It's not about crime or laundering. It's all about making sure normal people are paying taxes. The government is a joke.
EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
41–50 of 132 posts
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Throughout all of human history people used private forms of money like cash. Why is it that suddenly only now it is a disaster to have financial privacy because of "crime"?
The idea of fiat currency only works when people are forced to participate in it. The petro-dollar was fairly obvious in the late 20th century, but now things are more subtle. The key thing is ensuring that all exchanges of wealth only occur within a currency controlled by the authorities. They are not really concerned about minor instances of tax avoidance; the primary concern is that large scale economic activity c…
I'm way behind on my news and weak on understanding. I thought I had read that the total number of bitcoin has an upper bound. How can you have interest when there's an upper bound?
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea of fiat currency only works when people are forced to participate in it. The petro-dollar was fairly obvious in the late 20th century, but now things are more subtle. The key thing is ensuring that all exchanges of wealth only occur within a currency controlled by the authorities. They are not really concerned about minor instances of tax avoidance; the primary concern is that large scale economic activity c…
I'm way behind on my news and weak on understanding. I thought I had read that the total number of bitcoin has an upper bound. How can you have interest when there's an upper bound?
One can determine their own rate of interest.
I mean, I could lend you 500 sheep and request 500 sheep + 10% per annum for each year you hold my flock. If you held for 1 year, it would be 550 owed. 2 years, 605. 3 years, 665.
With sheep, you might approach this by breeding them with the aim to produce more sheep than are owed, or selling the wool to buy more sheep or whatever.
However, we could also do this with a scarce and inorganic resource such as palladium ingots. In this case there can still be interest but you would have to exchange other resources in order to acquire more palladium to pay back the loan. It is still functional provided the market for palladium has good liquidity.
EDIT: for more clarity, you could borrow bitcoin with a bitcoin-interest component in order to acquire an asset. Then if you could get paid a salary in bitcoin as well, you would be able to pay the loan back.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#44The way I usually phrase this situation is something like "The goals of a strong government are in direct opposition to the goals of most modern cryptocurrencies", and this is yet another subset of those goals where we can see the forces fighting against each other. I find it hard to convince myself cryptocurrency can win out in the long-term, as the more rules they find ways to skirt around via technology and decent…
With cryptocurrency you can travel across a border with a million $ worth, by just keeping a 12-word recovery phrase on you. Cryptocurrencies can never be stopped, and will more likely outlive governments than vice versa. Long live tax evasion! Vive la liberté!
Sorry to burst the tax evasion bubble, but it is pretty easy to stop cryptocurrencies. Just require KYC at points of entry and exit into the ecosystem.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#45The main real-world uses for bitcoin are (1) evasion of currency controls and (2) facilitation of extortion and fraud. That's all illegal, btw. The surprise is FinCEN didn't act until now to align its surveillance of bitcoin with the rest of the financial world. I also would speculate that the short action timeline and comment period have a typically cynical purpose to deploy one of a grab-bag of regulatory actions at precisely the moment the price of bitcoin has again caused a stir.
Bitcoin isn't worth fighting for here, sorry EFF, but it is a useful canary warning about the current state of low financial freedom and privacy (by historical standards) and surprising degrees of unofficial suppression of viable alt-moneys. I would be happily surprised if the FinCEN reg forced unlawful use cases out of the bitcoin ecosystem leaving a vibrant, healthy marketplace....
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
With cryptocurrency you can travel across a border with a million $ worth, by just keeping a 12-word recovery phrase on you. Cryptocurrencies can never be stopped, and will more likely outlive governments than vice versa. Long live tax evasion! Vive la liberté!
Sorry to burst the tax evasion bubble, but it is pretty easy to stop cryptocurrencies. Just require KYC at points of entry and exit into the ecosystem.
This would still leave cryptocurrencies as a valid currency for the criminal underworld, and the points of entry/exit will become stolen/illegal goods/services.
Not taking either side, just pointing out this fact.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to burst the tax evasion bubble, but it is pretty easy to stop cryptocurrencies. Just require KYC at points of entry and exit into the ecosystem.
This would still leave cryptocurrencies as a valid currency for the criminal underworld, and the points of entry/exit will become stolen/illegal goods/services. Not taking either side, just pointing out this fact.
It's only valid for the criminal underworld if eventually there is a way to convert back to a legitimate currency and launder it efficiently.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#48The way I see it: Governments have already lost the battle with decentralized tech stacks - the ship has sailed. They can propose and push just about any regulation. They can start whitelisting/kyc Bitcoin wallets, trace transactions and whatnot, but almost all valuable protocols for p2p transacting are open sourced and we can always run a new blockchain network under the radar. The ability to own a locally generated key pair in such a network and, under the assumption that one already owns some assets tied to that specific network, one can freely transact and interact with other parties safely - is something that can never be regulated. While I'm transacting within boundaries of such a p2p network (i.e. not exiting to fiat) I should be safe. Needless to say that I'm expecting even more of the blockchain development going in these directions to make network resistant to government's regulatory attacks.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard limits to cash transactions exist in most countries around the world. For example, in France, as a business, you can't accept payment in cash above 1000€. Between consumers, you need to produce an invoice. I personally deeply disagree with the EFF regarding FinCEN. From my point of view, the obligation imposed by the regulation strikes a good balance between protecting private life and fighting tax dodging and m…
So if all >1000€ transactions need to be reported, that means that they need to be recorded in an electronic system. That data is recorded for the purpose of sharing with various institutions and agencies, and you do not know who will see that data or how long it will be shared for. There is basically no privacy for transactions above 1000€. Worse, that data can be hacked and leaked to the internet. Eg. Criminals wil…
> you do not know who will see that data or how long it will be shared for.
Of course I know, these things are regulated separately. Sure, my bank could share it illegally but they could already have done that even without mandatory recording.
> Worse, that data can be hacked and leaked to the internet.
As could my fiscal declaration, my bank statement or all records of my transactions with any sellers.
I personally am fine with my state mandating that large transactions between individuals have to be recorded for fiscal purpose in the same way that I'm fine with it imposing accounting standards to corporations and asking people to fill tax declarations.
Re: EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing for More Financial Surveillance
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would still leave cryptocurrencies as a valid currency for the criminal underworld, and the points of entry/exit will become stolen/illegal goods/services. Not taking either side, just pointing out this fact.
It's only valid for the criminal underworld if eventually there is a way to convert back to a legitimate currency and launder it efficiently.
Stolen goods seem like an efficient enough way, and I can't see theft going away even if you eliminate the "elephant in the room" which is drugs (by either decriminalizing them or hypothetically winning the war on drugs)?