It gets better: while criminal charges for illegal banking practices are part of United States Code (title 18 covers crimes), the banking REGULATIONS that one must adhere to are codified at the State level. This means you must apply for 50 or so different licenses in order to legally do business as a Money Transfer Agent and Money Services Busimess in the United States. Although it seems overly burdensome and deliberately conceived to hinder practicing this line of business, the truth is that it creates an environment where consumers of the products and services offered by these businesses are better protected from fraud, as well as fostering an ecosystem of diverse business practices which leads to an advanced rate of innovation. It's a strange system, but it works very well. The downside is that it takes about $30M in cash to start one of these businesses just to fulfill regulatory requirements vis-à-vis the licensing, deposit, and audit requirements.
You can cover >25% of the US population in just the top 3 states (CA, TX, NY).
The system isn't that strange, almost every business in the US is primarily regulated by the states. What's strange is that most Americans don't realize this.
what even more strange is that whole world should follow quirky us system rules. put usa citizens in jail for not following usa rules, not foreign companies.
You don't have to follow USA rules unless you do business within USA.
The key point is that doing fully digital business online (as opposed to selling physical goods online to people within your country) doesn't mean that no jurisdiction applies, it means that all of them do - if you do international trade with USA, then you have to be mindful of USA laws.
When I (located in USA) buy physical product from other country - it is my responsibility to import it properly. But somehow digital services put burden for following USA countries on foreign entities.
