I just received an email from Bitfinex..
Nothing to worry about, but it seems like it will be a good idea to verify your user account OR at least don't keep a lot of money there (we all know that by now anyway) The reason for all this is that Bitfinex is to a almost too large degree is trying to comply to government demands of information regarding ID etc, because of theft..I mean, taxation.
Thing is, US citizens have been banned from Bitfinex since this summer, and I suppose some americans are using proxys etc to trade on Bitfinex to work around. So Bitfinex is trying to safeguard with mails like this one, trying to make sure no one is trading illegally on their platform.
You are receiving this message because you are an unverified user of the www.bitfinex.com platform.
We thank you for your business and remind you that all customers must respect and follow the rules of the exchange, all of which we commend to your attention: https://www.bitfinex.com/legal/terms. In particular, individuals resident in the United States are not permitted to be customers of the exchange or use our services. Furthermore, United States residents are prohibited from accessing our services using any virtual private network, proxy service, or any other third party service, network, or product with the effect of disguising their IP address or location.
It is a breach of our terms of service to give false information at signup or in response to questions from us, whether as part of our compliance and due diligence procedures or otherwise. Penalties for breaching our terms of service may include referral to law enforcement or other authorities and terminating your access to any and all of our services.
We are monitoring the platform and will continue to take action to enforce our terms of service.
Thank you,
The Bitfinex Team
who needs regulation
Hmm, good to know. Bitfinex is one of those exchanges I get bad vibes from but it also has a few coins that don't really trade that many other places.
Thanks for info, gonna verify my account, thumbs up!
Luckily us Europeans don't have to worry about that. Americans could also just use a VPN and they should be fine, right? Or is that too easy?
They mention VPN in the letter. So it is fine unless they figure that out. I would hate to give them an excuse to basically confiscate my funds. Since it is "illegal" , US citizens can't expect any help from their government. Of course the argument can be made that bitfinex is just pretending to care, to get the US government off their backs.
There are some other good exchanges out there. Bittrex which is a US company and is trying very hard to stay in compliance. Which is a hassle since they keep delisting coins, but you can probably bet they won't steal your coins from you. Binace is a great exchange and very low hassle. They do great things like give you your GAS if you have NEO. They support most forks and you might even get the occasional air drop.
It does not seem like it would be worth the risk. Also I would not be surprised to see the EU start giving the exchanges some grief. Seems like crypto's are now on their radar.
The worst part about living in the US as far as crypto's is concerned, is that most ICO's are off limits. I do know that a lot of folks in the US use VPN's for that. But there is a difference between putting in a small amount ETH for a one time transaction and maintaining a membership on an exchange.
Your question reminds me of a line from a Bob Dylan song, "everything is legal in Jersey, as long as you don't get caught!"
You nailed it. The explicit purpose of these emails is to give the appearance of compliance. If Bitfinex was really concerned about US citizens using their platform, they would have started blocking all IPs a long time ago, but they DIDN'T!
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yes steady it @scandinavianlife
thanks for sharing.. will verify my account...
upvoted and followed...!!!
I deleted my account before this happened,I felt something was going to happen with this site,I'm a wizard hahaha
I'm glad they took the time to issue the message. With the world taking notice of crpypto I wouldn't be surprised to see more regulation for exchanges on a global scale.
I'm not advocating regulating exchanges/ico offerings. I'm on the fence about it. Rules to protect people like you and I from fuckery would be good. But at the same time, it's quite amazing watching this unregulated market unfold, reading all the stories about amazing entrepreneurs with revolutionary projects. Regulation would likely make these stories less frequent.
Regulation would also bring institutional blockchain technology more to the forefront. Make no mistake about this my fellow steemians, just because a product says "blockchain" it doesn't mean it's bitcoin or a decentralized protocol for peer to peer trust-less transactions.
I really enjoyed this article and have posted a link to it at https://honeybadgerdaily.com/ in the bitcoin section. I hope that you don't mind! cheers mate!
Thank the gods we were not born American.
It seems to be a real curse these days.