Petition: Exclude Bitcoin Startups, Supporting Companies from BitLicense Regs (April 2, 2015)
A coalition of bitcoin entrepreneurs and advocates are backing a petition that would exclude companies supporting the bitcoin infrastructure, as well as smaller startups, from the scope of New York’s BitLicense proposed regulations. The measure, submitted to the New York State Department of Financial Services during the recently closed window for public comments on its BitLicense proposal, is backed by companies including Coinbase, Blockstream, BitPay, Circle and Ripple Labs, according to reports.
The petition’s supporters suggest it’s too burdensome for New York to apply its BitLicense regulations equally to all participants in the bitcoin sphere, including small startups and indirect participants, such as creators of open-source protocols, micropayments providers and security intermediaries. The petition defined a “small startup” as a firm that’s been in operation less than two years.
In February, NYDFS revised its BitLicense proposal in an attempt to foster innovation by reducing recordkeeping requirements, offering a two-year provisional BitLicense with reduced requirements for new virtual currency entities, giving an allowance for virtual currencies to be held toward capital requirements, and removing a requirement for licensees to obtain addresses and transaction information from the parties involved in a transaction. The second round of public comments ended in late March. “We are reviewing comments now with hopes of finalizing the regulation shortly,” a spokesperson for NYDFS tells Paybefore.
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