Hacker News Reader

Comment by bearjaws | Hacker News Reader

That just sounds like banking with extra steps.

Spoken like someone who doesn't know the steps involved in opening a bank account (hint: many people can't), accepting online payments using a bank account (hint: hope you have deep pockets), using a bank for sending interbank/international payments (hint: might need to collect a page worth of information from your recipient. second hint: their bank might refuse to receive the payment), etc. Bonus steps: do all the above programmatically using an API (hint: you might have a billion-dollar startup in your hands).

Now do all the above using Bitcoin/lightning network. You'll be done in 15 mins.

Would lightning network approach comply with KYC laws?

That question is highly dependent on jurisdiction. The prevailing opinion right now is that Lightning nodes are not subject to KYC regulations in the US.

What is to prevent the network from facilitating money laundering and purchase of illegal goods?

You know you're still supposed to collect all the same info for a BTC transaction, right? Just because it's easy doesn't mean it's not tax evasion.

No, you are not supposed to. KYC is a legal requirement for money transmitters[0]. It does not apply to Bitcoin users.

[0] Money transmission is the act of receiving currency from one party and transferring it to another party. Basically, middlemen in a transaction (e.g. banks).

If you are processing financial transactions (including something of “value that substitutes for currency”) between other people at their direction, you are a money transmitter. The whole point of both Bitcoin is decentralizing this function from banks to a network of miners, and a similar thing is done in Lightning with its nodes.

That's correct. In the case of Bitcoin, the thing that most closely resembles a "money transmitter" are miners but FinCEN ruled that they are not[0]. A sensible decision because otherwise, Bitcoin would have effectively been banned from the United States (or Bitcoin miners, at least).

[0] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2014/01/31/fincen-declares-b...

Ignoring the fact it isn't tax evasion - just because it's against the law, doesn't mean it's unethical. Further, obeying laws can be (and often is) unethical. Not everything is on the level of requiring people to turn in jews, but there's plenty of room to argue that companies that are ill-equipped to protect your personal data should not be allowed, much less required, to collect your identifying information.

You can set up a stripe account to accept payments very easily.

You can buy a prepaid Visa with cash in just a few minutes.

> You can set up a stripe account to accept payments very easily.

Doesn't it require having a U.S. corporation? That's a few hundred dollars off the bat. It also requires you to provide evidence that you are within the types of businesses they authorize. I also suppose it requires having a bank account. Opening a business bank account does not take a few minutes and it can be close to impossible for certain categories of businesses. Multiply that by 10 if you are not a citizen/resident. I also don't believe Stripe allows sending money. Furthermore, receiving payments on Stripe effectively takes a week due to the waiting period. Finally, if Stripe decides to freeze or terminate your account, you are f'ed.

Stripe is not worldwide, but works pretty much everywhere in EU at least. You can open a company in Estonia in a couple hours (once you have a digital signature key, which they offer to everybody now, not just Estonian citizens [1]). Getting a bank account might be a bit trickier, but still doable (hint: Wise [2], while not a bank, might be an easier option).

That said, Bitcoin is still a whole lot easier to accept, and on the L1 level can't be blocked by anybody. Cryptocurrency is definitely the future, but traditional banking is trying to compete sometimes :-)

[1]: https://e-resident.gov.ee/ [2]: https://wise.com/

A business or business bank account isn’t needed, so it doesn’t matter. It’s the same with many payment providers. I linked to references for Stripe on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=32102762

PayPal etc don’t require any business stuff. Being a traditional bank is unimportant for getting paid for online stuff.

There’s a lot of ways to get access to something that qualifies as a bank account. For example, Cash App got big because it provides what a bank account does and qualifies as one, even if it is not a traditional bank at all.

Once multiple apps are available worldwide as well as multiple ways to have a bank account or a bank account equivalent, why would cryptocurrency be the future?

Multiple apps are already available for the majority of the population. The west, India, and China alone are close to half the world population.

Stripe does not require having a business.

In the west, opening a business bank account does indeed take a few minutes. There’s more than enough that allow opening one online.

It isn’t needed for Stripe or many payment providers, so it’s a moot point. Same with many payment providers not requiring a business.

References: - https://support.stripe.com/questions/selling-on-stripe-witho... - https://www.statrys.com/blog/connect-stripe-bank

Not sure about the U.S., but in at least in Russia and Estonia sole proprietorship is a form of business – in a sense that you have to register it, do annual reports (or more often), calculate taxes etc.

In Russia, it is a bit easier than running an LLC, so many entrepreneurs choose to start as an SP. In Estonia I've seen zero sole proprietors – the burden is the same, but LLC taxes are more favourable (0% income tax until you pay out dividiends) and limited liability (which you don't get as an SP).

I've done some research (which in this case is a fancy way of saying “opened up Wikipedia” [1]) and looks like in the U.S. you can just run a sole proprietorship without filing anything. Neat!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_proprietorship#United_Sta...

This is confusing. Are people legally allowed to get a lot of income from Bitcoin without a SP or more in these countries? Will Stripe automatically deny people without a sole proprietorship in these countries? What happens if people are able to get on Stripe without an SP in these countries? I assume no one is going to jail over this.

I don’t expect you to know the answers to these questions, but the focus was on the difference between Bitcoin and Stripe/PayPal, etc. The thing I replied to specifically said there was an onus of several hundred dollars which I was disputing as well and which is not correct for the US.

> Are people legally allowed to get a lot of income

In Russia, they aren't if it's systematic [1] (and if you get caught, which is usually not a concern for many unregistered one-man businesses). Stripe isn't available in Russia but most local payment gateways check your paperwork thoroughly, so if you're not a registered SP, card payments are mostly off the limits and the main payment method is card to card transfer there. (There's a few options, but those aren't widely popular because who cares)

[1]: https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/cc12ef... article 171 of the criminal offence code (in Russian)

I don't really have any experience with SPs in Estonia, but I think it's pretty similar. Let me try and sign up for Stripe and see what happens :-)

Update: I've just signed up as a “sole proprietor” and charged myself 1 EUR. I've only had to fill in my name and home address. Not even I had to submit any documents, perhaps because I already have an LLC registered with Stripe. Still not sure if it's legal, but from the technical standpoint yeah, you probably can use Stripe without any paperwork here in Europe.

You'll also reduce your potential (new) customer base by almost 100%. Trust can't be bootstrapped trustlessly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com