[JumpCrisscross]

I've been following this discussion in Washington and on Hacker News. I'm moderately anti-crypto--I don't buy the pitch but am open to being wrong and believe folks should be free to do what they want with it.

I've also been struck by the proliferation of bank-like services without bank-like obligations. This stretches from fractional-reserve and maturity-transforming services like Tether to exchanges/dealers like Binance and ersatz money transmitters like BitPay.

We need AML (edit: anti-money laundering) and tax reporting at those nexuses. If the answer is there should be no AML, KYC (edit: know-your-customer rules) and/or reporting by cryptocurrency companies, we have no common ground on this argument. To date, this is what I have most-commonly heard. If that's what the Senate is hearing, it's unsurprising they consider the debate closed. If the argument is a reasonable tweak to who has to report, or what or the form in which it must be reported, policy makers are listening. (Wyden's amendment is a result of reasonable concerns expressed by miners.)

[woah]

Your comment is completely unrelated to the matter at hand, and the article.

The controversy here is about this law potentially placing reporting obligations on software developers who never have any custody of client funds. Sort of like requiring the developers of Excel to report on users of Excel using it to manage their money.

> I've also been struck by the proliferation of bank-like services without bank-like obligations. This stretches from fractional-reserve and maturity-transforming services like Tether to exchanges/dealers like Binance and ersatz money transmitters like BitPay.

All these centralized services that have some involvement with crypto already comply with a large number of regulations, and usually do much more stringent KYC than non-crypto payment processors do.

[JumpCrisscross]

> reporting obligations on software developers who never have any custody of client funds

Custody doesn't haven an agreed-upon definition when it comes to crypto. That's the nut of the challenge. If we want reporting, someone who, in a traditional setting, would not have had to report, will when it comes to cryptocurrencies.

> these centralized services that have some involvement with crypto already comply with a large number of regulations

Many do. Many don't. Tether and Binance are exemplars of pathological noncompliance.

[doomroot]

> Custody doesn't have an agreed-upon definition when it comes to crypto.

This is not true, custody is very well understood when it comes to blockchain assets. Legal definitions of ownership are another question altogether that do require continual legislative attention, see Wyoming’s work in this area.[1]

You’ve also repeated the sins of the top comment by glossing over the actual issues with this provision by focusing on facts that almost everyone in the cryptocurrency space are in total agreement on.

> Tether and Binance are exemplars of pathological noncompliance.

The amendments to this provision are focusing on who should be excluded from these new requirements, of which Binance & Tether (or terms that could be construed to mean Binance or Tether) are nowhere to be found. The exceptions focus on miners, node operators, noncustodial software providers, and alternative consensus mechanism validators.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/technology/2021/06/wy...

[nine_k]

Could you please share an example or two where custody of funds is not clearly defined?

I'm not in finance, and to me this sounds weird. Unclear custody looks to me as an obvious opportunity to plainly steal someone's funds.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The basic example most others are built on is a locked smart contract, where none of the participants can control the funds until the smart contract is programmed to release them. Most crypto developers conceptualize this scenario as the smart contract having custody (you can only steal the money if you trick the smart contract into giving it to you), but the smart contract can't exactly report things to the IRS.

[sterlind]

How does the tax system work for financial instruments implemented by pen-and-paper contracts? Seems to me very similar to owning shares in Special Purpose Vehicles, with the (perhaps important) difference that a judge can't overrule the contract.. but they can still bind the owners right?

Part of me wonders if you could create a contractual "shim" that judges can read, which mirrors what the smart contract does and dictates behavior of the parties for matters outside the contract itself. Sort of like the template contracts used for mortgage-backed securities.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The difference is that the SPV is itself a legal entity responsible for keeping track of who owns it. (That's not to say it's a silver bullet, since SPVs can be and quite regularly are used to try and play accounting tricks to hide stuff from tax authorities.)

[hoops8]

I’m anti-crypto cause not enough people can understand how it works as a value store.

