The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) — also known as the DFS and NYSDFS — is a department of the New York State government that regulates financial services and products in such fields as insurance, banking and financial services. The NYDFS’s BitLicense is a business license for virtual currency activities, which is required for operating in New York. For the effective usage of an NYDFS’s Bitcoin license, New York state has come up with a definition of virtual currency (VC) business activity that covers five main points, such as transmission of VC, maintaining custody of VC on behalf of others, buying and selling VC as a customer business, performing exchange services and issuing, controlling and administering VC. There are currently nine NYDFS BitLicensed companies, some of them being Ripple, Coinbase and Square, Inc. Implementation of BitLicense by the NYDFS has forced many startups to stop working in New York.