Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Railgun on June 01, 2013, 08:52 pm

Title: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 01, 2013, 08:52 pm
The BitInstant>MtGox is done for now.  As of 2 days ago, any deposits made in currency require that you now upload a picture of yourself and prove residency before you can export your coins. 

I suggest just using EasyWallet now (BitInstant allows for you to just specify a bitcoin address). It's clear LE is cracking down on them and is tracing their transactions.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: ChemCat on June 01, 2013, 09:02 pm
here is a screen shot from a couple ,minutes ago.

MtGox is still there..http://torimagesbp2vt3u.onion/i/ke5H.png
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 01, 2013, 09:05 pm
here is a screen shot from a couple ,minutes ago.

MtGox is still there..http://torimagesbp2vt3u.onion/i/ke5H.png

Not dead in the literal sense. Dead as in it is no longer a viable option.  They require you to verify yourself via ID now before you can export coins.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: ChemCat on June 01, 2013, 09:07 pm
LOL  oh i do appologize  :)

i totally misunderstood what ya typed   ::)

i correctly understood what ya meant after i had posted  :P

Peace,

ChemCat  O0
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 01, 2013, 09:08 pm
This is what scans are for...
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: dirtybiscuitzz718 on June 01, 2013, 09:09 pm
WOW.

Not that it applies to me as of now, as im not a seller.. but how the fuck are the vendors going to cash out such large amounts of coin with out it??

Im sure theres other, more tedious ways, but i could imagine US vendors are quite bummed the fuck out. 
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: ChemCat on June 01, 2013, 09:09 pm
No Worries   ::)
















:P
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 01, 2013, 09:12 pm
Like I said, this is what scans are for.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: anom on June 01, 2013, 09:15 pm
Like I said, this is what scans are for.
what exactly is a scan?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: ChemCat on June 01, 2013, 09:17 pm
Lim i just sent ya a msg  :)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 01, 2013, 09:17 pm
Like I said, this is what scans are for.
what exactly is a scan?

Scanned copies of passports/DL and accompanying utility bills to go with them.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 01, 2013, 09:21 pm
Like I said, this is what scans are for.
what exactly is a scan?

Scanned copies of passports/DL and accompanying utility bills to go with them.

Sounds like even more fraud.  Do they allow access via TOR so that you aren't caught doing this?  I don;t really mind that much as I'm just an occasional buyer, so I will probably just use another wallet service.

If I use my credentials and send it to a bunch of intermediate wallets then to SR, go into escrow for tumbling, would I have much to worry about?

Thx
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 01, 2013, 09:23 pm
Lol yeah of course it's fraud, however without it, now vendors wont be able to use Gox.

The solution is fairly simple really, someone just needs to start a new Gox haha.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: P2P on June 01, 2013, 10:59 pm
I just checked their volume: 6790 btc. Wow. 10% of what they were doing before, and I guarantee it's due to this new issue. Fools. Unless they were going to be criminally prosecuted this was a very weak and stupid maneuver to get in the good graces of the government.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 01, 2013, 11:02 pm
I just checked their volume: 6790 btc. Wow. 10% of what they were doing before, and I guarantee it's due to this new issue. Fools. Unless they were going to be criminally prosecuted this was a very weak and stupid maneuver to get in the good graces of the government.

Not really considering what just happened to LR.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: s1llyn355 on June 01, 2013, 11:10 pm
Lol yeah of course it's fraud, however without it, now vendors wont be able to use Gox.

The solution is fairly simple really, someone just needs to start a new Gox haha.

This is exactly right. 
We don't need big monolithic exchanges like Gox,
these are too much like a central authority... and too vunerable to attack.
We need smaller exchanges located outside of the reach of the US authorities,
exchanges in china, russia, tibet, cuba, etc.

sites like localbitcoins.com are an excellent alternative to exchanges.
.. because you can buy or sell btc to people in your local area.
So no registration documents and ID scans etc.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: CannaConnection on June 01, 2013, 11:11 pm
All you have to do is use a scan or really nice fake id and sign in from a public wifi hotspot. Still, they will always have more scrutiny upon everyone that has an account.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: P2P on June 01, 2013, 11:55 pm
I just checked their volume: 6790 btc. Wow. 10% of what they were doing before, and I guarantee it's due to this new issue. Fools. Unless they were going to be criminally prosecuted this was a very weak and stupid maneuver to get in the good graces of the government.

Not really considering what just happened to LR.

Oh yes I'm sorry I forgot about this.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 02, 2013, 01:13 am
I just checked their volume: 6790 btc. Wow. 10% of what they were doing before, and I guarantee it's due to this new issue. Fools. Unless they were going to be criminally prosecuted this was a very weak and stupid maneuver to get in the good graces of the government.

Not really considering what just happened to LR.

I think he may have some truth.  Bitcoins are supposed to be somewhat convienent.  No matter HOW MUCH you put in, you MUST verify.  It's a pain that people rather not go through for $50.

If they mandated this for something like $10000+ amounts or multiple deposits from same address, sure. But EVERY transaction? Yeah a lot of people are out.  I wouldn't want to be bothered if I were doing something legal. Why when I can use other exchanges..
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 02, 2013, 01:20 am
That's irrelevant. With the public opinion on the LR case Mt Gox can't be perceived to be tarred by the same brush even though, ironically, Mt Gox was tarred long before the LR case. The fact that the U.S seem to be gunning for digital currencies with the investigations into those Gox accounts Gox cannot be seen to be complicit in illegal activity. You have to remember that Mt Gox is not an extension of SR and neither is it a criminal organization. It is, for all intents and purposes, a legitimate organization and it's also a financial institution that get's used by criminals and to survive as a company it has to separate itself from that.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 02, 2013, 01:33 am
That's irrelevant. With the public opinion on the LR case Mt Gox can't be perceived to be tarred by the same brush even though, ironically, Mt Gox was tarred long before the LR case. The fact that the U.S seem to be gunning for digital currencies with the investigations into those Gox accounts Gox cannot be seen to be complicit in illegal activity. You have to remember that Mt Gox is not an extension of SR and neither is it a criminal organization. It is, for all intents and purposes, a legitimate organization and it's also a financial institution that get's used by criminals and to survive as a company it has to separate itself from that.

I get that, but what percentage of people are really using MtGox for SR/BMR/Atlantis(whoever is there..lol)?  As far as I know, LR was used almost exclusively for clandestine activities, as in they almost advertised for it. 

It's not about being an extension of SR, as there are others that you can use that are torified from the get go.  It's the general user that's inconvenienced. The show will go on for most SR buyers, and I imagine the show still goes on for sellers as well.

For example, I just wanna get my cash out of there now. In the future, I'll just have it sent to another box. But now all their users will see a 8000+ queue for verification and go elsewhere.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 02, 2013, 01:47 am
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2039347/canadian-regulator-takes-lighter-view-of-bitcoin.html  (CLEAR NET)

Just  throwing the idea out there. However the Canadian banks seem to be shutting down accounts claiming "right to refuse service"

So I've tried to ask this before. But what exactly is involved in being an exchange? If you have a store or something can't you just get a business license and if you have large sums of cash you support your buying and selling of bitcoins?? I know this doesn't help people out side of the area as this would be a physical location but is there something wrong with this?
If you have a store front you could also accept interac, or money orders, or cash in the mail. I mean setting up an escrow system can't be that hard and as you're sending mail with cash in it it can be registered mail that requires a signature. What am I missing here? and if i'm not missing anything I think I need to get a business license like tmw. Hell car insurance guys travel to your home to sell insurance.

seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: kneotac on June 02, 2013, 02:23 am
Lol yeah of course it's fraud, however without it, now vendors wont be able to use Gox.

The solution is fairly simple really, someone just needs to start a new Gox haha.

Without going into detail.....surely there are other cashout methods for vendors than just MtGox?

I agree a competitor to Gox would be a great idea.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 02, 2013, 02:26 am
Lol yeah of course it's fraud, however without it, now vendors wont be able to use Gox.

The solution is fairly simple really, someone just needs to start a new Gox haha.

Without going into detail.....surely there are other cashout methods for vendors than just MtGox?

I agree a competitor to Gox would be a great idea.

Yeah of course, BTC-E for one. Gox can actually be still used safely despite this shit so long as you learn how to use scans though. There are other things ya should do too but they never get mentioned on here possibly for that reason.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jameslink2 on June 02, 2013, 02:31 am
If you have a store front you could also accept interac, or money orders, or cash in the mail. I mean setting up an escrow system can't be that hard and as you're sending mail with cash in it it can be registered mail that requires a signature. What am I missing here? and if i'm not missing anything I think I need to get a business license like tmw. Hell car insurance guys travel to your home to sell insurance.

seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?

Honestly it is very simple, provided you know a little about programing. I developed an interface some time ago for an online wallet with escrow and multiple accounts with automatic coin tumbling. I was originally thinking of starting a hidden wallet service but dropped the idea when several wallet services were hacked.

This was not getting the coins in or out of the network, just a place for people to put and store coins as well as do escrow sales. Getting coins in is as simple as bitinstant. Getting them out is another problem all together.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: shulginsindex on June 02, 2013, 03:13 am
That's irrelevant. With the public opinion on the LR case Mt Gox can't be perceived to be tarred by the same brush even though, ironically, Mt Gox was tarred long before the LR case. The fact that the U.S seem to be gunning for digital currencies with the investigations into those Gox accounts Gox cannot be seen to be complicit in illegal activity. You have to remember that Mt Gox is not an extension of SR and neither is it a criminal organization. It is, for all intents and purposes, a legitimate organization and it's also a financial institution that get's used by criminals and to survive as a company it has to separate itself from that.

Any virtual currency is deemed illegal because mainly its not taxable and anonymous. That's highly unacceptable to the gov. They would shut them down sooner if they were able to track them. Maybe they won't be able to remove btc but they can get rid of mt gox. Btc is used for drugs, child porn, ammunition, common facts. And that's enough for them to remove mt gox.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 02, 2013, 03:24 am

This was not getting the coins in or out of the network, just a place for people to put and store coins as well as do escrow sales. Getting coins in is as simple as bitinstant. Getting them out is another problem all together.


Well the buying function is there as a needed but I agree its getting cash out that is the problem. So as I said if you had a store front and the cash to back buying bitcoins, whats stopping someone from doing that? I mean literally people walk into your store and pull up their wallet on their smart phone or laptop or whatever and say "hey what are you buying at right now" you quote them a price and they go "sure lets do that" the bitcoins are transfered (takes 10 mins right?) and you hand them cash.

the same could be said for sending money orders too i guess. person sends you coins, you send a money order. the money order arrives in a day. deal done???
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 02, 2013, 04:30 am
Quote
seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?

Control.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: shulginsindex on June 02, 2013, 04:52 am
Mt gox don't verify any documents. They are not a registered financial bank. The documents are for record keeping and legal reasons.  I mean they don't verify the bank account for withdrawel.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 02, 2013, 11:38 am
Quote
seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?

Control.

So does this literally come down to a question of control? as in big brother control? If i was to open a store front doing exactly as I stated (cash for bitcoins on the spot, and vice versa) would it only be a matter of time before someone came stomping in saying I was violating some law???

again what am I missing, if the gov says its not a currency, then it must be some kind of a commodity. no one collects info when i buy a gift certificate or preloaded card, or travelers chqs or gold, or money orders.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: smogmonster13 on June 02, 2013, 01:46 pm
no one collects info when i buy a gift certificate or preloaded card, or travelers chqs or gold, or money orders.
[/quote]

Yet. I wish that some large institution like Amazon would accept bitcoin. That would change the ration of legal bitcoin activity.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 02, 2013, 11:26 pm
Quote
seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?

Control.

So does this literally come down to a question of control? as in big brother control? If i was to open a store front doing exactly as I stated (cash for bitcoins on the spot, and vice versa) would it only be a matter of time before someone came stomping in saying I was violating some law???

Yes and yes. You would probably be hit with money laundering charges.

Quote
again what am I missing, if the gov says its not a currency, then it must be some kind of a commodity. no one collects info when i buy a gift certificate or preloaded card, or travelers chqs or gold, or money orders.

Not true, except for gold. And even then, if you exceed the $10,000 reporting limit the purchase is tracked. Required by law.

As for the others, all of those require you to show ID or do something similar so that the purchase/transfer can be reported and tracked.

CONTROL.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Deutsche Bank on June 02, 2013, 11:47 pm
It's only a matter of time until Mt. Gox starts to be the US government's whore, thankfully Bitcoin isn't a centralized system like Liberty Reserve.
I'm totally against Mt. Gox's monopoly, instead there should be small exchangers or even more private persons so that we could tell the world's governments to fuck off.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 03, 2013, 12:43 am
Quote
seriously what am I not understanding? if you have the cash to support the business why do you even need a bank acct?

Control.

So does this literally come down to a question of control? as in big brother control? If i was to open a store front doing exactly as I stated (cash for bitcoins on the spot, and vice versa) would it only be a matter of time before someone came stomping in saying I was violating some law???

Yes and yes. You would probably be hit with money laundering charges.

Quote
again what am I missing, if the gov says its not a currency, then it must be some kind of a commodity. no one collects info when i buy a gift certificate or preloaded card, or travelers chqs or gold, or money orders.

Not true, except for gold. And even then, if you exceed the $10,000 reporting limit the purchase is tracked. Required by law.

As for the others, all of those require you to show ID or do something similar so that the purchase/transfer can be reported and tracked.

CONTROL.

I should add. Currently I'm in Canada so I don't have to deal with some of the things the US has to deal with. I don't know I don't recall using ID for the things I've listed. Maybe I've gotten lucky and people just like my face  ;D
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PurpleBalloons54 on June 03, 2013, 01:39 am
I love the idea of starting a local business for buying and selling btc  lol

But yeah, after advertising, the Feds would probably be after whomever for money laundering.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 03, 2013, 08:26 am
Well perhaps someone should find out.  ;)

How is cash handled in the US mail system?
Would it be a problem to send cash to US citizens that participate on the silk road?

I get that some guy receiving 30k in the mail is a problem. I more meant a long the lines of, if they open a package containing 1k-3k in cash is it actually a problem ? I know it looks bad, I know it could put someone on the radar, I know that it is techincally not illegal but could throw up some red flags. I know some postal workers could steal things even though it would go registered mail (insured and all that). I know that then the person would have to perhaps declare some of this income to the IRS (please for god sakes get a restaurant job and claim some cash as tips.)

Just curious as I imagine the US population is one of the largest markets a person would need/want to tap into.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PurpleBalloons54 on June 03, 2013, 04:43 pm
My unexpert opinion, is that a person doing this would want to do it from a country that is not a US ally- because the Feds would be chomping at the bit to get that person for money laundering, and would push the other country (if they could) to get that person to be extradited to the US for prosecution, or pressure that country to go after the person themselves.  I suppose if the business was doing a small enough volume, the person or people could avoid extradition and just get shut down in the country they're in, maybe with a "minor" charge, depending on the country.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 03, 2013, 08:29 pm
The single problem with sending cash in the mail is risk. A certain portion of it will get lost. Guaranteed. How do you recoup the lost cash? You don't. That's why Bitcoin was invented.

Money laundering charges are highly unlikely, since they would need to know the source of the cash. That's as easy as finding out who sent that guy a pound of heroin in Alaska (see the thread). They know who received it, but will never find out who sent it.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: ThePhoenix on June 03, 2013, 11:47 pm
so is it ok for me to BUY bitcoins and then transfer them out to SR? I cant seem to find a straight answer

I want to use bitinstant > mxgox > SR.

will this still work? Its a nominal amount...$150 or so...will it still work?

I dont want to scan anything....is that ony for withdrawing CASH?

straight answer please :)

Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 01:02 am
I'm still a little confused as to why anyone would want a hosted wallet? What purpose did MTGox serve other than to host a wallet? Surely we weren't using our credit cards to go and buy from MTGox?

This is an aspect of BTC that I have yet to actually understand. I don't give my moneyclip to someone to manage for me. I wouldn't dream of it. Hell, I'm skeptical of even having a banker manage an account for me. The implicit trust of a place like MTGox just befuddled me in all of this. Eventually, the US was going to regulate the exchanges - thats all there is to it. Unless the exchange stayed out of USD business, and didn't have any bank accounts - otherwise, this outcome was inevitable.

Obviously for the most part for the moment, the concept of existing outside of all international currencies and living entirely off bitcoins is a utopian dream, but this is the only way that one could truly avoid these types of situations.

so is it ok for me to BUY bitcoins and then transfer them out to SR? I cant seem to find a straight answer

I want to use bitinstant > mxgox > SR.

will this still work? Its a nominal amount...$150 or so...will it still work?

I dont want to scan anything....is that ony for withdrawing CASH?

straight answer please :)



Don't touch mtgox at all. Don't put anything there. Get your own wallet locally, have bitinstant send it there, and then use bitcoinfog.

http://fogcore5n3ov3tui.onion

I replied in your other post to this same extent. I use bitinstant quite a bit, if you want you can PM me with questions.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 01:08 am
It's only a matter of time until Mt. Gox starts to be the US government's whore, thankfully Bitcoin isn't a centralized system like Liberty Reserve.
I'm totally against Mt. Gox's monopoly, instead there should be small exchangers or even more private persons so that we could tell the world's governments to fuck off.

Honestly, I'm hoping that some of these private individuals who are attempting to put bitcoin ATMs all over, will enterprise on a duality. On the one hand, allow people to insert cash and get bitcoins. On the other, allow people to insert bitcoins, and get cash. I could see this as being a valuable universal asset - you could use bitcoins as your carrier to other countries, and convert them directly to local cash. It would be awesome, and it would solve the really annoying issue of having no (or left over) international currency. I don't know a lot about the currency markets themselves, but as far as I can tell currency conversion is a private enterprise everywhere - there is no government royalty related to it (other than maybe taxes on the incoming/outgoing currency, which could easily be like sales tax). The one-way bitcoin ATMs I have seen are freakin awesome.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Christy Nugs on June 04, 2013, 01:25 am
WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 04, 2013, 01:28 am
Lol, don't sugar coat it Chrizzle. :P
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 01:29 am
WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.

Agreed.

MtGox was the self proclaimed #1 exchange. They claimed to have traded the largest amount of bitcoins at some point in the last 3 years (maybe it was 2011 or 2012, i don't remember). It was an extremely high-trade traffic BTC site, and it was one of the major BTC->USD exchanges in the US.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Smoked on June 04, 2013, 02:05 am
I don't see what the big deal is here. Even if you do use all your real information for sending btc AND cashing out. Just send the coins through a few tumblers first.

If your still paranoid then use some scans and pay cash for one of those pay as you go mobile internet cards.

Am I missing something?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 04, 2013, 05:39 am
Quote
Get your own wallet locally

That's the bottom line. Why the fuck do people keep on trusting other providers with their money??? Use the Bitcoin QT client, then encrypt your wallet with a strong passphrase (several random words in succession), never use the same address more than once, and set it to use your localhost Tor proxy ALWAYS. You can even mount all that on an encrypted USB flash key. Just remember to always have a backup somewhere, so you don't lose all your BTC if you ever lose or destroy your key.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: joywind on June 04, 2013, 06:15 am
I agree with Smoked, when he wrote:

I don't see what the big deal is here. Even if you do use all your real information for sending btc AND cashing out. Just send the coins through a few tumblers first.

If your still paranoid then use some scans and pay cash for one of those pay as you go mobile internet cards.

Am I missing something?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: AnonymousAddict on June 04, 2013, 04:25 pm
Why do so many of you when you use BITINSTANT send to MTGOX first?  Why not just make it simple and send it st8t to Bit address? Thats the way iv done it ever since using the road..

Then 2 weeks ago i tried something new, and now 400 bucks has never posted, and im having a hella of a time getting things corrected to get my freaking money back or eaither to SR like i wanted..

I was gonna buy half a G from King david before he ran out, and then then im out of 400 bucks for now until they fix whatever they fucked up..  I swear , the one time i stray away from my normal way, i get FUCKED WITH NO LUBE
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 04, 2013, 08:52 pm
I agree with Smoked, when he wrote:

I don't see what the big deal is here. Even if you do use all your real information for sending btc AND cashing out. Just send the coins through a few tumblers first.

If your still paranoid then use some scans and pay cash for one of those pay as you go mobile internet cards.

Am I missing something?

This tbh; I really just noticed that BitInstant allows you to send directly to your own wallet and bitcoin-qt is readily available.  I'm on a proxy that "doesn't log" but how do I get bitcoin-qt to channel through TOR?

