The FinCen rules are a mixed bag. On the one hand, it appears that they have no desire to go after individual users of BTC, those who are using it to barter for goods and services, or just accumulating them for the hell of it (like me). But they will definitely be focusing attention on businesses, like Mt. Gox, which function at the intersection between government-backed currencies and BTC. But that makes sense, it's relatively easy to monitor traditional business banking, just look at the squeeze the Fed can put on just about any banking entity in the world, even the Swiss.
Some are attributing the recent run up in the BTC market on this announcement, they see it as a legitimizing step which has provided boundary-lines that take away a great deal of the regulatory uncertainty surrounding adoption of the scheme. Other supporters feel this is the kiss of death.
I don't know how any of this is going to turn out, but it's probably time to start testing the process of converting back to dollars via Mt. Gox and Dwolla, just to see what hoops I'll need to jump through if I need to get serious about liquidation in the future.
1 BTC = $73.75 at this very moment. I can't believe it was briefly below $37 just 10 days ago and it's really not in my nature to be this speculative with cold-hard cash. Who knows where it will go from here, some (Max Keiser on Alex Jones
) are saying $100,000, or more. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Farms aren't likely to just disappear into the cyber-ether, like bitcoin could do tomorrow.
