BitLicense

license

No, BitLicense didn't come up.

AI came up a lot.

That would have been awesome if she was like, why are you eliminating the BitLicense? We need those regulations.

But she attacked them on AI, though.

She's like,

I know Bitcoin mining is as well.

But this is where that industry can look to what Bitcoiners went through with the BitLicense state by state regulations and all the hostility in mainstream media and Greenpeace and stuff like that.

We went through this a long time ago.

So, yeah, it's a chance to unwind it.

There are lots of proposals to expand this regulatory regime or structure framework focused on Bitcoin and broader crypto to really tighten the screws and have much more oversight and control of the industry.

They're looking at implementing the same tax treatment in Illinois, where individual Bitcoin transactions are subject to a transfer tax.

Flipping the civil penalties to criminal penalties for BitLicense infractions or whatever.

So there's nasty stuff.

And we started working in this New York Trust in 2012.

This predates the BitLicense that didn't exist.

We were the first trust company ultimately we got approved in May of 2015 in the whole country to operate in Bitcoin and blockchain.

We really pioneered this way of getting regulatory approval to hold assets and issue assets.

And that would be a huge boon to a lot of these industries in New York.

To recap, he pledged to dismantle the BitLicense day one and end the three moratoriums in New York State around Bitcoin mining, data centers, and natural gas fracking.

So those four items, to get those pushed over the line, I'd like to see a little bit more enthusiasm out of the Bitcoin and data center and energy communities.

But it's starting to build.

Kind of funny.

wanted to ask him something but i see the difference between how bitcoin was and how it is now right we got big bitcoin now we have all the banks we have an institutions getting involved this and that for my own personal selfishness i'm in the middle of building a coffee shop and opening a coffee shop and on a side note i will have bitcoin on the billboard i said that's going to happen that will happen unfortunately i can't do an led one but anyway As far as accepting Bitcoin in New York, I've been looking into this, and it looks like in March of 26, BitLicense got a license, and they used the Lightning Network.

So...

What do you think about accepting Bitcoin at a coffee shop nowadays? Do you know anything about that, how that works, the legalities of it, how the transaction works? How would I put that from the process and service to, I guess, a cold wallet? Any recommendations? That's it.

It's spicy things happening.

Well, I mean, it just seems like the purpose of the BitLicense is consumer protection, but we're cutting consumers off from the truest cryptos of all.

Also, it, it can...

You know, there are who can make sometimes actually, um, while the regulator can barrier to the entry and of course-

Yeah, I could try to do that if somebody wants to do that.

Um, but it was pretty funny, it was pretty surreal.

And, uh, the point this guy's making though is interesting 'cause he's saying, and I've heard this from other people, like, "So if you want Monero listed in New York on exchanges, go talk to the exchanges." And it's not necessarily that BitLicense companies can't have Monero.

It's just never fully been tested.

We have property laws in place where you cannot just build something next to somebody and absolutely destroy the quiet enjoyment of one's property.

But what we saw with Bitcoin and things like the BitLicense, new specific technology, new specific regulatory schemes and structures that are just duplicative.

You don't need a new AI-specific regulatory scheme.

and more compliance layers and more risk layers and more lawyers and everything to deal with effectively the same exact issue.

The contrast is quite stark.

New York has maintained its BitLicense regime since two thousand and fifteen, which is known for being one of the stricter regulatory frameworks in the country.

Wyoming, on the other hand, has taken a crypto-friendly approach, including provisions for special purpose depository institutions or SPDIs.

This MoU essentially bridges those two very different regulatory environments.

Politics is what got in the way.

So you had mentioned this about how you oversaw the introduction of BitLicense, one of the first U.S. regulatory frameworks designed for virtual currency businesses back in 2015.

That's when it was implemented.

And you're here now to help us learn what Europe can understand from New York's experiment.

The thing is, if you were to give an honest assessment of BitLicense, it actually drove more than a dozen crypto companies out of the state.

Kraken, Bitfinex, Shapeshift, all left rather than comply.

Only five companies got licensed in the first three years.

So I guess my question is, was BitLicense too aggressive? And is that something that European regulators should learn from? And if so, what should they learn from that?