It’s fascist to peddle what is effectively magic as truth of reality when it’s just another man-made concept power brokers will (already have?), manipulate for their outsized gain.

Nation state money schemes are low tech and well known; they haven’t changed much. We don’t need to make a meta-value store to exchange for nation state currency, at great material expense. I’d propose the opposite; we stop treating people like concepts we must pressure to import our perspectives and preferences.

It’s unverified, but I’m pretty sure if we just made medicine, offered education, and built technology for those ends rather than moved at the drumbeat of elder rich to validate their once youthful existence, and pipe dreams none of us will live to verify came true, humanity would be in a much better place.

Talk about energy vampires; don’t focus on living a varied and full life! Focus on validating the rich! Focus on consuming what we can make the best margin on! Watch our ads so you never forget us!

And then once they’re empowered… my privacy! My freedom of speech!

Nice work.

[kryogen1c]

> If the answer is there should be no AML, KYC and/or reporting by cryptocurrency companies, we have no common ground on this argument.

this hits the nail on the head, imo. its the central argument. i dont think its as unambiguous as you say, though.

payment processors are _right now_ acting as extrajudicial legislators. many LEGAL business, like porn and weed, are restricted from operating on major payment networks.

this is assuming you and your government are on the same side. there are many places in the world where crypto is a boon to the oppressed.

not to detract from your point. crypto has a clear and direct path to cybercrime. just saying its not so clear.

[mschuster91]

> payment processors are _right now_ acting as extrajudicial legislators. many LEGAL business, like porn and weed, are restricted from operating on major payment networks.

The thing is, at least for weed companies, that they technically are not legal on federal level where banks are regulated. The Obama, Trxmp and Biden admins simply have chosen for now to ignore the issue on executive level since Congress is completely and utterly dysfunctional, which is something the next admin/President can easily turn over and prosecute everyone involved, even for actions years past.

For porn (as well as, where legal, sex work and gambling), the problem is the immense amount of fraud associated with it. Horny people caught by their s/o's or company expense teams stumbling on CC bills or plain old "post nut clarity" has led to many fraudulent "card has been stolen" chargebacks, as did actual fraud by people using stolen CCs to sign up for porn sites and resell these accounts on the Internet, and additionally to that there are lots of legitimate chargebacks (dark patterns in account signup aka pre-checked "recurring" options, low quality content). And add to that the various issues regarding legality of services rendered (which may be different depending on where the seller and/or the buyer are located and where the service takes place).

And if that wasn't enough, the US likes to enforce their laws on companies based in the US also abroad... which means even here in Europe where sex work, porn and (in sometimes utterly incomprehensible ways) gambling are legal in most our states, we still have the problem that the US companies export their morality codes onto us Europeans (see also: facebook's nipplegate).

The result is legitimate businesses and mixed-content businesses (reddit, onlyfans) being struck by obscene merchant fees or being denied service altogether since it's frankly infeasible for non-local services, especially in physical sex work, to be in compliance with the myriad of rules ranging from global international agreements against drug usage and human trafficking over federal and state law to county/town ordinances.

I agree that these businesses deserve access to banking (alone to reduce the incentive to rob them of their physical cash!), but seriously the solution to that is a reform of banking, sex work and gambling legislation - not cryptocoins.

[lern_too_spel]

To elaborate, the customer's liability on unauthorized charges is capped by law on card transactions, so the merchant has to eat the cost of the alleged fraud or the cost of disputing the alleged fraud (plus the cost of the alleged fraud because their dispute will almost certainly fail).

Moving the cost of fraud to the buyer will change the buyer's behavior in a way that the seller wouldn't want, so this is just one more cryptocurrency solution in search of a problem.

[AnthonyMouse]

> If the answer is there should be no AML, KYC (edit: know-your-customer rules) and/or reporting by cryptocurrency companies, we have no common ground on this argument.

I still don't understand this. KYC has devolved into something unreasonable and it needs to be removed from the existing system, not extended.

