And vitalik.eth was just essaying on how important privacy protocols are and how Ethereum must adopt them... Let EU ban ETH then and shift closer to the caveman era and be even more laughing stock for the (expectedly) more crypto-friendly US.
EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
111–120 of 139 posts
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest". You realize that "locks keep honest people honest" is a reason to have locks, right? The point is that honest people will commit tax fraud if we make it easy for them to do.
"honest people will commit tax fraud" wouldn't that make them dishonest by definition?
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Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any example of when these powers were abused? Where I am, we have seen massive money laundering scandals, and I have yet to hear of anyone abusing it. My read is that the abuse currently comes from not applying it enough to stuff you want to make money from, not over applying it to things you disagree with.
It's a component of pervasive surveillance. But, as one of many examples, consider the many stories of someone going around with a larger than commonly carried amount of cash, such as the deposits of a business that accepts cash or the savings of someone who is underbanked, and is presumed to be up to something and that pretense is used to seize the cash with no recourse or reasonable legal proceeding or likely hope…
I've not heard of anything like that in the EU. I'd love to read the articles though.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest". You realize that "locks keep honest people honest" is a reason to have locks, right? The point is that honest people will commit tax fraud if we make it easy for them to do.
"honest people will commit tax fraud" wouldn't that make them dishonest by definition?
The entire point of the expression is that many people will do things they shouldn't do if they are given an easy opportunity. The idea is that shame is ultimately what keeps most people in line. The vast majority of people won't commit armed robbery, but a few more will pickpocket, and more still will take the cash out of a wallet they've found before turning it in.
The point of creating friction is that it's the friction that keeps most people in line. A bike lock isn't going to protect your bike from being stolen by someone who is okay with being a bike thief, but if you leave your bike out without a lock, you've just opened yourself up to having it stolen by a much, much larger portion of the population who don't see themselves as "thieves" as they commit theft.
You can just look at what's happened on SF transit. SF has (intentionally) created a system where you technically don't have to scan your card to get on the bus if you have a monthly pass or use the iphone version of payment... the result is a shitload of people who would otherwise pay for the bus if you had to scan your card, and everyone knew you were cheating the system if you don't, they just don't pay now. If you make it easy for people to be bad actors, more people will be bad actors.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#115I'm a foreigner living in the EU for many years, here's my 2 cents. For over a year, I was locked out of financial services due to my inability to pass KYC. The reason was that I had already left one country, but was still in the process of getting a residency visa in another. During the process, I'm allowed to live in this country, but I have no ability to prove it to any financial institutions. So, no wonder I'm bi…
>I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest". You realize that "locks keep honest people honest" is a reason to have locks, right? The point is that honest people will commit tax fraud if we make it easy for them to do.
Yes, you're correct. I used it in the wrong way.
I don't think KYC keeps people honest, I think it's just making the life of honest people uncomfortable.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost for a Bitcoin transaction today is $0.96. The lowest daily average cost per transaction in the last month was $0.81, and the highest was $2.52.
Which is still quite a lot. Litecoin (among other alternatives) provides the exact same service for close to zero cost and at a better speed.
It's not a lot when you consider what you get:
Globally visible transaction permanence.
When you pay the 1.5% visa transaction, you don't get that.
And you don't need that for buying a coffee, or almost anything.
Microtransactions are just not a good use-case for the Bitcoin network.
The drawback with anything beyond Bitcoin is that in order to buy those currencies, you need Bitcoin. There is an extreme correlation with the price of Bitcoin and every other cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin's current hashrate is 95 Petahashes/second, while Litecoin is 2.35 PH/s.
I suppose both are big enough that one does not have to worry about the network being easily hijacked.
But when you get below a certain point, the price for taking over the head of the chain temporarily is a real amount of money, not an astronomical one.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I doubt banning Monero or Zcash would prevent criminals from tax evasion. They'll find other ways. So, as often happens, "Locks keep honest people honest". You realize that "locks keep honest people honest" is a reason to have locks, right? The point is that honest people will commit tax fraud if we make it easy for them to do.
Yes, you're correct. I used it in the wrong way. I don't think KYC keeps people honest, I think it's just making the life of honest people uncomfortable.
The thing is you kind of need KYC because otherwise it becomes too easy to launder money. Most countries have previously had problems with organized crime. In the US, the mafia had immense control in some cities in the early to mid 1900s. They're gone, in part, because of processes like KYC.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#118US innovates CH replicates EU regulates On a side note good luck in regulating Crypto that doesn't require KYC when most people transfer to an anonymous wallet using a wallet address.
This is such a bullshit take. Repeating it ad nauseam does not make it true.
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, you're correct. I used it in the wrong way. I don't think KYC keeps people honest, I think it's just making the life of honest people uncomfortable.
The thing is you kind of need KYC because otherwise it becomes too easy to launder money. Most countries have previously had problems with organized crime. In the US, the mafia had immense control in some cities in the early to mid 1900s. They're gone, in part, because of processes like KYC.
Many countries still have problems with organized crime, and it's getting worse even though they have aggressive KYC and AML. Israel is one example I'm familiar with. So it's a bit more complicated than that.
I understand the goal of KYC/AML, and maybe in some places it's implemented correctly. But from my limited experience in the EU, it can be easy for criminals to avoid it, but it makes my life difficult for no good reason (both for privacy violation and for times when it is simply fails).
Re: EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a way Monero is more a cryptocurrency than Bitcoin. A fast, cheap, global, and private currency; in contrast to the speculative asset that is Bitcoin.
Bitcoin advocates pivoted on Bitcoin being a currency after it, to be brutally honest, failed to function as a currency. Last few times I transacted BTC, the fees were anywhere between $5 and $15 and the transaction times were more than 1hr. Not to mention the whole world can see all of your transactions. So they pivoted the marketing to it being a "store of value".
Must have been awhile ago, perhaps during the ordinal craze. Fees today are between 0-1 sats/vByte, even for immediate block inclusion.