually this brings up a very interesting question I hadn't even considered before: In terms of bitcoin crossing borders and for the purposes of international commerce - where is a bitcoin? If someone in the US pays someone in thailand you would (or I would) immediately think a cross border transaction has taken place. But Bitcoins only really exist on the blockchain, right? You don't somehow store them on your own…
I think this is grey area and I have personally used bitcoin mostly for bypassing international transfer fees.
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#79Bitcoin was not ruled illegal. The Bank of Thailand has no legal power. A few senior members of the bank saying something is illegal does not make it illegal. The Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department are merely departments of the bank, not branches of the legislative government. In other words the title "Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand" should be changed to "Bank of Thailand wishes Bitcoin to be il…
Indeed.. upon closer inspection all that happened is this guy approached the Bank of Thailand and (foolishly) deferred to their authority to ask if he could trade coins using their bank. This always results in bankers telling you no, and no surprise they said no, but doesn't mean you can't use cash on the streets, just so long as no banks are used. Thai parliament hasn't passed any laws declaring virtual currencies illegal.
Re: Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand
#80Thailand'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…
Your hypothetical is our reality