When KYC was originally implemented, your bank was where you deposited your paycheck, paid your mortgage and withdrew some cash every few weeks for your expenses. If your bank knew who you were, they knew where you lived and where you worked. The first is a matter of public record and the second isn't exactly a big secret. Maybe you also had a car loan.

Today it has been extended to everything you buy on the internet or with a credit card, and people now buy everything on the internet and with credit cards. It ties your government identity to the books you read, the medical care you receive, genetic tests, what you eat, the establishments you patronize, your location history if you go anywhere and buy gas or anything else, who else was there at the same time, it's your whole life.

We need the ability to buy a copy of Das Kapital or a drink at a gay bar without being put on a List.

[ryan_lane]

Cryptocurrency doesn't help you buy a drink or a book. It does, however, help the rich avoid taxes and launder money.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Cryptocurrency doesn't help you buy a drink or a book.

It is possible to buy a drink or a book with cryptocurrency. A law that requires the book or drink seller to KYC the buyer would make this difficult without putting the buyer at risk.

Of course, most sellers of drinks and books don't accept cryptocurrency. Which is why KYC needs to be removed from applying to credit cards rather than being extended to cryptocurrency.

> It does, however, help the rich avoid taxes and launder money.

Which is the thing laws can have no effect on, because they can't actually change how cryptocurrency works. The laws an exchange in the US is subject to don't apply to one in Venezuela or Russia. If you can exchange a million dollars worth of Bitcoin for dollars or gold bars anywhere in the world then it will be worth it for anyone dealing in large sums to go there when they want to cash out. That's already happened. It's the consequence of its existence and you can't put the genie back in the bottle.

All the laws do is invade the privacy of law-abiding people and put vulnerable populations at risk. Criminals don't follow laws.

[zarzavat]

The entire point of cryptocurrency is precisely to enable bank-like services without bank-like obligations, to enable individuals to be their own bank and manage their own money if they want to.

You're right that it's unsurprising that the US Senate does not care about this problem. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that the cryptocurrency world does not care about the US Senate. This will just end up being another "I promise I'm not a US person" checkbox when you sign up for cryptocurrency services.

[JumpCrisscross]

> point of cryptocurrency is precisely to enable bank-like services without bank-like obligations

Crypto has shown some rules are unnecessary or even harmful. They should be repealed, across the board. In other cases, many cases, it's reinforced some rules' necessity. Their scope should be broadened. That's what's going on here.

If the sole value of cryptocurrencies is in evading the rules, it's going to have a tough time.

> the cryptocurrency world does not care about the US Senate

Whether someone cares about the law isn't relevant to lawmaking or enforcement. (This attitude is also counterproductive. It leads to disengagement, which virtually guarantees more-onerous rules than would have been necessary.)

> will just end up being another "I promise I'm not a US person" checkbox when you sign up for cryptocurrency services

This, alone, is insufficient. AML duties aren't discharged by an "I promise I'm not a money launderer or tax evader" checkbox.

[dcolkitt]

> This, alone, is insufficient. AML duties aren't discharged by an "I promise I'm not a money launderer or tax evader" checkbox.

A Maltese company operating a server in Russia is under no obligation to follow US law for a customer who attests that he's Israeli. American KYC/AML provisions do not extend to the entire globe, and non-American entities are under no legal obligation to comply with them.

It is true that the US has a long arm of pressure that exists in the form of the SWIFT banking system. But the thing about crypto native companies is they never touch SWIFT to begin with. So unless you propose deploying the 101st Airborne to Valletta, how do you propose forcing foreign crypto companies from complying with US regulations.

[zarzavat]

In fact this is how it works for real banks too. If you sign up for a bank account outside the US it's routine that they ask you if you are American, because they do not want to comply with onerous US regulations. It's a big problem for Americans who live abroad, who cannot access banking services in the country they are resident in.

[cinquemb]

It was more inconvenient in the past, but with things like (transfer)wise/paypal/stablecoins+crypto it's not that big an issue.

