EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable • Hacker News Board

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#111

Post by phatfish » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

ushakov wrote: post #105

Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of strawman is that? I didn't say I want to get rid of all forms of digital payments, I'm perfectly fine with any form of digital payment system if it is able to comply with basic due diligence required by the law. Anonymous payments stand out in that their only distinguishing advantage is that they make that impossible. I don't want to ban words and I don't want to ban money. But society very well can dema…

society and the EU are welcome to demand whatever they want! :) the ugly truth is that they have no power over the bitcoin network and their ideas will not reach consensus from miners that's why they're to attacking the middlemen instead

Bitcoin has no power in the real world. For digital transactions is has some leverage as pure data is much harder to control. Unless people are spending their Bitcoin gainz on Second Life property and not real world assets then regulation targeting the "middle men" is simply common sense.

Crypto is trivial for a functioning government to regulate, until we all live in the Matrix.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#112

Post by nly » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

I recently tried to figure out how to transfer some GBP in to a crypto asset and couldn't find a way to do so without losing 3% or more.

Direct GBP pairings didn't exist, so choices were either go through a USD denominated service or through multiple pairings, losing a high % each time and/or gas fees in uniswap etc.

None of the forex efficient services like Wise or Revolut will wire money to US crypto exchanges.

In the end I didn't bother. People really underestimate how quickly regulators can snuff out mainstream crypto.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#113

Post by nly » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:04 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #46

arthurcolle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely unenforceable.

It's perfectly enforceable by asking exchanges to do KYC. Yes, you'll be able to break the law if you turn to a hawala payment system, but I can also break the law against murder by hiring a hitman. That doesn't mean laws against murder are completely uneforceable.

Exchanges already do KYC but they don't generally ask you to explain all the crypto transactions that lead to your deposit

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#114

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

forty wrote: post #81

jsbdk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any comment that criticises the EU gets downvoted immediately here. Link to a news piece commenting the new Spanish law: https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210630/congrso-aprueba-ley-pr...

I'm not really sure your comment was criticizing anything though, just stating fact. Whether this is good or bad is a matter of opinion. Personally I'm more than happy to see cash disappear since I think it's mostly useful for laundering money and tax avoidance.

[deleted]

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#115

Post by Alternitarius » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 12:33 AM UTC

Is there really any point in maintaining the 'legality' of crypto anymore?

If we're just shuffling around entries from one centralised exchange to another, with a side order of still massive electricity and hardware waste from wherever in the world mining still occurs, what's the point of the asset class?

Why not just ban the fiat onramps entirely, and at least reduce the incidence of ransomware (since hackers won't be able to get paid as easily) and reduce hardware and electricity waste? (Since mining will decline as the price does)

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#116

Post by Barrin92 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

beiller wrote: post #107

Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of strawman is that? I didn't say I want to get rid of all forms of digital payments, I'm perfectly fine with any form of digital payment system if it is able to comply with basic due diligence required by the law. Anonymous payments stand out in that their only distinguishing advantage is that they make that impossible. I don't want to ban words and I don't want to ban money. But society very well can dema…

I'm not understanding your argument. You are against anonymous money? You realize what the alternative is? Credit cards. Ie you can only transact with visas permission, also they skim some cents off each transaction inflating all prices for all consumers. Have you heard about interest rates before? Because credit cards have the worst interest rate of any financial product. This is what centralized money gets us. The…

credit and debit cards are rate regulated in the EU to a 0.2% maximum fee and moving money between users these days is usually free completely with almost any payment service or bank account. Cryptocurrency fees are significantly more expensive, and process a fraction of the transactions.

The ability to have a monetary policy is a bonus and it's the reason centralized money is price stable. If you were paid your salary in bitcoin on May 1st this year you would've lost 50% of that at the end of the month, good luck paying your rent

In addition to the original crime and legibility discussion as a practical means of transaction crypto is volatile, expensive and slow.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#117

Post by ac29 » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

ushakov wrote: post #88

nly wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is uniswap really decentralised? I mean it has a domain you can take down

it's hosted on IPFS and the source code is on GitHub https://github.com/Uniswap

So what happens if a US government entity issues Protocol Labs a cease and desist order (they are the YC-funded, Palo Alto California based creator of IPFS)? Do they just roll over and go out of business? The network might be decentralized, but the company and people behind it are not.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#118

Post by Stevvo » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

SnowProblem wrote: post #84

lxgr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This amounts to little more than trivial obfuscation in practice. The UTXO "privacy" model of Bitcoin has never worked out, and more modern cryptocurrencies aren‘t even attempting anything like it anymore.

In practice, Bitcoin's privacy model was never even tried though. BTC fees are so prohibitively expensive that no wallet or user would generate more UTXOs or transactions than they have to, making it trivial to trace, yes. But if BTC had been allowed to scale like it was originally designed, then wallets would not fear inputting and outputting potentially hundreds of UTXOs in every transaction of varying amounts so t…

CSW is a fraud. https://github.com/vbuterin/cult-of-craig

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#119

Post by mdoms » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

beiller wrote: post #107

Barrin92 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of strawman is that? I didn't say I want to get rid of all forms of digital payments, I'm perfectly fine with any form of digital payment system if it is able to comply with basic due diligence required by the law. Anonymous payments stand out in that their only distinguishing advantage is that they make that impossible. I don't want to ban words and I don't want to ban money. But society very well can dema…

I'm not understanding your argument. You are against anonymous money? You realize what the alternative is? Credit cards. Ie you can only transact with visas permission, also they skim some cents off each transaction inflating all prices for all consumers. Have you heard about interest rates before? Because credit cards have the worst interest rate of any financial product. This is what centralized money gets us. The…

I use a debit card, I pay zero interest because I hold a positive balance at all times.

Have you looked at fees on crypto "currencies" lately?

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#120

Post by meowface » Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

SnowProblem wrote: post #84

lxgr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This amounts to little more than trivial obfuscation in practice. The UTXO "privacy" model of Bitcoin has never worked out, and more modern cryptocurrencies aren‘t even attempting anything like it anymore.

In practice, Bitcoin's privacy model was never even tried though. BTC fees are so prohibitively expensive that no wallet or user would generate more UTXOs or transactions than they have to, making it trivial to trace, yes. But if BTC had been allowed to scale like it was originally designed, then wallets would not fear inputting and outputting potentially hundreds of UTXOs in every transaction of varying amounts so t…

Even if it were technologically superior in some ways, the fact that it's made and run by a "Q"-like LARPer/fraudster figure makes it dead on arrival.