[friend_and_foe]

A few months ago I bought a car with cash I pulled out of my bank. It was well above that limit. Nothing nefarious, just a car.

These laws aren't about limiting crime, or even about surveillance or tax compliance really. They're about ensuring that you cannot do business with peers and can only do it with corporations.

[literalAardvark]

And exactly how is this limiting your ability to do business with peers more than pulling cash out of the bank did?

Log in to internet banking, ask the seller for their account, enter the number, press send.

It's even less effort than pulling cash, and only vaguely more easily traceable.

[friend_and_foe]

Because every single transaction, even ones with peers, involves a multinational intermediary payment processor. Besides cryptocurrencies, all digital payments, every single one of them, is doing business with a corporation.

[literalAardvark]

It is doing business with a corporation, but it's not not doing business with peers at all.

Also, if you have any common sense you have to do business with the corp anyway to do your withdrawal.

I can see how it would be annoying when a lumberjack in British Columbia wants to sell his truck for a mattress full of dollars, but in the real world the money was already in a bank, so not doing business with that bank wasn't an option anyway.

[ktosobcy]

so... you left a trace at bank, then signed a contract that was filed to authorities an the seller deposit the cash. Awesome way to fly under the radar, clappity clap to your wise conduct!