Easier for me to be bankless as an american abroad than to try bother to jump through all the hoops and getting a "real" bank account.

[ryan_lane]

Have you actually tried this? I'm living abroad and I can tell you it's nearly impossible to be bankless, if you want to continue living in that place and have the government be OK with it.

At some point you need a long-term visa, which means you need a job, and that job will require you to have a (local) bank account.

Need to pay bills? You can't pay in cryptocurrency, and they expect local currency. Some may accept credit cards, but most will probably only accept debit or bank transfer. Ones that accept credit cards may only accept national cards.

If you're a US citizen and you have a bank account in the US (or credit cards), and they find out you're no longer residing in the US, they'll probably close your accounts to avoid dealing with FACTA. You'll need to setup special bank accounts, and may also need to switch your brokerage accounts.

At some point credit card companies will realize you're living somewhere else and will close your accounts, because they're intended to be used on vacation in other countries, but not long-term.

To use crypto, you need to convert it into fiat, and you can't do that without a bank account.

[cinquemb]

> which virtually guarantees more-onerous rules than would have been necessary.

I see this as a good thing™, since more onerous rules will probably negatively affect a lot more people who may not even care about cryptocurrency just because they may be doing something that could be used for interacting with them.

The more invasive the better!

[jcranmer]

> The entire point of cryptocurrency is precisely to enable bank-like services without bank-like obligations, to enable individuals to be their own bank and manage their own money if they want to.

From what I understand of the actual cryptocurrency markets, very few people are actually interested in being their own bank. A lot of the cryptocurrency industry seems to be structured around providing bank-like services to cryptocurrency users.

[cinquemb]

> This will just end up being another "I promise I'm not a US person" checkbox when you sign up for cryptocurrency services.

And that's only for centralized services… permissionless decentralized protocols with no articles of incorporation running on decentralized systems… this diktat is just the senate pissing in the wind…

Might as well be like clergy in the Ottoman Empire standing in the way of the printing press by saying it was a sin and it was invented by infidels…

[nprz]

The bill expands the definition of broker to include anyone who facilities the transfer of crypto: miners, wallet providers, smart contract devs. These people are now made responsible for collecting transaction records for the IRS. That's just not how cryptocurrency works. Miners, smart contract devs, don't know who is transacting with who. It's effectively a ban on cryptocurrency.

[zonethundery]

You're not wrong, that is a maximalist interpretation of the language. Portman has tried to clarify, but there is always a gap between legislative intent and what the rulemaking process (i.e. Treasury) ends up doing with the statute. It's terrible language but not the end of the world (yet).

[SpicyLemonZest]

I don't want to sound unsympathetic, because the situation really does suck for cryptocurrency devs, but it's not obvious to me that they should get to unilaterally decide how it works. The bill defines a broker as "any person who (for consideration) is responsible for regularly providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf of another person", and it seems reasonable that anyone who's transferring assets on behalf of someone else should know who that someone else is.

More broadly, if you've ever wondered how industries can go to Congress with a straight face and argue for crazy regulatory exemptions, this is what it feels like from the other side. I like crypto devs a lot more than I like, say, Exxon, but I still don't think we should have carveouts just to protect their business model.

[danShumway]

> Wyden's amendment is a result of reasonable concerns expressed by miners

I'm honestly kind of surprised Wyden's amendment didn't get accepted. I guess I misunderstood the level of support it actually had; it seemed reasonable to me and I thought that most of the interest groups had gotten onboard with it.

Maybe that's an area where I'm just in a bubble.

[ajmurmann]

I hear that later another amendment was pushed forward by sensors that perviously had voiced support for the Wyden amendment. This new amendment supposedly provided no solutions to done of the problems, but immediately found support from the White House as well and is rumored to have been pushed by the Treasury who doesn't like crypto.

[zonethundery]

It "felt like" some common ground between the wyden and portman (and its successor) amendments would be found. It was complicated by Senate procedural votes that made amendments much harder, and an overlying concern about CBO scoring of the budget impact of the bill. It can still be amended by unanimous consent (all 100 senators)but wyden or portman will have to blink and all the bill-haters will have to acquiesce.

