[michaelt]

You're right that politicians can pressure private financial institutions into cutting off anyone they don't like. For example Operation Choke Point [1] which cut off legal-but-scandalous businesses' access to the financial system, and getting WikiLeaks debanked for publishing material that made the government look bad.

But some might see that as a sign you need more separation between the state and payment networks, rather than less.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

[ethbr1]

I think the ideal would be private banks enforcing exact legal rules (no fuzzy matches) and forwarding edge cases to the authorities (but not blocking them). All with transparency.

You don't want private banks in the business of fuzzy-matching (because they'll default to over-cautious, and it empowers the government to exploit grey areas to pressure them).

And you don't want the executive arm of the government too involved in day-to-day financial inspection (because executive can move at the speed of an edict, versus needing a law).