About me: A Lawyer's Perspective

A few things about me:

-- I'm a criminal defense lawyer in private practice and advocate for clients throughout the city and state of New York.

-- I edited this post to shorten it and add an image.

-- My goal in joining Steemit is to provide readers valuable insight into legal developments affecting "cryptocurrency", or e-currency - or decentralized currency - d-currency. The word "crypto" isn't a good prefix for winning over the bureaucrats who impose regulations on such things.

-- I'm a late-arrival to the Bitcoin / decentralized currency bandwagon. Like most Americans, I saw the price shoot up over Thanksgiving, then started doing my research into something I had ignored for the better part of 2009 to present.

-- Gripped by this new economic phenomenon, I'm interested in learning about - and reporting on - areas of crypto-law that are pertinent to these new exchanges of value.

As it stand, New York residents aren't permitted to purchase decentralized currencies from exchanges that don't possess a "BitLicense" - a creature of our state's overreaching attempt to insulate "big banks" against masked competition while also taxing yet another 'thing' that doesn't require a new tax. Why force a market - a supposedly 'free' market on the global street corner - to register with the state and pay burdensome licensing fees that necessitate high-end consumer transaction fees? It's ultimately anti-free-market, and against our federal law.

Already, the government has begun to regulate - and even criminalize - the possession of fiat currency. For example, depositing $10,000 or more of fiat currency into a corporate bank account would trigger an automatic bank report to the government? Why must your own government be alerted to your private cash transactions? Surely there are better ways to police criminal activity.

Absurdly enough, if you put less than $10,000 in your bank account, and you do so in the wrong quantities over the wrong periods of time, the IRS will assume you're trying to avoid taxes! It's a lose-lose situation that forces legally unaware individuals to fight agency rules at great financial - and constitutional - costs. . We don't need this in the 21st-century economy.

Who wants to touch cash if the government assumes your potentially committing wrongful acts with mere possession? And who wants to touch bitcoin if the government assumes criminality as a peripheral accessory to mere trades?

I'm concerned that the regulation of currency, including cash and fiat dollars, will lead to other forms of overstepping by the government. Expect continued updates.