[gkfasdfasdf]

Since I had to Google it:

AML - Anti Money Laundering

KYC - Know Your Customer (i.e. ID verification)

[knorker]

KYC is not just ID verification. It's Know Your Customer, not "Know who you customer is". It goes deeper.

[starkd]

But the power and potential disruption of cryptocurrency is the anonymity. It's the benefits of cash brought to the digital world. I understand the dangers of the criminal element, but underground economies benefit oppressed people when governments turn tyrannical. If you're response to that is only that "it can't happen here", I don't know what to say. They can and do happen faster than anyone realizes. And they are not quick to give power back.

[dsr_]

If your argument is that governments should not regulate cryptocurrency because the point of cryptocurrency is to evade government regulation, you should expect cryptocurrency to become illegal rather than regulated.

[starkd]

Not solely for the point of evading government regulation. I said it's useful to get around oppressive governments. Governments usually become tyrannies so gradual you don't notice. But it's faster than you think.

[JumpCrisscross]

> underground economies benefit oppressed people when governments turn tyrannical

They also benefit the rich and powerful by enabling tax evasion and graft. Pyongyang, Tehran and Caracas make regular use of illicit trade and money laundering to facilitate upward wealth transfer.

Yours is a legitimate point. It's an argument for curtailing the power of law and government. That's fine. We can debate that. But until America decides it doesn't want to collect taxes anymore, the reporting is sort of required.

[spaginal]

Cash and anonymous digital transactions also benefit the lower end as well.

Many poor families, including immigrants, get through life daily with an underground, cash only, economy.

It's not just a tool of the rich and wealthy.

Taxation on assets and income is THEFT.

[starkd]

A lot of people work in the underground economy. It's useful when excessive government regulations prevent "undesirables" from being hired.

[starkd]

When they cash it in for dollars, they have to report it their gains. That's already built in. This bill pushes further into the crypto space.

[rvz]

> But the power and potential disruption of cryptocurrency is the anonymity.

Depends on the ones you use. Certainly the privacy coins like Monero are the ones that do better than most of the other coins out there.

[JohnJamesRambo]

Almost every exchange I know of has mandatory KYC/AML now.

[EGreg]

What makes you anti-crypto specifically? To me, crypto means cryptography, that enables both digital signatures and encryption. Are you against end-to-end encryption as well, for the same reasons? Let me dive into the root issue head-on.

I understand you only had in mind cryptocurrencies, but there is a far wider issue at play here, that must be discussed substantively.

This is generally about removing the middleman (Big Finance) from transactions, just as, say, scuttlebutt and bittorrent removed the middleman (Big Tech) from communications.

Now, there are (at least) two aspects by which they can be removed. One is control: they can’t prevent you from publishing X or sending Y. This causes people to be free to publish potentially seditious material, or otherwise objectionable or illegal material (eg child pornogrophy, or copies violating copyright law).

The other is removing them from having to collect data and report. Without middlemen, the government has a harder time going after everyone. For example, having every maker of a desktop printer or copier report metadata on what was printed, is infeasible. BUT in the past, when printing machinery was expensive, you could control what was published and sanction those who didn’t have the “letters patent” authorizing the printing of a specific book or magazine. You could make sure to control what was distributed widely. With federated services like Mastodon or Matrix, the government can make a bill tomorrow to require them to report metadata on all speech they host, to make sure none of it is dangerous.

This reminds of the disastrous SOPA bill that HN was pretty much against, but it has the exact same concerns, just in the area of speech rather than financial transactions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

So today, if governments allow people to have “unhosted” wallets, there could be a lot of flaunting of capital controls (by sending $2 billion internationally very quickly) and tax evasion (by not reporting certain sales of houses for crypto, for instance). This would have implications for money laundering and funding unsavory groups etc.

