[miscellaneous]

Noun, 1. money laundering: Concealing the source of illegally gotten money.

Do you have any evidence that suggests that all users of mixers obtained their Bitcoin illegally?

This HN post is a criticism of the privacy of Bitcoin transactions. Mixers can improve the privacy of Bitcoin transactions. I don't see how your comment adds to this discussion, unless you think financial privacy is a crime - in which case your statement applies equally to cash transactions.

[gnaritas]

> Do you have any evidence that suggests that all users of mixers obtained their Bitcoin illegally?

And why would I require that? I haven't accused all bitcoin users of anything.

> This HN post is a criticism of the privacy of Bitcoin transactions. Mixers can improve the privacy of Bitcoin transactions. I don't see how your comment adds to this discussion, unless you think financial privacy is a crime - in which case your statement applies equally to cash transactions.

The law thinks financial privacy is a crime, thus KYC laws, and as such it's on topic for any discussion of bitcoin privacy since said discussion should include the issue that you fix social problems with engineering. You can't break the law "because the protocol just works that way".

[Karunamon]

You accused them of money laundering, which is a crime by itself most first world nations. Except that phrase doesn't apply unless another crime has been committed, because it only applies to funds gotten illegally.

Make more sense?

[gnaritas]

Anonymous financial transactions are themselves crimes, they violate KYC laws.

[j15t]

KYC = Know Your Customer

As the name implies, this law only applies to (financial) businesses and their customers. Most Bitcoin transactions are P2P and hence there is no business/customer relationship and hence there is no KYC law applicable.

[gnaritas]

> Most Bitcoin transactions are P2P and hence there is no business/customer relationship and hence there is no KYC law applicable.

That's a bit of a nonsense statement. It's a P2P payment network so you have no way of knowing if most of the transactions going across it are between businesses and customers or person to person. Quite simply that's a claim you can't back up.

[Karunamon]

What KYC laws? If I'm running some random business selling widgets, I'm under no obligation to do any such thing.

[gnaritas]

KYC laws apply to financial businesses, like those whose sole servers is the transfer of money, i.e. bitcoins. Exchanges for example must comply with KYC laws. Money laundering, aka mixing, is itself a purely financial service. There are no mixing services that are on steady legal ground; they are proving a service that expressly allows one to launder money as such they will always be a target for authorities.

[Kiro]

Doesn't financial privacy mean tax evasion by default?

[j15t]

If you think it does, then I assume you also want to ban cash?

By the way, that is a valid opinion to have - it's just that not everyone agrees that it optimal in the long run for all personal information to be auditable by a government in real time.

[Kiro]

Well, I live in a country where cash is very uncommon. I can't even remember the last time I saw cash in real life so banning it wouldn't make much difference for me personally.