Sat Nov 21, 2015 6:50 pm

1. Any thoughts on "EU tightening control on virtual currencies" news/rumor as published by Reuters

2. Do you think that Bitcoin businesses in the EU and/or Finland have channels in place to educate policy makers about Bitcoin?

I hope that one day you are able to expand Bittiraha.fi so that all EU citizens can buy bitcoins as easily as Finns do now.

Based on everything I've read so far, it seems that the connection between ISIS and Bitcoin has beenoverestimated. There seems to be little or no evidence of this even though blockchain allows such transparency that evidence should be forthcoming if this was happening. Also, Ghost Security Group has countered this rumor themselves, although I'm still waiting for them to publish an official tweet about it.I'm not overly keen on conspiracy theories as I'm a man of science but I have to say that there seems to be a deliberate attempt of smearing Bitcoin by trying to connect cryptocurrencies and terrorism. Here is another good article that proved that the last time a connection was made, it was actually BS.But now I want to comment on the regulation issue. Regardless of if the terrorism connections are true or not, the word is now out there and it is likely that there will be stronger regulation of Bitcoin. I see this as a clear negative outcome. To this date EU hasn't really touched cryptocurrencies and countries have been free to have their own views about it.For example in Finland Bitcoin regulation is almost non-existent which is one of the reasons why we have been able to provide easy & convenient friction free Bitcoin services. I hope it stays that way but I fear we may be heading towards much stronger compliance. That provides challenges for our business as we are all about providing services that have a very light or non-existent "onboarding" process but we are prepared for the changes and will do what we must. But our company's policy regarding AML/KYC/Fraud will now and always be such that we will only burden our customers as much as we have to, no more. This is in stark contrast to some other European Bitcoin companies which are literally kissing the bank's and governments asses and by doing so they make the lives of their customers more difficult.Strong regulation will lead to large, well funded companies having a clear advantage over small Bitcoin startups. It will make it almost impossible for a new Bitcoin startup to do anything. It will lead to banks getting the time they need to figure out how to handle the cryptocurrency phenomenon (which is likely why there is such a push to smear Bitcoin). It will make it more difficult and cumbersome and slower for people to buy & sell bitcoins in Europe. So I really, really hope the regulation remains light. However I'm not very optimistic about this at the moment, unfortunately.I don't really know much about this other than in regard to what is going on in Finland. There have been some talks here with different authorities regarding Bitcoin, almost all relevant authorities in Finland are nowadays well aware of Bitcoin and how it works. But as the policy makers go, there is a clear lack of knowledge on this topic. In fact we've been trying to figure out how to get to talk to the policy makers so that we can hopefully steer Bitcoin regulation in a saner direction.It is not enough that the different authorities know about Bitcoin, it is the policy makers that make the rules that the authorities must follow. So I think that there is a huge need to educate policy makers in Finland and in the whole EU - and as fast as possible. Because when bad regulation is already in place, it is very difficult to change that afterwards.Our new Pikaosto -service (quick buy) is something we are planning to expand abroad under an international brand. It is a super fast method of buying bitcoins and it has little or no KYC / Onboarding involved. It is only suitable for small amounts due to fraud concerns and other issues but with that service we can allow small purchases with little or no friction. We hope that we can provide that kind of service in other countries soon as well, at least for small amounts.