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EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

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351–360 of 402 posts

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware that full ledger visibility is a fundamental part of Bitcoin. I'm actually more concerned that the governments and central banks of the world will push for near total traceability with their own currencies. Whether that comes in the form of "GovCoins" or reporting requirements, I do not know. But I think it is practically inevitable.

Why does everyone talk about regulators as if they rule over us rather than answer to us?

Federal Agencies are supposed to be accountable to the people, nothing of consequence ever seems to happen to these bureaucracies when they break the rules or mismanage their operations. Agencies like the VA, IRS, and EPA are notoriously inefficient and have poor service.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#352
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think freely flowing capital is going to be good for everyone. The US and 'west' is already financially liberal, so we can make an observation: it is NOT good for everyone. Capital flows freely, but it flows upwards. Trickle-down economics is proven false. Advocating for more liberal finances also means being okay with leaving people behind and in the shit; the unemployed, the homeless, the working poor, the huge…

I don't buy the theory that someone else being well off makes me badly off. I also don't buy the theory that someone else being badly off should make me feel bad. Capital controls aren't going to help the unemployed, the homeless, the working poor, the huge percentage of people who constantly live one paycheck or one medical issue away from bankruptcy. Capital controls will make those problems worse; forcing people t…

Some form of capital control is necessary for taxation. Without efficient taxation all of the people you mention are going to be extra fucked.

There are capital controls and then there are capital controls - but preventing you from moving all of your money out of the country to avoid taxes is still a control on capital.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#353
post #333
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…

The problem is, if you build a new financial system which facilitates criminal activity such as scams, fraud, extortion, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, etc., it very quickly gets dominated by the types of people who want to perform such activity, or end up performing such activity ("opportunity makes a thief"). So the options are either to become more and more attractive to criminals and help bui…

I'm sure you have a source that shows that Bitcoin/crypto in general is dominated by things like money laundering and terrorist financing, right?

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the moment you hold valuable assets (i.e. any value of crypto currency) in any wallet, then you should report that (even now). I have no idea how these new rules will play out, but I can image how exchanges might be forced allow only transactions with "sanctioned" wallets (i.e. traceable to person), and international exchanges not playing complying being blocked from to the EU market.

> I believe that the moment you hold valuable assets (i.e. any value of crypto currency) in any wallet, then you should report that (even now). First I hear of that. In Germany, you have to report gains you got from trading/selling (both crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto), but not simply buying any. Do you have a source?

In The Netherlands you have to report the total value (in euros) on the reference date because we have capital tax instead of capital gains tax. I don’t believe that you have to specify your wallet address(es).

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#355
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody wanted any more Tethers Can you provide a source on that? I certainly don’t want any Tethers but I know plenty of people that do.

The market is the source. Just look at the market cap chart here, you can see that it's been flat for the past few weeks (after a long period of exponential growth): https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/

Tether market cap tends to grow during bull runs, and crypto's been pretty flat. I'm skeptical of this argument given that Tether is still trading 1:1 with dollars, and at an extremely high volume..

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're already not allowed to move undeclared cash across borders, not sure why you can't have a rule that you can't have undeclared crypto wallets. That does not ban cryptography, that just forces people to declare their wallets.

Yea I think that's what they are proposing. If your in the EU and move crypto around then you have to register your wallet with you PII with some EU authority?

How is this remotely enforceable?

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have mentioned the EU is mulling an EU wide “ban” of transactions above €10,000. However most member states already have that in place including far lower limits. In Greece all cash transactions above €500 have to go through an AML due diligence process which includes a full KYC for both the buyer, seller and any beneficiaries of the transaction. Basically it’s too much of a hassle to do so businesses simpl…

>In Greece all cash transactions above €500 have to go through an AML due diligence process which includes a full KYC for both the buyer, seller and any beneficiaries of the transaction. And this applies to trivial things as well, such selling a used bike or laptop to someone?

Yes all products and services.

Whether people actually follow it I don’t know, but if they don’t they are at risk of a felony.

Businesses do follow it.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#358
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In parts of the EU, maybe. That's definitely not the case in the US. Do you generally have to report accounts for which there have been no taxable events?

You don't have capital tax? Here in The Netherlands we pay a tax over assets exceeding some value. If you have a million, whether it's sitting a bank, or it's stuffed in your mattress, you have to report it and pay (a small amount of) tax on it. Afaik we also don't have taxable events, we just have income tax.

No there is no wealth tax, just capital gains. No tax until you sell.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#359
post #353
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, if you build a new financial system which facilitates criminal activity such as scams, fraud, extortion, money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing, etc., it very quickly gets dominated by the types of people who want to perform such activity, or end up performing such activity ("opportunity makes a thief"). So the options are either to become more and more attractive to criminals and help bui…

I'm sure you have a source that shows that Bitcoin/crypto in general is dominated by things like money laundering and terrorist financing, right?

There's always that one person that questions that claim. Just look around. What goods and services can you actually get in exchange for most crypto? Very little. What is the most common thing ransomware and cybercriminals demand as payment? Crypto.

It's not like it's dominated by it - what makes us the largest part of crypto usage is speculative investors and bots. But as for the rest, it's clearly not normal people buying burgers, that's for sure.

Re: EU plans to make Bitcoin transfers more traceable

#360
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think freely flowing capital is going to be good for everyone. The US and 'west' is already financially liberal, so we can make an observation: it is NOT good for everyone. Capital flows freely, but it flows upwards. Trickle-down economics is proven false. Advocating for more liberal finances also means being okay with leaving people behind and in the shit; the unemployed, the homeless, the working poor, the huge…

I don't buy the theory that someone else being well off makes me badly off. I also don't buy the theory that someone else being badly off should make me feel bad. Capital controls aren't going to help the unemployed, the homeless, the working poor, the huge percentage of people who constantly live one paycheck or one medical issue away from bankruptcy. Capital controls will make those problems worse; forcing people t…

> I don't buy the theory that someone else being well off makes me badly off

You mean the theory of...mathematics? More money in one place necessarily means less money in another.

If I sell a product for 100€ but only pay my worker 20€ to make it, I'm becoming rich. If my worker wants to buy that product, it costs them 5x their salary, but only costs me 1.4x. If all my CEO friends do the same for their products, the workers are becoming poor because of us becoming rich.

Now let's stop trying to be rich. Let's lower the margins and sell the product for 40€. Now it's 2x my salary (marginally worse for me), but also only 2x my worker's salary (much better for them). Let's say all of us CEOs do that. By not being rich, we've allowed our workers to be less poor.

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