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New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

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Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#31

Post by fred_durst »

Ryan_Singer wrote: post #22
nmrm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional auditing and security testing should be necessary for any piece of software from which it's possible to drain large sums of money, regardless of who's running the software or holding the money. In fact, I'd argue anything less constitutes an ethical breach on the part of the lead engineer(s). I'm not really sure why that particular regulation is so onerous in any of these situations, since any responsibl…

For the Reddit Tip Bot?

How about this

https://github.com/vindimy/altcointip/blob/master/src/cointi...

with this

https://github.com/vindimy/altcointip/blob/master/src/ctb/ct...

You don't think that might allow someone to do a bit of skimming by playing a little loose with the exchange rates?

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#32

Post by sliverstorm »

3pt14159 wrote: post #29
fred_durst wrote: post #16

> 1. Submit fingerprints of all founders (and employees) to the FBI and disclose personal financial information of founders and officers to NY State. > 2. Require them to hold an undetermined amount of U.S. dollar funds in bonds or trusts. Startups will not be able to predict the bonding or capitalization requirements until after they apply, making it difficult to project expenses or raise money. > 3. Conduct expensi…

What is the US's obsession with fingerprint collection? The rest of it I can sorta understand, provided that society is viewing Bitcoin less as a weird internet thing, and more as a money thing, I can understand regulators wanting to treat Bitcoin institutions like financial institutions, but collecting fingerprints just to start a business seems so 1984.

They are a little dated these days of course, but off the top of my head fingerprints are used for banking, old fashioned wire transfers, and passports. They want to be able to connect you to those things, and the fingerprint was the private key signature [1] of the 20th century.

Which, IMO, isn't "so 1984" because those are historically all major fraud avenues.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#33

Post by markburns »

fred_durst wrote: post #25
xorcist wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would depend entirely of "handle other people's money" actually mean . There's a huge difference between the different players in this space. Just because they're in the same ecosystem doesn't mean the same regulations should apply. I am personally intrigued by point 4, "any untouched asset after five years is abandoned property". So, if I deposit money in my account, it's not mine after five years? Where does i…

#4 does not mean New York State owns it forever. It is intended to prevent companies from having an incentive to create business practices based on the hope that people will forget about or abandon funds etc. A customer can claim those funds by going here: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/ Your comment is kind of what I'm talking about. You do not know nearly enough about this stuff to start a Bitcoin startup judging…

xorcist choosing to question a comment on a website does not necessarily put him in the same category as people wishing to start a bitcoin startup handling others money

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#34

Post by patio11 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #32
3pt14159 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the US's obsession with fingerprint collection? The rest of it I can sorta understand, provided that society is viewing Bitcoin less as a weird internet thing, and more as a money thing, I can understand regulators wanting to treat Bitcoin institutions like financial institutions, but collecting fingerprints just to start a business seems so 1984.

They are a little dated these days of course, but off the top of my head fingerprints are used for banking, old fashioned wire transfers, and passports. They want to be able to connect you to those things, and the fingerprint was the private key signature [1] of the 20th century. Which, IMO, isn't "so 1984" because those are historically all major fraud avenues. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature

off the top of my head fingerprints are used for banking, old fashioned wire transfers, and passports

Fingerprints are not routinely collected in the United States to open bank accounts, send or receive wire transfers, or request passports.

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#35

Post by fred_durst »

markburns wrote: post #33
fred_durst wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#4 does not mean New York State owns it forever. It is intended to prevent companies from having an incentive to create business practices based on the hope that people will forget about or abandon funds etc. A customer can claim those funds by going here: https://www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/ Your comment is kind of what I'm talking about. You do not know nearly enough about this stuff to start a Bitcoin startup judging…

xorcist choosing to question a comment on a website does not necessarily put him in the same category as people wishing to start a bitcoin startup handling others money

That's a valid point. It came out wrong and unnecessarily harsh.

I should have also added that although the person I was replying to(xorcist) was unqualified in the financial knowledge, I assume by way of being around HN, that they likely have more than enough technical aptitude for such an endeavor.

