[angus-prune]

Before even checking the username, I had guessed that this would be as a result of cryptocurrency speculation.

From reports from other crypto investors, I would also suspect that the investment also wasn't limited to buying on a mainstream exchange, but buying crypto from people directly with cash transfers or trading back and forth directly between less mainstream currencies.

Crypto trading is high-suspicion for two reasons - its very easy to claim a windfall has come from off-book crypto-trading when its actually profits from crime.

It is also very easy to be caught up with illegal transfers of money from other countries or to proscribed organisations when transfering money directly.

Clearly OP isn't involved in either of these illegal activities, otherwise they wouldn't have passed KYC, but it seems reasonable that they would have had to jump through some hoops to demonstrate that their activities were indeed legitimate and above board.

I would suggest that their personal experience is not representative of the thoroughness of the KYC process most people would go experience.

[CryptoPunk]

>>Crypto trading is high-suspicion for two reasons

Unacceptable in a free society. Probable cause is not reasonably construed based on these types of crude generalizations.

Due process means only a court can judge there to be probable cause, and that a search can only be done after it issues a warrant. A court would never rule probable to exist based on the type of formulaic rationale you're using.

The kind of KYC scrutiny innocent people are subjected to, based on much flimsier bases than even you have speculated existed in my case, is obscene.

When the private financial interactions and investment strategies of every one become privy en masse to a self-appointed class of surveillance agents, it creates information asymmetries between the general citizenry and those close to the state/regulated-industries. And information asymmetries lead to wealth and power disparities.

The surveillance state you are championing will inevitably lead to wealth and power concentrating into the hands of a tiny cadre of privileged insiders and that will lead to massive economic waste from rent-seeking and social instability.

There is no future for a liberal democratic society if the trend toward unchecked surveillance powers for the state is not arrested and reversed.

[giantg2]

"Due process means only a court can judge there to be probable cause, and that a search can only be done after it issues a warrant. A court would never rule probable to exist based on the type of formulaic rationale you're using."

Except they can (in practice and in contradiction to rules), and have done similar things in the past. The system really doesn't care about people's rights, mistakes are endemic and ignored, and it is more interested punishing people or collecting money than actual justice. At least that has been my experience.