Ripple Labs fined by US authorities

From Finextra –

“Ripple Labs has been fined $700,000 by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in the first successful civil enforcement action against a virtual currency exchange.

According to the charge sheet brought by US authorities, Ripple Labs, and its subsidiary XRP II, "willfully violated several requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) by acting as a money services business (MSB) and selling its virtual currency, known as XRP, without registering with FinCEN, and by failing to implement and maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program designed to protect its products from use by money launderers or terrorist financiers".

“Virtual currency exchangers must bring products to market that comply with our anti-money laundering laws,”says FinCEN director Jennifer Shasky Calvery. “Innovation is laudable but only as long as it does not unreasonably expose our financial system to tech-smart criminals eager to abuse the latest and most complex products.”

FinCen's investigation runs concurrent with a probe by the Californian US Attorney General's office, which slapped a $450,000 fine on Ripple Labs, and ordered a migration of a portion of the company's business to a separate entity in order to bring its virtual currency operation within the existing regulatory framework for money services businesses.”

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Virtual money laundering

From Finextra

“The Financial Action Task Force presents research into the characteristics of virtual currencies and makes a preliminary assessment of the money laundering and terrorist financing risk associated with this payment method.

The report establishes a conceptual framework of key definitions, which could form the basis for further policy development.

Download the document now (PDF File) at http://www.finextra.com/finextra-downloads/featuredocs/Virtual-currency-key-definitions-and-potential-aml-cft-risks.pdf

The Bitcoin Revolution Hits Africa

From Ozymandias

“It’s OK to admit that you still don’t know what bitcoin is — but you may now officially be behind the curve. Because all of Africa could soon be getting onboard.

The virtual currency — straight up: computer money — created by an anonymous hacker in 2009 has captured hard-core geeks’ hearts. Its appeal? It enables bank-free (aka middleman-free) anonymous purchasing and, crucially, it’s a global currency that’s not tied to any central bank and not much different than a dollar or a euro. The key characteristics of this digital cash also happen to make it a great fit for people who aren’t so down with advanced digital technology: the 326 million Africans who lack access to basic banking services.

This isn’t such a crazy idea. Mobile payments that work on standard-feature phones have already made strong inroads in Africa, with 16 percent of Africans using the services. The largest provider of such payments, M-Pesa, already operates in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, as well as India and Afghanistan.”

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The Other Bitcoin Power Struggle

From Bloomberg Businessweek

“There have been a few get-rich-quick stories among the Bitcoin “miners,” who use stacks of powerful computers to solve complex math problems used to create the virtual currency. The trouble is, crunching those numbers takes a tremendous amount of energy. Fred Trotter, a co-founder of data journal and software company Not Only Dev, estimates that in the five years Bitcoins have existed, machines dedicated to mining them have consumed 150,000 megawatt-hours of electricity—enough to keep the Eiffel Tower lit for more than two and a half centuries.”

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Elusive Bitcoin: Regulation of Bitcoin in the U.S.

From LexisNexis

“The phenomenon of Bitcoin (and virtual currency in general) presents an interesting legal conundrum. It is still not clear for many where does Bitcoin fit within our legal system, and whether and how to regulate it. Today, I would like to take a closer look at the Bitcoin network, the recent legal developments in the U.S. relating to the classification of Bitcoin, and its (non)-regulation.”

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Regulating bitcoin

The Law Library of Congress recently published a survey covering forty foreign jurisdictions as well as the European Union, reporting on any regulations or statements from central banks or government offices on the handling of bitcoins as well as any significant use of bitcoins in business transactions.

Topics covered include;

• whether bitcoins are recognised as legal tender, 
• the possibility of negative impacts on the national currency, 
• concerns about fraud, and 
• how transactions using the bitcoin system are viewed by tax authorities.

Of those countries covered in the survey, only a very few, notably China and Brazil, have specific regulations applicable to bitcoin use.

There is widespread concern about the bitcoin system’s possible impact on national currencies, its potential for criminal misuse, and the implications of its use for taxation. Overall, the findings of the report reveal that the debate over how to deal with this new virtual currency is still in its infancy.

To download the survey click HERE

BitAccess Bitcoin ATMs Doing $10K in Transactions Daily

From newsBTC

“If we’ve learned anything in the past few months about bitcoin ATMs, it’s that it’s big business. Last year, the first bitcoin ATM to be made available to the public (installed in a downtown Vancouver by Nevada-based Robocoin) did about $1 million in transactions in the first month.

But a new startup called BitAccess, based in Canada, is hoping to make a splash in the market. With $10 million in funding committed by BiT Capital, this ATM manufacturer has already launched a bitcoin ATM in Montreal, another in Ottawa, and Toronto, with other locations in Canada planned.”

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