At the same time, however, for small amounts, people want to be able to transact freely, such as buying a pizza with cash. This might become impossible to do given where governments are going: they have nearly eliminated anonymous cash transactions and will do so with crypto as well. When it comes to financial transactions, they will insist that everything will be “hosted” by a third party who can be punished if they allow certain transactions to happen. This is in preparstion for massive centralization of the monetary system in the hands of the central banks, you will have an account at the central bank which picks winners and losers, instead of “so-called” stablecoins which present competition to them.

The problem is that this elimination of petty cash can easily lead to a “social credit system” like we have in China, and gradual tightening of screws on any participant in the economy.

Thankfully, the US government has not taken the same approach with speech (probably due to the first amendment) and Big Tech platforms can be disrupted (eg with https://qbix.com/blog/2021/01/15/open-source-communities/)

The only exception the US makes is for copyright enforcement, and there, you can see much the same argument and attempts to ban people from being able to use end-to-end encryption to host files using BitTorret, say. The difference is, there are no “gateways” to the regular system so the battle was lost.

However, that is NOT true in other countries, which have less respect for freedom of speech. If we as a global community allow these governments to insist on NEVER replacing middlemen with technology, if we let them ban end-to-end encryption until anyone using it is suspicious in and of themselves,then they will ALWAYS have someone to squeeze to make sure the “wrong” types of transactions or speech is chilld - no matter how small - until it is eradicated.

To all the downvoters who hit the button literally 30 seconds after I posted: can you please maybe comment as to why?

[woodruffw]

> What makes you anti-crypto specifically? To me, crypto means cryptography, that enables both digital signatures and encryption. Are you against end-to-end encryption as well, for the same reasons?

This is an unreasonable contortion of the OP’s comment. Conflating cryptocurrency (an industry rife with scams) to cryptography (a branch of discrete mathematics) belies precisely the reason people don’t take cryptocurrency boosters seriously.

[Fnoord]

It is shameful the cryptocurrency community hijacked the term crypto. Cryptography is the very thing cryptocurrency relies on to make their technology working in the first place (if we may call it 'working', YMMV). Cryptography is used in vastly more important systems, it is much more important than cryptocurrency. I mean, without cryptography you could not even use something like Git to develop software such as Bitcoin. You wouldn't be able to distribute a C library securely, something on which Bitcoin relies on.

[EGreg]

And it goes deeper than that, including a point that woodruffw totally misses (perhaps he read only the first paragraph of what I wrote?)

If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption? After all, it could conceal cryptocurrency transactions!

Or any of an endlessly growing amount of potentially dangerous information or assets, transferred peer to peer.

If you read what I wrote carefully, I clarify the issue so the substance can be discussed, rather than gotcha questions about equivocating words like “crypto”, as what woodruffw has done.

The issue is broken down into two things: 1) control over one’s own speech/identity/brand/etc so no one can take it from you, and 2) anonymity and freedom from consequences for illegal speech or transactions (according to the local lass in different countries).

I think nearly everyone is in favor of #1. The question is about #2. It is an interesting one - and notice that I myself do not advocate a position in my comment, just lay out the two issues and ask which direction you would be more comfortable for society to go in.

[woodruffw]

> If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption? After all, it could conceal cryptocurrency transactions!

This conflation of free expression and hiding your finances would get you laughed out of any courtroom in America. I strongly support E2EE encryption and do work that directly supports a number of E2EE efforts; the idea that this requires me to support unfettered money laundering is facile.

And no, there is no such conflation on my part. Once again: cryptocurrency is, by and large a collection of scam artists and shysters. Cryptography is a branch of discrete mathematics.

[EGreg]

Please read what I am actually writing. I will try a different format. Perhaps you can respond POINT BY POINT to show that you have read it and have a substantive argument about it, rather than about your personal feelings about what a name du jour should mean:

1. End-to-end encrypted communication opens the barn door, you can conceal any anonymous cryptocurrency transactions in there, as well as darknets, smart contracts for silk road, etc. If you allow one, you allow the other.

