U.S. Are At It Again!

US Authorities Targeted BitCoin Exchange Service

The Department of Homeland Security seized assets from Mt. Gox Dwolla account a few days ago and accused it of violating money transfer regulations. As everyone knows, BitCoin is growing rapidly today, and some companies invest thousands of dollars on the venture. One of the largest BitCoin exchange services was the Japanese startup Mt. Gox. It allowed people to convert US dollars to BitCoins and vice versa, with their most popular service being Dwolla – an electronic wallet providing real time transfers between people and businesses.
A few days ago the US authorities have seized all of the assets in the Mt. Gox Dwolla account for infringing money transfer regulations. Dwolla had nothing else to do but to acquiesce to the request. The problem is that as a currency exchange service, Mt. Gox set up a Wells Fargo business account for Mutum Sigillum LLC and was asked to complete a document stating whether the company planned to provide money services. The authorities point out that the document listed Mutum Sigillum LLC as a company which didn’t engage in money services. Indeed, the business answered “no” to those important questions: “Do you deal in or exchange currency for your customer?” and “Does your business accept funds from customers and send the funds based on customers’ instructions (Money Transmitter)?”

Moreover, in order to limit fraudulent activity, the company also needed to register with FinCEN like any money services in the United States. For people who use the exchange service, this move will only affect BitCoin traders using Dwolla to fund their trades. In the meanwhile, other traders in the United States may still use bank wires to send and receive money from Mt. Gox trades. Those traders with Dwolla accounts won’t be affected, only their ability to transfer directly to the company with Dwolla will. Finally, all these limitations only apply to the traders from the United States.

Industry experts point out that for those that have utilized Dwolla, there was still a lot of other BitCoin options, including BitInstant. The latter allow people to make deposits by cash. In the meanwhile, BitInstant still accepts Dwolla and is able to make transfer to different exchange services.