Bankruptcy and Bitcoins

Hello, this is Jeff Kelly! and today, I want to talk to you about bankruptcy, and bitcoins. Now some of you may be saying: "What in the world, is a Bitcoin?".

A Bitcoin is a virtual currency, recorded somewhere in the cloud, somehow you can store them on your computer. They actually make physical coins that you can store the code onto. So you may say yourself: "Why would anybody care about using a Bitcoin?", Well, the reason is when you make a transaction, there's no middle man, there's nobody charging a commission for the exchange. For example, like when you buy stuff, with Visa or MasterCard.

Visa MasterCard they get paid a percentage of every transaction that takes place, it's not a large percentage, typically, somewhere around, two, three, percent and the merchant has to pay that. So that's why a lot of times you'll see merchants say; they'll give you a discount, for cash. But with bitcoins; it eliminates the middleman, it, you know, also, if somebody from another country wants to buy something there, they typically are going to have to pay a fee, for exchanging their local currency for american dollars. Well with bitcoins that's eliminated, it's just trade, for trade.

Now, you may say to yourself: "Why in the world am I talking about bankruptcy and bitcoins?". Well, here's why; I think that not only will bitcoins change, in a lot of ways international business, because I do think as more people gain confidence in the currency, I think more people will try to use it because they can save a lot of money on a large scale. But as far as the bankruptcy world goes, and I really hate this, but I know that you know, with human nature of the way it is, eventually somebody, someday, some dum-dum, is going to try to hide assets in bitcoins, assuming that they are; they're going to assume, that there are a hundred percent untraceable, and I don't know how they're going to do it, but, somehow the federal government will find out, and they will trace that person. That person will end up going to jail, and, I am worried that, it will create an alarm in the system, and somehow, they're going to come up, with a way to make it tougher for the honest people that really, do need relief and really do need to file bankruptcy.

This has happened before, for example in the '90s, you could wipe out student loan debt in bankruptcy, and personally, I think that's the way that it should be. What happened was, there were a few, small number of cases, where these doctors went to medical school, ran up a ton of student loans, successfully wiped them out into bankruptcy, and all of a sudden, you know, a few years later, you can't discharge any student loans in bankruptcy.

So, by the way, I think that's a really good issue, to run on for Congress, so I'm hoping that somebody out there, or someday, will pick up on that, because, you're going to get a lot of votes if you run on that issue, because there are thousands, upon thousands of college graduates, all across this nation who are, basically, economic slaves, because they have such a high burden of debt hanging over them, that they'll never going to be able to pay off until these laws change, but back to bitcoins.

You know if any client ever comes in, and meet with me, and says: "Hey Jeff, I want to talk to you about hiding assets to file bankruptcy". By the way, that's never happened to me before in 16 years, but if it did, I would say: "You got to leave my office as quickly as possible", because I don't want anything to do with that. Most bankruptcy attorneys, don't want anything to do with that, and you know, there's no case, there's no amount of money, nothing, is worth, risking jail over, and a lot of people don't realize this, but if you screw up your bankruptcy petition, you don't list all your assets, they can put you in jail.

Now, you know if you're honest and upfront, you list everything that you own, you know, list all your income, list all your assets, you're not going to have any problems. I've been practicing for more than 16 years now, and I've never seen anybody get prosecuted for bankruptcy fraud, and I think the reason is, I've got really good clients, everybody tells the truth, they lay it out and bankrupcy is actually a, it's a very good system, you know, trustees are looking at real paycheck, stubs they're looking at tax returns, they look at land records so, it the way it is right now, it's pretty easy for them to get a good feel, for a person's economic situation.

I'm nervous about the whole Bitcoin thing, because, I'm afraid people may be tempted to try to stash a little away in the Bitcoins, and hope they can get away with it, but it's not worth it, I assure you it's not worth it, I have done a jail ministry, and let me tell you what jail is, an awful, awful place, there's no amount of money worth losing your freedom over.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the bankruptcy in Bitcoins, and I hope that the future will prove me wrong and that nobody's going to be dumb enough to try to mess around with that, and file bankruptcy.

Have a great day, thank you!.