Thanx


NEVER using that place again.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 09:00 pm
Quote
Get your own wallet locally

That's the bottom line. Why the fuck do people keep on trusting other providers with their money??? Use the Bitcoin QT client, then encrypt your wallet with a strong passphrase (several random words in succession), never use the same address more than once, and set it to use your localhost Tor proxy ALWAYS. You can even mount all that on an encrypted USB flash key. Just remember to always have a backup somewhere, so you don't lose all your BTC if you ever lose or destroy your key.

Yep. Not to mention, you can burn a local wallet easily. It's not hard to make a new one. I have a permanent wallet, it has bitcoins in it. Those bitcoins, have never once, at any time, been to or from SR. It's one of the things that has always made me extremely confused. EasyWallet does the exact same thing I do when I create a new wallet. Nothing different about it, except I now trust them instead of myself. Why would I do that? I wouldn't give an EMPTY moneyclip to someone to hold, much less one WITH money in it. If its really necessary to "tumble" it through multiple random wallets, do it on your own over some generated wallets from different internet connections on different proxies. you're  better off doing that than trusting some online "heres an instant wallet for u!" service.

Quote from: AnonymousAddict
Why do so many of you when you use BITINSTANT send to MTGOX first?  Why not just make it simple and send it st8t to Bit address? Thats the way iv done it ever since using the road..

I've had this same question ever since I first researched bitcoins in the first place. Sometimes I've wondered if the exchanges are the ones that write the tutorials that specifically mention "create a wallet here" type shit, so they can boost up their holdings.

It's always sounded like, "Oh, well we can lower our credit approval requirements so that we can insure more lendings." to me.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 09:05 pm
I agree with Smoked, when he wrote:

I don't see what the big deal is here. Even if you do use all your real information for sending btc AND cashing out. Just send the coins through a few tumblers first.

If your still paranoid then use some scans and pay cash for one of those pay as you go mobile internet cards.

Am I missing something?

This tbh; I really just noticed that BitInstant allows you to send directly to your own wallet and bitcoin-qt is readily available.  I'm on a proxy that "doesn't log" but how do I get bitcoin-qt to channel through TOR?

Thanx


NEVER using that place again.

The bitcoin wiki is actually REALLY informative on a lot of things regarding this, and protecting identiy and explaining risk reduction for a number of topics.

Clearnet warning: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor

This is the main page on Tor there, and it explains the methods for getting a number of different applications associated to bitcoin and the community. You should also look around on that wiki for more info.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: flwrchlds9 on June 04, 2013, 09:30 pm
Another big problem with MTgox is never know when they decide to change policy over night and any coin you have now hostage. they do it many times and will keep in doing that.

even if method correct use to verify then they change policy and now you need dna sample and all your coin hostage.

stay away :D

no local business over in US will survive long to exchange BTC, fed will come down on them quick and very soon will have to provide ID and verify or get shutdown or gulag. more likely they threaten and turn into rats which feed info to fed for years.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 04, 2013, 09:40 pm
Another big problem with MTgox is never know when they decide to change policy over night and any coin you have now hostage. they do it many times and will keep in doing that.

even if method correct use to verify then they change policy and now you need dna sample and all your coin hostage.

stay away :D

no local business over in US will survive long to exchange BTC, fed will come down on them quick and very soon will have to provide ID and verify or get shutdown or gulag. more likely they threaten and turn into rats which feed info to fed for years.

It's not only a problem that affects mtgox. That exists with any BTC exchange, regardless. This is why I distrust them. They are run by humans, and humans are greedy vindictive bastards. That's all there is to it. I refuse to sign an agreement, or agree to one, where my money is NOT in my control, and a clause like videogames is in the agreement text. "Experience may change at any time. Rules are subject to modification under our invisible terms and processes, tough shit." is the kind of crap I expect from an MMO, but not from a bank or similar financial institution, ESPECIALLY if it is in the bitcoin industry.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: AtlanticExchange on June 04, 2013, 11:45 pm
WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.

I used Mt.Gox when I first used SR, and immediately was turned off. They have caps on everything, and if you reach the cap, your deposit is held til you provide legal ID.

Good luck with THAT. Terrible way of acquiring coin... not even sure why anyone who uses SR uses Gox in the first place. I was about to hit their 10k cap in my first month as a buyer and just happened to read up on that limitation and what would happen if I made one more deposit(reaching/exceeding the limit). With a little research, it's plain to see that Gox is and never has been "TOR" nor "SR" friendly.

BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 05, 2013, 12:10 am
BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I'm seeing more and more people agree with me on this, but it still feels like this is completely missed or never even suggested. I just don't get it.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: MarcelKetman on June 05, 2013, 01:00 am
Really don't see why this is a problem. After the coins are purchased, they can be sent through a couple of wallets whilst using TOR to mask your IP. By the time they get to the road, no-one will be able to prove that you still own the coins.

As for cashing out, since one cashes out to a bank account anyway, LE, with the help of Gox could find out who you are without requiring identity docs. So again, not sure how this changes anything unless you have been cashing out to an anonymous numbered bank account in the Caribbean. Of course this is not necessarily an unlikely scenario for SR vendors :)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Railgun on June 05, 2013, 02:19 am
BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I'm seeing more and more people agree with me on this, but it still feels like this is completely missed or never even suggested. I just don't get it.

It's the articles that have a bunch of "use MtGox" in them  :-X.  I was poorly versed in bitcoin until about 3 weeks ago.  Now that I have my own wallet, and it's encrypted, I will never go back to MtGox. Perhaps a more seasoned member should make a tutorial about using the wallets and encrypting etc.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 05, 2013, 02:56 am
BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I'm seeing more and more people agree with me on this, but it still feels like this is completely missed or never even suggested. I just don't get it.

It's the articles that have a bunch of "use MtGox" in them  :-X.  I was poorly versed in bitcoin until about 3 weeks ago.  Now that I have my own wallet, and it's encrypted, I will never go back to MtGox. Perhaps a more seasoned member should make a tutorial about using the wallets and encrypting etc.

As misguided as this may seem, I don't know that there is really a whole lot of desire to duplicate documents already available.

I've been under suspicion of the ubiquity of the exchanges in tutorials though. It does bother me... I've been intending to look on the bitcoin forums to see if there is similar sentiment amongst the other community members, because I think there may be some desire to make a change in the overall landscape and try to reduce that harm in such a way that exchanges stay the way that they are in other currencies: there for only one purpose and one purpose only, to exchange currency for other things, and not as holding tanks.

The bitcoin community is extremely tied to the desire to be both anonymous and secure. That was its original intent. Places like mtgox are actually somewhat against this concept, but unfortunately as with any currency, since you can't use a bitcoin wallet to pay for groceries (yet) the need to convert currency is necessary.

The unfortunate truth is that, from the standpoint of usage, the concept of security - no matter it's application - can be quite technical in breadth. It'd be a long document indeed if some of us dumped all of the information we have on the matter. Some of that information, in truth, I feel would be more fear mongering and paranoia developing... than helping in the overall picture, not to mention adding quite a bit of complexity to a situation that really is simple.

The information at the locations most of us provide are sound, but we are also here to help as well. Any tutorial we make, will likely be nearly of equivalent status (if not sometimes a direct copy :| ) of the one at bitcoin or elswhere. The problem, is ultimately in the problems themselves: everyone is different, and typically the issues that pop up all have different explanations =/. This is where the ultimate case is with this community:

We are here to help. We don't want to stay isolated and by ourselves, we are a community driven by the freedoms we desire and are unable to get on our own. We want you here with us, and if you have issues participating, never be afraid to ask. Honestly, I would say, there is nothing wrong about a reality check. Post your idea, and we'll tell you whether you have it right or not. Some of us may have a bit of a sarcastic answer and aren't afraid to say it was stupid, but take that at face value, we're all cynics at heart :)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 05, 2013, 06:23 am
You're using the wrong proxy. Use YOUR OWN localhost Tor proxy. It's on port 9150. Use localhost or 127.0.0.1 as the IP. It's SOCKS version 5. Just remember to keep Tor Vidalia running at all times for QT to keep funneling connections through Tor. If you're a vendor and are running Tor separately on a Tails or otherwise encrypted flash key, you're probably better off running that on another computer for processing transactions. Also make sure that you change the Tor port settings slightly on the other computer so that you can share your connection properly without any conflicts between devices.


This tbh; I really just noticed that BitInstant allows you to send directly to your own wallet and bitcoin-qt is readily available.  I'm on a proxy that "doesn't log" but how do I get bitcoin-qt to channel through TOR?

Thanx


NEVER using that place again.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 03:47 am
My unexpert opinion, is that a person doing this would want to do it from a country that is not a US ally- because the Feds would be chomping at the bit to get that person for money laundering, and would push the other country (if they could) to get that person to be extradited to the US for prosecution, or pressure that country to go after the person themselves.  I suppose if the business was doing a small enough volume, the person or people could avoid extradition and just get shut down in the country they're in, maybe with a "minor" charge, depending on the country.

Took me a bit to get back here. Well there are 2 options to directly tap into the US market easily. For opening a face to face bitcoin store front. cash at the counter on transfer (possibly to expand to email and such).
Canada and Mexico. Not sure about Mexico but Canada has supposedly sent msgs to the Canadian exchanges saying that they don't consider them exhanges and don't need to register with fincen or whatever.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2039347/canadian-regulator-takes-lighter-view-of-bitcoin.html (clear net)

So if you were in canada would it be considered money laundering? would you face the same problems that are starting to impact the US exchanges? don't get me wrong canada seems to follow the us just a bit behind but in theory it's an option right?

I don't mean to sound like a douche with it but there could easily be coin trades from south to north. once the coins are in a northern wallet take a day trip/vacation to Niagara falls and the canadian exchange. don't have to declare over 10k at the border so keep it under that right.
Does this even make some kind of sense?

anyways its a wild hair brained idea. But the smaller version.. (and my original question on page 3) whats stopping someone from doing this?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 03:51 am
It's only a matter of time until Mt. Gox starts to be the US government's whore, thankfully Bitcoin isn't a centralized system like Liberty Reserve.
I'm totally against Mt. Gox's monopoly, instead there should be small exchangers or even more private persons so that we could tell the world's governments to fuck off.

Honestly, I'm hoping that some of these private individuals who are attempting to put bitcoin ATMs all over, will enterprise on a duality. On the one hand, allow people to insert cash and get bitcoins. On the other, allow people to insert bitcoins, and get cash. I could see this as being a valuable universal asset - you could use bitcoins as your carrier to other countries, and convert them directly to local cash. It would be awesome, and it would solve the really annoying issue of having no (or left over) international currency. I don't know a lot about the currency markets themselves, but as far as I can tell currency conversion is a private enterprise everywhere - there is no government royalty related to it (other than maybe taxes on the incoming/outgoing currency, which could easily be like sales tax). The one-way bitcoin ATMs I have seen are freakin awesome.

isn't the problem with this the time it takes to process the transaction (verify it) Maybe I have this all wrong but doesn't it take like 10mins to get the first whatever confirm thing from the blockchain? so if you were at an atm wouldn't it take like 10 mins to in theory verify the transaction?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 06, 2013, 05:00 am
This is what scans are for...

So what you're saying is that Mt Gox does not actually verify that the driver's license or passport number in the scans matches the name and / or address on the license and bill?  They're just doing minimum "due diligence" and only would hand it over if an account seemed suspicious (eg government asked for more details about the account)?

WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.

I used Mt.Gox when I first used SR, and immediately was turned off. They have caps on everything, and if you reach the cap, your deposit is held til you provide legal ID.

Good luck with THAT. Terrible way of acquiring coin... not even sure why anyone who uses SR uses Gox in the first place. I was about to hit their 10k cap in my first month as a buyer and just happened to read up on that limitation and what would happen if I made one more deposit(reaching/exceeding the limit). With a little research, it's plain to see that Gox is and never has been "TOR" nor "SR" friendly.

BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I was under the impression that using BitInstant to send to a BTC address will cause your transaction to max out at $500.  I know this is the case for BitInstant->eMail (via Coinapult).  Please correct me if I'm wrong...
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 06:13 am
It's only a matter of time until Mt. Gox starts to be the US government's whore, thankfully Bitcoin isn't a centralized system like Liberty Reserve.
I'm totally against Mt. Gox's monopoly, instead there should be small exchangers or even more private persons so that we could tell the world's governments to fuck off.

Honestly, I'm hoping that some of these private individuals who are attempting to put bitcoin ATMs all over, will enterprise on a duality. On the one hand, allow people to insert cash and get bitcoins. On the other, allow people to insert bitcoins, and get cash. I could see this as being a valuable universal asset - you could use bitcoins as your carrier to other countries, and convert them directly to local cash. It would be awesome, and it would solve the really annoying issue of having no (or left over) international currency. I don't know a lot about the currency markets themselves, but as far as I can tell currency conversion is a private enterprise everywhere - there is no government royalty related to it (other than maybe taxes on the incoming/outgoing currency, which could easily be like sales tax). The one-way bitcoin ATMs I have seen are freakin awesome.

isn't the problem with this the time it takes to process the transaction (verify it) Maybe I have this all wrong but doesn't it take like 10mins to get the first whatever confirm thing from the blockchain? so if you were at an atm wouldn't it take like 10 mins to in theory verify the transaction?

It depends on the direction you are thinking of. In the case of receiving bitcoins, sort of. There are two potential solutions, and ATMs have been designed to do both. Literal "Bit Coins" have been produced, that themselves hold a value of bitcoins. These can be used in various forms (by various supported methods) to then deposit them on your own (or carry them). There are, in addition, methods being developed (and some in use) at various stores in areas that are quick to develop these sorts of things, that will accept this extremely new idea. In the other form, you are right: if you have the ATM deposit the transaction to your blockchain wallet directly, yes it does take verification time. This goes for any bitcoin transaction, no matter what, if it is literally one that converts to your personal wallet/receiving key. That is... as they say, all there is to it.

Remember though, once the transaction is initiated and it has enterd the blockchain, there is no going back. So, while it does require time, that time is not one of distrust. Once you see it in the (sigh I hate that I have to result to this damn buzz word) "cloud" you will have it eventually. For some that makes them uncomfortable, but thats the cost of the security that is within bitcoins. When handled properly, and entirely in the bitcoin world, there is (presently) nothing that is within (current predictable) mathematics that can defeat it.

Consider that currently, from the standpoint of a credit or debit card, there are generally at a minimum two steps to the process: you initiate the transaction which places a hold for the funds on the account, and then sometimes up to a week later that hold is lifted and the funds are physically debited. In contrast, with bitcoins this time is cut to a tiny percentile, as the transactions are validated on the spot, regardless of size. In addition, once mining turns over the last coin (and even now, to a smaller extent), the concept of mining becomes goaled towards the validation of these transactions. This will eventually create a market in and of itself on the validation process, for priority over said transaction you will need to place a higher bounty (currently these bounties are typically small, though with the drop of reward from 50 to 25btc for mining new blocks, the recommended transaction fee has increased already.) in order to generate demand for your transaction amongst mining polls.

Again on the debit/credit card example, there is further development being put into the idea of an offline wallet. Armory already implements a process, but it isn't quite in the same vain as an "offline" debit/credit card yet. The eventual process (one hopes) is that, given a wallet with a reasonable bitcoin buffer, one could create offline transactions while out (ie, out shopping/getting dinner/seeing a movie), and then at home or in a secure place, connect your wallet, and those transactions are then submitted for finalized verification. The process at the moment is very young, as armory is the only gui wallet that truly provides this type of service (for now), and it requires creating the original unsigned transaction on the online system first and storing it in the offline storage. This, in reality, is a future development that depends on both individuals in the transaction, so it will largely require some amount of adoption IRL commercial scenarios before it really catches on.

In the meantime, devices ("online" portable wallets) already exist in various prototype (and some in semi-production) forms, as the commercial economy starts up.

While it may seem like a speedbump, we already deal with this anyways. You face it in all transactions. It is no different than any other time you face it. As time goes on, the only way to resolve the time-for-verification is to adopt more physical forms of the currency.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 06, 2013, 06:23 am
I think this will affect the value of bitcoins.  The price people are willing to pay and the amount of bitcoins sold on the exchanges dictates directly the value of bitcoins, and if it is harder to purchase them on the exchanges or less people are purchasing them on exchanges because they have to have scanned copies of this and that then I see this negatively affecting the value of bitcoins.  If it was still easy to get them on gox and everywhere, I think the price would be higher.  Lots of people would still buying them from the exchanges.  Well, that's my opinion.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 06, 2013, 06:34 am
3 big differences between the US and Canada wrt money laundering:

1. No structuring laws in Canada
2. No RICO in Canada
3. No FATCA in Canada

All of these are fucking horrifying. Structuring allows the government to charge whoever it wants with trying to evade the $10K reporting limit. They don't need any real evidence. They come at people hard who will often admit some sort of wrongdoing, which will be used to cop a plea deal. Even if they're not actually guilty of any crime.

RICO is the act used to put away organized crime. Now it's almost solely used to prosecute the War on Drugs. It's most damaging component is the government's power for asset forfeiture. If they suspect you're involved in something drug related then they can seize money, property, whatever. THEY DON'T NEED A CONVICTION FIRST.

FATCA is the act used to stop people from using offshore accounts for tax avoidance purposes. The rich can get around it, but no one else can. Especially people who deal in contraband. As for the rich, even they're being driven out by the current admin. They want to tax us ALL.

That means it's a lot easier to run a Bitcoin biz in Canada than in America. Just make sure you don't let a bank get you by the balls. Spread your business around. Also you'll have to watch the tax authority like a hawk and have a smart CA stay on top of everything for you.

Quote
don't have to declare over 10k at the border so keep it under that right.

They often ask shit like "do you have over $1000 on you?" which, if you give them cause, can initiate a search and take your money if you're carrying enough of it. Appearances matter when crossing the border or dealing with LE in general. If they think you don't play by the rules you'll get a hard time. The same goes by how you talk with them. Too deferential, adversarial or just plain scared, you're fucked. I find very few people know how to properly deal with LE. Fewer still know how to exercise their rights when challenged.

So if you were in canada would it be considered money laundering? would you face the same problems that are starting to impact the US exchanges? don't get me wrong canada seems to follow the us just a bit behind but in theory it's an option right?

I don't mean to sound like a douche with it but there could easily be coin trades from south to north. once the coins are in a northern wallet take a day trip/vacation to Niagara falls and the canadian exchange. don't have to declare over 10k at the border so keep it under that right.
Does this even make some kind of sense?

anyways its a wild hair brained idea. But the smaller version.. (and my original question on page 3) whats stopping someone from doing this?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 06:39 am
I think this will affect the value of bitcoins.  The price people are willing to pay and the amount of bitcoins sold on the exchanges dictates directly the value of bitcoins, and if it is harder to purchase them on the exchanges or less people are purchasing them on exchanges because they have to have scanned copies of this and that then I see this negatively affecting the value of bitcoins.  If it was still easy to get them on gox and everywhere, I think the price would be higher.  Lots of people would still buying them from the exchanges.  Well, that's my opinion.

Well, in currency markets, value is dictated by volume pricing, not by individual currency changes in earnest. You will see some change from 1000 purchases of 1btc, but you'll see much greater effect from 1 purchase of 10,000btc (or, in other words, 10,000 btc sold for X amount). This won't be impacted in the least by mtgox, if anything it'll improve the standing of the other exchanges. Notice that the mtgox situation technically started almost a month ago now, and the bitcoin value has held strong at or above $120 USD. It's not had as great as an effect as one might hope.

Remember that MTGox was not a US company. There are US exchanges, that under appropriate regulations, handle extremely large BTC<->USD transactions today. And, as far as currency goes, USD is not the only player anymore and hasn't been for some time. While at one point the US may have been the hip croud in technology, this has taken a drastic flip and worldwide there was a far greater adoption of BTC than in the USD particularly. USD transactions may account for a somewhat large dollar value of BTC trades, but it is hardly the only thing that drives BTC value.

Ultimately, it is easy for one to associate services like SR as one of the driving forces behind bitcoin value, but in reality our main force is one of bitcoin awareness, not value. While there are thousands of dollars spent here in bitcoin transactions, with exception to those who are purchasing large amounts of product, there are not many SR customers that would be buying >1000 BTC quantities, at least not from an SR point of view. Vendors may have larger sellouts, but ultimately at the current price of bitcoins 100BTC is already $12,000USD. The large transactions that are primarily the source of the volume-floated exchange rate are in the 1,000+ range ($120,000 and up). $12,000 would have an effect, but in the grand scheme of things it may be +/- $.01, and 1ms later it'd be irrelevant.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 07:10 am
3 big differences between the US and Canada wrt money laundering:

1. No structuring laws in Canada
2. No RICO in Canada
3. No FATCA in Canada

All of these are fucking horrifying. Structuring allows the government to charge whoever it wants with trying to evade the $10K reporting limit. They don't need any real evidence. They come at people hard who will often admit some sort of wrongdoing, which will be used to cop a plea deal. Even if they're not actually guilty of any crime.

