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EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

bbc.com

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Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#261

Post by 3np »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #218
voldacar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really, really want to believe this but I don't think I can. Over the past several years there has been an unquantifiable but subjectively enormous shift in the atmosphere of the cryptocurrency world. At one point it shifted from being about paranoid hackers and techies trying to create a way of doing transactions that was free from trusted third parties to being essentially a space for grifters to shill shitcoins…

> The crypto people we have now seem to lack the deep, fundamental commitment to human freedom, privacy, and security that was the animating force behind the creation of bitcoin. It's probably because the few remaining crypto people, in the space dominated mostly by scammers, realized that crypto anarchy is something that's fun to read about in a sci-fi novel, not something you actually want to live in.

What do you base this on? I know a fair number of crypto OGs and I don't think anyone would agree with that. Sure, we're all tired of the scams and greedy schemes but this too shall pass.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#262

Post by alkonaut »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #171
d--b wrote: post #141

I’m amazed by how short sighted most of the comments here are. When it comes to large financial operations, society has clearly chosen transparency over privacy. Cause guess what, tax evasion, money laundering, political fixing, terrorism financing are things that exist and really are hurtful to our economies. Stop fantasizing that the government cares about the shit you buy. This is not about you. And Bitcoin’s anon…

Last time I checked, “society” is more than the monied class that makes up government and finance. Bizarre that I have to point this out on a site with the word hacker in its name.

What does the “monied class” have to do with anything? Are you suggesting that regular voters would opt against transparency and for privacy? I sure wouldn’t

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#263

Post by qeternity »

max_ wrote: post #228
d--b wrote: post #141

I’m amazed by how short sighted most of the comments here are. When it comes to large financial operations, society has clearly chosen transparency over privacy. Cause guess what, tax evasion, money laundering, political fixing, terrorism financing are things that exist and really are hurtful to our economies. Stop fantasizing that the government cares about the shit you buy. This is not about you. And Bitcoin’s anon…

Bitcoin's goal was to help people "get out" of the traditional financial system "not inside it". Everyone knows where the real money laundering and terrorist financing happens. It is done by the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other big banks. This is public knowledge, as we have seen with the Panama papers and most recently the FinCen files. Our financial institutions are too rotten for you to even assume that…

> Everyone knows where the real money laundering and terrorist financing happens.

> It is done by the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other big banks.

This used to be the case. And undoubtedly it still goes on. There simply weren’t many other mechanisms to launder money that didn’t involve large banks…until crypto joined the party.

Crypto’s most popular feature is speculation, and its second most popular feature is money laundering/capital control evasion. These two probably encompass well in excess of 99% of typical real world use cases.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#264

Post by atq2119 »

qeternity wrote: post #263
max_ wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's goal was to help people "get out" of the traditional financial system "not inside it". Everyone knows where the real money laundering and terrorist financing happens. It is done by the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other big banks. This is public knowledge, as we have seen with the Panama papers and most recently the FinCen files. Our financial institutions are too rotten for you to even assume that…

> Everyone knows where the real money laundering and terrorist financing happens. > It is done by the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other big banks. This used to be the case. And undoubtedly it still goes on. There simply weren’t many other mechanisms to launder money that didn’t involve large banks…until crypto joined the party. Crypto’s most popular feature is speculation, and its second most popular featur…

By user count (as opposed to volume), ransomware is almost certainly a bigger use case of Bitcoin than money laundering and friends.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#265

Post by BatteryMountain »

d--b wrote: post #141

I’m amazed by how short sighted most of the comments here are. When it comes to large financial operations, society has clearly chosen transparency over privacy. Cause guess what, tax evasion, money laundering, political fixing, terrorism financing are things that exist and really are hurtful to our economies. Stop fantasizing that the government cares about the shit you buy. This is not about you. And Bitcoin’s anon…

I want to add the other problem of offline wallets getting lost/stolen/destroyed which results in funds being permanently lost/stuck. Is there any solution to this yet?

If I die my estate can be dished out to family members via estate laws and the banks comply with it.. how does one liquidate cryptocurrencies when I die? My family will most likely not be protected in that case and the funds will be stuck forever.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#266

Post by atq2119 »

bigyikes wrote: post #172
d--b wrote: post #141

I’m amazed by how short sighted most of the comments here are. When it comes to large financial operations, society has clearly chosen transparency over privacy. Cause guess what, tax evasion, money laundering, political fixing, terrorism financing are things that exist and really are hurtful to our economies. Stop fantasizing that the government cares about the shit you buy. This is not about you. And Bitcoin’s anon…

> Stop fantasizing that the government cares about the shit you buy. This is not about you. It’s never about you, until it is. You should assume the government will do the maximum amount of evil given the power they are granted. This is the classic anti-privacy argument: this isn’t about you, you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, etc. Sure, there’s a pretty good chance that a random person, e.g.…

> It’s never about you, until it is. You should assume the government will do the maximum amount of evil given the power they are granted.

Add to that: don't only think about what the current government will use those powers for, think about what future governments will use them for. If you're not okay with those powers existing when the party you don't like is in power, you should also be advocating against those powers when your own preferred party is in power. (That is, of course, unless you're a fascist and counting on your preferred party to perform a full 1933 Weimar Germany-style takeover that abolishes democracy.)

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#267

Post by alkonaut »

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

Of course they will attack the problem at the weakest point. No one cares about the Bitcoin network itself. I care about my authorities being able to trace large financial transactions at the minimum impact to privacy. If given the terrible choice between no privacy and no transparency for any transactions - I’d vote for no privacy.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#268

Post by betwixthewires »

stavros wrote: post #67
ushakov wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DeFi was built with censorship resistance in mind EU can come up with new laws all day every day, but considering the technical detail, these laws will be impossible to enforce

The laws will be trivial to enforce. Expect to be unable to exchange cryptocurrency (that you own in your wallet) to fiat, which will almost kill the cryptocurrency market for anything other than speculation. I expect a parallel, dark economy will still be around, where people transact with cryptocurrency and can only exchange it for cash.

It will kill the speculative market. Their native use cases in their own systems will still be 100% viable. If someone uses for example bitcoin cash or miner as money as they're intended nobody can do a thing about it. For those people uninterested in off ramps this means little.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#269

Post by sokoloff »

arcticbull wrote: post #248
bigyikes wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I see this as a price worth paying for privacy.

Well that, crime, money laundering, terrorist financing and evasion of international sanctions allowing hermit kingdoms to finance nuclear warheads. But half dozen of one, I guess.

So if I give up just this little bit of privacy, all of those concerns melt away to nothingness?

Or is it more likely that I give that away and nothing else really improves?

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#270

Post by qeternity »

atq2119 wrote: post #264
qeternity wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone knows where the real money laundering and terrorist financing happens. > It is done by the likes of HSBC, Standard Chartered and other big banks. This used to be the case. And undoubtedly it still goes on. There simply weren’t many other mechanisms to launder money that didn’t involve large banks…until crypto joined the party. Crypto’s most popular feature is speculation, and its second most popular featur…

By user count (as opposed to volume), ransomware is almost certainly a bigger use case of Bitcoin than money laundering and friends.

Hackers user crypto for ransomware because they can easily launder the ransom payments.

It's the same side of the coin.

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