PDA

View Full Version : Legal Marijuana Businesses Need Bank Access, Attorney General Eric Holder Says




jct74
01-23-2014, 10:14 PM
Legal Marijuana Businesses Need Bank Access, Attorney General Eric Holder Says

By David Ingram | Reuters
Posted: 01/23/2014 10:38 pm EST

Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.S. treasury and law enforcement agencies will soon issue regulations opening banking services to state-sanctioned marijuana businesses even though cannabis remains classified an illegal narcotic under federal law, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday.

Holder said the new rules would address problems faced by newly licensed recreational pot retailers in Colorado, and medical marijuana dispensaries in other states, in operating on a cash-only basis, without access to banking services or credit.

Proprietors of state-licensed marijuana distributors in Colorado and elsewhere have complained of having to purchase inventory, pay employees and conduct sales entirely in cash, requiring elaborate and expensive security measures and putting them at a high risk of robbery.

It also makes accounting for state sales tax-collection purposes difficult.

"You don't want just huge amounts of cash in these places," Holder told the audience at the University of Virginia. "They want to be able to use the banking system. And so we will be issuing some regulations I think very soon to deal with that issue."

...

read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/marijuana-bank_n_4656145.html

CaseyJones
01-23-2014, 10:16 PM
http://cdn.instanttrap.com/trap.jpg

GunnyFreedom
01-23-2014, 10:31 PM
http://cdn.instanttrap.com/trap.jpg

ROFL! My first thoughts also. :D

Origanalist
01-23-2014, 10:34 PM
All your moneys are belong to us.

GunnyFreedom
01-23-2014, 10:41 PM
Seems BTC could fill that gap. Just install a kiosk that converts credit/debit to BTC and then use BTC to buy the product.

Origanalist
01-23-2014, 10:43 PM
Seems BTC could fill that gap. Just install a kiosk that converts credit/debit to BTC and then use BTC to buy the product.

That's a excellent idea, but I think more people would have to be using it.

HOLLYWOOD
01-23-2014, 10:49 PM
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UMpp-7q7-ik/T8rNFIDg19I/AAAAAAAAAFk/0J0l1dYDvo0/s1600/Hand-over-cash.png

GunnyFreedom
01-23-2014, 10:53 PM
That's a excellent idea, but I think more people would have to be using it.

Ehh, not really. In this situation you could actually create something new out of thin air to fill this gap even if ONLY your customers are the ones using it, so long as the store could cash it in you're golden. Exchange rates are mostly irrelevant because customers will be spending them within minutes of buying them, and the store could likely turn them back into $USD in a bank account within minutes of receiving them.

ETA - and now that it looks like Google is getting involved, they could run them through Google Checkout and all is well.

CaseyJones
01-23-2014, 10:54 PM
chroniccoin

Origanalist
01-23-2014, 11:04 PM
Ehh, not really. In this situation you could actually create something new out of thin air to fill this gap even if ONLY your customers are the ones using it, so long as the store could cash it in you're golden. Exchange rates are mostly irrelevant because customers will be spending them within minutes of buying them, and the store could likely turn them back into $USD in a bank account within minutes of receiving them.

ETA - and now that it looks like Google is getting involved, they could run them through Google Checkout and all is well.

Ah, I see. I've never used them but I get your drift. You would think that one of them would have thought of that.

GunnyFreedom
01-23-2014, 11:08 PM
Ah, I see. I've never used them but I get your drift. You would think that one of them would have thought of that.

It probably never occurred to them that you could sell BTC in a kiosk. We had a senior poster on RPF's just a few days ago looking for a place in a Chicago high rise to install a BTC kiosk.