Yep. This is also one of the things that I find so ridiculous about my country. Not only is this true, but every day another case is fed through that determines a law can do more invasive shit than yesterday. Freedom should be traded on securities so I could short it, I'd own the national debt in a decade.

Quote from: bluegreen23

So if you were in canada would it be considered money laundering? would you face the same problems that are starting to impact the US exchanges? don't get me wrong canada seems to follow the us just a bit behind but in theory it's an option right?

I don't mean to sound like a douche with it but there could easily be coin trades from south to north. once the coins are in a northern wallet take a day trip/vacation to Niagara falls and the canadian exchange. don't have to declare over 10k at the border so keep it under that right.
Does this even make some kind of sense?

anyways its a wild hair brained idea. But the smaller version.. (and my original question on page 3) whats stopping someone from doing this?


Well, here is the thing. You have to think about the risk you take by coming back south. Is it worth the risk? You may as well just leave the US, get a job in Canada, and apply for citizenship eventually. Hell, the canadian dollar isn't like it used to be, it dances from like $0.94 to $1.01 frequently now, instead of the old $1.00 USD = $1.50 CAD.

Now, ultimately, you are a US citizen no matter where you are. When you collect money in canada, you collect it as a US Citizen. If you go across the boarder with undeclared money, you're evading taxes. You earned money that you did not declare you earned - there is no other way of looking at this. If you do this once, chances are they're going to look and see if you've done it before that. And, this isn't the kind of thing where you say "ok ok heres the owed taxes." You were doing it with intent to avoid the financial regulations of your home country. Chances are you will not only become an IRS target, but Canada - being the VERY close US ally they are (and distanced from the days of draft dodging in protest of war), are not going to be friendly to you just because Canadian laws are a bit more lax. You aren't a Canadian citizen, they don't have to give a shit about you or the fact that you think their freedoms are better.

It's a lot of risk that doesn't honestly seem worth taking.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 10:23 am
I want to give big THANKYOUs to both Offbeatadam and Baraka for putting some real thought and time into my mad weird ramblings and half nut job ideas. If I could give karma I would.

So back to what was being said here. Because I think this has some real potential. Well maybe not but it might be a laugh to try it.

So IF I could manage to get a store front. Bricks and mortar. (kiosk LOL) I could run a cash for bitcoins and vice versa. Anyone that came in would in theory have their bitcoins on their smartphone. They have a seat, Suzy big-juggs comes over to be oh so helpful. You send your coins to a wallet the store is in control of. It takes 10-15 mins for the first verification? ((I have that right, right? it takes 6 verifications to be done but once the first one is in the blockchain that's pretty much it, It's a done deal and only a matter of time to finalize? )) So you chill with suzy, maybe a coffee.. whatever. ding the first check happens, verified. there it is. the bitcoins are in the the stores wallet. Suzy pling plongs the register and there is your cash. here is your receipt. Have a nice day.

Or in reverse same deal. walk in agree on a buy price (much like walking into a money exchange) they hand over cash and sit down, wait for the transfer to finish. it's done, thanks for your business. have a nice day.

Alright so onto the meat and 2 bits of it all which both Baraka and Offbeatadam have put out there.

I suppose the next question is, how long is this time waiting? As a store owner I wouldn't hand cash over til i had bitcoins in the acct, and as a customer I wouldn't walk out assuming coins are being sent to me after handing over cash. I've heard it can take between 15 mins and 1 hr. Is there any way to speed this up?

you said "Remember though, once the transaction is initiated and it has enterd the blockchain, there is no going back. So, while it does require time, that time is not one of distrust. Once you see it in the (sigh I hate that I have to result to this damn buzz word) "cloud" you will have it eventually."
How long does it take for this first to be seen? How is it checked?

So transaction speed is the first hurdle, the second with trying to tap the US market from outside the US, particularly in a cash friendly way is when a person crosses the border again. You don't have to declare. I'm not saying break the law with the 10k mark, I'm saying come back with 9k. You don't have to report it, it's not like you didn't own the funds when you left the US. I mean if you took your visa and got a cash advance in canada of 9k you haven't actually added any value. you don't have more than when you left. just changed the form (arguably with visa you would have less than 9k the moment you took the cash advance.) I know this is an argument of semantics when a person would be at the border arguing with a guard about the 9k they didn't have to declare because there was no gain in wealth. merely transferring it to another form.
This hurdle can be dealt with. I mean the avg bitcoin user probably wouldn't want to cash out over 10k in one sitting and wouldn't be doing it every day with small ($100) amounts. Lets say a person cashed out at 4-5k. Realistically I can't see this as a problem the canada-US border isn't that regulated is it?

3rd problem. the 10k limit. I know that like the US canada has something similar. I'll have to do some research for specifics but I believe it follows the lines of, if you sell something for over 10k you need to report something. Some kind of KYC rule. Although not being a currency exchange in the governments eyes perhaps a person wouldn't have to. I'm not sure. I know canada has a 10k reporting threshold for financial institutions. More reading required. However straight from wikipedia of all places 
"Know your customer (KYC) refers to due diligence activities that financial institutions and other regulated companies must perform to ascertain relevant information from their clients for the purpose of doing business with them."
This doesn't seem to apply if the reports of the canadian governments stand on bitcoins are correct.

Now, ultimately, you are a US citizen no matter where you are. When you collect money in canada, you collect it as a US Citizen. If you go across the boarder with undeclared money, you're evading taxes. You earned money that you did not declare you earned - there is no other way of looking at this. If you do this once, chances are they're going to look and see if you've done it before that. And, this isn't the kind of thing where you say "ok ok heres the owed taxes." You were doing it with intent to avoid the financial regulations of your home country. Chances are you will not only become an IRS target, but Canada - being the VERY close US ally they are (and distanced from the days of draft dodging in protest of war), are not going to be friendly to you just because Canadian laws are a bit more lax. You aren't a Canadian citizen, they don't have to give a shit about you or the fact that you think their freedoms are better.

It's a lot of risk that doesn't honestly seem worth taking.


Well I'm not going to lie, as this works in my head this isn't a system designed to launder money for someone, more a system to allow easy retrieval of funds anonymously. As in, if you exchange in the US you must declare things, and provide information on yourself. Where as if you walk into the store front "exchanges-are-us" who don't ask for ID and quite frankly don't give a rats ass who you are. Because lets be honest, when you walk into the grocery store they don't care who you are. You make the trade for cash and it's anonymous. what you do or don't do after that point is up to you. Seriously you can buy a bottle of bleach and feed it to someone, throw it in someone elses laundry, toss it off a bridge, or use it to clean your floors. thats all up to you. No one regulates you buying the bleach. Same thought in my mind. Store is there, you choose what you want to do with your cash or bitcoins.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the risk you speak of. The only possible risky points in my mind are 1) the border. which comes down to being under 10k and the fact that no wealth is gained. though you might have trouble explaining why you have 5k in bitcoins. Still if you said you took out a large cash advance on your CC whats the difference? (NOT ADVISING ANYONE TO DO THIS JUST HYPOTHESIZING) it's legal, it's under the reporting limit, and realistically it can be hidden if you're the paranoid type. Even if they were to find it, it's under the limit so why would you volunteer the info. I would assume that you don't have anything to declare. You came across with 5k spending power in bitcoins, you returned with 5k spending power in currency. As for the tax man, thats another issue and not one that I'm trying to solve directly. you have your cash in your hand instead of a bitcoin which currently doesn't let you buy groceries. and #2) the tax man after the fact. hey your liability is your liability. you want to go put 100k cash in the bank and hope you aren't audited. thats on you. common sense should dictate that you find a way to get it into the financial system, or use it for everyday misc. spending. All I know is that right now, getting your money from bitcoins to cash, particularly in the US, became a little more difficult, a little less anonymous, and a lot more in plain view. In theory if this worked, it would allow the transfer of bitcoins anonymously just as mt.gox did with dwolla. The same problem of the tax man was present then. It's not like you could cash out your bitcoins anonymously and walk into the bank and say "here you go, put that in my acct."

Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 06, 2013, 10:29 am
Bluegreen23, I stopped reading once you mentioned opening a store.  Do you realize how much money it would cost?  FinCEN requires you to register your business under federal law. It will most likely cost around $10k for a lawyer to file paper work for it.  Then the state you are operating in will also have their own MSB laws and regulations.  This can cost anywhere from 10k to 15k.  The state will also require you to put in a $500,000 bond to operate a money business.

Good luck with your endeavors.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 01:16 pm
Bluegreen23, I stopped reading once you mentioned opening a store.  Do you realize how much money it would cost?  FinCEN requires you to register your business under federal law. It will most likely cost around $10k for a lawyer to file paper work for it.  Then the state you are operating in will also have their own MSB laws and regulations.  This can cost anywhere from 10k to 15k.  The state will also require you to put in a $500,000 bond to operate a money business.

Good luck with your endeavors.


you missed the obvious and repeated through out that post, and previous posts regarding the questions, "NOT IN THE US".

If I had bold print I would make it bold so you wouldn't miss it again.

Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 06, 2013, 01:24 pm
Saw the update about not being able to deposit or withdraw money, and tried using bit instant anyways. Funds went through and I was able to purchase bit coins and withdraw to my SR address. Not sure if they are going to fix this or what but its still working as I have done 2 deposits with bit instant to Mt Gox after June 1st.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Smoked on June 06, 2013, 02:21 pm
Really don't see why this is a problem. After the coins are purchased, they can be sent through a couple of wallets whilst using TOR to mask your IP. By the time they get to the road, no-one will be able to prove that you still own the coins.

As for cashing out, since one cashes out to a bank account anyway, LE, with the help of Gox could find out who you are without requiring identity docs. So again, not sure how this changes anything unless you have been cashing out to an anonymous numbered bank account in the Caribbean. Of course this is not necessarily an unlikely scenario for SR vendors :)

https://localbitcoins.com/
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: hoobydoobydoo on June 06, 2013, 02:28 pm
BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I'm seeing more and more people agree with me on this, but it still feels like this is completely missed or never even suggested. I just don't get it.

I think BitInstant's fees are high and the transaction limits too small (not to mention the stupid way in which they act like they will accept up to 999 - but really it's only 500 each time and you have to figure that out by trail and error) so that is why I prefer other methods.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 05:53 pm
BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I'm seeing more and more people agree with me on this, but it still feels like this is completely missed or never even suggested. I just don't get it.

I think BitInstant's fees are high and the transaction limits too small (not to mention the stupid way in which they act like they will accept up to 999 - but really it's only 500 each time and you have to figure that out by trail and error) so that is why I prefer other methods.

BitInstant's fees are high?

I see anywhere from 5% to 12% across the board for cash transactions, not including localbitcoins. 3.99% + $3.95 moneygram expresspay fee is a lot better than that.

As for the other part, I'm not comfortable doing a large transaction with the bank, much less a large transaction with a bitcoin company. 3.99% is 3.99% no matter how many times you pay - it's not like it grows or shrinks based upon the transaction. Plus, I don't really have any need or desire to be involved with that much product or with advertising in any way that I have that much liquid funds. I prefer keeping it simple. There is enough risk in this game without adding more to it, like getting frustrated when they lose high dollar(s) amount(s).

That, and bitinstant -> my wallet, is 1 step lesser than a large-transaction exchange. Look at what happened with instawallet, not only did people just have to start over, but they have basically had to watch as nothing changed for their valued coins. I guarantee you, while that was happening, someone had just completed an exchange.

It's not worth the large single-transaction, even if the exchange has low fees. I don't trust MYSELF with my wallet most of the time, I sure as hell wouldn't trust someone else.


*** Blue, sorry, I didn't see your post right away, I am heading out real quick. I'll answer it when I get back, since it won't be a short answer.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 05:57 pm
Saw the update about not being able to deposit or withdraw money, and tried using bit instant anyways. Funds went through and I was able to purchase bit coins and withdraw to my SR address. Not sure if they are going to fix this or what but its still working as I have done 2 deposits with bit instant to Mt Gox after June 1st.

This seems like a foolish gamble. Not only have you now opened yourself up to what is already being investigated by the fed, but you're also trusting that because its broken you can do it and that you won't lose anything if/when it does change.

I don't know, I haven't really read the new terms since I don't/haven't had an account there anyways. Most of the time in this sort of situation, if you have a prior confirmed account, until you hit a certain dollar amount they won't freeze it prior to requiring regulated proofs of identity for internal copies in reference.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 05:59 pm
This is what scans are for...

So what you're saying is that Mt Gox does not actually verify that the driver's license or passport number in the scans matches the name and / or address on the license and bill?  They're just doing minimum "due diligence" and only would hand it over if an account seemed suspicious (eg government asked for more details about the account)?

WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.

I used Mt.Gox when I first used SR, and immediately was turned off. They have caps on everything, and if you reach the cap, your deposit is held til you provide legal ID.

Good luck with THAT. Terrible way of acquiring coin... not even sure why anyone who uses SR uses Gox in the first place. I was about to hit their 10k cap in my first month as a buyer and just happened to read up on that limitation and what would happen if I made one more deposit(reaching/exceeding the limit). With a little research, it's plain to see that Gox is and never has been "TOR" nor "SR" friendly.

BitInstant is a separate entity. You can use ANY BTC Address w/ them. Why haven't people just been doing that? Do you like manually buying your coins at a shittier rate? This has always perplexed me.

I was under the impression that using BitInstant to send to a BTC address will cause your transaction to max out at $500.  I know this is the case for BitInstant->eMail (via Coinapult).  Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Coinapult is different than the ZipZap service that provides direct to wallet. So, from that standpoint, it's likely it is different - unless this is a limit on bitinstant.

Highest I've ever done was $400, and that was a one time thing. Cash that is in my hands, is cash I know exists. BitInstant has done me no harm, but I can afford $3.95 each time I do it. 3.99% is 3.99%... so the overall % fee is the same regardless of how many times I do it.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 07:28 pm
looking forward to hearing your thoughts offbeatadam.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 06, 2013, 07:40 pm
Saw the update about not being able to deposit or withdraw money, and tried using bit instant anyways. Funds went through and I was able to purchase bit coins and withdraw to my SR address. Not sure if they are going to fix this or what but its still working as I have done 2 deposits with bit instant to Mt Gox after June 1st.

This seems like a foolish gamble. Not only have you now opened yourself up to what is already being investigated by the fed, but you're also trusting that because its broken you can do it and that you won't lose anything if/when it does change.

I don't know, I haven't really read the new terms since I don't/haven't had an account there anyways. Most of the time in this sort of situation, if you have a prior confirmed account, until you hit a certain dollar amount they won't freeze it prior to requiring regulated proofs of identity for internal copies in reference.

I agree it was a gamble but a friend had said it worked that day. I had no idea you could send straight to your bitcoin address im just going to do that and bypass mtgox completely now. I didn't have a confirmed account and was made with all fake information.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 06, 2013, 07:42 pm
Check out the Localbitcoins site mentioned above. Skip the bricks n mortar overhead.
Learn about Bitcoin-OTC which is connected to that site in some ways. Most people tech-aware enough to want bitcoins are probably going to look on the internet first.
Buy low, sell high and claim profits for income taxes if you are going to do it as a business. The Local website sets up deals in advance so there is little or no waiting during the deal. There is some escrow potential built into the site (for online trading mostly). Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 06, 2013, 08:08 pm
Check out the Localbitcoins site mentioned above. Skip the bricks n mortar overhead.
Learn about Bitcoin-OTC which is connected to that site in some ways. Most people tech-aware enough to want bitcoins are probably going to look on the internet first.
Buy low, sell high and claim profits for income taxes if you are going to do it as a business. The Local website sets up deals in advance so there is little or no waiting during the deal. There is some escrow potential built into the site (for online trading mostly). Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)

I took a look, I didn't like it. The reasons are mostly superficial as I haven't tested the system that appears to work for many. But I feel it is unreliable. It requires you to randomly meet up with strangers that you don't want to know. It involves more trust. It makes an easy target for LE. It can be prone to not selling your coins. If for example someone will only buy 2 coins but you have 8 to sell. Or if you want to sell at a reasonable 112$ but the guy who will buy them says he won't pay more than 100$ for them. In either case you're somewhat screwed. A store front offers the advantage of it being a store. Not to say blind trust but hey, you know where to find me because my store isn't going to disappear over night. If the wait time is only 15 mins then it's manageable. With a store LE is would also be more than welcome. It gives it some legitimacy. I know that physical location doesn't make or break anything but people use currency exchanges and banks. People still go to the grocery store instead of getting home delivery. I recognize your point as Amazon is just one of the many successful stores that doesn't really have a store front. Having a store also makes you dependable in hours and service, everyone knows what to expect. there's no running late, or some sketchy kid haggling, or any of the other problems that may be faced. Make it as easy as buying a hot dog at 7-11.
I'm not doubting that on a small scale local meet ups work. Just saying I have doubts it would be practical on a larger scale. I mean, can you imagine meeting some stranger to hand over 6k worth of bitcoins for cash??
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PurpleBalloons54 on June 06, 2013, 08:58 pm
bg, I envision having transactions finalized while you have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper  :)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 06, 2013, 10:19 pm
I could run a cash for bitcoins and vice versa. Anyone that came in would in theory have their bitcoins on their smartphone. They have a seat, Suzy big-juggs comes over to be oh so helpful. You send your coins to a wallet the store is in control of. It takes 10-15 mins for the first verification? ((I have that right, right? it takes 6 verifications to be done but once the first one is in the blockchain that's pretty much it, It's a done deal and only a matter of time to finalize? ))

So, when involving the exchange of currencies and bitcoin, you are encountering at least one logical issue. Bitcoin is not hard currency. You are giving paper, for 1's and 0's... and vice versa. This is an over simplification of course, but it implies a little bit of trust/distrust. Now, "hard" currency in bitcoins is actually being actively "developed" and there are literal bit coins available for purchase. The majority of them have a 1btc value, and there is discussion on how minting/printing will/can work in our world. This will take a LONG time, as the idea of counterfeiting is obviously a very large issue, and how to handle the transfer in/out/in/out of hard currency to wallets and vice versa is going to take some effort.

Now, lets look at the main part of this. So, I'm a little confused by the "in store wallet." This shouldn't be the case, as it would be the same thing that mtgox does remotely, there should not be any middle man sort of interaction. If you make a transaction, it should be between the source and the destination, and that is it. So, if you sell bitcoins for $, then they give you money and you give them coins. That is all there is to it. This is where that implied trust/distrust comes in, because you're right, it's a little confusing as to what the times mean. You have another question regarding time, so i'll answer that part there. The important part here is to note that, if you have a client->client transaction done on an online wallet, the receiving wallet should see it near instantly. Now, this is not to be confused with present - this merely means that the transaction has initialized and is in the blockchain waiting for verification. A transaction CAN exist in the blockchain with 0 verifications. Once she sees it in (or you see it in yours), even if its unverified at 0, it's going to happen.

This is one of the things that is a very, VERY important thing to know about bitcoin:

If you send a transaction while online, there isn't much chance for cancellation. This depends on client though. A client CAN wait to initialize it, for say, 60 seconds, to allow for mistakes. However, this is the very important part: if you hit send, it is very likely within a minute later you will see it everywhere. Keep this part in mind, I will give a suggestion on preventing/getting around this on your third question.

I suppose the next question is, how long is this time waiting? As a store owner I wouldn't hand cash over til i had bitcoins in the acct, and as a customer I wouldn't walk out assuming coins are being sent to me after handing over cash. I've heard it can take between 15 mins and 1 hr. Is there any way to speed this up?

Ok, so time within the blockchain is dependent on a lot of factors. Transactions are verified in the exact same protocol that blocks are mined. This is one of the things that bitcoin depends on most: without active miners, the verification system is useless.

This means a few things. First. note that bitcoins are finite. Currently, whenever a new block is found, 25btc is rewarded. This is almost entirely handled by pooled mining now. When the last block is discovered, the last 25btc will be distributed, and thats it. No more bitcoins created. This early on was a bit of a scary proposition and it took a little bit for it to sink in that this merely means that the value of fractional bitcoins will change over time - when no new coins are made, demand will ultimately drive up value of individual bitcoins.

Every time you initiate a transaction, there are two fields. The first is the amount you want to send, the second is the fee associated to it. The fee is mislabeled in my view... as when I was first learning about bitcoins I thought it was a fee assessed to the receiver. This isn't the case. The "fee" is actually the reward given for validation. The current minimum (as defined by bitcoind v0.18) is .0005. Anything below this, and your transaction will not even get processed.

