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Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by pyrale on Monday November 15, 2021 @04:35PM (#29233098)
So basically, does that mean KYC/AML are officially dead in BTC's environment? The picture was not bright before, but with this kind of innovations, it seems impossible for this network to build banking systems that respect regulations.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by ulzeraj on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:27PM (#29233708)
Good riddance. I don't think KYC/AML are a force for good. Its just more box ticking laws that serve to give a false sense of security while poor people are being excluded from the banking system and normal people have their all their data stolen from centralized databases.

Real dangerous criminals don't give a damn about KYC/AML laws and operate freely within the banking framework. The European Central Bank chairwoman is a felon convicted for massive government payouts.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by hn_throwaway_99 on Monday November 15, 2021 @09:02PM (#29235786)
> The European Central Bank chairwoman is a felon convicted for massive government payouts.

Why do people feel the need to deliberately mislead by leaving out all the important details? I had no idea what you were talking about, so I looked it up, it's the second item under https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde#Controvers....

Regardless of your opinions on that particular court case, or the fact that the letter of your statement may be true, do you honestly think "The European Central Bank chairwoman is a felon convicted for massive government payouts" would give the average reader an accurate view of what happen? Because after reading what actually happened, and which IMO comes nowhere near to the deliberate malfeasance you imply, I just conclude that, to put it colloquially, "You're full of shit."

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by trhway on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @05:53AM (#29239098)
>do you honestly think "The European Central Bank chairwoman is a felon convicted for massive government payouts" would give the average reader an accurate view of what happen?

absolutely. Your wikipedia link is absolutely clear :

"the court found Lagarde guilty of negligence"

So, she is a convicted felon for conveniently looking the other way. Some of course may question whether the 400M euro is "massive" these days...

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by luciusdomitius on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @09:16AM (#29240742)
I am also very curious about what exactly is the discrepency here? Which specific part of the original statement is incorrect?

P.s. "My currency is signed by my own private key, yours - by a convicted felon". Whom would you trust more?

P.S. Also, how come you can use such language ("You're full of shit.") and not be banned? Could a moderator take a stance on this one? I don't see the flag button for some reason.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by endofreach on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @06:24PM (#29247544)
You should look up the past of the germanys next chancellor
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by vkou on Monday November 15, 2021 @07:28PM (#29234945)
> Good riddance. I don't think KYC/AML are a force for good

If KYC/AML is not possible in the bitcoin world, you're not going to be getting a world with bitcoin that doesn't have KYC/AML.

You're going to get a world with no bitcoin.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by Mengkudulangsat on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:05PM (#29235280)
Finance without KYC/AML is like air travel without TSA. Everyone remembers those times fondly, but have lost the imagination to believe they are possible again.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by koolba on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:56PM (#29235716)
> Finance without KYC/AML is like air travel without TSA.

The real analogy here is that the ultra rich needn’t deal with the TSA because they fly private.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by RC_ITR on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:29PM (#29235483)
And even more forget why we put those systems into place to begin with.

Just because the response is a bad one doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist.

FWIW, even if TSA is bad at stopping terrorists, I AM glad that all of these people punching flight attendants are, with certainty c. 1, not packing heat.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by spurgu on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @09:22AM (#29240810)
> FWIW, even if TSA is bad at stopping terrorists, I AM glad that all of these people punching flight attendants are

Seriously, how often does this happen? I've flown a fair amount in my life (in Europe though) and I've never seen any commotion on a plane. I've read about some incidents, but I've read about a lot of fucked up stuff that I'm not concerned about in my life.

It's along the lines with everything these days. Someone does something bad and someone else gets shocked and then everyone wants to stop something like that from happening ever again, through whatever means, without realizing the incredible inconvenience (and complexity) this causes over time when repeated ad infinitum.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by RC_ITR on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @03:02PM (#29258169)
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/unruly-passengers-faa/ind...

If only 1% of those people were armed, that would still be very very scary!

