How to Protect Your Bitcoin Business from Regulators

Mike Gropp is the co-founder of the BitBays Bitcoin exchange and is in charge of the company’s compliance to the ever-changing landscape of cryptocurrency law.
After working in the financial sector in California, Mike moved to Beijing in 2010 where he launched his own corporate training company focusing on sales, professional speaking, and negotiations. While expanding his business, Mike taught undergraduate business courses at Beijing University of Chemical Technology in the prestigious IBC (International Business Curriculum) Program.
Mike is also an associate member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, which is the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education.
‘Different companies have different legal strategies,’ said Mike to CoinTelegraph via email. ‘Right now there are a lot of companies in the gray or so they think. They will send letters asking for clarification of their status whilst operating as an illegal money transmitter […] also, asking for a ruling while operating illegally doesn’t cover one legally.’
We would like to thanks Mike for timely sharing his advice regarding regulatory compliance in light of the US regulators’ moves earlier this week when FinCEN and the SEC issued a pair of guidance documents and allegedlysent out secret requests to several Bitcoin companies, respectively.
CoinTelegraph: What is you background as far as regulatory compliance is concerned?
Mike Gropp: I’m apart of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Fraud Examiners investigate financial fraud from petty cash skimming and larceny up to financial statement fraud where liabilities are understated or revenues are overstated in the millions (like the Enron and WorldCom scandals.) I’m also a Co-Founder of BitBays.com, a Bitcoin exchange, and I’m handling our compliance and risk programs.

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2014-10-30.