So, that should give something of an indication of where I am going with this. The fee (reward from hereon out) is the function of priority within pool that drives demand for that transaction. A greater fee yields a greater demand. This is the priority to TAKE the work of validating your transaction.

Right now, except during peak hours (when transactions are highest), this isn't as important. However, as awareness of bitcoin continues, the market will grow significantly worldwide. As popular demand increases, so too will average transactions at any given point of the day. So, this will mean that there will be more transactions pending, and this could (and very probably will) make delays.

Now, the quantity of 6 is absolute. The time it takes for each step, is a function of the worker that takes on the job - and you have no control over that. So, the reality is (and the simplest answer), is the only thing you have control over is the prioritization of the task.

The math behind how much of a speed up priortizing will grant by adding larger fees, is difficult and isn't going to yield very good results. The truth is, to actually see noticable priority changes will probably cost too much to make it useful. So, the truth is, that you won't have much control over this in any way, and its really kind of a waste to truly think about "how can I improve this."

In reality, because of the reward involved, and the fact that ASIC miners are obliterating the records on how much can individually be mined by a single person (who can afford to buy ASIC units), that the future is bright for there being enough workers available to do the jobs. Right now, the delays that happen have varying causes. Lately, there was a release of the bitcoin server software that made some changes to the way that values are handled, and fees (the 0.0005 change). This has caused some wide-spanning problems overall, as unfortunately some of the more fledgling communities and mining pools weren't paying attention to the announcements for the month prior to the change. This has caused (even to myself) some transactions to take forever, because of malformed initializations. This is merely the present nature of the young age that the bitcoin world is in. As time goes on, this will improve, and the stability of transaction processing will reach a point where long transactions will be on average a thing of the past

To put simply, there is no shortage of workers to handle it, and as bugs are fixed the delays will reduce, so all of the prior information is really just there to educate.

you said "Remember though, once the transaction is initiated and it has enterd the blockchain, there is no going back. So, while it does require time, that time is not one of distrust. Once you see it in the (sigh I hate that I have to result to this damn buzz word) "cloud" you will have it eventually."
How long does it take for this first to be seen? How is it checked?

This is similar to the previous answer. Right now, the delays from seeing it in the blockchain are (almost) universally due to the time that it takes for updates to propagate from the mainline bitcoind development tree to the various wallets and mining pools. For the large and popular ones, this change can happen quickly, but for smaller less popular ones it doesn't.

One that has been slightly contrary to this rule is Electrum. Electrum has been experiencing a problem in that, the way it works, the blockchain (which is normally local), is executed through remote servers, mostly hosted by others. The difference between this and hosting your wallet elsewhere like instawallet, the wallet is local, and you have all the access to the encryption and protections of the main bitcoin-qt client. The DOWNSIDE to this, is that since the majority of the servers are run by community members and NOT by the developer of electrum, these servers need to be updated with the latest bitcoind by their operators. This did not happen, so some (myself included) have been caught with current versions of everything but given a random bad server. This caused a delay in two of my transactions that ultimately made them take over 24hours to complete.

This issue though, should not be directed entirely at electrum, because the issue is not electrum caused. It is caused by the server handling the transaction production wrong, which is handled by bitcoind and not electrum. So, this issue has actually happened to users who have not updated their bitcoin-qt client as well, as the old client suffered the exact same issue.

So, in short, if you are online and your wallet is connected properly to the blockchain, the time between send and visibility is merely how long it takes for it to reach the main blockchain, depending on the wallet being used.

So transaction speed is the first hurdle, the second with trying to tap the US market from outside the US, particularly in a cash friendly way is when a person crosses the border again. You don't have to declare. You don't have to report it, it's not like you didn't own the funds when you left the US. I mean if you took your visa and got a cash advance in canada of 9k you haven't actually added any value. you don't have more than when you left. just changed the form (arguably with visa you would have less than 9k the moment you took the cash advance.)
This hurdle can be dealt with. I mean the avg bitcoin user probably wouldn't want to cash out over 10k in one sitting and wouldn't be doing it every day with small ($100) amounts. Lets say a person cashed out at 4-5k. Realistically I can't see this as a problem the canada-US border isn't that regulated is it?

It depends.

So, right now, there is a rather heated debate (well, it's been going on for years now), on definitions and overall requirements in fulfilling 4th amendment rights when in regards to crossing the boarder from a foreign state.

Clearnet Warning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

If you don't want to read it just yet, the hybrid explination is that the current widely executed system is that since you are entering the sovereignty from a foreign state, there is just cause in executing searches without a warrant if it is deemed possible/probable that you pose a threat to the nation. This is as ambiguous as it sounds.

So, if you were to bring over any substantial amount of money that you could not prove its origin or purpose, and it was discovered during one of these searches, not only can you expect it gone but it is going to be suspicious.

This is a hot topic and its not a very nice one. There was another discussion related to the search/seizure of electronics at the border, and the FBI/INS have admitted that they ignore all 4th amendment rights in events where suspicion is evident. This includes searching your cell phone, and, if you have incriminating information on it, they are deeming it admissible and keeping it.

There is an additional area to this, that is currently also being employed WITHIN the united states, where if there is "just cause" law enforcement will search, store, and record everything in your cell phone before you have EVEN BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME, in order to prevent POTENTIAL evidence destruction.

To make matters worse, this exact same concept is also being applied to the collection of DNA. In many states, if you are arrested but NOT CHARGED, they will still swab you for DNA and ENTER IT into the database(s). This, was recently (~1week) discussed in the supreme court and deemed constitutional, so expect every department to adopt it.

This is just how it is now. I'm not trying to be conspiracy/overly paranoid about this, this is our country. It's been this way for years now, and it's only going to get worse. It used to be that you could go back and forth from Canada without a worry in the world. No more.

3rd problem. the 10k limit. I know that like the US canada has something similar. I'll have to do some research for specifics but I believe it follows the lines of, if you sell something for over 10k you need to report something. Some kind of KYC rule. Although not being a currency exchange in the governments eyes perhaps a person wouldn't have to.

KYC is similar in effect to the same laws that are being effected upon on MtGOX and other (in the past) bitcoin exchanges. The major difference though is that the US one specifically targets currency exchanges, and requires not only licensing by the operator, but information reporting.

The reasons are all relatively logical, you want to be able to assign accountability, and the government wants to know when people are spending large sums of money so they can tax it and, ultimately, monitor it. There are any number of speculatory "reasons" that could be demonstrated for it, but ultimately it really is there just to limit fraud.

Some of the early exchanges were closed by the US for the same reason as MtGox. The individuals running those exchanges, were referred to at the time as your normal hoody-donning nerd that didn't look like a millionaire, but now they are. And, since being shut down, they have instead become fully compliant with all securities laws. One of these, requires that anyone engaging in trading on the currency, must submit identification for storing on record.

This really isn't an unusual requirement, but ultimately one should realize that by trying to avoid/go around it, automatically makes it suspicious. In addition, if the transaction is then reported to tax authorities, and the expected secondary transaction of incoming/outgoing funds that should have also been reported, don't show up, its an easy red flag.

Well, yea, thats just another speculatory thing. The system has its uses, and as the government learns how to upgrade computers, those uses are being upgraded to. All there is to it.

Well I'm not going to lie, as this works in my head this isn't a system designed to launder money for someone, more a system to allow easy retrieval of funds anonymously. Because lets be honest, when you walk into the grocery store they don't care who you are. You make the trade for cash and it's anonymous. what you do or don't do after that point is up to you.

Ok, so, this is where things get a little shady. The reality is, this goes for many things: nothing I'm about to say means anything if you don't get caught.

Currencies are not like groceries. Thats it. Currencies are traded the same as gold. These trades, are handled primarily through futures markets and other securities based market scenarios in the countries from which those currencies are from. Currency is not just dollars and cents, it takes many forms, like debt (bonds/certificates). Any time you purchase any of these things, the country owes you. The country uses this investment, to increase their economy, and they render some of the return to you. This is simplified currency speculation, however, the one that is usually given to represent this is that China holds multiple billions of dollars in US treasury debt. This is generally viewed to mean that a reasonable portion of the Chinese economy is dependent on the value of the USD - which is not entirely true. China will usually comment that they would prefer the USD stay strong, so that the value of those holdings continues to be worth having.... which it generally does. In addition to that, it is usually (attempted) commented that such a large sum is ridiculous to imagine that another country would be such a huge chunk of our outstanding treasury debt. The reality is, this is entirely untrue as well, as more treasury debt is auctioned/utilized on a weekly basis by banks and domestic traders, than china holds in entirity.

So, where am I going with this.

Well, the point is simple: when you buy groceries, you trade value for product. When you buy bitcoins, you trade value for value. You can't buy stocks, bonds, or anything else in this manner, without facing regulatory requirements. That is all there is to it. If bitcoin is to be a currency, then it will be treated as a currency. It may be easy to view it as a digital product, but it really isnt. The second that volume-floated trading was performed on the bitcoin currency, and investors started bidding USD for bitcoin currency, it became a currency that would eventually fall under the exchange rules. These rules, are NO different than CAD <-> USD rules. That is all there is to it. They are not targeting bitcoin, they are not intentionally doing this to limit what we do or what we want to do. This is strictly the US applying the law that already exists, on a new currency.

So, that is where I see the risk.

The same logic you present in this final question, is the logic that got mtgox raided. They had US dollar accounts that were being used to exchange US Dollar (which is a promissary note of the amount represented by the given object) for a Non-US currency. The transactions being performed were NOT being performed under the regulatory requirements FOR performing those transactions, and therefore they broke the law. That is it. They weren't being creative money launderers, they weren't trying to provide tax haven(s), they were changing currency without the licensed right to do so, and without the appropriate regulatory fulfillments being performed.

You can try to apply any form of logic, it does not matter the dollar value. The purchase of US Dollars with bitcoins, is illegal without a license. In other words, if you sell your bitcoins for us dollars, that means you BOUGHT US dollars with bitcoins. Now, localbitcoins gets around this because its a person->person transaction. They aren't acting as a commercial converter. The second that you do it for gain, you break the law. You can do it amongst your friends every so often, just like I can go to a friend and ask them to give me their left over USD for some of my left over CAD before they go back home. But I can't offer it as a service without a license.

This isn't exactly new, nor is it only applied to currency. You can sell a gun to a friend without a license in most states, but you can't sell guns without a license. You can sell alcohol to a friend as they offered to help pay for it, but you can't sell alcohol at a house party without a liquor license. You can't operate a bar, without a liquor license. You can have a party where you make drinks, but you cannot collect money as a bar.

K, time to make dinner :) (LoL i hit the 20k char limit >.<)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: MarcelKetman on June 06, 2013, 11:06 pm
@offbeatdam re you're last point.

The problem with the whole case against MtGox is that the goalposts were moved. Bitcoin was classified as a currency and then a piece of paper that was signed before this classification was made, was used to prosecute MtGox. Before FINCEN classified BTC as a currency, it would have been impossible to make this case. That's where the problem lies and that's why it appears more like a witch hunt than a simple application of the law.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 06, 2013, 11:07 pm
Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)

Huh?  ???
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 07, 2013, 01:58 am
Not sure what is going on but I just checked bit instant and it no longer has an option to send it straight to your bitcoin address.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 02:21 am
Not sure what is going on but I just checked bit instant and it no longer has an option to send it straight to your bitcoin address.

So, they removed more than just direct to bitcoin address. This has happened in the past, and there is no active news or blog announcement, so I'm going to (for now) assume this is related to the prior incident(s).

The way that bitinstant cash works when depositing anywhere except the main exchanges/online accounts, is through their own bitcoin wallet. It is finite. They have in the past taken off the option, in order to: refill assets, and resolve outstanding payments (it appears they have some recent delays as far as I can see).

With the update to bitcoind in the past couple of weeks, there is the potential that they may have some transactions (that, with who they are, could be large) that are hanging a little frozen, causing some impact to their other orders.

ZipZap didn't get hit, which is the payment processor, and they didn't rely on an outside source ("middle man") for the coins. They came directly from a bitinstant account. So, don't jump to conclusions yet, and just be patient. If you notice, on their blog, they have past announcements related to the issues.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 02:28 am
Ok, so, clearnet warning: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.msg2391134#msg2391134

This is the primary support thread for bitinstant. Ultimately, today, the onlything that (at least somewhat) indicates to me and reaffirms my prior assumptions is the last post by URSAY (one of the main support peeps at bitinstant) is that they've been having issues today with downloading deposit slips. If they were having major issues, they would have taken off the function till it could be resolved.

I'll keep an eye out.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: railroadbill on June 07, 2013, 02:51 am
gov's crackin down pretty hard, you guys are all gonna have to smuggle your coins in your butt from now on lol
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Jack N Hoff on June 07, 2013, 02:54 am
gov's crackin down pretty hard, you guys are all gonna have to smuggle your coins in your butt from now on lol

Buttcoins
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 02:55 am
gov's crackin down pretty hard, you guys are all gonna have to smuggle your coins in your butt from now on lol

Pfft, I can fit thousands of wallets on a SD card the size of my tooth. I'd rather smuggle that in my ass than the equivalent in dollars ^.^
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 07, 2013, 03:05 am
Actually, you can hide a micro SD card pretty much anywhere. Even in your mouth if it's sufficiently shielded. It can be put in a makeshift Faraday cage, which would really make it undetectable to everything out there. Yet another reason why trying to control Bitcoin is fucking idiotic and pointless.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 07, 2013, 03:15 am
Alright so that is a crap ton of info. I can't express my thanks for taking the time. I've read through it once, I'm pretty sleepy as it's early on right now but I'm reading through a second time and will try to respond clearly.

Oh the store wallet. I merely meant as it's a company or business then you wouldn't take the funds into your own wallet. The store itself blingblongexchange is it's own entity in the business sense. It's not my money buying coins, and they aren't going to my wallet. I may be a benefactor, but it's the stores money and the stores wallet. I wouldn't see it as a middle man. The store takes your bitcoins and sees verification and hands you money on the spot.

So have to watch out for the "timed" initialization cuz then it could be cancelled the moment they walk out of the store. which is why have to wait the 15 or so to see it in the blockchain. this would take care of that right? as soon as seeing it in the chain it's a done deal.

to try and drop the time you throw a little kick back to the miners, maybe up the kick back from that .0005. maybe like .005 or something. just a thought.

Well I would suggest a Hawala type to avoid something as simple as having a store front in Niagara falls and having people from the US cross over. put the exchange in the yukon lol. That way people aren't "targeted" as crossing for that purpose. But this is neither here nor there at this point.

So you take a quick stop by a casino. As I said I personally am not aiming to launder someone's funds. Merely saying that "hey you're stuck with bitcoins, you can't cash out anonymously. I can help. you give me (the business) bitcoins we give you cash."  As I said people would still face this problem when they were using mt.gox and other services. They might have had it all anonymously but they would then have cash in their hand. what they do from that point on is entirely up to them.

Do to locating either north or south of the border, out of the US, with canada claiming not to have an interest in regulations at this time. wouldn't it make sense that the reporting laws and the rest that are right now hurting the US exchanges have nothing to do with exchanges out side of the US?

Again in the US bitcoins aren't like groceries. In canada it seems that bitcoins (i could be totally wrong just the few articles that I've read about the government not asking exchanges to register and all the rest) are like groceries that appreciate or depreciate. I think the wording was "trading in digital currency" and the cash was merely a side effect.

"When you buy bitcoins, you trade value for value. "  just because we say it is so doesn't mean it's recognized by a governing body. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that because the canadian government seems to be claiming bitcoins is not a currency (short version) that it doesn't have to report or be regulated the same way. If they call bitcoins a commodity, then it is treated as a commodity by LE and such.

Alright so I know currency exchanges here are regulated but I as a business owner could buy as much US currency as I want. No law against that right? and I could offer to buy bitcoins in canada or mexico (prefer canada for safety reasons) with the local currency or offer US dollars? I mean it's an agreement almost bartering isn't it? "I'll buy your 3 bitcoins for x canadian, or y US"

Bare in mind this is all on the hypothetical if you wanted to tap the US market. All of the laws you specify about legal to sell liquor to a friend (offers to pay for it) but you are not able to sell at a house party. All that applies with in the US. If you aren't in the US doesn't this sort of negate it? I mean when I'm in thailand I don't follow US law.





Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 03:29 am
Actually, you can hide a micro SD card pretty much anywhere. Even in your mouth if it's sufficiently shielded. It can be put in a makeshift Faraday cage, which would really make it undetectable to everything out there. Yet another reason why trying to control Bitcoin is fucking idiotic and pointless.

Yep.

Honestly, bitcoin has opened up that door to many things. Before the idea of a NFC/RFID type device under the skin was more of a novelty for sensors and junk... but to truly hide something I would consider NFC type storage, given that I would be able to maintain the storage in secure methods like I can otherwise. I haven't researched this recently, something to read up on tonight.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 07, 2013, 04:11 am
Ok, so, clearnet warning: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.msg2391134#msg2391134

This is the primary support thread for bitinstant. Ultimately, today, the onlything that (at least somewhat) indicates to me and reaffirms my prior assumptions is the last post by URSAY (one of the main support peeps at bitinstant) is that they've been having issues today with downloading deposit slips. If they were having major issues, they would have taken off the function till it could be resolved.

I'll keep an eye out.

BitInstant has a reputation, based on past incidents, of lying about the issues that they are having.  Also, as a sidenote I used their Coinapult option on Monday and still haven't received my coins.  I'm not sure if I'm the only one dealing with this issue (BitInstant claims it's Coinapult's fault) but it is certainly making me nervous.

Also, the idea that LE is scouring the bids on LocalBitcoins is one that I do not take too seriously.  With that said, I haven't tried using LocalBitcoins yet but plan on trying it within the next few weeks.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 07, 2013, 04:21 am
Ok, so, clearnet warning: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.msg2391134#msg2391134

This is the primary support thread for bitinstant. Ultimately, today, the onlything that (at least somewhat) indicates to me and reaffirms my prior assumptions is the last post by URSAY (one of the main support peeps at bitinstant) is that they've been having issues today with downloading deposit slips. If they were having major issues, they would have taken off the function till it could be resolved.

I'll keep an eye out.

BitInstant has a reputation, based on past incidents, of lying about the issues that they are having.  Also, as a sidenote I used their Coinapult option on Monday and still haven't received my coins.  I'm not sure if I'm the only one dealing with this issue (BitInstant claims it's Coinapult's fault) but it is certainly making me nervous.

Also, the idea that LE is scouring the bids on LocalBitcoins is one that I do not take too seriously.  With that said, I haven't tried using LocalBitcoins yet but plan on trying it within the next few weeks.

Been using bitinstant for over 30 transactions and haven't had one issue yet. I need to start looking for alternatives though I don't want to be stuck without a way to deposit my money.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 04:21 am
Alright so that is a crap ton of info. I can't express my thanks for taking the time. I've read through it once, I'm pretty sleepy as it's early on right now but I'm reading through a second time and will try to respond clearly.

Oh the store wallet. I merely meant as it's a company or business then you wouldn't take the funds into your own wallet. The store itself blingblongexchange is it's own entity in the business sense. It's not my money buying coins, and they aren't going to my wallet. I may be a benefactor, but it's the stores money and the stores wallet. I wouldn't see it as a middle man. The store takes your bitcoins and sees verification and hands you money on the spot.

So have to watch out for the "timed" initialization cuz then it could be cancelled the moment they walk out of the store. which is why have to wait the 15 or so to see it in the blockchain. this would take care of that right? as soon as seeing it in the chain it's a done deal.

So, before I get into this, I'm going to ask this upfront and wait for you to reply. Do you understand how a transaction works in bitcoin? There are multiple aspects to it, and ultimately all of this truly plays into priority. In a bitcoin transaction, there are usually more than one input, which overall equates to more than the total value you may think is being sent. The resultant leftover, the "change" either goes back to you (your remainder balance, from the prior transaction that gave you that/those bitcoins), and the reward (the "fee") which is left over for the person that ultimately resolves (mines) that block. Manipulating priority, is not simply a matter of increasing the fee, which is what I was trying to get to in the complicated mess on my other post.

If you are interested in this, I might suggest actually reading the following two pages in order:

(Clearnet warning, this is the bitcoin main wiki)

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transactions
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fee

These pages describe what makes up a transaction, as well as the math for determinig priority. I suggest going there because describing this process will ultimately put me way over 20,000 characters again, so I think its better if you read that first and if you have questions come back.

to try and drop the time you throw a little kick back to the miners, maybe up the kick back from that .0005. maybe like .005 or something. just a thought.

