Eobot, a cryptocurrency cloud mining company, will not serve customers in New York State as of July 1, 2015, on account of the recently finalized New York State BitLicense requirements. “If you are residing in and/or accessing Eobot within the State of New York, U.S., please withdraw all coins and cease all mining with Eobot as of July 1, 2015, as we are ceasing all Eobot mining connections from within New York at that time,” the company announced on its website.
We regret that we must cease Eobot business within New York State, however the new BitLicense requirements in this state place compliance and cost burdens upon Eobot that we believe are excessive.
Eobot another BitLicense victim
The announcement follows the closing of BTC Guild mining pool as of June 30, 2015 largely on account of the New York BitLicense. BTC Guild said the fact that BTC Guild is not in New York does not matter since it does business with New York residents. The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) can attempt to claim jurisdiction to enforce regulations, BTC Guild noted.
There has been other fallout from the BitLicense as well.
ShapeShift, the Switzerland-based cryptocurrency exchange, announced last week that it is suspending service to residents of New York State on account of the BitLicense regulation, according to crowdfundinsider. Erik Voorhees, founder and CEO of ShapeShift, said BitLicense collects an “Orwellian” amount of information on users and creates security risks. He said BitLicense regulations “re-connect” personal information to transactions that would be anonymous otherwise. Hence, he sees these regulations as creating a cybersecurity risk.
Also read: Lawsky defends New York BitLicense, supports both consumer protection and bitcoin innovation
Eobot continues to offer mining service
Eobot has received positive reviews on cloudminingreviews.com.
Eobot allows the mining of bitcoin, Litecoin, BlackCoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Dash, Reddcoin, BitShares, CureCOin, StorjcoinX, Monero, Counterparty, Stellar, ByteCoin, Peercoin, NXT, and MaidSafeCoin.
The final BitLicense rules were released at the beginning of June on the NYDFS website.
Ben Lawsky, head of the NYDFS, has said his goal for BitLicense is to establish a balance between protecting consumers and allowing software developers the ability to create bitcoin products.