Re: Reporting threshold for NY money transfers lowered

[Steve Schear <azur@netcom.com>]

At 2:31 PM -0700 5/15/97, David Wagner wrote:
>I thought this might be of interest to cypherpunks:
>
>The threshold for reporting New York money transfers was apparently
>quietly lowered to $750 last month.  Looks like all it took was one
>order signed by one Treasury official -- eek.  Can they lower the
>$10k cash threshold just as easily?
>
[snip]
>*  Although the order was not announced, word spread quickly
>*  among traffickers, and a dramatic drop in money wires to
>*  Colombia followed, along with a sharp increase in seizures
>*  of cash along the eastern seaboard.
>

Correct me if I'm wrong, but under current law ecash tokens are neither
legal tender, foreign currency or money transmission instruments.  So, a
merchant exchanging them for legal tender needn't follow these tightened
regulations (i.e., only the $10K limit would still apply).  Of course,
Congress will be busy drafting new regulations if larger transaction use of
ecash starts to take off.

Seems to me that if accountless ecash were sold via a multi-level marketing
approach, where hordes of ordinary citizens would offer to purchase/redeem
the tokens (at a discount for their trouble), it might substitute for these
moneychaning merchants and make an interesting market.  Smaller operators
could deposit the funds in their demand deposit accounts or sell to
Aggregators who would offer to take any CTR related heat. Aggregators could
maintain that they are merely treating the tokens they purchase as a
commodity, they have no legal tender basis.

--Steve


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