So, for the sake of this post, note: the fee is rewarded as a whole to the "one" who solves the block. This is almost definitely (though it does still happen to be individual users if they have heavy duty enough mining clusters) a pool, and it contributes to the reward overall for a given block. So, the "reward" isn't in the sense that, by giving it, you give the miners something to look for. All of the miners are working on blocks - and when a block is solved, the pool that solved it gets the reward. This does not change no matter what is being mined. All transactions get added to blocks that are to be processed, in an area padded to said block. This info is in the second link above.

Do to locating either north or south of the border, out of the US, with canada claiming not to have an interest in regulations at this time. wouldn't it make sense that the reporting laws and the rest that are right now hurting the US exchanges have nothing to do with exchanges out side of the US?

I think you might be misunderstanding the point I was trying to make. When you cross the border at a border checkpoint, it doesn't matter. The authorities can search you, even if they fabricate a cannabis smell in their mind. If the find something suspicious, /they/ will report it.

"When you buy bitcoins, you trade value for value. "  just because we say it is so doesn't mean it's recognized by a governing body. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that because the canadian government seems to be claiming bitcoins is not a currency (short version) that it doesn't have to report or be regulated the same way. If they call bitcoins a commodity, then it is treated as a commodity by LE and such.

I'm going to single this one out, but the focus is on the questions asked in the paragraph before and after this one. I addressed this in another post, but I'll rephrase it a bit here.

Bitcoin's value is not derived directly from the amount that it trades for in the volume-floated exchange style market one sees today. Much like the US dollar, and every other currency on the planet, the value of bitcoin is perceived both in how much people are willing to buy/sell it for, but also by the perceived value it provides. The primary provisional advantage bitcoin grants over -ALL- other currencies in -EVERY- country, is in the very features that made it a big deal in so many nerd circles.

To begin with, in international trade, and even in domestic trade, large wiretransfers require going through the federal systems that are provisioned to handle them securely. Generally speaking in the US this means going through the banking systems, which are considered some of the more powerful fiber networks operated outside of the general internet. The time that it takes for data to go across these is blazingly fast - but, the transaction itself can take up to weeks (!!!) to actually complete. This, is because of many reasons, including the fact that the fed closes each afternoon and any transaction thereafter doesn't happen, nor does it happen on the weekends. Ultimately, there is no way around this - and this happens in almost every country. "Instant" wiretransfers exist, but its usually through bank to bank negotiations, and the wire transfer isn't actually completed yet. While the money may show available in an account, between the two banks the actual transaction could take a long time to resolve. This is, primarily, because the "digital" form of that money is handled federally, and the time for this process to complete is arbitrary. For a digital system, its pretty much crap. The other problem, is that this is a regulatory laden system, with so many checks & balances that the fed can see exactly where you initiated that wiretransfer from, your entire name, and in some cases a HELL of a lot more information about you, depending on what kind of account the information was initiated from. Generally speaking, the quantity of information is HUGE (>100s of TB) daily, so the idea that they do this is wrong, its the possiblity that drives the issue though. In other words, if today you initiate a transfer for $10,000,000 to an overseas account, and tomorrow they figure out you're a drug dealer trying to hide income, they can freeze it and know exactly where you did it from. This is oversimplified, but, that is the financial system today.

This system is flawed, and it dramatically reduces its value to a great number of legitimate (well, questionably legitimate) organizations, and this is where a portion of derived value stems from. Bitcoin allows a transaction to, for the most part, be completed nearly instantly, without any real idea of who or what made that transaction. This has wide-ranging implications because it fits something of a universal profile. A CIA agent can take his CIA USD, convert it to bitcoins, and he can make a deal around the world with those coins, because in that country they can take those coins and convert it to the currency they want (or use it to make USD again). This is the more direct idea, but it demonstrates the point. For government transactions, the ability to simply say "We bought these bitcoins at this value for X amount" and give them that. This is EXTREMELY powerful, because it addresses three things: Time, Security, and Universality. In some countries it might be nice to receive $1,000,000 in USD, but all the same it'd be nice if you could convert $1,000,000 USD to usable money without having to jump through flaming hoops.

This value, is what powers the market. This value, drives transactions of thousands of bitcoins, between parties that want to do exactly this. In addition to that, going back to the CIA reference, Bitcoin has demonstrated how it can be used to anonymise a transaction. The /OPPOSITE/ has always been demonstrated. This capability, requires knowledge and tools to do so, but it can be done. The world-wide clandestine operations LOVE this, because it means that they can both operate in the shadows, making money to support their clandestine operations around the world, all the while using some of that money to track the people they're supposed to be tracking.

So, through international trade and the usefulness in its capability, Bitcoin has perceived tangible value amongst all parties. This in turn means that the BTC is valued against every currency in any nation where the currency is useful (you don't want to go to zimbabwe and trade 1btc for 1,000,000,000,000,000 pieces of useless paper...). This value, means that even IF the US government were to go against what they have already done with Tor and go through a huge effort to destroy bitcoin, it would STILL hold value for the rest of the world AND even still to the US parties that use it for reasons IRRELEVANT to the dollar value.

So, where am I going with this? Any one government cannot regulate bitcoin, they can only regulate what it is used for. That means, that, for example, the US can mandate that Bitcoins cannot serve as legal tender for taxable purchases. Honestly at this point I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but I also think this may face some freedom debates as well as their own shadow operations may not want them to do this either. The US could try and make a law that says its illegal to have bitcoins, but the reality is they do not fit the profile of things that can be banned. I feel it would be rather easy to get such a law thrown out, and ultimately, Canada (at least the BC side) is almost universally smarter than that, and generally has accepted that some things aren't worth arguing over.

That being said, having bitcoins is NOT the issue I was discussing when I was talking risk. You can have millions of bitcoins, and except when you try to cash them out, it wouldn't matter in the least to the US government - they can't seize them, so its basically a meaningless issue.

However, if you cross the US border and you've got a bunch of USD in cash, its suspicious. Thats all there is to it. At the border, border authorities can search you without warrant or probable cause. That is it. So, if you yourself are merely using YOUR USD to buy their bitcoins, consider what happens if the authorities start to see a trend from a particular border checkpoint by searching the cars of crossing suspicious individuals.

Yes, you can operate an underground operation over the border selling USD for bitcoins and come back with just bitcoins. You sure as hell can. But once you're in the country after all of those people that got caught spoke about you, you'll probably find some assets froze and some people waiting for you.

Bare in mind this is all on the hypothetical if you wanted to tap the US market. All of the laws you specify about legal to sell liquor to a friend (offers to pay for it) but you are not able to sell at a house party. All that applies with in the US. If you aren't in the US doesn't this sort of negate it? I mean when I'm in thailand I don't follow US law.

If you are in a country that extradites, you might want to think about this. Depending on what it is you are doing, US law is still a source of political pressure. I go back to the point I just made. If you sell USD to people with a bunch of bitcoins in another country, and upon entering the US with all this extra money and the customs/borders agents are seeing a trend and developing a case, you can either expect to have someone arrest you in a country with an appropriate treaty... or just don't ever go home.

I mean, devils advocate: everything you're discussing is an in-person deal. I don't think I need to go over what a few pictures can do.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 04:34 am
Ok, so, clearnet warning: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.msg2391134#msg2391134

This is the primary support thread for bitinstant. Ultimately, today, the onlything that (at least somewhat) indicates to me and reaffirms my prior assumptions is the last post by URSAY (one of the main support peeps at bitinstant) is that they've been having issues today with downloading deposit slips. If they were having major issues, they would have taken off the function till it could be resolved.

I'll keep an eye out.

BitInstant has a reputation, based on past incidents, of lying about the issues that they are having.  Also, as a sidenote I used their Coinapult option on Monday and still haven't received my coins.  I'm not sure if I'm the only one dealing with this issue (BitInstant claims it's Coinapult's fault) but it is certainly making me nervous.

Also, the idea that LE is scouring the bids on LocalBitcoins is one that I do not take too seriously.  With that said, I haven't tried using LocalBitcoins yet but plan on trying it within the next few weeks.

He said/she said/they said. An unhappy customer ultimately wants to push the blame on all, they don't want to allow for blame to be on something else.

Coinapult is at fault, and its not the first time it's happened that coinapult has had issues. It's happened in the past on other services that have used it. The truth is this: bitinstant does a lot of business. Very little of the business they do, is through services directly provided by them. They rely on other services in order to handle the processes that are required in order for the transactions to be completed. The coinapult service is neither operated, nor supported by bitinstant in any way, and when I was researching bitinstant I didn't find many nice things to say about coinapult, which is why I opted to use the moneygram/zipzap solution. This solution was both proven, and through providers that I understood and had observed being honest. I also recognized a trend of greater issues with the coinapult service. This is all conclusions I made, before I ever bought my first bitcoin through bitinstant.

Now, the thing about LE with localbitcoins, here is the thing: everyone wants to believe they have a drop on the new LE thing. Any time you hear something about this, ask yourself this:

Can LE make money doing this? Is it likely that LE will make a reasonable bust doing this? Is it worth the cost and effort that LE do this?

If the answers to any one of these is no, its bullshit. That being said, LocalBitcoins scared me to begin with, I don't like strangers, and (to me) buying bitcoins from another person like that just kinda felt like I was back acting like I was buying drugs in secret. It just made me uncomfortable as though I was buying something I wasn't, and this was one of the first bitcoins I ever bought just to play with transactions a bit... before I'd even come to SR.

Now, on the bitinstant and the disappearance of direct BTC transfers:

https://twitter.com/bitinstanthelp/status/342835090142932992

I see no news or blog posts (or even reddit entries) of any additional bitcoin related uproar. This, at least on the surface, means that none of the services involved in this particular service, at least for now, have been touched. ZipZap is still up, and there is activity between BitInstant support and the customers, and nothing has been generally said about the issue yet, by customers OR company alike. I only see this above twitter entry (and I haven't looked at the forums yet).

So, until I see otherwise, I still trust bitinstant more than an in person stranger.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: seatturtle on June 07, 2013, 05:12 am
mtgox has been sketch for awhile now. Seriously yall theres easier and safer ways to buy bitcoin. i buy mine with anon money orders. just wiki bitcoin platforms for your country theres a bunch of great ones. i use several different ones
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 07, 2013, 05:29 am
I sent a question asking about the direct transfer and was very impressed when they responded in an email within 5 minutes.

Customer rep said they were working on an issue and it would be back up shortly.

I have one question though. When you use bit instant and do a direct transfer. How exactly does that work do you get actual bitcoins?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 07, 2013, 05:43 am
I sent a question asking about the direct transfer and was very impressed when they responded in an email within 5 minutes.

Customer rep said they were working on an issue and it would be back up shortly.

I have one question though. When you use bit instant and do a direct transfer. How exactly does that work do you get actual bitcoins?

So, the process is rather simple, and its one of the reasons I like it. You fill out the form, make sure to make note of the information that you use (ie: the name and email). When you are done filling out the form (and also, verify the bitcoin address that you use, this is important, because this is where most errors happen), you get a final verification and receipt from bitinstant. Then you will be sent to a page for the ZipZap form. Here it'll ask you a little more information, a phone number as well as selecting a nearby location. The location is irrelevant, its more of just a step process to make sure you know where you're going.

Once you complete this, you are given another screen/pdf/html page that has the actual moneygram info on it. The form has all of the fields you'll find on the BLUE moneygram expresspay form. You don't need an ID, you just need to fill out the form in totality. Then, you give them the form at the money gram counter, pay the amount, and you're done.

Expresspay happens in ~10 min, and zipzap will send you a notification that it has happened. I've never waited more than 5min at this step.

Within an hour after that point, I have received every single one of my transactions. They are direct bitcoins, right into the address I give them. The longest its ever taken was the day after the recent blockchain/bitcoind update and it wasn't bitinstant's fault, took around 24 hours. The longest on a normal day was 45min, I've had the transaction committed before I've gotten out of the parking lot at walmart though.

Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: jokerman2000 on June 07, 2013, 06:35 am
I sent a question asking about the direct transfer and was very impressed when they responded in an email within 5 minutes.

Customer rep said they were working on an issue and it would be back up shortly.

I have one question though. When you use bit instant and do a direct transfer. How exactly does that work do you get actual bitcoins?

So, the process is rather simple, and its one of the reasons I like it. You fill out the form, make sure to make note of the information that you use (ie: the name and email). When you are done filling out the form (and also, verify the bitcoin address that you use, this is important, because this is where most errors happen), you get a final verification and receipt from bitinstant. Then you will be sent to a page for the ZipZap form. Here it'll ask you a little more information, a phone number as well as selecting a nearby location. The location is irrelevant, its more of just a step process to make sure you know where you're going.

Once you complete this, you are given another screen/pdf/html page that has the actual moneygram info on it. The form has all of the fields you'll find on the BLUE moneygram expresspay form. You don't need an ID, you just need to fill out the form in totality. Then, you give them the form at the money gram counter, pay the amount, and you're done.

Expresspay happens in ~10 min, and zipzap will send you a notification that it has happened. I've never waited more than 5min at this step.

Within an hour after that point, I have received every single one of my transactions. They are direct bitcoins, right into the address I give them. The longest its ever taken was the day after the recent blockchain/bitcoind update and it wasn't bitinstant's fault, took around 24 hours. The longest on a normal day was 45min, I've had the transaction committed before I've gotten out of the parking lot at walmart though.

Thanks I understand the process I didn't know you could transfer straight to your SR wallet and it be bitcoins. I will be using that for now on.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 07, 2013, 11:25 am
Offbeatadam, I can't thank you enough to indulge me through this thought process and you being devils advocate is absolutely the best case scenario for me understanding the process, the risk, and the possibilities in opening an store front exchange.

You are correct, I do understand the basics of bitcoins but I'm for from the technical know how of the process. So along with your post I'm off to read those links and hopefully understand a little better.

As for your post, (sorry we've written some monster posts and I'm going to try to keep this smaller) crossing the border is a problem. I understand that anyone and everyone can be searched and questioned. The other option for this is mail money. Either way I feel it is a risk the person takes. It comes down to: you must scan 2 forms of ID and send them to us to be verified. (so now every transaction is watched, taxed, and may need to be explained)  vs  you take a day trip and have a chance (who knows what those odds are) of being searched. If you are searched then they most likely will find the cash, they aren't bad at their jobs. Still you didn't have to report the 4-6k on you. Maybe you left with it thinking you would go to a casino, maybe you don't have an excuse and you get your name on a list and you lose your money.
It is a risk. You're right. There is a chance that you might lose your money. What other options are there for a person sitting on 400 bitcoins and needing cash to re-up. Perhaps you only come back with 2k-3k which is very easy to hide, if you even bothered to hide it. 

So is this the primary risk then? Not to sound cold, but it's a risk every vendor already takes. They all have money that they most likely can't prove came from anything legal and they have to try and use it in a society that polices even it's consumerism.  Not only that but it's not my risk. I know that may come off as harsh but the service provided is cash for coins. Laws that people break or circumvent with their cash is on them.

Hell for a fee a person could meet up at a casino on the US side and have your cash delivered to you. "Yeah my wife and I have 3 nights booked at xyz casino. we're so excited!"
Anyways that again is neither here nor there. Simply trying to say that there is risk in all of this. If a person can't accept risk, they can't get the reward.

So the extradition part of this post. If I was in mexico or canada and did nothing illegal in either of those countries, how would I be extradited? I'm just trying to grasp the store front. If it's legal to have a business, legal to buy for cash, legal to do all the things you do in the jurisdiction you're in then what ? Seems the shop owner bares little to no risk. In reality you own a business, you're not trying to hide anything and you're record are publicly registered. I go back to, just because it's illegal in the US doesn't mean you are in shit if you do it in another country right? Also add, non US citizen as the business owner. Surely you can't tell me that any pot dealer in amsterdam that goes on vacation to the US touches down at JFK and is arrested for narcotics trafficking.

I know it seems like we are on opposite ends of this. and I really don't want you to get the wrong idea. I value your informed opinion quite highly and having someone like you punch holes in my thoughts is quite helpful to me. It has been a great learning experience that I hope continues.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 07, 2013, 12:05 pm
Check out the Localbitcoins site mentioned above. Skip the bricks n mortar overhead.
Learn about Bitcoin-OTC which is connected to that site in some ways. Most people tech-aware enough to want bitcoins are probably going to look on the internet first.
Buy low, sell high and claim profits for income taxes if you are going to do it as a business. The Local website sets up deals in advance so there is little or no waiting during the deal. There is some escrow potential built into the site (for online trading mostly). Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)

I took a look, I didn't like it. The reasons are mostly superficial as I haven't tested the system that appears to work for many. But I feel it is unreliable. It requires you to randomly meet up with strangers that you don't want to know. It involves more trust. It makes an easy target for LE. It can be prone to not selling your coins. If for example someone will only buy 2 coins but you have 8 to sell. Or if you want to sell at a reasonable 112$ but the guy who will buy them says he won't pay more than 100$ for them. In either case you're somewhat screwed....
...I'm not doubting that on a small scale local meet ups work. Just saying I have doubts it would be practical on a larger scale. I mean, can you imagine meeting some stranger to hand over 6k worth of bitcoins for cash??

So, If I understand what you are saying, you don't plan to sell to "strangers that you don't want to know", you think LE will not know about your storefront, you think a store allows you to require that buyers buy all your coins at once at the price you set and you will not be selling large amounts to strangers?
I'm glad you are thinking about this a lot before you do it. It is complicated. I agree a store would allow your customers to feel safer and that is a good thing. You might look at how the local site holds the coins (when not in escrow) to make it possible to release coins without the blockchain wait (by funding a transaction in advance). The coin owner can still cancel easily if they have not invoked an "escrow". You might offer a similar service option to customers who plan a transaction before they come in to your store.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 07, 2013, 12:16 pm
Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)

Huh?  ???

There is a story going around about a person who sold Btc using Localbitcoins.com to LE. As I remember it, he had mined the coins and had nothing in his home to worry about. The followed him home, poked holes in his mail and eventually searched his home hoping to find evidence he was a criminal making the money in Btc. I think I can find the story if requested.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 07, 2013, 12:45 pm


He said/she said/they said. An unhappy customer ultimately wants to push the blame on all, they don't want to allow for blame to be on something else.

Coinapult is at fault, and its not the first time it's happened that coinapult has had issues. It's happened in the past on other services that have used it. The truth is this: bitinstant does a lot of business. Very little of the business they do, is through services directly provided by them. They rely on other services in order to handle the processes that are required in order for the transactions to be completed. The coinapult service is neither operated, nor supported by bitinstant in any way, and when I was researching bitinstant I didn't find many nice things to say about coinapult, which is why I opted to use the moneygram/zipzap solution. This solution was both proven, and through providers that I understood and had observed being honest. I also recognized a trend of greater issues with the coinapult service. This is all conclusions I made, before I ever bought my first bitcoin through bitinstant.

Now, the thing about LE with localbitcoins, here is the thing: everyone wants to believe they have a drop on the new LE thing. Any time you hear something about this, ask yourself this:

Can LE make money doing this? Is it likely that LE will make a reasonable bust doing this? Is it worth the cost and effort that LE do this?

If the answers to any one of these is no, its bullshit. That being said, LocalBitcoins scared me to begin with, I don't like strangers, and (to me) buying bitcoins from another person like that just kinda felt like I was back acting like I was buying drugs in secret. It just made me uncomfortable as though I was buying something I wasn't, and this was one of the first bitcoins I ever bought just to play with transactions a bit... before I'd even come to SR.

Now, on the bitinstant and the disappearance of direct BTC transfers:

https://twitter.com/bitinstanthelp/status/342835090142932992

I see no news or blog posts (or even reddit entries) of any additional bitcoin related uproar. This, at least on the surface, means that none of the services involved in this particular service, at least for now, have been touched. ZipZap is still up, and there is activity between BitInstant support and the customers, and nothing has been generally said about the issue yet, by customers OR company alike. I only see this above twitter entry (and I haven't looked at the forums yet).

So, until I see otherwise, I still trust bitinstant more than an in person stranger.

Yeah I can see BitInstant being a middle-man that gets flack when their partners fail.  This recent issue is with Coinapult and will push me toward straight BitInstant / Moneygram -> BTC Address.  I get just get very paranoid that I'll accidentally screw up the address and the coins will be sent to some random address where no one will ever see them for the foreseeable future.  Still as long as I do my due diligence with getting the address right then I suppose I should be fine.  Just as long as ZipZap doesn't pull anything funny.

The problem with Coinapult is that they don't have a forum or a way to really discuss any recent issues.  They essentially have very little way for you to contact them if you have an issue.  Less accountability.  I sent them an email via their website but no response there...
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 07, 2013, 12:48 pm
There is a story going around about a person who sold Btc using Localbitcoins.com to LE. As I remember it, he had mined the coins and had nothing in his home to worry about. The followed him home, poked holes in his mail and eventually searched his home hoping to find evidence he was a criminal making the money in Btc. I think I can find the story if requested.

