Exactly.

Spending is basically just recording a change of address for X number of bitcoins.

This is true for most dollars as well. It's something most people don't get - money is not something physical, it's an idea.

Apparently Gox wasn't operating in accordance with the FinCEN regulations for 'money transmitters'.

That guidance told everybody how the government was planning on approaching this, so there's no surprises here.

It's basically impossible to be any more wrong.

It's come to our attention that a few people have been using this thread for trades - that's not what this thread is for, and any such trades belong here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...e-points-1529/

If they continue in this thread, it might result in getting the thread locked eventually, so I'd encourage you to report any posts you see looking to trade funds. This is for the protection of all traders and potential traders - lots of scammers around looking to take advantage of the unwary.

Did that guy think people were going to go "oh dude, your theory you thought out for about 90 seconds is RIGHT, holy crap why didn't we think of that, OH DAMN, sell sell sell."

Resources for mining: Don't.

My guess is campbx is operating under the law and Mt. Gox thought because they were in Japan, they didn't have to comply. On the US-based bank accounts they control, they said they are not a currency exchange, when it's obvious they are. Just another example of Gox being Gox.

yeah, this doesn't appear to be a broad bitcoin attack, but rather the US gov telling mt gox they still have to follow our rules, even if they aren't based here. i could be wrong, but i don't think the gov is gonna go after coinbase or campbx. there are also btc-e and vicurex, so plenty of options for people to trade btc. between the dwolla shutdown and gox being ddosed, i expected the price to drop more than this, so perhaps btc is too strong to take down now.

From reading the link about the warrant, it sounds like Gox was just incompetent (again) and blatantly lied about the purpose of their US bank accounts. It says they can pay a fine, maybe that's all that will happen and then things can go back to normal with Dwolla?

I figure one day there'll be a competent exchange that's easy and cheap for regular Americans to use.

When is Gox going to be back up? Is there any other good exchanges to base bitcoin price on while Gox is down?

yeah ^ above two posts seem correct

however

iirc, to be compliant with the law for being a "currency processor", i think i read that you must pay like $25mil in fees to be fully registered

Gox isn't down. Is it?

Bitcoinity is still showing trades.

i cannot access mtgox.com and clarkmoody isn't showing trades. but bitcoinity still is

bitstamp is 2nd largest exchange followed by btc-e

Thanks Greg, I just used bitstamp price to conduct a trade, saved me $6 on each coin.

Gavin Andreson is currently live http://live.twit.tv/

i like Leo Laporte but wish he would STFU and let Gavin speak more

Gox is back up for me.

There need to be more exchanges and they need to know what they are doing. Trying to hide that you are an exchange and avoid certain regulations only gets you shut down. And bitcoin needs good exchanges to be able to grow. Glad that so far this hasn't affected the price. Guess most people already realized that Mt.Gox is a bit incompetent.

I hope they sort this out quickly though because to me this sounds way too much like the first money seizures from people processing for FT and Stars.

Huge news today with WebMoney accepting Bitcoin.

I don't know these guys but initial reading it seems to be a Russia-based centralised debt ledger system?

They're calling Bitcoin WMX and they've set 1 WMX to 0.001BTC. The underwriters for WMX are INDX Transactions Ltd, and my assumption is that if you have WMX in one of your "purses" then it's INDX that owe you the BTC. The actual exchanges seem to be third party and are listed here. I checked out a couple and they weren't offering WMX rates, but it's early days.

I see that Steam accept Webmoney payments so they at least have some standing. I would imagine that Gox would set themselves up as an exchange for this if the companies involved check out. Whoever deals with their US dollars offer the withdrawal methods here (WMZ are dollars, they wussed out of calling them WMDs).

A lot of the info is in Russian and I haven't done any research into their underlying technology as of yet. It really depends on how established the underwriters are. Some of the websites are pretty basic looking, but that could be misleading.

Was anybody here already using Webmoney?

A lot of russians PS players sure do, since PS is accepting WebMoney

Ah, I wasn't aware of that.

Webmoney is HUGE in russia.

Does anybody know what the Ts&Cs are for the underwriters? Can they act as a fractional reserve?