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by hujni on Monday November 15, 2021 @09:23PM (#29235949)
Is the thought that things like Monero, ZCash, etc., will be eliminated, or that they don't provide the anonymity that people think? What about the CCs that choose to implement Mimblewimble?
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by Analemma_ on Monday November 15, 2021 @07:55PM (#29235177)
Good or bad, "no KYC/AML" is not an option. If governments decide Bitcoin can’t provide KYC/AML, Bitcoin will be nuked from orbit.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by csomar on Monday November 15, 2021 @09:42PM (#29236089)
You are over-estimating the power of governments. The last Chinese ban is a good example of how governments might not be able to ban crypto. Smaller economies will have a harder time too.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by largbae on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:36PM (#29235545)
KYC is fine at the edges already wherever crypto meets fiat. That would be the same here right?
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by __MatrixMan__ on Monday November 15, 2021 @06:48PM (#29234579)
KYC is up to the exchange to implement. There's nothing stopping them from keeping additional records that aren't on the Bitcoin blockchain in order to stay compliant.

Of course there's also nothing stopping you from sending your coins somewhere with reduced reporting and spending them from there, but then there never really was in the first place.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by coolandsmartrr on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:12PM (#29235347)
It may be dead if you run bitcoind or your own wallet, but the majority of users would avoid the complexity of running your own wallet and instead use an exchange to obtain Bitcoin. Opening an account at an exchange would enforce KYC/AML rules anyways, as the operators have to compliant of local laws (which are usually based on guidelines by FATF, a global financial regulation group).
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by baby on Monday November 15, 2021 @04:47PM (#29233223)
BTC is not built to support KYC/AML.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by bigdubs on Monday November 15, 2021 @04:55PM (#29233321)
Then it's going to be weaponized to launder money and be made illegal eventually.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by k20CuozQmk on Monday November 15, 2021 @06:47PM (#29234567)
>and be made illegal eventually

Allocation of resources to try and ban cryptocurrency (or encryption in general) is probably one of the dumbest things ever conceived, probably even more so than the drug war.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by wruza on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @01:32AM (#29237547)
Regulators don’t have to ban cryptocurrency use among citizens, they only have to ban/overtax everyone trying to cash it out or to run a legal business in it, to reduce liquidity to a level when it’s more risky or expensive than regular laundering. Cryptokids may then play their encryption penny as usual.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by michaelmrose on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @02:39PM (#29245410)
It's entirely easy to make crypto legally useless for legal transactions. The fellow making you coffee won't take crypto if he can only use it to buy drugs. This doesn't mean it will happen but conflating encryption and crypto is poorly considered because we have a long history of regulating commerce.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by baby on Monday November 15, 2021 @04:58PM (#29233366)
That's an argument that has been made yes.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by throwaway55421 on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:54PM (#29234018)
There is no future tense here.

Bitcoin is designed to be fungible - it's digital cash.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by MerelyMortal on Monday November 15, 2021 @07:49PM (#29235115)
Maybe it was "designed to be", but in reality it isn't.

BTC has a history, so if I had 1 BTC, and you had 1 BTC, they wouldn't be equivalent.

When you deposit BTC into a Coinbase account from a gambling site, CB shuts down your account. That is irrefutable proof that BTC is not fungible.

Compare it to cash which is fungible. If you win money at a casino and deposit it at a bank, the bank doesn't know where you got the cash from.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by rabite on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:17PM (#29235394)
> If you win money at a casino and deposit it at a bank, the bank doesn't know where you got the cash from.

You're off base here. There's serial numbers on money and many databases maintained both public and private meant to track those and flag inflows of marked bills. The bank absolutely might know where you got the cash from -- the difference is that there are legal guarantees for the fungibility of cash. It is enforced by law that if someone pays you a dollar, you are legally obligated to accept that as tender. For all debts both public and private.

The fungibility of the dollar is not rooted in lack of ability to track dollars, it is rooted in state violence.