Would love to hear more about this.  I'm surprised LE went into this "investigation" / bust based on nothing other than the fact the guy wanted BitCoins.  Also how the hell did they find out where he lived?  I would never give my real identity to someone on LocalBitcoins... right?  The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is the idea that somehow I'll go to a public place with my seller (of BTC), like a coffee shop, and they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something.

Does the escrow service on LocalBitcoins take care of this?  And how much of a cut does the actual website take?  And how many confirmation is good before I can assume the BTC made it to my address?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 07, 2013, 01:31 pm
There is a story going around about a person who sold Btc using Localbitcoins.com to LE. As I remember it, he had mined the coins and had nothing in his home to worry about. The followed him home, poked holes in his mail and eventually searched his home hoping to find evidence he was a criminal making the money in Btc. I think I can find the story if requested.

Would love to hear more about this.  I'm surprised LE went into this "investigation" / bust based on nothing other than the fact the guy wanted BitCoins.  Also how the hell did they find out where he lived?  I would never give my real identity to someone on LocalBitcoins... right?  The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is the idea that somehow I'll go to a public place with my seller (of BTC), like a coffee shop, and they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something.

Does the escrow service on LocalBitcoins take care of this?  And how much of a cut does the actual website take?  And how many confirmation is good before I can assume the BTC made it to my address?

Story below. As for your questions:
You don't have to use escrow as that does cost 1%. I am unsure if they also charge the 1% to those who advertise on the site and who sell without invoking escrow. If you contact someone else's advertisement, I don't think you get charged anything. If you are meeting in person, you can probably avoid the fees once you know each other.
If you use the site, you fund the transaction in advance and don't wait for the blockchain at all. You can send a code on a smart phone or use a computer to finalize a deal and you get another codeword that lets the other party know for sure the deal is done - if they don't have a computer to check on their account.
You do have to worry about thieves grabbing the cash and running or threatening/torturing you for your Btc release code.

Excerpted the {{quote}} below from here:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=162443.msg1155583#msg1155583

{{https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174918.0

Quote

    So, as a few of you guys know, I'm moving to another country soon enough. When I get over there I won't have access to my bank account, so a few weeks ago I decided it might be a good idea to sell some of my BTC for cash. I had done this a couple of times before and had a positive experience, so had no whims about doing it again.

    So I received a request from someone who wanted to buy 500euro worth of BTC in a f2f transaction. I drove down to meeting spot, met the guy, he gave me the 500euro and basically ran back to his car and drove off. I obviously found this strange, but it was an escrow tx, so I released escrow from my phone and went back to my car.

    On my drive back, I noticed that there was a Ford Mondeo behind me (the kind of car that is usually used by undercover police in my city). It seemed to be following me, I didn't have all my paperwork on my car in order,  so I decided to take a detour down some local back-roads and shake it.

    So anyways, I lost the car, drove home and thought nothing of this strange encounter.

    Over the next few days, I noticed strange needle marks and tiny tears in all of my mail, I also noticed a really strange parked car outside my house one day, when I walked over to it to ask them what they were doing there, they drove off at speed. I probably should've been suspicious then, but I had done nothing wrong and shrugged it off.

    A couple of days later, I wake up to the sound of my door being smashed in. I run down to find 5 police officers in my house. They showed me a search warrant under the misuse of drugs act. The national drugs unit were parked outside with sniffer dogs ready, they left after a few minutes though and didn't come inside with the dogs. The police told me the person I met on localbitcoins was an undercover police officer, and they had copied the registration number off of my car and got my address from it.

    They stripped the whole house down, turned everything upside down looking for drugs. They found 1 joint of weed and they also seized a clock which they thought was a digital scale (it wasn't) and informed me that they were going to prosecute me for intent to supply, even though I wasn't selling, and I showed them a prescription from a doctor in another country (that isn't valid here) and told them the superintendant of the local police station had informally told me that they wouldn't prosecute me for possession if it was medical use even though I was technically breaking the law. They also found padded envelopes and accused me of selling drugs through the post (a complete lie with no evidence).

    They then told me that if I didn't give them all the messages & phone numbers of everyone I had met to sell BTC that they were going to seize all my bitcoin miners, computers etc and have them "analyzed". I was about to move country in the next few days and didn't want the hassle of having to deal with this, so I told them that I had deleted all the messages (which I did) but that I would be able to get them back if they left my computers there, and that I would co-operate fully (I'm obviously not going to co-operate). They then left and I changed my flight date and basically fled the country the next day, luckily I was planning on moving in a week anyways.

    So, a warning to you guys, be careful doing f2f transactions or buying/selling BTC in general, even though we're not breaking the law it doesn't mean you won't get unwanted attention from the police.}}
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 07, 2013, 02:16 pm
Check out the Localbitcoins site mentioned above. Skip the bricks n mortar overhead.
Learn about Bitcoin-OTC which is connected to that site in some ways. Most people tech-aware enough to want bitcoins are probably going to look on the internet first.
Buy low, sell high and claim profits for income taxes if you are going to do it as a business. The Local website sets up deals in advance so there is little or no waiting during the deal. There is some escrow potential built into the site (for online trading mostly). Expect LE to be one of your first customers and possibly search your home hoping to get lucky and find your also a drug kingpin on the side :-)

I took a look, I didn't like it. The reasons are mostly superficial as I haven't tested the system that appears to work for many. But I feel it is unreliable. It requires you to randomly meet up with strangers that you don't want to know. It involves more trust. It makes an easy target for LE. It can be prone to not selling your coins. If for example someone will only buy 2 coins but you have 8 to sell. Or if you want to sell at a reasonable 112$ but the guy who will buy them says he won't pay more than 100$ for them. In either case you're somewhat screwed....
...I'm not doubting that on a small scale local meet ups work. Just saying I have doubts it would be practical on a larger scale. I mean, can you imagine meeting some stranger to hand over 6k worth of bitcoins for cash??

So, If I understand what you are saying, you don't plan to sell to "strangers that you don't want to know", you think LE will not know about your storefront, you think a store allows you to require that buyers buy all your coins at once at the price you set and you will not be selling large amounts to strangers?
I'm glad you are thinking about this a lot before you do it. It is complicated. I agree a store would allow your customers to feel safer and that is a good thing. You might look at how the local site holds the coins (when not in escrow) to make it possible to release coins without the blockchain wait (by funding a transaction in advance). The coin owner can still cancel easily if they have not invoked an "escrow". You might offer a similar service option to customers who plan a transaction before they come in to your store.

Sorry let me clarify. I feel it is an unwise safety risk to show up to random coffee shops to meet strangers in person with you packing a lot of money (potentially). Quite honestly I know a lot.. and i mean capitals A LOT of people that would do a street rip for a few grand cash. Shit there's a horrible idea right there isn't it. Apart from possibly meeting LE, or a run and gun, you are limited by amounts a person will buy and price they choose to buy at. Those are the downsides to just meeting someone.
Store front would add legitimacy. It would also act as a barrier to petty criminals. mugging someone in a parking lot after trading bitcoins for cash is far simpler than walking into a store and holding it up. It offers safety for the store owner, and the patrons. It may or may not offer limits on buys at 1 time. But in theory if you showed up with 1000 bitcoins the store could hand over cash to buy them. As for the price.. well both the store and the stranger danger you meet up with dictate buy and sell prices. But a single person is likely (in my mind) to want to make a lot more off of each coin. Simply because it isn't a frequent dealing. Where as a store front much like a bank would hope for volume. you trade 5000 bitcoins a week and take 1 dollar from each transaction (less than 1% based on current value) and you are making good. Aside from that if a store had a solid rep people might be inclined to sell bitcoins and have cash mailed to them. you would never do that with some guy on the net, but with a legit store and a solid reputation I'm sure someone would take the plunge and try it. once a few people did it, I'm sure more people would follow suit. Just a thought.

SO pretty much everything you just said I for some reason wrote back at you. FML,  just FML.

As for LE not knowing.. quite the opposite. I'm actually counting on them knowing and not really caring. It's a store for trading bitcoins, that is outside of the US. assume that 1 out of every 5 trades was from a less than legit source. So what? No one can prove those bitcoins came from an illegal source, just like theres no proof cash is clean or dirty without a lot of effort. So is LE going to investigate and follow every person that comes in? what if you have 10 customers a day. LE would run out of resources within a week. Plus they don't know who's coming in just to ask questions. The reality is that LE can perform surveillance and so what? the business is legal. the exchange is legal. the people coming in can't be connected with any crime unless investigated further which starts eating up man power and other resources really really fast. Not to mention if they have certain precautions in place then even under investigation people should be pretty good. at least the vast majority. I mean lets be real how does this play out

store front bitcoins: a bluegreen production.
LE: "hey we almost have a warrant for... computer things. we know you're a bad bad man. give up now."
me:  ... sigh..."how can I help you today officer ledouche?"
LE: "if you know whats good for you, you will tell us everything and hand over your records"
me: .... double sigh... "you just want to take my computer and register with you. how bout the receipts ?"
LE: "really? ha we got him boys"
me: "there you go. heres all my receipts today. I'll even sit with you and go through them all. lets start with #1 for the day. hmmm it appears that this was for 3 bitcoins that we bought for cash at 115$ per."
LE: "you're in trouble now. who was that made out to"
me "well douche, it's made out to cash. see.. C A S H. so I guess they don't have an account with us and we have no other information on that purchase. oh wait.. i did buy a hot dog today. I have a receipt for that with my own CC info on it. would that help?"
LE: "you're coming with us because we know you're bad and we can prove it. tell us everything"
me: "everything? alright. well I put chili and cheese on my dog but they didn't charge for that.. does that help? by the way this is the point where we stop being polite and I want my lawyer."
LE "but you can't do that. tell us about these clients of yours"
ME: "shit douche, figure it out. it's like a god damn 7-11 in here. I don't know these people. I don't hang out with them. they walk in, offer to make a trade with me at the terms posted clearly on my stores ticker wall. the transfer the imaginary bitcoins to me and I pay them the price. I print a receipt for tax purposes and they walk out the door. now what don't you understand? want to go start investigating the gold for cash spot round the corner too? "
LE: "bad man come with us now! you're almost not really under arrest because we don't know what you did and confusion hurts our heads. but scarey computer box magic must be evil"
me: sigh... "lawyer"
12 hours later (a fair price for freedom) "thanks douche maybe next time you'll piss off before wasting a whole day with me and my 100% legal business"
La Fin

sorry i was amusing myself with that and got off track.
Setting up an escrow or prepay so that it could be managed before showing up is far out of my technical expertise.
Aside from that I dislike that people can hedge selling with me. I want to hedge with them (because I'm a dick) but for them to be able to simply cancel a sale because coins went up, or wait until they went down and walk in collect cash then buy back with having cash left over seems a recipe for disaster.
Still it would have its purpose. perhaps for people who weren't close by. None the less the options are there. just a matter of implementing them.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 07, 2013, 07:33 pm
Story below. As for your questions:
You don't have to use escrow as that does cost 1%. I am unsure if they also charge the 1% to those who advertise on the site and who sell without invoking escrow. If you contact someone else's advertisement, I don't think you get charged anything. If you are meeting in person, you can probably avoid the fees once you know each other.
If you use the site, you fund the transaction in advance and don't wait for the blockchain at all. You can send a code on a smart phone or use a computer to finalize a deal and you get another codeword that lets the other party know for sure the deal is done - if they don't have a computer to check on their account.
You do have to worry about thieves grabbing the cash and running or threatening/torturing you for your Btc release code.

Excerpted the {{quote}} below from here:
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=162443.msg1155583#msg1155583

{{https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174918.0

Quote

    So, as a few of you guys know, I'm moving to another country soon enough. When I get over there I won't have access to my bank account, so a few weeks ago I decided it might be a good idea to sell some of my BTC for cash. I had done this a couple of times before and had a positive experience, so had no whims about doing it again.

    So I received a request from someone who wanted to buy 500euro worth of BTC in a f2f transaction. I drove down to meeting spot, met the guy, he gave me the 500euro and basically ran back to his car and drove off. I obviously found this strange, but it was an escrow tx, so I released escrow from my phone and went back to my car.

    On my drive back, I noticed that there was a Ford Mondeo behind me (the kind of car that is usually used by undercover police in my city). It seemed to be following me, I didn't have all my paperwork on my car in order,  so I decided to take a detour down some local back-roads and shake it.

    So anyways, I lost the car, drove home and thought nothing of this strange encounter.

    Over the next few days, I noticed strange needle marks and tiny tears in all of my mail, I also noticed a really strange parked car outside my house one day, when I walked over to it to ask them what they were doing there, they drove off at speed. I probably should've been suspicious then, but I had done nothing wrong and shrugged it off.

    A couple of days later, I wake up to the sound of my door being smashed in. I run down to find 5 police officers in my house. They showed me a search warrant under the misuse of drugs act. The national drugs unit were parked outside with sniffer dogs ready, they left after a few minutes though and didn't come inside with the dogs. The police told me the person I met on localbitcoins was an undercover police officer, and they had copied the registration number off of my car and got my address from it.

    They stripped the whole house down, turned everything upside down looking for drugs. They found 1 joint of weed and they also seized a clock which they thought was a digital scale (it wasn't) and informed me that they were going to prosecute me for intent to supply, even though I wasn't selling, and I showed them a prescription from a doctor in another country (that isn't valid here) and told them the superintendant of the local police station had informally told me that they wouldn't prosecute me for possession if it was medical use even though I was technically breaking the law. They also found padded envelopes and accused me of selling drugs through the post (a complete lie with no evidence).

    They then told me that if I didn't give them all the messages & phone numbers of everyone I had met to sell BTC that they were going to seize all my bitcoin miners, computers etc and have them "analyzed". I was about to move country in the next few days and didn't want the hassle of having to deal with this, so I told them that I had deleted all the messages (which I did) but that I would be able to get them back if they left my computers there, and that I would co-operate fully (I'm obviously not going to co-operate). They then left and I changed my flight date and basically fled the country the next day, luckily I was planning on moving in a week anyways.

    So, a warning to you guys, be careful doing f2f transactions or buying/selling BTC in general, even though we're not breaking the law it doesn't mean you won't get unwanted attention from the police.}}

+1 karma for you.  This is a very informative anecdote.  Looks like if I do a Face 2 Face transaction I will do my best not to take my car.  I have a Starbucks right near me and would probably walk there and then afterwards walk around town for a bit.  Also I live in a gated community so once I walk in that gate I will shut it behind me (and make sure it's locked).  It might also help for me to not have any product within my apartment for the week or so after the transaction.

That is some fucked up shit that LE is willing to go that far out of their way to try to bust someone who might not even be doing selling of drugs.  This is another reason why I have been tempted to change my address on my driver's license (and other government related info) to something more vague.  I live in an apartment complex and can leave my apartment number off of those addresses.  My mailman and front-desk staff know which apartment I live in (this may actually be the weak point in my plan).

Or fuck it maybe I should just do BitInstant BTC->Wallet and not even worry about it.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Limetless on June 07, 2013, 08:14 pm
This is what scans are for...

So what you're saying is that Mt Gox does not actually verify that the driver's license or passport number in the scans matches the name and / or address on the license and bill?  They're just doing minimum "due diligence" and only would hand it over if an account seemed suspicious (eg government asked for more details about the account)?


Yeah that's exactly it. :)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 07, 2013, 11:14 pm
This is what scans are for...

So what you're saying is that Mt Gox does not actually verify that the driver's license or passport number in the scans matches the name and / or address on the license and bill?  They're just doing minimum "due diligence" and only would hand it over if an account seemed suspicious (eg government asked for more details about the account)?


Yeah that's exactly it. :)

That's hilarious.  Does MtGox allow direct cash deposit to bank -> BTC (MtGox account / address) still?  I remember they used to but I stopped once they asked for verification documents.

I would assume with basic Photoshop skills one could still be anonymous with regards to their MtGox account.  "Scans" as you put it, right?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 07, 2013, 11:24 pm
Check out the Localbitcoins site mentioned above. Skip the bricks n mortar overhead.
Learn about Bitcoin-OTC which is connected to that site in some ways. Most people tech-aware enough to want bitcoins are probably going to look on the internet first.
Buy low, sell high and claim profits for income taxes if you are going to do it as a business. The Local website sets up deals in advance so there is little or no waiting during the deal. There is some escrow potential built into the site (for online trading mostly). ....... You might look at how the local site holds the coins (when not in escrow) to make it possible to release coins without the blockchain wait (by funding a transaction in advance). The coin owner can still cancel easily if they have not invoked an "escrow". You might offer a similar service option to customers who plan a transaction before they come in to your store.
... Aside from that if a store had a solid rep people might be inclined to sell bitcoins and have cash mailed to them. you would never do that with some guy on the net, but with a legit store and a solid reputation I'm sure someone would take the plunge and try it. once a few people did it, I'm sure more people would follow suit. Just a thought.
........
Setting up an escrow or prepay so that it could be managed before showing up is far out of my technical expertise.
Aside from that I dislike that people can hedge selling with me. I want to hedge with them (because I'm a dick) but for them to be able to simply cancel a sale because coins went up, or wait until they went down and walk in collect cash then buy back with having cash left over seems a recipe for disaster.
A stores rep' would allow them to get payments mailed to the store. The Bitcoin-OTC I mentioned is full of traders that have built up a reputation and have trades done every day by mail or bank transfer or... based on reputation (and usually escrow).
If you get settled into a store and start to get successful, I'd expect that FinCen would show up before officer ledouche. They might be able to make you keep detailed records with scans of personal information on any significant customers?
Ya, on the hedging deals in advance, you can either set it up so you agree to follow through by committing in an escrow that can't be canceled easily. Or, you leave it so either party can cancel if coins move one way or another too much. I imagine a last minute adjustment in how much cash is traded may be able to make both parties happy with the Number of Btc in a pre-setup deal. I sound a bit idealistic to myself here though.
Speaking of idealistic, if you are worried about gun-n-run troubles, just take Limitless with you to meets (I'm sure he is bored and needs some excitement to keep up his gangster skill set :-) ).
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 07, 2013, 11:53 pm
 ;D

I don't stress the street rips. Just wouldn't be a problem. But I could see it being a problem for many.

Well I think it might be time to get my shit together and give this a try. I imagine Fincen might come knocking one day. But the whole point of this is that they have supposedly sent notices to some of the exchanges in canada stating that they don't require them to register (at this time) or feel that they are trading in currency. some differentiation between digital currency and physical. Maybe it's all bogus, maybe it's not. Maybe I need to get in touch with Fincen and see what they say about reporting.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PurpleBalloons54 on June 08, 2013, 03:33 pm
;D

I don't stress the street rips. Just wouldn't be a problem. But I could see it being a problem for many.

Well I think it might be time to get my shit together and give this a try. I imagine Fincen might come knocking one day. But the whole point of this is that they have supposedly sent notices to some of the exchanges in canada stating that they don't require them to register (at this time) or feel that they are trading in currency. some differentiation between digital currency and physical. Maybe it's all bogus, maybe it's not. Maybe I need to get in touch with Fincen and see what they say about reporting.


Other than I don't think this would last long in a US-ally country, another thing I would be concerned about is security.  You basically would be a bank holding a lot of cash (or assumed so), catering to many people that deal with illicit activities.  Maybe that solution is as simple as bullet-proof glass with a shotgun behind the counter, as many lower-income wine/liquor stores do it; I would be concerned though.


Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: danconia on June 08, 2013, 06:29 pm
Alright....I know this has been gone over a bit, but I am still a bit confused.  When I am on the bitinstant page, I don't see a cash deposit option to fund mtgox.  How do I fund bitinstant, and can I buy coins directly from bitinstant.  Also, prolly not gonna try and upload my photos and all that.

Not sure which kind of cash deposit you're talking about but I also was wondering if they have a straight bank cash deposit -> MtGox.  I know they used to have that option.  Currently their MoneyGram option is unavailable for the weekend "for maintenance" (according to BitInstant).  Essentially if I wanted BTC this weekend I'm pretty much fucked.  And how BitInstant works "maintenance during this weekend' probably means you'll be able to use those options some time late next week.  They are notorious for underestimating the length of time it takes for them to get their shit together.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PurpleBalloons54 on June 08, 2013, 06:51 pm
Just bypass Mt Gox.  Bitinstant > E wallet or email.  Search the forums if you need more info- you'll learn a lot.

