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What is the Legal Challenge with Vouchers???
100 sats \ 5 comments \ @kilianbuhn 8 Nov 2022 bitcoin
Expanding on this thread by @F
I don't get why vouchers are not more widespread. It has good privacy an convenience if you can buy them with cash at a supermarket...
Where is the catch? Why can't people just sell a piece of paper which has 12 words on it. It just happens to be 12 words, why the hell should it be a problem?
I hope this method becomes more popular
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b 8 Nov 2022
I'm not sure it's legal so much as it's prone to double spends. If I sell you a piece of paper with 12 words on it, you have know way of knowing if I have those 12 words stored elsewhere or already used them to sign a tx spending the sats elsewhere.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @kilianbuhn OP 8 Nov 2022
Yeah, that's a trust component. But they already sell scratchy card for prepaid stuff everywhere. I don't see where the difference would be
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 8 Nov 2022
There isn't any.
I think it's just easier - relative to trad stuff - to do this kind of thing trustlessly with bitcoin so we all bias toward doing it that way. Bitcoin ATMs give you the same level of convenience of scratchy cards without the trust.
I imagine we might eventually have people that sell scratchy card like things if that's what people want. I mean that's what Casascius coins were.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 8 Nov 2022
Also Azteco sells vouchers.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @super_testnet 8 Nov 2022
The USA arrests people who have a business that sells bitcoins without a money transmitter license. https://www.manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-announces-indictment-in-citywide-illegal-bitcoin-atm-operation/
The name of the crime is "Operating an Unlicensed Money Transmission Business."
The law is here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960
They define money transmission as "transferring funds on behalf of the public by any and all means." If your business gives people bitcoin in exchange for dollars, the government considers that transferring funds, and they arrest people who do that without a money transmitter license. They're not going to ignore that law just because you wrote the private keys down on a piece of paper first. They will still say your business transferred bitcoin to someone in exchange for dollars and did so without a license and then they will arrest you for it.
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