GunnyFreedom
01-23-2014, 11:09 PM
chroniccoin

LOL! haha

fr33
01-23-2014, 11:18 PM
This is really about how horrible the people in Congress are. Abolishing the federal laws for marijuana is the simple solution but since those creeps have no desire or will to do it, the individual states can't even let their own people nullify without risking the Feds stealing all their money.

kcchiefs6465
01-24-2014, 12:40 PM
This is really about how horrible the people in Congress are. Abolishing the federal laws for marijuana is the simple solution but since those creeps have no desire or will to do it, the individual states can't even let their own people nullify without risking the Feds stealing all their money.
To be honest, the feds stealing all of their money is the only thing even the victims are worried about. The fact that a good portion of their money is already decidedly forfeited in the eyes of everyone, even the victims of said theft, gives evidence of the times. I see interviews of businesses purporting to want to pay taxes if only allowed. What a "dilemma" for the federal government.

And fuck the banks.

Acala
01-24-2014, 01:52 PM
I think this is just an example of shrewd politics by the Obama Administration. Obama's ratings are low. He sees the writing on the wall with respect to MJ, so he is jumping in front of the parade.

torchbearer
01-24-2014, 02:13 PM
Seems BTC could fill that gap. Just install a kiosk that converts credit/debit to BTC and then use BTC to buy the product.

I've heard about BTC debit cards. That would be nice.
My brother-in-law is building mining machines. I may be moving down to NOLA to help.

GunnyFreedom
01-24-2014, 02:40 PM
I think this is just an example of shrewd politics by the Obama Administration. Obama's ratings are low. He sees the writing on the wall with respect to MJ, so he is jumping in front of the parade.

Not to mention if the feds suddenly decide to start prosecuting it'll be a lot easier to seize those funds from a bank HQ'd in Charlote or NY.

GunnyFreedom
01-24-2014, 02:45 PM
I've heard about BTC debit cards. That would be nice.
My brother-in-law is building mining machines. I may be moving down to NOLA to help.

Sounds like a sweet gig. :) Now at THIS stage of the game, the profits mining BTC may not be enough to make a real living at it right now without additional services like Kiosks -- you don't just have to beat the price of electricity, you also have to count for hw failures and maintenance. Now if we were allowed to run thorium reactors it would be EXTREMELY profitable. I was thinking if one had a network of 1000 kiosks, and each kiosk had a mining component as well as a network connection to a centralized wallet and $USD exchange...

Somehow the idea of building kiosks that are also miners just tickles my efficiency button.

torchbearer
01-24-2014, 02:50 PM
Sounds like a sweet gig. :) Now at THIS stage of the game, the profits mining BTC may not be enough to make a real living at it right now without additional services like Kiosks -- you don't just have to beat the price of electricity, you also have to count for hw failures and maintenance. Now if we were allowed to run thorium reactors it would be EXTREMELY profitable. I was thinking if one had a network of 1000 kiosks, and each kiosk had a mining component as well as a network connection to a centralized wallet and $USD exchange...

Somehow the idea of building kiosks that are also miners just tickles my efficiency button.

I don't know much about any of this stuff, but he is focusing on LTC. and his reasoning was something along the lines of you won't make anything mining BTC at the moment.
Looks like a natural way to keep the currencies under control. there needs to be multiple competing cryptos.

torchbearer
01-24-2014, 02:53 PM
Sounds like a sweet gig. :) Now at THIS stage of the game, the profits mining BTC may not be enough to make a real living at it right now without additional services like Kiosks -- you don't just have to beat the price of electricity, you also have to count for hw failures and maintenance. Now if we were allowed to run thorium reactors it would be EXTREMELY profitable. I was thinking if one had a network of 1000 kiosks, and each kiosk had a mining component as well as a network connection to a centralized wallet and $USD exchange...

Somehow the idea of building kiosks that are also miners just tickles my efficiency button.

is Bitcoin a trademark? Can an independent tech make his own BTC kiosk?

We are using plastic milk crates for cases on the cryptofarm.
http://www.uline.com/images/product/Large/S_16317BL_L.jpg
You can get them for free from some of the local grocers. Its like you are picking up their garbage for free.

GunnyFreedom
01-24-2014, 07:01 PM
I don't know much about any of this stuff, but he is focusing on LTC. and his reasoning was something along the lines of you won't make anything mining BTC at the moment.
Looks like a natural way to keep the currencies under control. there needs to be multiple competing cryptos.

