In tin hat mode, its possible that the subpoena is actually being driven by the justice department not the IRS. As you point out there are a number of less invasive ways of insuring tax compliance but there are not better ways for unwrapping large number of bitcoin transactions involved in ransomware or other extortion or criminal activity. We saw from the MtGox fiasco that when their entire transaction record for all clients was analyzed it identified not only internal corruption but a variety of schemes being used to manipulate or defraud.
Let's assume that Justice has the full transaction records for one or more of the non-US exchanges, by adding all of your records to the mix it would give them the visibility they need to unwind a lot of stuff.
As I understand it, when you make the motion to quash you can compel them to tell you exactly how they were going to use the data. Don't let them be evasive on that point.
It looks like, despite the shiny front and claims, they are still not a solid, trustworthy company, even though they play with a lot of others' money. In particular, the mechanics of their transactions are not obvious (e.g. long wait times), and their customer service is subpar, making some customers feel scammed, with no recourse.
There is an onus on the bitcoin community to get more people to accept bitcoin directly as payment. Companies like coinbase could help that process along in theory, but they'll have to keep walking this line while they grow.
Dubious. They might capture more of an existing niche market. Coinbase is aiming to expand the market significantly to people don't see Bitcoin's murkiness as a feature. That is, the rest of us.
Not saying the order is justified, merely that the people asking for it want it for actual reasons.
Does that mean you could write a program that created virtual currencies and transactions between them (along with their required 1099 forms) in order to troll the IRS by submitting TBs of data?
Imagine a world where this terrible waste weren't mandated by the men with guns. Imagine a world where cryptocurrency executives didn't try to spin this huge coerced waste as a positive.
This is the reason cryptocurrency was invented. Shapeshift is the right direction. Coinbase is the wrong one.
The first question was, what is Medium?
I had to explain that it was just this open-to-anybody blogging platform, and not a personal site of mine. Outside of the tech sphere, it's not so recognizable.
After evaluating this situation further, I felt further comfort in knowing there's an added level of authenticity to the post. They could have signed it with a GPG key which would've been nice, but not only would their core site have needed to have been comprised but also their medium account in order to deliver this news. Should this have been a security incident I would have been comforted by these additional ID confirmations.
