UK's financial regulator orders shutdown of all Bitcoin ATMs:
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned operators of cryptocurrency ATMs in the UK to shut down their machines or else face enforcement action. In its announcement, the financial watchdog said that it hasn't granted any of the crypto firms registered with it the permission to operate ATM services. That means all crypto ATMs in the UK are illegal.
"Crypto ATMs offering cryptoasset exchange services in the UK must be registered with us and comply with UK Money Laundering Regulations," the regulator wrote. As The Telegraph reports, there are around 81 functional crypto ATMs in Britain based on data from the Coin ATM Radar tracker, located mostly inside supermarkets and convenience stores.
These ATMs allow users to deposit cash in exchange for cryptocurrency, which they can then transfer to their digital wallets. The regulator previously raised concerns that the machines could be used for money laundering, because they require minimal background checks, especially for small deposits.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @01:34PM (8 children)
What right do they have to do this? There is a law for anything out there that the gov can use to control everyone. They fear BitCoin.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Monday March 14 2022, @01:40PM (5 children)
Money laundering is a thing. Ask the Russians (well, and Ukrainians, but that isn't fashionable).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @02:01PM
Yes, it's a thing. Having a bit of money, I have to go through those bank checks from time to time. Often nothing more than a few questions (by email) that I go along with, because I don't want to be bothered with it, BUT I can also see the things that would be easy to sneak through if I was in that ML business.
Personally, I think the major cause of this "security circus" is that banks fired most of their counter employees to do "everything online, done by yourself". No contact with your clients any more and when they deposit some money, you don't know who they are (because all you have is a home made copy of their ID).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @07:19PM (2 children)
no, money laundering is a bullshit crime made up to subjugate normal people under the guise of making it easier for lazy pigs who won't do their jobs to catch people who are committiing actual crimes (in some cases. many times even the primary "crimes" are not actually crimes.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Monday March 14 2022, @07:28PM (1 child)
The government in general doesn't really have a problem with those crimes. What they have a serious problem with is those criminals dodging the taxes on their crimes.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday March 14 2022, @07:53PM
Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 15 2022, @01:44PM
Money laundering is a thing. Ask the Russians
I suspect he IS a Russian, since he has such a dim view of government. If he were a citizen of a democratic nation like the UK, he would know that WE, THE PEOPLE choose our governments, unlike the Russians, Chinese, and other authoritarian hell holes.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday March 14 2022, @04:36PM
Rights really only exist between relative equals. Everything else is just expression of power over the powerless.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday March 14 2022, @05:17PM
In the UK, and probably many other countries, this kind of regulation also covers operating ATMs, which is also a good thing because ATMs do occassionally go wrong; cards get eaten, incorrect sums get dispensed, lost/stolen cards can be abused, card readers can have skimmers installed, etc., and because it's regulated and operators need to have insurance, liability for these problems lies with the ATM operator, and not with the card owner. Were that not the case, then an ATM operator (crypto or fiat) could potentially just declare bankrupty and walk away if there was a major problem, or a bad actor had managed to somehow compromise the machines and steal a non-trivial sum. Given the number of crypto scams, I wouldn't be at all surprised if one of the larger scam gangs has at least run the numbers on setting up a crypto-ATM network specifically designed to steal account info and when the time is right empty out a whole bunch of accounts and vanish.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Monday March 14 2022, @02:32PM (2 children)
Don't they know that the money laundering is supposed to remain the domain of the rich and powerful, the elite classes and the financial market middlemen?
One of the UK's largest industries is literally industrial-scale money laundering, especially the foreign-shady-sourced-money kind...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @05:31PM
When Greece froze everyone's accounts during their financial crisis in preparation for a national levy, anyone with an existing UK bank account was allowed to withdraw all of their funds in the UK. Vladimir Putin and his cronies were reportedly the biggest block of money that escaped that way.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @07:22PM
and let's not forget that the Jew monopoly money of western nations is a scam and legalized crime to begin with.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday March 14 2022, @04:43PM (2 children)
"Crypto ATMs offering cryptoasset exchange services in the UK must be registered with us and comply with UK Money Laundering Regulations"
So... what else is Bitcoin used for then?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 14 2022, @05:01PM
Banks can't track all of your data, if you're not using them. Thus, you must be trying to Launder Money.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday March 14 2022, @07:34PM
Move money into Russia so that Russia can spend it abroad.
You don't think the AC trolls want Russian Rubles do you?
