[louwrentius]

> Anonymous cash payments over €3,000 will be banned in commercial transactions. Cash payments over €10,000 will even be completely banned in business transactions. And anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies to wallets operated by providers (hosted wallets) will be prohibited even for minimum amounts without a threshold.

For the regular person, there is no issue here. Cash is still fine, anonymous payments are possible.

Anonymous online / digital payments seems to exclusively facilitate crime, but doesn’t seem to be relevant to regular ‘normal’ people.

I think banning anonymous crypto payments is therefore a good thing.

The vast majority of people shopping online do so with their identity known and that’s totally OK (and required when buying physical stuff)

A ton of people will probably want to point out at this point that banks and merchants sell their customer data and their shopping behavior, which to me is absolute bonkers and immoral. However that’s a different issue, one that is only fixed with legislation, which makes it a political topic.

Anonymous crypto payments may also help specific dissidents in certain countries but that upside doesn’t justify the enormous downside.

[Shatnerz]

> Anonymous online / digital payments seems to exclusively facilitate crime, but doesn’t seem to be relevant to regular ‘normal’ people.

How so and is there anything to back that up or is that just a gut feeling?

I pay for my VPN subscription online, anonymously using crypto. Am I facilitating crime?

[lxgr]

> I pay for my VPN subscription online, anonymously using crypto. Am I facilitating crime?

No, and you'll continue to be able to do so under the new regulation unless I'm missing something.

[justaj]

Doesn't it say it right there in the first paragraph?

> And anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies to wallets operated by providers (hosted wallets) will be prohibited even for minimum amounts without a threshold.

Doesn't this mean that literally all anonymous crypto transactions would be banned?

[literalAardvark]

It does, and the real surprise is only that it took so long.

The strictness of AML/KYC is half the reason why it's easier to use crypto than banking. They're removing the glitch.

[alwayslikethis]

What if payment processors don't like what you want to sell, even when it is legal?

[AlienRobot]

If a handful of payment processors can decide who can get money or not, it sounds like you need laws to force them to be neutral. Imagine if you couldn't put a truck on a road because the road is owned by someone that doesn't like your business!

[louwrentius]

Tough luck. Doesn’t justify a huge avenue of money laundering of whatever is possible

[lxgr]

To be honest, I don't think that attitude is good enough. There are technical ways to prevent money laundering and tax evasion at the same time as keeping anonymous payments possible.

Sure, it's more complicated than just outright banning any type of anonymous payment, but I think not even trying would amount to a huge loss of resiliency for any democracy.

We also don't blanket ban secure private communications (although not for a lack of trying) for the same reason.

[alwayslikethis]

I doubt you would have said the same if it affected you.

[zrn900]

Yeah, it actually does. Societies cannot be left to the whims of privately owned payment processors that depend on the 'public sentiment' and not the actual laws to make their policies to protect their stock value.

If every government guaranteed an online payment system that 100% worked for all legal purposes, you'd have point. There's no such thing. The entire digital payment system is left to private feudal lords to control as they please.

[Drakim]

One issue I know that drives many NSFW artists to crypto payments is that things like paypal won't service them.

[arp242]

Yeah, that type of thing is a problem. I feel that anyone operating a legal business should be able to receive payments. I don't know what the best way to achieve that would be: make it illegal for payment processors to refuse customers registered with the chamber of commerce? Set up a community bank to handle this? Something else? Idk.

That said, one of my gripes with a lot of this cryptostuff is that people want it to both be recognized as real money, but also not be beholden to any regulation they don't like. Can't have both.

[literalAardvark]

Won't really be a problem, crypto payment providers are dime a dozen, and they just need to keep records.

Or you could ID and pay directly.

[louwrentius]

Sure that’s a problem for them, but rather niche and doesn’t seem to justify this huge avenue for “crime”

[bombcar]

The number one thing criminals are known for is following the law, so they will absolutely be certain never to accidentally do a cash payment over the limit.