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Defending Privacy in Crypto

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#41

Post by EdwardDiego »

jim_kreggis wrote: post #15
Loic wrote: post #8

It is interesting that I have strictly no empathy for the people defending "privacy" in crypto. I have it fully for the ability to pay in cash for our every day stuff. Privacy in crypto is basically reallowing tax havens in the " digital " world where we spent years to try to curtain them in the " real " world. A good friend of us happens to be working at a high level at the EU commission. Discussing about Bitcoin/Cr…

Having to use digital currency for everything with no privacy and complete government control is going to be amazing, you're right!

Anyone who genuinely thought that cryptocurrency would be usable for completely anonymous transactions without regulation is woefully näive.

Note I used "would" not "should", the latter is ideology, the former acknowledgement of reality.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#42

Post by jim_kreggis »

can16358p wrote: post #4

Good (and TBH unexpected) move by Coinbase. If we lose the foundations of privacy at this stage, the future of crypto would be severely affected. Crypto and digital assets should be free from regulation, even if it brings side effects (e.g. laundering). The moment we centralize crypto by state, we lose the war against corrupted states and centralization. While I don't support bad actors that use crypto in any way, I…

The only way for crypto to win is to implement privacy and anonymity in a way regulators cannot prevent, such as privacy coins. Btc and Eth relying on mixers is a flaw which regulators will exploit to their advantage.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#43

Post by rabite »

Loic wrote: post #8

It is interesting that I have strictly no empathy for the people defending "privacy" in crypto. I have it fully for the ability to pay in cash for our every day stuff. Privacy in crypto is basically reallowing tax havens in the " digital " world where we spent years to try to curtain them in the " real " world. A good friend of us happens to be working at a high level at the EU commission. Discussing about Bitcoin/Cr…

> reallowing tax havens in the "digital" world where we spent years to try to curtain them in the "real" world.

Singapore and Hong Kong have all been tax havens for virtually the entire history of their existence as nations. Nevis has corporate secrecy protected as a right in its Constitution. There has been no attempt to address any of these jurisdictions. Being low empathy for crypto is being low empathy for the middle class, which thanks to RingCT and zk-Snarks has the ability to have the same level of financial privacy as megamillionaires who can afford to spend a thousand dollars or more setting up a trust in Nevis. Ten percent of all the world's wealth is run out of tax havens -- an amount that has gone up, not down, the opposite of curtains.

Common people should be allowed the same level of financial privacy as the rich -- that is to say complete and total. It is a basic human right. If governments ban crypto, we should start banning governments.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#44

Post by EdwardDiego »

ricochet11 wrote: post #20
nappy wrote: post #11

Nowhere in this blog post: any discussion of money laundering, sending funds to terrorist groups, rogue states. Without mention of any of the legitimate reasons the US government is sanctioning Tornado Cash, this is merely propaganda from a financially interested party.

We should not have our rights removed because other people who break the law might also benefit from. We cannot have a free society if every decision is "Wont somebody think of the children" or "but the terrorists". Liberty or death: it is not death of the individual but death of society. The resilience of our social structure is dependent on our freedoms. I cant say how saddening it is to have lived through the cryp…

What right is being removed? And is it protected under law in your jurisdiction?

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#45

Post by jim_kreggis »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #41
jim_kreggis wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to use digital currency for everything with no privacy and complete government control is going to be amazing, you're right!

Anyone who genuinely thought that cryptocurrency would be usable for completely anonymous transactions without regulation is woefully näive. Note I used "would" not "should", the latter is ideology, the former acknowledgement of reality.

The point is crypto has potential to be used whether regulators like it or not. Regulators will do everything they can to prevent this of course, but it at least means we have the potential to transact privately vs. not having any chance at all.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#46

Post by EdwardDiego »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #27

I don't think you can defend this kind of privacy in a court. They are not impartial. This is not really about crypto, or tornado cash. I think it's more about ownership and surveillance. The only solution is to innovate in the area of evasion. Since there is no middle ground amenable to the ones who make the laws in their own interests. We can just look at wikileaks, panama papers and so on. Money laundering and emb…

> I don't think you can defend this kind of privacy in a court. They are not impartial.

Big claim there.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#47

Post by EdwardDiego »

manholio wrote: post #39

What I would like to see is reversible and auditable privacy in crypto: to participate I need to disclose my real identity to a broker I trust that follows all KYC compliance rules in the jurisdiction it operates, and my financial identity and transactions are private until law enforcement performs an unblinding transaction that is auditable on the blockchain, (in the vein of Chaum blind signatures), yielding my brok…

No way in hell is law enforcement going to participate in your Merkle Tree to, you know, enforce laws.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#48

Post by EdwardDiego »

jim_kreggis wrote: post #45
EdwardDiego wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who genuinely thought that cryptocurrency would be usable for completely anonymous transactions without regulation is woefully näive. Note I used "would" not "should", the latter is ideology, the former acknowledgement of reality.

The point is crypto has potential to be used whether regulators like it or not. Regulators will do everything they can to prevent this of course, but it at least means we have the potential to transact privately vs. not having any chance at all.

Sure, just like you have the potential to import heroin in your GI tract.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#49

Post by anon9001 »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #27

I don't think you can defend this kind of privacy in a court. They are not impartial. This is not really about crypto, or tornado cash. I think it's more about ownership and surveillance. The only solution is to innovate in the area of evasion. Since there is no middle ground amenable to the ones who make the laws in their own interests. We can just look at wikileaks, panama papers and so on. Money laundering and emb…

I think this is exactly the kind of privacy you can defend in court.

The reason we don't have privacy is because technology has been centralized and it's easy to pressure providers to give up user's privacy.

The idea that parties have financial privacy between each other is actually the default. I can hand you physical cash. This is normal.

That's not because of some special provision that "allows" for cash to be private. That's just how it's always been done.

If you do work for me, and I hand you a gold coin, you don't have to do something special to make sure the government can track the item of value. You just mark it down on your taxes as income.

This is how things had been done until maybe the last 20 years or so, when 9/11 greatly expanded the government surveillance requirements on financial businesses.

There's a mountain of law to support private property transfer.

Re: Defending Privacy in Crypto

#50

Post by smithcoin »

pudo wrote: post #35
ricochet11 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not have our rights removed because other people who break the law might also benefit from. We cannot have a free society if every decision is "Wont somebody think of the children" or "but the terrorists". Liberty or death: it is not death of the individual but death of society. The resilience of our social structure is dependent on our freedoms. I cant say how saddening it is to have lived through the cryp…

When you say "might" - you're aware Tornado was actually used for these things to the tune of at least half a billion dollars? Basically, the case you're making is: they might have actively aided and abetted nuclear proliferation - but they're technologists, so their actions are sacrosanct and cannot be subject to the usual penalities because we've been ultra smart and managed to create an industry where free speech…

HSBC laundered $881 million for the Sinaloa cartel. How much of that ended up causing human suffering and the loss of life?

The solution must be to ban all banks and cash as they are the instruments that facilitated these transactions.

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