These regulations, in my opinion work to protect the larger markets from exactly that type of dangerous situation.

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#36

Post by fred_durst »

starkness wrote: post #30
greenyoda wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I am personally intrigued by point 4, 'any untouched asset after five years is abandoned property'." That's how bank accounts in NY State currently work. However, if your account has been idle for a while, your bank tries to contact you to tell you about it. If you have on-line banking, logging in to your account usually makes it active again. Also, in the event that your money does get turned over to the state, you…

And one of the key questions is, does this make sense for, say 1000 abandoned dogecoin (current value $0.24) on tipdoge.info? This is why we proposed de minimis exceptions.

Absolutely, 100% it does. Because it helps to prevent a business from building its profit model around 100,000 people abandoning $1 each.

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#37

Post by nmrm »

starkness wrote: post #28
nmrm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional auditing and security testing should be necessary for any piece of software from which it's possible to drain large sums of money, regardless of who's running the software or holding the money. In fact, I'd argue anything less constitutes an ethical breach on the part of the lead engineer(s). I'm not really sure why that particular regulation is so onerous in any of these situations, since any responsibl…

We're in the process right now of writing up a more in-depth policy proposal, but you're spot on in terms of different levels of risk management. And we're not at all against security testing, which is also one of the great benefits of FOSS. ("Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.") And the audits comprise financial audits as well, which surely make sense for bitcoin exchanges and companies holding funds, but…

This is great to hear. The best way for software to keep itself relatively unburdened by (poorly implemented) regulation is for industry to hold itself to high standards. And why wouldn't we? We're proud of what we build.

I'll be very curious to see how companies built up around client software but not directly handling money are treated in your proposal. I think safety-critical industries cover these in various different ways, normally under the assumption that the companies are producing either a) "components" for use in safety-critical systems; or b) tools which will be used for QA processes. I'm not sure either applies well, especially in the case of OSS. And I don't know of anything similar in finance.

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#38

Post by fred_durst »

starkness wrote: post #28
nmrm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional auditing and security testing should be necessary for any piece of software from which it's possible to drain large sums of money, regardless of who's running the software or holding the money. In fact, I'd argue anything less constitutes an ethical breach on the part of the lead engineer(s). I'm not really sure why that particular regulation is so onerous in any of these situations, since any responsibl…

We're in the process right now of writing up a more in-depth policy proposal, but you're spot on in terms of different levels of risk management. And we're not at all against security testing, which is also one of the great benefits of FOSS. ("Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.") And the audits comprise financial audits as well, which surely make sense for bitcoin exchanges and companies holding funds, but…

> Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.

Tell that to OpenSSL.

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#39

Post by sliverstorm »

patio11 wrote: post #34
sliverstorm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are a little dated these days of course, but off the top of my head fingerprints are used for banking, old fashioned wire transfers, and passports. They want to be able to connect you to those things, and the fingerprint was the private key signature [1] of the 20th century. Which, IMO, isn't "so 1984" because those are historically all major fraud avenues. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_signature

off the top of my head fingerprints are used for banking, old fashioned wire transfers, and passports Fingerprints are not routinely collected in the United States to open bank accounts, send or receive wire transfers, or request passports.

Has policy changed? I could swear I had to give a fingerprint last time I opened a bank account in person, and when I got my passport. I suppose that was fifteen years ago...

Re: New York to Bitcoin Startups: Get Permission

#40

Post by DINKDINK »

These regulations aren't about consumer protections (if they were, companies would be audited and scored on how well they comply, ala health food scores in restaurants). If regulators solely marked businesses with the metaphorical seal of approval, a democratic, economic process would happen in the market place.

This is entirely about the state inserting themselves between people, their money, and where they want to spend it. You'd be ignorant to believe that the Feds wouldn't apply the same, transaction-ending, censorship level of force to Bitcoin transactions services ("Oh your users are sending money to Wikileaks? We deem that a risky transaction and now require you to hold 10X funds in dollars and to buy additional bonds. Oh What a coincidence that's outside of your financial situation that we have complete privilage to inspect.")

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