[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.

[woodruffw]

But this is a different scenario: Iran and Venezuela were ostensibly repressive long before cryptocurrencies became viable mechanisms for exfiltrating wealth from either country. And besides, the introduction of cryptocurrencies doesn’t seem to have helped much in terms of making either country less repressive (much less eliminating basic privation in either).

To whit: what bulwark, precisely, are cryptocurrencies providing here?

[starkd]

Iran and Venezuela would not have the crypto tool if it had not been for a free society in which they can operate. The fact they were tyrannical oppressive regimes before crypto came along is besides the point. They have them now and are proving useful for their citizens. I don't know how you say they haven't helped "much". I've heard they are proving very useful. Maybe not in overthrowing the regime, but at least in helping them to survive.

It's definitely useful in the hyperinflation environments happening in those countries.

[lern_too_spel]

If you're worried that this legislation makes cryptocurrencies unable to fight government oppression, they were never able to fight government oppression to begin with.

If you still think they can fight government oppression, and if you believe government oppression is the reason for cryptocurrencies, there is nothing to worry about for this legislation.

[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.

[EGreg]

FDR was, in a sense, the Trump of the Democratic party. Hated by the industrialists, and he welcomed their hatred.

Big populist, had the Japanese put into internment camps, turned back ships full of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, and so forth.

[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.