Anyways everyone should use Monero. BTC is obviously far less fungible than a dollar.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by MerelyMortal on Monday November 15, 2021 @10:04PM (#29236252)
You're right about dollars being only legally-fungible. It's been hypothesized that there are databases tracking when and where dollars are used based on serial numbers, but to my knowledge, there hasn't been any reliable confirmation of that. If there is such a database, at least it's not publically available like Bitcoin's is. So, I agree with you that Monero should be used over Bitcoin (disclaimer, I own some XMR).
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by wayoutthere on Monday November 15, 2021 @06:42PM (#29234526)
The banks themselves launder money for organized crime. Why shouldn’t money laundering be available to the masses too?
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by wruza on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @01:35AM (#29237566)
It’s available. You just can’t enter the monopoly.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by danlugo92 on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:54PM (#29235706)
Good old "private banking services".
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by can16358p on Monday November 15, 2021 @07:01PM (#29234714)
Banks and governments*
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by stale2002 on Monday November 15, 2021 @07:09PM (#29234783)
There are a multitude of other crypto coins, that have been around for a long while, that similarly provide lots of privacy, and yet they aren't illegal.

People have been yelling about this all being made illegal for literally a decade, and it hasn't happened yet.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by XorNot on Monday November 15, 2021 @11:39PM (#29236925)
Why would any of this be made illegal? It's a jurisdictional enforcement issue, that isn't targeted at the asset - it's targeted at the individual who thinks they're going to make large financial transactions and not meet the KYC requirements - which will come up when you have to declare how you attained a whole lot of assets or cash to the IRS.

Of course, you could not do all those things...but it would be just as illegal and lead to you being just as in jail (and your assets seized) as it would for any other currency.

So sure: technically you can hide a bunch of stuff with BTC, but you can do that with USD just fine too (cash is pretty untraceable). The moment you get caught though, you're just as screwed.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by stale2002 on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @12:15PM (#29243231)
> Why would any of this be made illegal?

Of course crypto privacy features are not going to be made illegal. That was my entire argument. Crypto has been around for a decade, and lots of privacy coins exist, and are not illegal.

Therefore, other crypto features that make KYC more difficult are also not going to be made illegal.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by vb6sp6 on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:20PM (#29233635)
> Then it's going to be weaponized to launder money

We should stick with USD. No one does anything illegal with USD

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by phone8675309 on Monday November 15, 2021 @08:12PM (#29235353)
Holy fucking strawman, Batman!

Way to skip over the different potentials for abuse and just dive to the cryptonerd's handwaive argument.

Looking forward to your insights about rubber and glue.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by vb6sp6 on Monday November 15, 2021 @09:33PM (#29236018)
"bitcoin is for illegal things" is the OG handwaive argument so nothing substantial was needed to swat it down :)
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by phone8675309 on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @08:38AM (#29240398)
There you go strawmanning again.

The claim wasn’t "BitCoin is for illegal things (and by comparison, USD is never used for crime)", it was "BitCoin's lack of support for KYC makes it more likely to be attractive to criminals and therefore likely to have its use criminalized" which you CAN'T just hand waive away.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by vb6sp6 on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @09:25AM (#29240871)
I can trade stacks of USD without any KYC.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by mikevm on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:41PM (#29233887)
Yes, which is why all ransomwares ask money in USD, right?
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by skeaker on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:49PM (#29233967)
Your point being what? That because USD is uncommonly used in ransomware it can't be used to commit crimes? Do you really think that no extortion has ever taken place via USD? Because I can guarantee you that money-related crimes and scams happen in just about every single form of currency, even things that technically aren't even currency like gift cards.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by aron_misj on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:54PM (#29234024)
> ransomwares

this is not even worth looking at compared to other money-related crimes (just new and in media so people are scared)

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by webinvest on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @10:22AM (#29254238)
BTC is less anonymous than cash.
Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by aron_misj on Monday November 15, 2021 @05:52PM (#29233995)
> launder money

means different things in different places

> made illegal

it's already illegal here and there

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by Macha on Monday November 15, 2021 @06:46PM (#29234562)
You could even go further:

BTC is built to not support KYC/AML.

Re:Taproot, Bitcoin’s long-anticipated upgrade, has activated by luciusdomitius on Tuesday November 16, 2021 @09:12AM (#29240710)
Have those regulations ever made any sense? If someone is involved in illegal activity, then prosecute him for that. Banks' purpose is to manage wealth, not to be policemen.