2. Conversely, as the EFF often points out, making a backdoor in any crypto means effectively backdooring all of it. According to their stance, you either allow all of it, or nothing. (I happen to disagree with that, but there it is.)

3. There are more countries in the world than "America" (you meant USA, I am sure). Many of those countries take a much more dim view of freedom of expression online, than we do here. We need to design our software for people around the world, not just care about the USA. Many people on HN are not in the USA. Here is just a small list of things that currently go wrong when we don't have "unhosted" communication (https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...)

4. Contrary to your statement, the USA's courtrooms would not "laugh" the parallels out of the room. I will post just a small sampling of bills with the same intent in spirit, to restrict end-to-end encryption. I want to be clear that this is only the stuff done in the open, and doesn't include the secret actions by the NSA, or agencies that serve national security letters, etc.

4a. The MPAA and RIAA lobbied Congress to implement "reasonable" reporting measures to ban access to many sites that provide end to end encryption: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

4b. After success in shutting down Craigslist and Backpage sex personals, Congress wanted to go further, and require every site to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_...

4c. Section 230 protections repeal: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-section-230-and-why-do-...

4d. The EARN IT act, just recently: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-ba...

4e. LAED act, even more recent: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-no...

4f: Trump's attorney general was vocally against encryption, and lauded the proposed bill banning it: https://apnews.com/article/ny-state-wire-technology-ap-top-n...

https://apnews.com/article/ny-state-wire-technology-ap-top-n...

PLEASE address 1, 2, 3, and 4a - 4f

[Fnoord]

With regards to #2 there is a global conflict of interest. For example, someone in Texas might be pro gun, and therefore release STL files for a firearm under a FOSS license. Whereas in my country, the possession of a firearm is heavily restricted to people with a proper license (which I am a proponent of, but my bias is my cultural background growing up in said country). Likewise, I might be pro cryptocurrency for a country like Venezuela, while the government/establishment of Venezuela might feel otherwise.

One nice thing with regards to #2 is that targeted surveillance can still exist even with cryptocurrency, E2EE, etc. If someone who works in an average 9to5 job suddenly owns a Porsche, that could be suspicious to warrant an investigation. Just because the data isn't available via OSINT or via coercion of platform/data owner, doesn't mean it cannot be obtained. It just costs more resources, and that's a tricky sunk cost for e.g. law enforcement. That's why they don't like either; it increases their workload which costs society money. Its not they cannot work around it; they can. Just not via previously (ab)used mass surveillance tactics. Like I said, I believe that's a nice thing, but it has cons (such as indeed the increased cost/workload).

Now, I believe we need to discuss all these pros and cons with an open mind, but unfortunately there are too many personal interests involved which skew a proper discussion. For example, cryptocurrency adapts have an interest in their asset remaining relevant.

[tremon]

If you are against anonymous cryptocurrency transactions, should you not also be against all end-to-end encryption?

Only if you hold the belief that money is a form of free speech. Otherwise, money is just valuable property that you have to account for on your yearly/monthly tax statement to the government.

[EGreg]

No, I believe that once you allow end to end encrypted free speech, you allow many dangerous things. Including cryptocurrency transactions, silk road sales for all kinds of bad things, sex trafficking and child pornography… you also allow terrorists to plan their activities, etc.

Yes I think that is just as dangerous, if not more, than monetary transactions.

Therefore, if your position is that people should not be allowed to have self-hosted wallets (“unhosted” wallets) and app stores should have to ban them from the stores, then you should consider whether the same position should be applied to E2E software across the board, and for the same reasons of opening a dangerous pandora’s box.

See the sister comment and my reply to it

[EGreg]

What makes you anti-crypto specifically?

Edit: see my sister comment for much more info

[woodruffw]

Not OP, but the absence of AML/KYC appears to be (very explicitly) one of their points against cryptocurrencies.

