[salawat]

You forgot the more important part:

What Web3 is pitched to be is completely antithetical to what most people want in the sense that by it's nature, Web3 basically makes AML and other financial controls pretty much impossible to reliably implement and enforce.

You will not get trivial money transfer over the Internet without a gatekeeper. Not permanently anyway. As soon as the primitive for doing so comes into existence, it is guaranteed to be regulated on a when not if basis.

Whether you try to exploit the short time before the law catches up to it says more about whether you're a gambler or not than anything else.

[StanislavPetrov]

>What Web3 is pitched to be is completely antithetical to what most people want in the sense that by it's nature, Web3 basically makes AML and other financial controls pretty much impossible to reliably implement and enforce.

I don't know a single person who is in favor of "financial controls" or other coercive behavior by the US government, the FED and various regulatory agencies to track our every transaction and tell us how we are allowed to spend and use our own hard earned money.

[salawat]

again, that's cool. However, you elect people who then go to Washington, turn around, give their blessing to tge Fed/DHS etc... to do it, or delegate doing their jobs to tge Executive with a minimum of oversight.

if it truly were so unpopular, it'd be on legislators hit lists and talking points. That's the opposite of what I see.

[Sargos]

Do you have any citations for your claim that most people want KYC? All the data I've seen indicates it's a government initiative and not debated or discussed with the general public. In fact the polls we do have show an overwhelming support for cash which is private and peer to peer.

[salawat]

it really doesn't matter whether the public hates KYC or not, because Law Enforcement will alwaya have the regulators ears, and eventually the KYC and AML can get pushed hard enough to increase traceability enough to start potentially prosecuting white collar crimes.

And if you don't think there's a war on cash with the push for CBDC's you're high. Or have you not noticed the going on 2 year coin shortage entirely because someone just isn't interested in keeping up the coinage supply? Or how there are currency transaction reports to law enforcement on any sizable cash withdrawal, or how banks train employees to red flag any type of regular transacting just below the SAR monitoring point?

It is too profitable and powerful a diplomatic tool to be a realistic outcome in my cynical view for government to do anything but double down on financial surveillance.

[Sargos]

I was responding to this

>What Web3 is pitched to be is completely antithetical to what most people want in the sense that by it's nature, Web3 basically makes AML and other financial controls pretty much impossible

So you've pretty much made my point with your reply. People don't want KYC, authoritarian governments do. People decide what they are okay with and not governments and as the failed war on drugs has shown governments don't really get what they want long term.

People want private cash and an open financial system and then will have it regardless of what government thinks.

[salawat]

>People want private cash and an open financial system and then will have it regardless of what government thinks.

What people want, and what they actually get are two completely different things, and the process of moving from one thing to another is slow, bump filled, spans lifetimes, and requires a refresher every few generations.

I'm not denying that KYC and AML is a pain in the arse most people wish would go away. Hell, I'm ready for a bit of that. I have, unfortunately, been part of that system though. I have also seen from sampling of job offerings in the space, that the hires getting planned out paint a picture of societies getting ever more tightly integrated, and doubling down on who can participate in the financial system.

A theoretical question for you. Do you believe that authorities will blink at enacting some coercive structural implementation that will give them an effective lever to use for controlling cryptocurrencies? Do not mistake slow progress, for no progress. Especially when immutable stores of data are concerned.

Hard limits on power consumption, limits on hardware manufacture, protocol filtering, other more intrusive measures; it is all on the table.

KYC/AML itself was at one point far outside the Overton Window. It only took a short time for the circumstances to arise for that to rapidly change.

This isn't a case of Tech doe tech's thing, and society does another. The tech will be judged by the rest of society on it's utility, what it enabled, and whether that justifies adoption or regulation.

People are not stupid. Do not mistake not agreeing with you or silence as assent. I apologize if I'm sounding preachy, as it isn't my intent; I merely caution to temper your estimation of societal uptake with a comprehensive reevaluation of the objectives and end goals of the apparatus to which everyone delegates the responsibility of making the infrastructure that even spawned the potential for technology/technique possible.

All tech throws more work at creating minima in terms of facilitating some way of life. By the act of an allegedly representative government, it was decreed there was utility to higher friction in this particular sector of human endeavor.

Wait til the ink is dry to pop the champagne is all I'm trying to say. It's far from a settled question, and life never ceases to find ways to surprise.