-PB
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 09, 2013, 02:26 am

Other than I don't think this would last long in a US-ally country, another thing I would be concerned about is security.  You basically would be a bank holding a lot of cash (or assumed so), catering to many people that deal with illicit activities.  Maybe that solution is as simple as bullet-proof glass with a shotgun behind the counter, as many lower-income wine/liquor stores do it; I would be concerned though.

The time line is questionable. You never know when something will/would change. canada in particular seems to follow the US quickly with its policies. I was surprised when reading that the canadian exchanges received letters saying they didn't have to register with Fatca or whatever Fincen.

As for a security risk. You are correct. It could be the target of robbery. But some very simple minor security upgrades would solve 99% of the problem. If a group really wanted to rob the place it's doubtful you could prevent it, but that is true of any situation. If people really want to do something you won't be able to stop them. But robbing a store is a difficult involved process. Plus you have LE working for you then to "solve" the crime. This is also why I like canada over mexico as a choice for this. Between gun control and a first world nations police force canada is a pretty safe/stable place to open a cash business.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Dingo Ate My Drugs on June 10, 2013, 02:48 pm
WTF is MtGox? i seem to remember a time long ago when i heard of their name
or possibly even tried their services only to find out how much they completely sucked.

there are much better options than them and by the way - good riddance to bad rubbish!

just my 2 bitcoins.
Haha. Agreed. I had several problems with money "disappearing." Took a bit of effort to sort that out.
Also t hey have high fees and are slow. I'm very happy with who I use now. Small exchange, very low fees and super reliable and fast.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Baraka on June 13, 2013, 05:44 am
"how the hell did they find out where he lived?"

I said in the previous thread about this that tit4tat's bank ratted him out. There's no other explanation. I don't know to whom, since he never made that clear. Were these guys local cops, feds or what? We won't know until he returns and tells us.

He owns an Avalon mining rig, which clocks in at over 60 billion hashes a second. There must be a small handful of people in all of Canada running that type of hardware. That's why I think they went after him. "Don't fuck with us!" was the message the bank and the government sent out to him LOUD and CLEAR.

"The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is.... they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something."

No way. Not if you use the LBC system the right way. You have the BTC seller fund the transaction right before the meetup. He does this by sending the bitcoins to an LBC holding wallet. That shows you he's not bullshit. Then after receiving your cash, he releases the bitcoins to your LBC wallet. If you list your cell number secretly on the site you'll get a text with a confirmation code only you will know confirming the release of your bitcoins. You can also login to your account and just check it to make sure it's been released. After that you can immediately transfer the BTC to your own wallet elsewhere. Escrow is only needed if a bank transfer is involved, since you're not meeting in person and have to trust someone else online whom you've never met. Sound familiar?  8)

There is a story going around about a person who sold Btc using Localbitcoins.com to LE. As I remember it, he had mined the coins and had nothing in his home to worry about. The followed him home, poked holes in his mail and eventually searched his home hoping to find evidence he was a criminal making the money in Btc. I think I can find the story if requested.

Would love to hear more about this.  I'm surprised LE went into this "investigation" / bust based on nothing other than the fact the guy wanted BitCoins.  Also how the hell did they find out where he lived?  I would never give my real identity to someone on LocalBitcoins... right?  The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is the idea that somehow I'll go to a public place with my seller (of BTC), like a coffee shop, and they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something.

Does the escrow service on LocalBitcoins take care of this?  And how much of a cut does the actual website take?  And how many confirmation is good before I can assume the BTC made it to my address?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 14, 2013, 07:25 am
"how the hell did they find out where he lived?"

I said in the previous thread about this that tit4tat's bank ratted him out. There's no other explanation...

...Then after receiving your cash, he releases the bitcoins to your LBC wallet. If you list your cell number secretly on the site you'll get a text with a confirmation code only you will know confirming the release of your bitcoins.
I believe he said he met someone in person to trade coins for cash and they got his cars ID to find out his address, they could follow you home as well if they want to. I don't think SR vendors should meet strangers to sell coins. There are ways around that though.

I don't think you have to give out a cell # on the website. I think even a "burner" phone might allow triangulation of your general location if you use it again later. I think you get a code when the transaction is funded. The seller of coins only gets this same code if they release the funds. So, knowing the code shows they released the coins. It may be better to use a laptop and tor rather than a cell phone unless the cell phone person is not needing to be anonymous. I think there is good money to be made by Btc dealers (with nothing to hide) buying with cash at a discount from people who do not want to use banks and selling on legit exchanges at market rates (and using a bank account to get cash to repeat the process). You would need to pay taxes on the profits from all the deals totaled up. If bitcoins went down at the wrong moment, you might not owe any taxes at all.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 14, 2013, 07:45 am
"how the hell did they find out where he lived?"

I said in the previous thread about this that tit4tat's bank ratted him out. There's no other explanation...

...Then after receiving your cash, he releases the bitcoins to your LBC wallet. If you list your cell number secretly on the site you'll get a text with a confirmation code only you will know confirming the release of your bitcoins.
I believe he said he met someone in person to trade coins for cash and they got his cars ID to find out his address, they could follow you home as well if they want to. I don't think SR vendors should meet strangers to sell coins. There are ways around that though.

I don't think you have to give out a cell # on the website. I think even a "burner" phone might allow triangulation of your general location if you use it again later. I think you get a code when the transaction is funded. The seller of coins only gets this same code if they release the funds. So, knowing the code shows they released the coins. It may be better to use a laptop and tor rather than a cell phone unless the cell phone person is not needing to be anonymous. I think there is good money to be made by Btc dealers (with nothing to hide) buying with cash at a discount from people who do not want to use banks and selling on legit exchanges at market rates (and using a bank account to get cash to repeat the process). You would need to pay taxes on the profits from all the deals totaled up. If bitcoins went down at the wrong moment, you might not owe any taxes at all.



Isn't this what i've been essentially asking about for like.. 4 pages? lol
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 14, 2013, 07:49 am
Isn't this what i've been essentially asking about for like.. 4 pages? lol

I don't know what you are referring to asking about? Did you get an answer yet?
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 14, 2013, 11:09 am
a store front instead of just 2 people meeting up for the reasons posted in that story.

and.. sorta.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: joolz on June 14, 2013, 12:34 pm
ssshhh   ;)
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: PerPETualMOtion on June 14, 2013, 01:02 pm
"how the hell did they find out where he lived?"

I said in the previous thread about this that tit4tat's bank ratted him out. There's no other explanation...

...Then after receiving your cash, he releases the bitcoins to your LBC wallet. If you list your cell number secretly on the site you'll get a text with a confirmation code only you will know confirming the release of your bitcoins.
I believe he said he met someone in person to trade coins for cash and they got his cars ID to find out his address, they could follow you home as well if they want to. I don't think SR vendors should meet strangers to sell coins. There are ways around that though.

I don't think you have to give out a cell # on the website. I think even a "burner" phone might allow triangulation of your general location if you use it again later. I think you get a code when the transaction is funded. The seller of coins only gets this same code if they release the funds. So, knowing the code shows they released the coins. It may be better to use a laptop and tor rather than a cell phone unless the cell phone person is not needing to be anonymous. I think there is good money to be made by Btc dealers (with nothing to hide) buying with cash at a discount from people who do not want to use banks and selling on legit exchanges at market rates (and using a bank account to get cash to repeat the process). You would need to pay taxes on the profits from all the deals totaled up. If bitcoins went down at the wrong moment, you might not owe any taxes at all.



Isn't this what i've been essentially asking about for like.. 4 pages? lol


Is this the guy you're talking about?

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=162443.0

The story didn't add up. Either the guy was a fucking idiot or he was 12 years old.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 14, 2013, 01:55 pm
I have no idea if thats the guy, but lets be fair and say someone answering personal questions about their location probably isn't the brightest bulb in the pack. No offense to anyone. Just saying.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: htown on June 15, 2013, 12:43 am
Yup its not a option anymore. Watch Bitcoin drop in value as the current market falls. If you are hanging on to Bitcoin SELL now.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 15, 2013, 04:01 pm
Is this the guy you're talking about?

http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=162443.0

The story didn't add up. Either the guy was a fucking idiot or he was 12 years old.
Yes, that is one of the places the guy's story is discussed.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 15, 2013, 11:23 pm
Alright....I know this has been gone over a bit, but I am still a bit confused.  When I am on the bitinstant page, I don't see a cash deposit option to fund mtgox.  How do I fund bitinstant, and can I buy coins directly from bitinstant.  Also, prolly not gonna try and upload my photos and all that.

I think you might be misunderstanding a little bit about what bitinstant is.

For the sake of the major example we've been discussing, one of the primary methods we use is cash through moneygram. On the bit instant front page in the drop down for "How do you want to pay" there is one labeled "Local Cash Deposit." This allows you to go through a system called "Cashpayment" which is operated by a company called ZipZap. The process is simple - you fill out the information on bitinstant, which then forwards you to the cashpayment/zipzap inc page, which then gives you a printout with all of the information required. You go to any moneygram location, for example Walmart, and you fill out the /blue/ form. This form is whats called "express pay" and its normally for bills. You fill out whatever information they gave you to put on it, and then you pay the counter. Everything else is up to them.

The only other option, is MtGox. I'm sorry I don't know how that process works. That may be the process you want to know, but since you spoke of cash deposit ... I prefer the other option, as it allows for the most anonymity and I don't have to store money with anyone for more than a few minutes.




*** bluegreen: Sorry for being a little absent for the past few days. Things been a bit hectic 'round here. I'm reading your post and I'll have a reply soon.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 16, 2013, 02:45 am
So is this the primary risk then? Not to sound cold, but it's a risk every vendor already takes. They all have money that they most likely can't prove came from anything legal and they have to try and use it in a society that polices even it's consumerism.  Not only that but it's not my risk. I know that may come off as harsh but the service provided is cash for coins. Laws that people break or circumvent with their cash is on them.

Hell for a fee a person could meet up at a casino on the US side and have your cash delivered to you. "Yeah my wife and I have 3 nights booked at xyz casino. we're so excited!"
Anyways that again is neither here nor there. Simply trying to say that there is risk in all of this. If a person can't accept risk, they can't get the reward.

So, I actually started responding to this a while ago, but I stopped and had to take a step back and think a bit more about my approach mostly to try and avoid sounding like an inusrance agent.

Risk is a difficult subject, as we can easily get into an area that would ultimately start questioning, as you mention, what it is we do around here. We roll those dice daily. However, one of the key concepts that is generally advised to all those starting out on SR, is to start small. This is a concept that one applies to anything... for this discussion though I'm going to mostly refer to gambling, as it applies rather well to risk over all.

Before "learning" to gamble (and I'm not talking about the game, you can be an expert at a game and still fuck up gambling), the first thing that is generally good to remember is "Bet small, lose small." This is obviously all about risk... if you bet everything and lose then obviously you've got nothing (or worse). As you learn the knowledge, wisdom, and math behind betting intelligently, you start to raise your risk, as that is how you gain more rewards. Obviously there are those that do not heed this wisdom, and when they throw a bet on something where they don't pay attention to what the criteria FOR winning are, assuming that the line is merely "who wins or loses" and not the score or spread.... they're going to be fucked. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it happens none the less.

Where am I going with this. So, on SR we give the same advice. For your first few purchases, buy small amounts so you can learn what it is you're getting, how you're getting it, and what (if any) the terms mean. It's the best thing to do so that one doesn't get burned.

These methods for reducing risk, do not exist, for the scenarios you describe. I personally call it the "seatbelt" theory. In the seatbelt theory, many people "test" the risk of not wearing a seatbelt, and they verify  the risk by not getting into an accident. This "wisdom" is now accepted as truth until it's too late, flying through their window when that accident finally happens, likely dying.

This may seem gruesome, it may seem like it's a little extreme, but I feel it absolutely indicates the reality of the risk that is involved.

While this assumption may not necessarily be the greatest, at the very least, unless someone truly investigates there are very low chances of dire consequences when receiving something from SR in the mail... and that is kind of where I am going with this. If you get stopped at the border, you can easily face more than just getting your car searched. You open up the potential for probable cause. This may seem a little extreme, but, it's not without history. If border patrol and/or homeland security pulls you over, and finds reason to believe that the money you have that they've now questioned/seized/confiscated is a part of a larger operation, they will execute on that reason.

The reason is very important: The government wants your money. If they seize money that is in any way presumed to be a part of a criminal exercise of trafficking OR profits reaped from illegal enterprises, it's just more money for them to supplement their budget. They want it. They want the drugs, they want the weapons, they want the money. Every single one of these things, is valuableto them.

So, to conclude, the concept is calculated risk. If you receive a small stash worth of contraband in the mail, and the fed decides you're not worth the money to spend coming to visit... you're fine. The overall risk of doing that, is low - the "risk value" is low so to speak. They might keep it, and send you a notice - but only because that is automated and basically costs nothing.

However, if they have reason to believe that $2-3000 is pennies to you, or that you obtained that money off some quick offloading wherever you came from... or hell, they just think it smells funny and they want to see how much they can get out of you - the border is going to be the easiest way for them to justify that. Once they demonstrate the reason by using the evidence from the border search, chances are they'll have the warrent and will already be through half your house by the time you even get there.

Now, I want to note something: I have family in Canada, and I've been searched at the border mroe than once. The worst time was one that took at least 4 hours, and it was because my mom (who was with me) had dropped an empty morphine vial (and i should note, it was perfectly legal and every medication we had with us was legal). Regardless of any of the legitimate proof from script, from pharmacy, or doctor (they called him). My dad had to prove the legitimacy of the few thousand in travelling money (and I'm not kidding, they called the bank where they were issued), wedding gifts (we were on the way to a wedding), they even opened and unsealed a new bottle of advil. This, is what border patrol has become, after 9/11.


So the extradition part of this post. If I was in mexico or canada and did nothing illegal in either of those countries, how would I be extradited? I'm just trying to grasp the store front. If it's legal to have a business, legal to buy for cash, legal to do all the things you do in the jurisdiction you're in then what ? Seems the shop owner bares little to no risk. In reality you own a business, you're not trying to hide anything and you're record are publicly registered. I go back to, just because it's illegal in the US doesn't mean you are in shit if you do it in another country right? Also add, non US citizen as the business owner. Surely you can't tell me that any pot dealer in amsterdam that goes on vacation to the US touches down at JFK and is arrested for narcotics trafficking.

So, exradition is a treaty driven negotiation between countries to both deny asylum AND to deport someone to the country where said individual committed the crime/is to be tried. What I am ultimately talking about, is kind of on my prior point. The issue is not what you do in Canda (or elsewhere), it's what you do in the US that supports what you are doing in Canda. To expand from the prior point(s), if you get hit with enough probable cause to drive the securing of a warrant that leads to authorities searching your home and/or any other location they can determine that you may/may not have something... then you've now committed crimes in the US. If they decide to charge you, then they can petition Canada to extradite you.

I know it seems like we are on opposite ends of this. and I really don't want you to get the wrong idea. I value your informed opinion quite highly and having someone like you punch holes in my thoughts is quite helpful to me. It has been a great learning experience that I hope continues.

Thanks. I value the socratic method of debate, and I find being wrong to be far more valuable than being right. In conversations like this I tend to get labeled as paranoid, it's not often that you encounter an individual on the other side of the conversation that can at least see it for what it really is. So, I value this too, and I hope we have more like it in the future. Arguments are amazing for critical thinking... it makes for the best environment to really discover the holes and weaknesses of so many topics.

I have found a great deal of success through being able to easily view at as many angles as possible. Being a devils advocate usually doesn't make me friends in a meeting, but the end result is usually regarded as far more refined thanks to the perspective of failure, catastrophe, or both.

That being said, I'm not trying to scare you or tell you not to do something. I'm merely trying to draw your attention to the difference in risk. The reality is, that nearly everything in the US is easier to hide when its domestic (to an extent). Mail is the best example for this. When it comes to money, it's one of the hardest things to hide. Money causes people to do silly/stupid things, especially mistakes. In addition to that, it's one of the easiest things that I can apply that "seatbelt" theory to. You might go across a few times and only do the small 2-3k total... but once you subconciously hit that "this is easy and I'm getting away with it" bump, all it takes is one "risk" to cross a line that ultimately leads to everything else. This is where the calculated risk thing comes into it all with me. No matter WHAT the charge is, when it happens at the border it is infinitely worse - because some of the rights you had domestically are now gone.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: offbeatadam on June 16, 2013, 04:07 am
"how the hell did they find out where he lived?"

I said in the previous thread about this that tit4tat's bank ratted him out. There's no other explanation. I don't know to whom, since he never made that clear. Were these guys local cops, feds or what? We won't know until he returns and tells us.

He owns an Avalon mining rig, which clocks in at over 60 billion hashes a second. There must be a small handful of people in all of Canada running that type of hardware. That's why I think they went after him. "Don't fuck with us!" was the message the bank and the government sent out to him LOUD and CLEAR.

"The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is.... they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something."

No way. Not if you use the LBC system the right way. You have the BTC seller fund the transaction right before the meetup. He does this by sending the bitcoins to an LBC holding wallet. That shows you he's not bullshit. Then after receiving your cash, he releases the bitcoins to your LBC wallet. If you list your cell number secretly on the site you'll get a text with a confirmation code only you will know confirming the release of your bitcoins. You can also login to your account and just check it to make sure it's been released. After that you can immediately transfer the BTC to your own wallet elsewhere. Escrow is only needed if a bank transfer is involved, since you're not meeting in person and have to trust someone else online whom you've never met. Sound familiar?  8)

There is a story going around about a person who sold Btc using Localbitcoins.com to LE. As I remember it, he had mined the coins and had nothing in his home to worry about. The followed him home, poked holes in his mail and eventually searched his home hoping to find evidence he was a criminal making the money in Btc. I think I can find the story if requested.

Would love to hear more about this.  I'm surprised LE went into this "investigation" / bust based on nothing other than the fact the guy wanted BitCoins.  Also how the hell did they find out where he lived?  I would never give my real identity to someone on LocalBitcoins... right?  The thing that skeches me out most about LocalBitcoins is the idea that somehow I'll go to a public place with my seller (of BTC), like a coffee shop, and they'll somehow find a way to get my cash and fraud me on the actual BTC transaction.  Like get my address wrong without me knowing or something.

Does the escrow service on LocalBitcoins take care of this?  And how much of a cut does the actual website take?  And how many confirmation is good before I can assume the BTC made it to my address?

I have my skepticism about LBC overall, but ultimately, I think fear of LE associating to LBC is a little misplaced paranoia. I think that the first part about his bank ratting him out is likely the best truth in all of it.

I've said it a few times in this thread alone, and it's pretty well painted across these forums. There are very few organizations that are not driven by money - and the government is generally even more driven by it than everyone else. LE does not get anywhere near what they need from the budgets. Anything that LE does, has to have potential to either bring in revenue in some way, or to drive public opinion to help increase tax dollar budgeting towards that branch.

Now, LE is not as stupid as one might want to believe, If they want to get somebody, they want to do it without that somebody running. They want their target in as easy and quick method as humanly possible. If they think you will fall for it on lbc, they'll use lbc. Social engineering works both ways. All they want, is for you to trust them for a split second - long enough for them to slap some restraints on you.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 16, 2013, 04:40 am
Offbeat, I'm glad you're back. I must admit I was a little sad that after a few days I hadn't had to reconsider how things would/could work.

I think perhaps there is a small misunderstanding at the heart of all of this and it directly impacts on why I would not be overly concerned about the US in many ways. If I was to open a cash brick and mortar in canada, I would move there with citizenship. The same can be said for mexico but as I've said before I don't view that as a realistic option because of safety concerns in a cash business. I feel that this addresses the extradition concern for myself. I would be in a foreign country but one that I would carry citizenship for and thus be a foreign citizen of the US. Abiding by all of their laws (i guess they would be my laws at this point lol), one of which is that you're NOT required to register with fincen or fatca (whatever it is in canada) and don't have to perform any KYC. That is what I meant by I don't see how extradition would apply. The US is pretty far reaching but surely it can't take another countries citizen and charge them with breaking US laws when they are in their own country.  Again I go back to (just for simplicity sake) a coffee shop owner in the netherlands.  They sell MJ and the US isn't flying in blackhawks doing snatch and grabs on them. They are foreign citizens abiding by their countries laws.