LTC is going to get better returns right now than BTC; it all ends up being about age and maturity. The more mature a cryptocoin is the smaller the mining return, as far as I can tell. I'm no expert either. Bitmining will not be a revolving thing as one coin becomes more profitable than the other, it will be a constant search for the newer coin people think may actually survive. Eventually there will be a law of diminishing returns involved that makes mining less attractive.


is Bitcoin a trademark? Can an independent tech make his own BTC kiosk?

I don't know if it's technically trademarked or not, but even if it is the trademark should not prevent kiosk vending, because if it did the same trademark would also prevent basic transactions in the stuff. If it's being used as a currency, then it has to be able to be used as a currency, so to speak. That includes the ability to exchange BTC for dollars without some kind of legal restraint.


We are using plastic milk crates for cases on the cryptofarm.
http://www.uline.com/images/product/Large/S_16317BL_L.jpg
You can get them for free from some of the local grocers. Its like you are picking up their garbage for free.

Seems like a great idea; may want to give some thought to dust control in your farmrooms or eventually that will become a problem. Other than that it's well ventilated and easy to service. I've been involved in cycle-sharing distributed supercomputer projects before, and always wondered why that computing power can't be sold commercially and the distributed network make some money for their cycles.

This seems to be like that except there is no distributed supercomputer solving problems for a client that I can tell.

If distributed supercomputing can help SETI or cure HIV or Cancer through super-powerful computing, couldn't there possibly be a need for such powerful computing on the commercial market, where a client pays $X for Y computer time to run problems, and those fees are distributed to the distributed network according to the amount of work done? I would think so.

As far as my understanding goes (which admittedly is limited) BTC and such just form arbitrary problems to solve. If there IS a client somewhere paying real money to solve real problems then I haven't been clued in.

torchbearer
01-24-2014, 07:30 PM
LTC is going to get better returns right now than BTC; it all ends up being about age and maturity. The more mature a cryptocoin is the smaller the mining return, as far as I can tell. I'm no expert either. Bitmining will not be a revolving thing as one coin becomes more profitable than the other, it will be a constant search for the newer coin people think may actually survive. Eventually there will be a law of diminishing returns involved that makes mining less attractive.



I don't know if it's technically trademarked or not, but even if it is the trademark should not prevent kiosk vending, because if it did the same trademark would also prevent basic transactions in the stuff. If it's being used as a currency, then it has to be able to be used as a currency, so to speak. That includes the ability to exchange BTC for dollars without some kind of legal restraint.



Seems like a great idea; may want to give some thought to dust control in your farmrooms or eventually that will become a problem. Other than that it's well ventilated and easy to service. I've been involved in cycle-sharing distributed supercomputer projects before, and always wondered why that computing power can't be sold commercially and the distributed network make some money for their cycles.

This seems to be like that except there is no distributed supercomputer solving problems for a client that I can tell.

If distributed supercomputing can help SETI or cure HIV or Cancer through super-powerful computing, couldn't there possibly be a need for such powerful computing on the commercial market, where a client pays $X for Y computer time to run problems, and those fees are distributed to the distributed network according to the amount of work done? I would think so.

As far as my understanding goes (which admittedly is limited) BTC and such just form arbitrary problems to solve. If there IS a client somewhere paying real money to solve real problems then I haven't been clued in.

I've used BOINC, mostly SETI@home and World Community Grid.
Never got paid for it, but it is more efficient than having the government do it.

fr33
01-24-2014, 07:35 PM
To be honest, the feds stealing all of their money is the only thing even the victims are worried about. The fact that a good portion of their money is already decidedly forfeited in the eyes of everyone, even the victims of said theft, gives evidence of the times. I see interviews of businesses purporting to want to pay taxes if only allowed. What a "dilemma" for the federal government.

And fuck the banks.

I wouldn't say it's the only thing they care about. It's probably more like they are so happy to not be thrown in prison now so paying taxes doesn't seem half that bad to them. That and they were likely paying taxes on whatever income they were making at their previous endeavors before pot was legalized. 1 step at a time ;)

juvanya
01-24-2014, 08:03 PM
Local banks that arent FDIC.