New York, the Nanny State, doesn’t allow residents to use Kraken. Or Coinmama. Or BitQuick.

I am reposting part of Kraken’s blog post addressed to New York City here. This is getting so frustrating. I am just trying to buy Iconomi (ICN.) After the indefinite freeze of ShapeShift’s technology on the Jaxx wallet where it concerns converting other currencies to ICN, I knew I had to find another way to trade. As always, the moment I make up my mind to buy a particular currency, that coin starts to take off. Iconomi is already up nearly 14%! Why? It’s been down for the last week, presenting numerous buying opportunities which I missed!

At least the Kraken people have a sense of humor:

“While we’re sure that the protection from New York law enforcement is valuable, it comes at a price that exceeds the market opportunity of servicing New York residents. Therefore, we have no option but to withdraw our service from the state. Clients living in New York who wish to continue enjoying our award-winning service are encouraged to escape across the border before the consumer protective walls are erected around the state line.
If the BitLicense becomes significantly nerfed at some point in the future, we may attempt a rescue. Until then, you’re on your own. Good luck.
You can write the NYDFS Superintendent here: http://www.dfs.ny.gov/insurance/nyins_super.htm
You can write the NY Governor here: https://www.governor.ny.gov/contact
WTB 1x Holy Hand Grenade

It happened before, it can happen again. Hopefully, Snake accepts bitcoin.”

Then I tried to register at Coinmama. Went through the whole process, only to find when I tried to trade that they don’t service New York. Went to BitQuick – same thing.

Then I found that Livecoin allows you to buy ICN and has no restrictions on New York. I was so thrilled that, without thinking, I signed up, transferred Bitcoin to the Livecoin wallet and got ready to trade. Then my pending deposit just sat there, pending. Then finally an hour and a half later it was fully available to trade and I went to trade and only then did I see that they won’t let you buy ICN with Bitcoin! You can only buy ICN with PoSW coin, whatever the hell that is. Hey, more trading fees for them, eh? So I bite the bullet, at this point I’m just pissed off and want to make this trade no matter how many little fees have been clipped from my balance. I place an order at the price they suggest for PoSW (which was very close to the Coinmarketcap price) and it only fills 3.15%. Really? Is there a run on PoSW right now? Did everyone and their brother suddenly decide to check out PoSW in the last five minutes and then buy up as much of it as they could, whatever-the-hell-it-is? So now I’m waiting for my precious PoSW (I could think of some very nasty words to spell out PoSW) to fill so I can buy Incomi, which is now up 17.82%! I checked again and it’s at 7.52% fill.

Maybe this is their game. Make you guy some obscure coin before you can buy the coin you want. Then when you try to buy the obscure coin they keep raising the ask as if there was a run on it, but they are in fact making the market themselves. Slowly you chase the shitcoin upwards until Livecoin is happy with its profits.

By the time it fills Iconomi could have doubled. I think I just need to slow this game way down. I’m trying too hard, and that usually doesn’t end up well.