Jason M. Gordon, Jennifer E. Chapman, Benjamin W. Akins
Bitcoin is rapidly increasing in use throughout the world. Instrumental to the Bitcoin system, the process for introducing new bitcoin into the system is known as “mining.” Mining involves the use of powerful computer systems and complex, computational algorithms to verify or validate prior bitcoin transactions. The reward for successfully undertaking this process is the creation and award of new bitcoin to the miner. Bitcoin mining has become a tedious and difficult process. The race to verify transactions, and thereby earn bitcoin, necessitates more sophisticated processes for verification and greater computational power. Many bitcoin miners band together in groups called “pools” to create a powerful mining platform. Some miners invest time and effort to build or maintain a suitable computer system, while others passively provide money or other resources toward the creation of the mining system. Many such mining pools have grown to allow individuals to collectively contribute effort to the transaction verification process in exchange for an interest in the proceeds from the mining activity. The bitcoin mining pool has largely escaped regulation. This paper argues that the mining pool should be regulated under the existing federal securities regulation regime.
in english The purpose of this theses is to analyse the Bitcoin electronic peer-to-peer payment system, from the view of the legal, regulatory and also purely practical issues surrounding its use as a modern means of payment processing. The reason for choosing this topic is that I find the subject to be very interesting and possibly promising for the future of payments. Also, as the use of Bitcoin payment system spreads across the global population, we can see many of legal questions arising: Is the use of Bitcoin network legal? How is it regulated under existing legal system? Can it be subsumed under any existing legal categories? What are the risks of its misuse for criminal activities? Should new legal rules be enacted to regulate its use, and if so, what should these rules be like? My goal in this paper is to find these relevant questions, elaborate on them and provide as many answers as will be possible. We have to bear in mind the fact, that the technology, underlying the Bitcoin payment systém is very new and many ways path-breaking. As usual, the legal theory lags behing technology here, so many questions still have to be settled before we can give any straight answers. The work is divided into seven chapters, each dealing with different legal or practical aspects connected to the Bitcoin...