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 14 2022, @05:09PM (9 children)
Before I do this, I need to be sure that it is completely legal to do so. I wouldn't not want to fail to run afoul of the law.
Is there some law that specifically makes it legal to put chocolate chips into banana nut muffins? If not, then I am on legally uncertain ground in my baking activities of questionable legality.
(clues for the clue challenged, this post IS on topic)
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 14 2022, @06:07PM (4 children)
Are you trying to sell said banana nut muffins?
https://extension.umd.edu/resource/cottage-food-business-law [umd.edu]
(Please note, laws in your jurisdiction may or may not allow the sale of banana nut muffins, with or without chocolate chips in them.)
Otherwise, as my mother-in-law would say, you can't have enough chocolate.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 14 2022, @07:13PM (3 children)
NO !!!
I wouldn't want to do anything illegal like that unless there were a law that specifically made it legal to do so. I wouldn't even want to make them. I'm just asking hypothetically about the legality of making them "that way". I'm asking for a friend.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 14 2022, @07:30PM (1 child)
Where's the +1 More Nuts option?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 14 2022, @07:36PM
Does the law specify whether there is and what the limit of nuts might be in banana nut muffins?
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 3, Touché) by deimtee on Monday March 14 2022, @07:35PM
Even if, hypothetically, it was legal to put chocolate chips in Banana Nut muffins, you are obviously guilty of conspiracy to put chocolate chips in Banana Nut muffins.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday March 14 2022, @10:47PM (2 children)
This is what happens when you have a Bill of Rights which specifies what you can do rather than sets of laws which lay out what you can't do. In most Western Democracies you can put chocolate chips into banana nut muffins unless there is a law on the books specifically saying you can't.
Personally, I would be tempted to charge you with false advertising as we all know that banana plants don't produce nuts!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 15 2022, @01:50PM (1 child)
Even if a democracy is permissive and allows everything that is not specifically forbidden by law, the government can still try to repurpose some other law against you if you do something that ruffles their feathers. If they have feathers. Bird-brained does not necessarily mean having features; rather it comments on the size of a government's collective brain.
This kind of permissive democracy that allows everything except what is specifically forbidden, works like early OSes, but unlike modern OSes.
What if I had two ATMs? The first could exchange between digital currency and some special kind of "trading cards". Then across the street another ATM could exchange between these special trading cards and ordinary currency. Would that be illegal? What if we introduced a third step, three ATMs:
1. Exchange digital currency for sealed packaged Banana Nut Muffins with chocolate chips and RFID chips
2. Exchange said muffins for trading cards
3. Exchange between trading cards and ordinary cash
Speaking of false advertising; McDonalds sausage burritos come with some packets of sauce that are fraudulently labeled as "hot" sauce.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @03:47AM
Why do you need an infinite number of ATMs to legally launder money? What do you think NFTs are for?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 15 2022, @01:50PM
Is there some law that specifically makes it legal to put chocolate chips into banana nut muffins?
Where do you live, Russia? Oceana? In the US, and I presume other democratic societies as well, anything not specifically outlawed is legal. Only in your native North Korea (or is it Russia?) is anything not stated by law to be legal is illegal.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 14 2022, @08:28PM (2 children)
The money laundering pillar is the only pillar holding up cryptocurrencies. Take that out and the whole structure collapses! That would be devastating to the pretend money economy if all of that pretend money became worthless! How are you going to pay your rent in Monopoly if the bottom falls out of the pretend money market?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 15 2022, @01:57PM
Isn't digital currency good for other constructive productive wholesome uses other than money laundering?
Wouldn't digital currency be good for ordering merchandise on the dark web and having it delivered to a rented drop box mailing address that auto-forwards received parcels to one of several randomly chosen other rented drop box addresses in TOR like fashion? That way other curious interested parties wouldn't really know exactly where a certain parcel was auto forwarded to.
Wouldn't digital currency be good for payment of a rented drop box mailing address?
It would be possible to simply make it expressly illegal to put chocolate chips into banana nut muffins and end the ambiguity of whether it is legal.
Why is it so difficult to break a heroine addiction?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @03:15AM
What's your definition of pretend money here? That it is something not backed by a central bank?
Why? If some surrogate object is recognized by other human beings as valuable and representative enough to trade goods & services - just because it is not backed by a central bank why would it be "pretend" money?
cryptocoins are now used as surrogate objects to exchange goods and services by human beings across regions and countries - how is that pretend money?
It has intrinsic value because of that, it may not be valued the same way traditional central bank valued notes are but it is not "pretend" money like actual monopoly notes.