[logicchains]

From a proponent's perspective that's a big point in favour of cryptocurrencies. AML has been completely ineffective; there's absolutely zero evidence to show it's reduced drug usage or terrorism, drug gangs now are richer than ever before. What it has been effective at is making banking and achieving financial privacy way harder for the average individual. AML is like the war on drugs: it makes normal people's lives more miserable while being completely ineffective at stopping the thing it's supposed to stop, and is used as an excuse to give authoritarian governments more and more power.

[woodruffw]

> AML has been completely ineffective; there's absolutely zero evidence to show it's reduced drug usage or terrorism, drug gangs now are richer than ever before.

AML is not itself an anti-drug-trafficking or anti-terrorism law. It’s a law designed to make money laundering more difficult by requiring banks to keep and submit more information on large transactions. Normal American citizens also launder and embezzle money, and AML laws have arguably been pretty effective against the baseline petty financial crime that defined American upper class finance during the previous century.

Besides, the assertion that drug traffickers are “richer than before” needs substantiation and clarification. They can be “richer” than before in terms of cash on hand (particularly outside of USD), but it doesn’t mean all that much if they can’t wash it back into legitimate looking finances. But I don’t even necessarily believe that first half.

Finally, AML is a set of US laws. If you want to claim that the US is an authoritarian government, go ahead; just don’t contort your argument through some abstract Bad Guy. They don’t have access to your bank records.

[Quarrel]

AML / CTF is enacted in the US through US laws (of course).

But, they're a Basel Committee initiative, where legislation is broadly mirrored around countries that have 95% of world GDP:

https://www.bis.org/list/bcbs/tid_199/index.htm

Central banks have come together to either help manage the order of world banking, or to allow evil Rothschild overlords to run the world, depending on which bit of the internet you're looking at.

[woodruffw]

The legislation, sure. But not the infrastructure or data: Turkey can legislate whatever it wants, but they’re never going to see my bank records (except for under some truly extraordinary and unlikely circumstances).

[agloeregrets]

To that same argument, saying there is no evidence that it has reduced black market behavior is the exact same concept that would drive 'There's no evidence that it hasn't reduced bad actors".

AML isn't like the war on drugs because that's a silly pointless war, it's more like traffic laws. Are they still broken? All of the time.

Would you rather drive on roads without them?

It's that simple, AML makes the job harder to do which is known to be effective at making harder to do, or at least introduces fear of doing.

[starkd]

Cryptocurrency is also a hedge against tyranny. There seems to be a naive belief that it can never happen here, just because it never has.

[woodruffw]

> There seems to be a naive belief that it can never happen here, just because it never has.

I’m sorry, but is the argument here that cryptocurrencies will somehow be instrumental in preventing the rise of fascism? Because that’s what the quote is from, although the chief motivator in the novel is independent journalism, not internet funny money.

[starkd]

Well, they are instrumental in oppressive governments like Iran and Venezuela. The whole objective behind cryptocurrency is a digital cash. If you are unconcerned about it happening in US, I don't know what basis you have for that, other than it has never has. It could happen here just as easily. And faster than you think. And corrupt governments are not known for being quick to give rights back.

[logicchains]

>There seems to be a naive belief that it can never happen here, just because it never has.

What do you mean it never has? FDR literally stole everybody's gold in 1933 and got away with it.

[starkd]

Good point. Tyranny is not all or nothing gambit.

[knorker]

> From a proponent's perspective [throwing out laws] a big point in favour of cryptocurrencies.

I agree. The main goal of cryptocurrencies is crime. You may not like the laws, but that doesn't change that the main goal is crime.

And this is why it'll never be mainstream. Turns out extremely few people actually want the ultralibertarian dystopia where there is no taxes, no drug laws, no reversibility, no accountability, no economic sovereignity, etc… etc…

Coiners are like the people who say "abolish the police" and mean it literally. They want to burn down everything about society because surely out of the rubbles will rise a phoenix of perfection. Surely now that we've thrown out not just the baby with the bathwater, but also bulldozed the whole city the baby was in, the next baby will never even need a bath because it'll magically never get dirty.