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EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

euronews.com

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Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#111

Post by imtringued »

acdha wrote: post #37
mech422 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is generally considered a 'store of value' rather then a day to day 'currency'... Sorta like a savings bond vs a credit card And a few years back, before the transaction fees got so high - there were a few places that took it. NewEgg comes to mind.

More accurately, after years of failing to be viable as a currency the salespeople started claiming the goal had never been replacing cash and instead was some sort of poorly defined “store of value” instead of what they’d spent the previous decade spinning stories about. Since a real reserve currency is stable and backed by consistent demand, it’s unclear why anyone expects a pure fiat currency backed only by a smal…

The speculators want to make money and they don't care how they get that money so they imagine something stupid like a major country adopting it as a reserve currency.

Using El Salvador as an example would be funny because they use Bitcoin as a life raft for remittances, not because the currency is a good fit for day to day transactions.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#112

Post by ajay-b »

Does this not defeat the whole purpose of cryptocurrency? The fact that a government can control its transparency, anonymity, the “currency” is now just a digital object, like any other in a bartering system. I don’t like that a government can trace and identify payment. Perhaps that is nihilistic but it speaks for me to the heart of freedom.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#113

Post by kobalsky »

burnished wrote: post #84
kobalsky wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but who uses bitcoin for something different than transfering illegal funds and speculation? A lot of people. You just have to NOT live in a country that uses a currency that could be considered a global reserve to find us.

could you elaborate? I'm ignorant. From my perspective it seems like the value of bitcoin changes too much, having risen sharply in value recently, to spend as currency, but I'm also assuming that there are other more stable options. What kind of things do you buy, and how often? What sort of things do you do considering that the value might sky-rocket or dive overnight?

To add to what xtracto said, I live in Argentina and our currency has an annual inflation rate of 50% (it's actually higher, but I'll stick to official numbers).

Banks here have a bad history of keeping your foreign currency deposits when things go south and then converting your balance at a government mandated exchange rate, which was a fraction of the real value (think 1/10 of the real value).

Now, the government can always make cryptos illegal, but news like OP show that globally we moving towards regulation instead of prohibition, so for now cryptos are were we can still take refuge.

So here you can either keep your savings in a currency that evaporates, buy real state at insanely high price because that's where big money is stored, illegaly purchase foreign currency and physically hide it somewhere like a criminal, our you can legally purchase crypto and keep it safe outside the reaches of our governments and banks.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#114

Post by russdpale »

ajay-b wrote: post #112

Does this not defeat the whole purpose of cryptocurrency? The fact that a government can control its transparency, anonymity, the “currency” is now just a digital object, like any other in a bartering system. I don’t like that a government can trace and identify payment. Perhaps that is nihilistic but it speaks for me to the heart of freedom.

The entire point is accountability, that seems to be what many people have forgotten. Also, you still have to use the state to enforce property disputes, so cryptocurrency will never buck the traditional system, it simply cant.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#115

Post by nyanpasu64 »

pavlov wrote: post #25
nyanpasu64 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what happens when you transfer it to a mixer? A self-hosted wallet? Or the EU regulate exchanges to the point you can't transfer your Bitcoin to a wallet you own?

> “Or the EU regulate exchanges to the point you can't transfer your Bitcoin to a wallet you own?” Why not? The EU regulates banks to the point that you can’t transfer money to an account in North Korea. It’s not obvious why Bitcoin exchanges should be regulated differently (as you can’t prove the random Bitcoin address isn’t controlled by NK).

Not allowing individuals autonomy over how they choose to spend their own money sounds authoritarian.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#116

Post by snarf21 »

anm89 wrote: post #30

The EU isn't doing anything to bitcoin. They have no ability to regulate bitcoin. They can make it traceable when it is held on kycd exchanges In their jurisdiction. That is a big difference

Serious question: Couldn't they ban ISPs from connecting to known networks? A public blockchain must remain public and they can largely prevent that. They could (not saying they will) ban VPN connections to other countries.

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#117

Post by CarelessExpert »

Animats wrote: post #51

The crypto world is running out of safe havens. China cracked down, and cut the power to large Bitcoin farms. In the US, the SEC and CFTC have been tightening up on crypto-related things that look like securities and things that look like exchanges. Israel kicked out the binary option crowd, which overlapped with the crypto crowd; they seem to have moved to Bulgaria. Now the EU. The bigger countries are in general ti…

> The crypto world is running out of safe havens.

So just to be clear, your definition of "safe haven" is, what, total lawlessness with no governmental oversight?

Frankly, these moves make me think people are taking crypto seriously now, as we're finally treating it like real money or the banking sector and regulating it accordingly. If anything, it seems to me that should be a sign of success, not failure.

(and I should point out I own no crypto and I think blockchains are the biggest technical snake oil grift I've seen in the history of computing)

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#118

Post by dannyobrien »

qnsi wrote: post #7

I understand anti-EU sentiment, but who uses bitcoin for something different than transfering illegal funds and speculation? I understand Ethereum and other smart contract cryptocurcies, but time when people believed Bitcoin is going to become currency are long gone

a couple of stories from Palestine and Cuba (I'd say both of these classes fall mostly under the category of where remittances and other cashflows deliberately exclude some communities)

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/can-bitcoin-bring-palest...

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/cubas-bitcoin-revolution

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#119

Post by elric »

anm89 wrote: post #30

The EU isn't doing anything to bitcoin. They have no ability to regulate bitcoin. They can make it traceable when it is held on kycd exchanges In their jurisdiction. That is a big difference

They don't need the ability to regulate bitcoin. They can just treat illegal exchanges as money launderers (or terrorism funders, or whatever else the go-to argument is today) and slap them with hefty fines. Anyone using these exchanges is committing a crime and can be treated accordingly.

Anyone caught with large amounts of crypto can be treated as a criminal, the same way people who have large amounts of cash on them are treated. It's obviously harder to spot someone walking around with a hoard of crypto coins, no black briefcase required.

This is just another tool in an already very expansive toolbox. All in the name of "security".

Re: EU to make Bitcoin traceable, ban anonymous crypto wallets

#120

Post by CarelessExpert »

nenadg wrote: post #34

Pure wapor. How will they ban anonymous wallets?

Unless you only ever transact in crypto, at some point you need an on-ramp or off-ramp from/to the traditional banking system, and at that point regulation is pretty straight forward. My read of it is that they're going to ban anonymous accounts on platforms that provide those services.
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