I've also weighed in on your thoughts about cross border traffic. And I agree it could involve more risk than some would care to accept, as well as limit who could use the store front to those within driving distance.  So a reworking to the brick and mortar store that does a cash for coins on the spot.  I would fully accept both locals and foreigners (I'm not asking for ID so how would I know anyways) that wished to show up in person and do as previously stated, which is handing over money for coins and vice versa.
However, with the border being a concern, I feel that people would need another option. So mail it is. Now I'm not 100% sure how this service would go but to avoid the border crossing and having cash on you, sending by mail could be an option.
If someone wanted to cross the border to do a cash in person transaction I would fully accept it. How and what they do with that cash is their business. If they lose it on the way back then that is unfortunate and they should be prepared for that possibility.  I still site the same logic as going to an atm. You go to the atm, if you are mugged, buy drugs or prostitutes, or head to the casino that is all on "you"

What about giving a receipt with cash to people. The US has all the KYC and stuff coming in, but canada doesn't. So someone goes up there and trades coins for cash, they are given a receipt and they cross the border. they are stopped and asked why do you have 4k on you. you produce your receipt. No wealth was gained or lost in the transaction and now they are justified in carrying that cash. Again I put this as similar to using your CC for a cash advance. you CC has a 50k limit, you pull out 4k. you have a receipt. you cross the border. you clearly show where you got the funds from.  I realize that this may lead to them asking how you ended up with 4k in bitcoins but you could have been a miner back when they were near worthless and you are now starting to cash out as you require funds.  This is another spit balled last minute thought and I'm sure there are many holes in it but it's a starting point.

As for the mail option, the store front is what holds up the legitimacy. Without you're asking way to much of people. Basically this would involve a limited method of payment sent from any place for coins. So a person would msg the store they discuss and a deal is struck. ((side note: does this violate SR terms? people discuss mt. gox and bitinstant all the time, discussing another exchange does't violate anything here correct??))  SO.....  the person wants to buy anonymous coins. They want to buy 5 coins. The rate is agreed upon and that persons coins are set aside (still in the stores possession though). The person grabs a tracked package drops the agreed amount in and sends it off (note that this can involve a real receiving address and a signature required, it could involve a usps international money order as well). Then the waiting game, 2 days later the money arrives (it can be tracked so no issue their), the store contacts the sender to make them aware that funds have been received and that the btc are being transferred.

One question that I do have to this regard, mailing money isn't illegal correct? obviously the amount is limited but it isn't illegal when granny sends a bday card with 20 bucks in it, so sending say 4k wouldn't be illegal either.

In the reverse coins are sent to the store at an agreed rate for a specified payment method. From the store it could be any number of cash devices, check, money order, cash etcetc. Cash of course being the most anonymous but perhaps the most risky to receive by mail. Again as this is small amounts of cash a real address and signature could be used. The store sends cash to whatever address and name the customer specifies because again, KYC doesn't apply to digital currency. This is all last minute spit balling of how to expand to allow more US citizens the ability to mail instead of crossing the border (which as I said I have no problem with)

To be honest I wouldn't even consider this an argument. I would consider it a discussion where one well informed cautious person is helping to advice me on many points that I may not have considered or may have had misconceptions about. Knowing the problems that may arise before they do and planning on how to mitigate the damage they cause is a great benefit.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 16, 2013, 06:34 am
A retail store in Canada should be safe from US laws (I would not openly advertise in the US to encourage cross border customers).

Doing business as a money exchanger across the Border using the mail is clearly doing business in the US and would require following US laws. A small business might not have to report much. I don't know how big you have to get to be required to follow the invasive Fincen reporting guidelines. It might also matter if any clients exceed the 10k cash transaction trigger. You might team up with a reshipper that makes it so you only mail to addresses in Canada. The reshipper would be an interesting target for LE. Openly "teaming up with them" would probably kill any protection using them seemed to provide. So, the customers would need to do that "teaming up" so your business was not aware of the practice.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 16, 2013, 12:56 pm
hahaha global market. Just like ebay. you send money for a product. that product is digital. You're right though I wouldn't lets say target US citizens. I mean it is up to people to read between the lines. If it's stated that "we accept US currency"... But no targetting US citizens would not be ideal. I could see it going badly very quickly.

Well you have to remember that according to the canadian gov. digital currency is not currency and you're not an exchange. Allowing mail to arrive and accepting money without requiring ID (which is legal up there from what I've read) makes it simple. virtex or whatever it is that exists (they charge a fortune for exchanging!) voluntarily entered fincen and have full reporting and authentication (ID checking). However they are doing a lot of business and if the articles published are true, in that they were mailed a letter from fincen or whatever saying they didn't have to register, then they could be a million dollar player that wasn't required to register. I mean this is all hypothetical, and it could change quickly at anytime. I think as long as the store paid it's taxes the gov. wouldn't be all that concerned.

You read my mind with the reshipper which is why I've been asking
http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=161081.msg1237268#msg1237268

Well to be realistic I don't think I could secure enough funding to have to worry about hitting the 10k limit per transaction. At least not for some time. I mean if the transactions are under 10k, no reporting. again it would come down to people reading between the lines. if there is a big bold writing stating "any transaction over 5k requires scanned ID and will be reported." then it's sort of up to the customer to figure it out you know?

You think openly teaming up would kill any protection? I know you couldn't claim ignorance. But you could say "hey I only accept from canadian addresses" and in on your webpage share a link to a remailer. Again nothing illegal about it. And if the business's were LLCs there is nothing saying you have to share info, hell no ones even claiming that you aren't pointing out how to accomplish something. I mean if they make the loop hole and you walk through it, is it your fault?

I don't know, the store could be targeted for investigation but if everything is encrypted, on tails, kept off site (offshore), dealt with in cash, then there isn't much of a problem. You have done everything to ensure your clients privacy without breaking the law. If LE shows up what are they going to do? have a warrant to search through 300 packages and envelopes? what about po boxes? what about a safe for storage of important documents or gold? I think there might be a problem with LE getting a warrant to blindly fumble through everyones info and items. I'll be honest I'm not trying to fuck with LE, or make an illegal system, simply using what is legally available to do. No one should be penalized for doing what they are legal entitled to, or exercising their rights.

I would like to hear more on your thoughts about coupling with a remailer and how open relationship with them might cause problems. I think the 2 businesses are very well suited to share an office/store front. With any start up there is a need for generating income from as many sources as possible.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 16, 2013, 02:24 pm
I would like to hear more on your thoughts about coupling with a remailer and how open relationship with them might cause problems. I think the 2 businesses are very well suited to share an office/store front. With any start up there is a need for generating income from as many sources as possible.
If you are friendly with a remailer, the government could claim the two companies are one conspiracy to do cross-border currency exchange (and it would seem their claim would actually be true in this instance). Now, if the remailer targeted remailing for other countries that have similar rules as Canada and declined american address business, that might fix the problem, but ruin the idea? I guess another remailer in Mexico could accept a lot of Canadian mail and remail it to the US, lol. Don't think thats a good idea though.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 16, 2013, 03:43 pm
I would like to hear more on your thoughts about coupling with a remailer and how open relationship with them might cause problems. I think the 2 businesses are very well suited to share an office/store front. With any start up there is a need for generating income from as many sources as possible.
If you are friendly with a remailer, the government could claim the two companies are one conspiracy to do cross-border currency exchange (and it would seem their claim would actually be true in this instance). Now, if the remailer targeted remailing for other countries that have similar rules as Canada and declined american address business, that might fix the problem, but ruin the idea? I guess another remailer in sax Mexico could accept a lot of Canadian mail and remail it to the US, lol. Don't think thats a good idea though.

I suppose my question is then, which government could claim conspiracy? I realize with canada it's only an argument of semantics as the gov. up there won't be to hard pressed to fight the battle for you. Hell they might just hand you over to the states.
What I'm getting at is, if you mean the US gov... well fuck them, I would be foreign citizen in a foreign nation abiding by that nations laws. If the US citizens are circumventing the US laws what am I supposed to do about it? If I know that US citizens are using this method to circumvent a law in the US, again so what? At that time I wouldn't be a US citizen, I wouldn't be in the US, and I don't think I would be under any legal obligation to report any US citizen to a US authority. Which I couldn't prove anyways as I don't require ID and I could be shipping to an address that has someone visiting from Uganda for all I know.
All I can state definitively is that an envelope arrived to a remailer from address xyz. The remailer (hell in the same office) charges 50cents to walk from 1 desk to another and hand it to me in it's new envelope with the remailers address. The envelope contained cash, a print out of the email agreement (3 bitcoins for 300 cash plus 1% flat fee. blah blah blah no identifying info) and a bitcoin wallet address. I deposited the 3 bitcoins as per the agreement, kept 3 dollars for a service fee, and dropped the piece of crayon scribbled paper into a shredder as per our TOS.
So what the US can prove that a foreign person in a foreign country didn't break any local laws, only US laws? No one can tell me I'm not allowed to accept US currency even in a foreign nation. If I wanted to accept bags of dog poop I could and no one could stop me. So what is the US gov going to say? you're committing an act that we view as illegal in the US. yup you are correct but as this bitcoin wallet address could be anywhere in the world, and we have no identification of the person that sent us money we can't say that we did, or did not break a US law.... while being outside of the US and not being a citizen of the US. I mean what if some chinese guy sent US dollars from hong kong. I'm supposed to say no because it may or may not be a US citizen?
What about the other way, again so what if someone sends me 3 bitcoins and I walk an envelope with 292 dollars in it across the office and say this is for acct 341. Then I walk behind the desk and put it in a priority envelope with tracking and print out a return address for the business and print out an address label  for acct 341 (which was opened with no ID required and only has an address in the US attached to it.) 
Again what do I know? I know that someone sent bitcoins, I have no clue who, some guy in paris for all I care. All I know is that the person sending the bitcoins requested the funds be sent to remailersInc, acct 341, some canadian address.  The remailer goes okay. we've received mail for 341, they have money in their acct to cover shipping. debt the acct the x dollars for shipping. the envelope from mybitcoinX is put into the sending envelope with the US address on it and dropped into the mail.
So the US gov sends in some scarey federal guys and somehow they have some jurisdiction in canada and they say "we know that you took US dollars, and sent them to someone in the US."  Yes I did. I have multiple currency options to cash out in, the person specified US dollars and asked that it be sent to remailer acct 341 at some canadian address, which I did." Then they go to remailer (across the office 5 ft away) and I say "yes I received an envelope from mybitcoinX for acct 341. I placed it into the mail as is listed on our website and sent it to the address associated with that account"  and they say "we want that address" and i say suck a dick.
The US has no authority to do anything, or get a court order in canada for anything, and according to canadian authorities what am I doing that's illegal... not a thing. Will they get a warrant.. be hard to get but lets say they do. So they stomp in take the computers and go through the files. Yes at this point I would have to comply (read some mail post act or something) and would have to allow them access to the address book. which contains no names, or verified information. Just addresses linked to random acct numbers. all paid by cash or bitcoins. are they going to hand that to the US and have the US authorities investigate every single address? Maybe. Maybe I could have the database offshore. Then I could try to comply by providing the authorities with the offshore company that rents us use of the database and it's information but we have strict privacy agreements in place that we can not disclose anything that the company gives us and must destroy any information given to us immediately after use.
All of this is pointless anyways as the authorities would already have to know the address that is receiving mail anyways. So again, what can they prove that I've done illegal in a foreign country as a foreign citizen?

It's not enough that they prove that I know I'm sending currency to a US citizen. It isn't illegal to send currency to a US citizen. Bitcoins themselves are legal digital currency (goods or whatever else you want to call them). Only US exchanges are governed by the US law. I don't believe the US can claim that I need to preform KYC if I'm outside of the US operating a legal business by that countries laws. Again I put this as a weed cafe owner in amsterdam. It's legal in their country, they may or may not accept US dollars. The only difference is that I would not be dealing an illegal substance, or putting any illegal substance through the mail system. At this time it is perfectly legal for any US citizen to own bitcoins. If cashing out inside the US at a US exchange they must follow US law regarding the exchanges. If they cash out or purchase outside of the US then it seems that it is on the US citizen to report themselves.

NW Nugz, just like offbeat, I really appreciate you walking through this with me. I value your input and counter points. I hope you continue this discussion with me so that I might be able to tell LE "suck a dick" from my exchange  ;D
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 16, 2013, 04:43 pm
Again I put this as a weed cafe owner in amsterdam. It's legal in their country, they may or may not accept US dollars. The only difference is that I would not be dealing an illegal substance, or putting any illegal substance through the mail system. At this time it is perfectly legal for any US citizen to own bitcoins. If cashing out inside the US at a US exchange they must follow US law regarding the exchanges. If they cash out or purchase outside of the US then it seems that it is on the US citizen to report themselves.
The cafe owners in Amsterdam don't openly send their products to the USA like you think you would be able to. If you knowingly exchange to the USA, you are doing business there and are required to comply with their reporting requirements. Like the other exchanges, what you do is not illegal in the usa unless you fail to gather the information on your customers the US needs to be sure they are not laundering money (aka failing to pay taxes on income). Canada will likely help the US to enforce US laws upon you as they have a treaty saying they will.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 16, 2013, 05:43 pm
So by sending money to the US I'm breaking the law. So I need a remailer that's unattached. That then solves the problem. The remailer is under no obligation to worry about anything right? an envelope shows up they forward it on as per instructed.

the exchange then receives a mail containing funds from a canadian address and has no other info because in canada info isn't required. when they mail anything back they mail it back to the remailer. so this satisfies all of it right?

Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 17, 2013, 01:00 pm
So by sending money to the US I'm breaking the law. So I need a remailer that's unattached. That then solves the problem. The remailer is under no obligation to worry about anything right? an envelope shows up they forward it on as per instructed.

the exchange then receives a mail containing funds from a canadian address and has no other info because in canada info isn't required. when they mail anything back they mail it back to the remailer. so this satisfies all of it right?
You don't seem to listen real closely. Sending money to the US is NOT likely to be against the law. Failing to keep records about the people you send the money to can be, if you are required to keep such records.

I would run it buy local counsel - someone who knows the local laws - but, it seems like in that scenario, you're in the clear. There can be no evidence that the store is aware of the "trickery" going on. If they link your business back to this thread, for instance, your pretty much caught.

I think the remailer may well have to worry about conspiracy charges if they encourage or are aware of any unlawful actions they are supporting. Remailers often support illegal activities and are likely to get scrutinized any time LE notices them.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 17, 2013, 04:27 pm
Sorry I assumed that we were continuing our conversation so when I said "So by sending money to the US I'm breaking the law." I was referring to the process of exchanging bitcoins for cash without keeping records as per local laws in the jurisdiction I would be in at the time as apposed to the laws governing the US exchanges. I was short forming the attempt to identify which part of the process is the part that would cause specific legal issues. I just didn't care to write it all out. I realize most people on the web are idiots that can't follow a conversation and it's safer to post as if I am one, however I am not quite that dense.... most of the time  :D The back and forth conversation from post to post is naturally in my mind a continued conversation meaning anything in the current post is built upon information and details from our former posts.   :)


If I was to make a public company, it would be pretty silly of me to link it to anything here let alone this thread. Something so simple as a new acct and posting a "Hey guys has anyone tried this company?" thread would solve the problem of anything being linked. As everything here is anonymous there should be no connection. The rest is merely speculation on LE part. That's a pretty hard proof to try and come up with.

You are fully correct if the company was named something obvious like bit-changer or something then perhaps the remailer could somehow be held accountable. But even then it seems unlikely. The remailer is payed to forward mail. It doesn't check the contents of the mail, if the address is legal then it would appear that the remailer is under no obligation to stop the mail. I don't know canadian mail law but it would seem to me that the remailer enters into a contract with it's client to send mail to addresses specified.
I do fully get that if on the exchange website there was a link to a remailer that was owned by the same holding company that it is sort of obvious whats going on and I could see it being a problem.

I suppose I would question if a remailer is somehow required to prevent delivery of mail? if you pay fedex to take a package of legal contents (5k cash) to an address. They do it right? I'm just tossing this around. You know walk through it all. If a remailer isn't directly attached to an exchange then the remailer can't assume that they are delivering mail for illegal means. I have yet to read anywhere that you have to keep records for remailing/mail forwarding.  It would seem to me that even Fedex/dhl etc don't really require ID. To be honest neither does the post office.
Aside from that even if they did, it still doesn't seem that they are required to prevent legally allowed mail from reaching it's intended destination. Same on the reverse of the transaction. The remailer receives mail for a client from an address. It's not their job (and may even be illegal) to open it an inspect it.

What I'm getting at is I think the remailer is safe. Even if the exchange did advertise a particular remailer, the remailers are legit businesses that are performing a service. Perhaps carefully examined businesses but none the less legit.

As for the exchange... I think this is where the things start to get difficult. The wallets the coins come from and going to are fine. To be honest I think the only way to accomplish this is by using tormail and talking with a client. which then implies that someone at the exchange would be knowingly helping to facilitate. But it wouldn't be a far stretch to have someone here state a method to accomplishing the exchange. Again as long is there is no link between the person providing the method and the exchange and remailer, would this then accomplish the needed separation to being a public store front and accomplishing the transfer of funds?

I know it's shakey and hinges on LE not being able to prove that an anonymous former member, a remailing company, and an exchange are not linked. In theory if we are all anonymous here then the person(s) providing the method could be anyone and everyone.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: SouthSquareBiz on June 23, 2013, 06:20 pm
gov's crackin down pretty hard, you guys are all gonna have to smuggle your coins in your butt from now on lol

Buttcoins
;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: Leech on June 24, 2013, 07:33 am
The feds want to own the world. F'k 'em.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: popjoe on June 24, 2013, 10:58 am
I never even bothered with Mt G(C)ox in the first place.  They wanted a photocopy of my passport and proof of residence.

I suggest Bitstamp, british company but their bank account is Slovenian.  If you live in Europe they receive your deposit in 3 days tops.  They usually get mine the next day if I do it the morning before.
Not to mention they suffered no DDOS attacks.  While everyone was crying over Mt.Gox trying to sell sell sell their website was running fine.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: NW Nugz on June 26, 2013, 12:58 am
... the remailer can't assume that they are delivering mail for illegal means. I have yet to read anywhere that you have to keep records for remailing/mail forwarding.  It would seem to me that even Fedex/dhl etc don't really require ID. To be honest neither does the post office.
Aside from that even if they did, it still doesn't seem that they are required to prevent legally allowed mail from reaching it's intended destination. Same on the reverse of the transaction. The remailer receives mail for a client from an address. It's not their job (and may even be illegal) to open it an inspect it.

What I'm getting at is I think the remailer is safe. Even if the exchange did advertise a particular remailer, the remailers are legit businesses that are performing a service. Perhaps carefully examined businesses but none the less legit. ...
I am pretty sure no one can mail illegal stuff from Canada to the USA and be protected by saying they did not know what was in the package. Remailers may be required to look in the package? IDK. I'm pretty sure you can't mail using the USPS without knowing the contents of your package. If a remailer looked and saw 20k in cash, could they send it on? I don't know of a law against mailing cash. There may be one though? I know if most cops see that, they steal your cash and demand you prove who you are and where you got it if you want it back. Scum, but I digress.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: bluegreen23 on June 26, 2013, 09:58 am
I made my point in a backwards kind of way. What I was getting at is that a remailer isn't obligated to open (and may have a contract stating that they will not) open any persons mail. They also have to assume that the mail is legit. I mean they literally can't just start opening everyones package claiming that every package is a drug package. Fedex, UPS, etc don't open every package.

Of course you can claim ignorance in this case. If you as a remailer had a normal envelope show up and you sent it as you are being paid to, as long as you had 0 suspicion that anything was off about it, it's impossible for them to claim you were involved. If this wasn't true then every postal worker and courier as well as pilot, trucker, bus driver and ships captain are all committing crimes by trafficking the letters from SR. None of them are guilty therefore if a remailer saw a regular piece of mail and had 0 suspicions then they would have to be clear of charges.

The real question is the one that you pointed out "are remailers required to look in packages" and without reading up on the law I would say no as many remailers claim they will simply put any mail received into a larger envelope without opening and send it. They can't just advertise that and lie about it.

You're right, if for some reason the remailer did look and see 20k cash they might have to report it. Not sure exactly why but I get the feeling that if you didn't then LE might consider you as helping to smuggle funds.
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: shulginsindex on June 26, 2013, 10:27 am
Your all missing the point. Shulgin is here to help.  Mt gox is trying commercialise itself as a currency that brings niche anonymity.  They will always be linked with Silk Road and trying to rebrand there image won't work anyone.  Like alert pay catered for the pharm market first with excellent rates on payments. The rcs came in and every rc vendor was using alert pay. Rcs was the gain to alert pays popularity . So popular they became they stopped providing there services to rc sites. Mt gox is scared hope you find a plausible strategy to come of the radar. 


When I think bitcoin I always associate silkroad with it

Does anyone associate anything else to bit coins ? Would love to hear some truth and lies. I'd love to be able to spend btc on fuel
Title: Re: MtGox is dead for Roaders
Post by: shulginsindex on June 26, 2013, 10:29 am
Like I said, this is what scans are for.
what exactly is a scan?

A scan