[hn_throwaway_99]

I don't necessarily disagree with you that the specifics of this case may not be exactly applicable to Monero. However, I think people are being woefully naive if they think that the US Government will be OK with people sending large sums of money anonymously. Whether it be through finding existing laws that can be applied, or just flat out changing the law to explicitly ban these types of transactions, I can guarantee that when people think they have found a technical loophole the law usually comes down on the side of "does what you're doing constitute behavior that the original legislation was meant to prohibit". Just look at what happened with Aereo [1], I think the same thing will (at least eventually) happen with cryptocurrencies where the ledger isn't fully traceable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

[rjzzleep]

There has been so much legislation going on in the past couple of years to make sure a lot of financial reporting happens to the US, to an extent that some chinese instutions flat out refused taking payments from US based payment providers simply to avoid that reporting burden.

We would be kidding ourselves if we denied the geopolitical implications of that reporting burden. For Taiwan for example every single international transaction is proxied through a US bank.

I believe the geopolitics behind it is to ensure that the US is able to enforce their international sanctions. Anything bypassing that definitely a thorn in their eyes.

However we shouldn't forget that there are those that would like to reduce the reliance on those systems. So while US banks may cut off access other countries may not.

EDIT: yes, the US is not the only country doing that. Iran for example while bartering with China also completely banned cryptocurrencies for the longest time. Then finally allowed blockchain applications but only if they are used for non payment purposes.

[chris_wot]

Indeed, it wouldn’t take much for them to legislate to make the whole ring signature mechanism illegal.

[kenniskrag]

Or you just can't exchange crypto currencies against dollars because the finance industry is already regulated and has to follow the rules.

[bdcravens]

All really has to happen is to make ACH transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges illegal. Banks will very happily comply with blocking those transactions.

[krageon]

You could just buy and sell them for cash, you don't need banks for that

[kenniskrag]

Depends on the country but if you exchange money you have to comply with regulatory rules.

[krageon]

Rules are only interesting when it's likely that you can be forced to follow them. In this case, they're not germane.