Looks like KYC will apply.
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These muppets should rather concentrate on regulating bank bonusses. Instead of regulating a technology they don’t understand anyway.
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I personally don’t have any issue with the Govt regulating exchanges, and this is in fact what the UK Digital Currency Association suggested during the HMRC Consultation process at the end of 2014. I think it is hugely important that they don’t try and regulate the technology itself when they understand so little about it. There seems to be no suggestion of that at this stage.
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Yes, I agree, in the interests of the user and it will also engender more trust/credibility/legitimacy to the crypto tech. I do wonder what the definition of “exchange” may evolve into or incorporate however, ie Ebay type apps, smart contracts etc and what the impact on Safe app devs may be.
I’m assuming whether autonomous or not any Safe Exchange will be operating in UK and will be registered somehow (primarily if dealing with fiat)? Any Exchange operating on Safe would need to apply KYC wouldn’t they, or be breaking the law, therefore Govts will want to shut illegal one’s down. I’m thinking this may bring un necessary scrutiny/legal issues to the Network, certainly in the early days. Is any of this anything we should worry about or am I worrying unnecessarily?
If you believe regulation is a good thing, would it be an idea to encourage compliance or would this be something not thought to be a Network concern?
I’m just wondering aloud here and have no idea of the answers really or even if the questions are relevant. 
Edit: Here are the 3 main points the Govt proposals cover for others to read:
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the government intends to apply anti-money laundering regulation to digital currency exchanges in the UK, to support innovation and prevent criminal use. The government will formally consult on the proposed regulatory approach early in the next Parliament
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the government will work with BSI (British Standards Institution) and the digital currency industry to develop voluntary standards for consumer protection
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the government is launching a new research initiative which will bring together the Research Councils, Alan Turing Institute and Digital Catapult with industry in order to address the research opportunities and challenges for digital currency technology, and will increase research funding in this area by ÂŁ10 million to support this
I’m not sure, particularly if it was a peer to peer exchange with effectively a program matching buyers and sellers. @dallyshalla seems confident that he has been able to successfully negotiate US KYC laws as they stand, although I’m not sure of the legal differences between the US and the UK.
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The banks just want to control crypto currencies, as it is a direct attack on a big chunk of their business model - controlling the flow of money.
Moreover, the state has a similar issue and a similar goal. It is easy to see why this sort of action is on their menu.
Regulating crypto exchanges is a good thing; since 99.9999% of current crypto exchanges are centralized, and the operators routinely are being hacked because of their reasons in security models, or undergoing outright theft;
Any compliance requirements will be met so that people can legally use any exchange clients, and applications running over safex;
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Banks are heavily regulated and are routinely hacked. Many also committed fraud and required record breaking bailouts. There are better solutions than regulation.
I suspect the main goal here is for the banking/state duopoly on money to be maintained.
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This was a concern of mine in a previous post.
If the government simply says we don’t like a particular digital currency because we are not able to have the level of transparency we want in regards to money laundering requirements and who is facilitating the transactions, so we are just going to ban it, that could be a detrimental blow to that currency (and in Maidsafe’s case, the network). I think a big question is what options might be available to protect against regulatory risk such as this article details…
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I think we just have to ensure that the state isn’t given this option. If enough people use it and countries which are open to it prosper, economically, it will be impractical to ban it.
It is like the idea of the state killing the net - it is just too damn profitable to consider this. No sane government will want to kill the golden goose, especially when other countries are queuing up to use the technology.
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It’s a good thing for those who want to be regulated (and by that I mean both the owners/operators and users).
There are users who do not want that. They don’t want to be annoyed, ID-ed, managed and “protected”.
If I can save 0.1% in commission fees (even knowing that I run a 10% risk of losing all my capital), why should I not have a choice?
And let’s not forget there are distributed, decentralized and unregulated crypto exchanges that have been working smoothly for a year or two.
I’ve nothing against @dallyshala’s views. to be clear. It’s good that exchanges can be regulated, but it’s not good that they all have to be regulated. That’s an important distinction. Let there be 2 types of exchanges (or 3) - regulated, self-regulated and “wild”, let them truthfully label themselves and let’s see where the stupid users will flock to.
From TFA:
Applying AML rules to exchanges is necessary to “support innovation” and prevent the illicit use of digital currencies, the report said.
How does AML support innovation? That is complete bollocks. I am not promoting ML, but merely pointing out how incompetent (or worse) those people are - they can’t even make a good argument for regulation. Or won’t, knowing full clear that they don’t give a damn about what people think.
In reality more ML would create more business and foster more innovation (it may be bad for other, unrelated things). The currency counterfeiters are lecturing the innovators on how innovation is supposed to work…
It’s a good thing if the industry can self regulate, but they can do that anyway (without the gov’t).
I only hope the gov’t will regulate crypto just as strictly as they regulate HSBC and other law-abiding corporate personas…
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HSBC CEO, less than a month ago, apologising to treasury: select committee:
CEO Stuart Gulliver told parliament’s Treasury committee that:
“I would like to put on the record an apology from both myself and Douglas for the unacceptable events that took place at our private bank in Switzerland in the mid-2000s. It is an apology we would like to make to you, our customers, our shareholders and the public at large.
“It clearly was unacceptable. We very much regret this, and it has damaged HSBC’s reputation.”
Some things being looked into:
"Tyrie takes a broader view now, running through the list of investigations or fines which HSBC faces.
Interest rate derivative mis-selling, Libor manipulation, Eurobor manipulation, misselling mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Forex rigging, Weakness in money laundering controls, credit default swaps, US investigation for rigging precious metals, Various class action lawsuits over the Bernie Madoff fraud… (I think I missed one). "
That’s exactly what I was referring to.
The role models!
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