17
votes
How can government "seize" bitcoins?
It is not necessarily true that no amount of force or authority can cause or prevent any transfer of Bitcoin. The protocol does not allow arbitrary seizures or blocking, but there are still human ...
- 68.5k
12
votes
Accepted
Is Bitcoin a corporation?
No. The whole point of Bitcoin is that it is decentralized and there is no single corporation behind it.
- 19.7k
12
votes
How can government "seize" bitcoins?
A lot of bitcoins reside in a trading platforms or online wallets. These bitcoins are (in the particular bitcoin sense) controlled by the platform. The government (provided the platform/wallet is in a ...
- 301
10
votes
Accepted
How come a company partners with Bitcoin?
I was checking out the Bitcoin website
There is no such thing. There are various communities and privately-run sites, but they are all distinct, and none are authoritative.
I believe that Bitcoin ...
- 102k
8
votes
Selling copies of blockchain database on disc
Is this legal under the terms of the GPL?
Bitcoin Core is distributed under the MIT license which explicitly allows this.
The content would essentially be the Bitcoin data directory (minus the ...
- 15.4k
7
votes
Why do people claim that governments cannot confiscate Bitcoins?
While it is true that Bitcoin can still be physically taken away from you, it is still much harder to do that than it is for a government to confiscate your fiat stored in a bank account (as most fiat ...
- 68.5k
7
votes
How can government "seize" bitcoins?
Other answers have covered how/if this is possible in theory, but you may be interested in how it actually happened in the specific case you mentioned. The press release links to a PDF of the ...
- 171
6
votes
Accepted
Selling copies of blockchain database on disc
It's legal
Bitcoin Core is released under The MIT License. Accordingly, the Bitcoin repository informs:
Permission is hereby granted, [...] including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, ...
- 72.7k
6
votes
If I were to generate an address and it happens to collide, legally speaking, would a transfer constitute theft?
IANAL.
What you describe is the act of taking something that isn't yours in full knowledge that somebody else invested effort and money to accumulate it.
Just as with your Swiss bank example: The ...
- 72.7k
6
votes
Accepted
Does running a standard Bitcoin full node mean your node verifies transactions of other members?
The purpose of a full node in Bitcoin is to independently verify the consensus rules for transactions and blocks. This means your node will check every transaction and every block before accepting it ...
- 671
5
votes
Accepted
How can a DAO seek enforcement of a contract?
The DAO's service provider would hire the person, not the DAO. The contract would be with the service provider, and the service provider could then sue the agent if the task wasn't completed as the ...
- 51.4k
5
votes
Accepted
Can bitcoins be exchanged for nonlicensed "Professional" services?
Persons can dispense all sorts of professional services as long as they aren't for "business" or "pay"
In some places, yes. In other places, no. Since you didn't specify your ...
- 29.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Police raid home of bitcoin 'founder'
According to yesterday's article about this in The Guardian, the Australian Federal Police released the following statement about the raid, stating that the raid was not related to any involvement ...
- 707
4
votes
Accepted
If Bitcoin is not controlled by the state, how come in some countries it is illegal?
A party can send a hexadecimal string to another party and nobody in the world can prove bitcoin or any form of money was sent. Governments can ban bitcoin usage but the bitcoin protocol is ...
- 450
4
votes
Is buying bitcoin with paypal legal without laundering concerns?
While I’m not an attorney, the website you describe would be considered a “money transmitter business” (MTB) which, in the US, falls under the jurisdiction of The Dept. Of Treasury FinCEN (Finacial ...
- 299
4
votes
Accepting Bitcoin for Services Rendered with Legal Verbiage on Set Coin Price
If you want to go all in on cryptocurrency, you can make an agreement stating the payment method as BTC or ETH and then the amount. The value of these currencies may vary with time and hence no one ...
- 520
4
votes
Accepted
Does it make sense to design a mutable blockchain?
I agree more context is needed to provide a more directly meaningful answer.
But in general: a blockchain allows users to interact without trusting a central authority, instead they verify the ...
- 18k
4
votes
Is there a way to report/shutdown a Bitcoin Criminal/Bad-Actor?
Bitcoin is supposed to be permissionless and censorship resistant. That's the whole point. So, no, you can't do that.
- 355
4
votes
How can government "seize" bitcoins?
You said yourself: " I.e., short of coercing whoever has the private key to disclose it..." And that's exactly how a government can seize bitcoin, or how an unscrupulous criminal can get ...
- 141
4
votes
Why does Bitcoin fail the Howey test?
You are confused, if an asset fails to pass the Howey test it is NOT considered a security. It is a highly common misunderstanding. This was also made clear by BTC not being listed by the SEC as a ...
- 633
3
votes
Buying from country A, selling in country B
Sure it's legal. Unless either country has outright banned buying/selling Bitcoins. I don't think there's any country that has gone that far.
You may have to report income/profit/trades to your tax ...
- 6,324
3
votes
Is it legal to buy Litecoin and sell those within a few minutes?
I cannot think of any law it would violate. But legal advice needs to come from a lawyer who you hire.
Note that if you sell it for more than you paid to buy it, regardless of how long you held it, ...
- 23k
3
votes
Pump & Dump communities. Are they legal?
Legality depends largely on jurisdiction, and you didn't specify one. In addition, the regulation of cryptocurrencies is constantly in flux, and even in a given jurisdiction it's difficult to say ...
- 8,822
3
votes
Technological contractor for an ICO legal advise
While I think the project as some merit, I am concerned about any legal liability I could hold.
That's a good thing to think about.
The company that wants to hire me has declared to me that the ...
- 29.3k
3
votes
What legal items should I know about if I am piggy-backing off of another bitcoin exchange?
If you're worried about regulation, you should be contacting a lawyer to help you remain compliant.
- 29
3
votes
What to do when you genuinely don't understand anything about taxes, yet are apparently expected to pay them for your Bitcoin?
If I cannot understand the laws/regulations, what am I supposed to do?
A fairly widespread legal rule is that ignorance of the law is no defence.
If you don't understand how the law applies to your ...
- 25.2k
2
votes
Accepted
Are there any publications about deanonymizing Bitcoin?
A good resource is http://arxiv.org/. Search bitcoin in the search bar, and then look for "anon" on the page to find articles about anonymization and de-anonymization in bitcoin.
Doing that, I found ...
- 14k
2
votes
Accepted
Any advice for attorney accepting bitcoin?
I'm not qualified to answer about the legal rules surrounding confidentiality. (Though, I imagine you have a better handle on California/United States confidentiality than I do anyway.) However, there ...
- 29.3k
2
votes
Using Bitcoin ATM in NYC
You will need a Bitcoin wallet to store your coins. Check out https://www.bitcoin.com/ for some options.
After you set up a wallet you will get an address where you can store coins. (The address ...
- 213
2
votes
Is there a central repository that states a country's latest policy on bitcoin?
The best I found so far is Wikipedia. It is actually quite up to date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country
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