> I literally said 'lawful' transactions. Fraud is not lawful.

The problem is, it's almost all allegedly fraud.

No one has the time or money to prosecute all of the attempted fraud in the system.

Same exact process as now, except you have a guaranteed right to appeal. Nothing to worry about.

And your effectively at the same spot again

How so? Currently if your transaction isn't permitted there's nothing you can do. Networks aren't required to process any transaction they don't want to process, or any kind of transaction they don't want to process.

You can appeal and talk to payment processors today, and they essentially tell you that your category of transactions has high fraud rates or exposes them to legal risk until you do XYZ impossible or arduous things to mitigate the liability or risk. They will use the same motte that they use now to justify their bailey reality.

Then it wouldn't have protected Pornhub. The payment processors pulled out due to CSAM, revenge porn, and copyright infringement, none of which are legal.

Are you saying that's a bad thing?

Not sure how you got that from my comment. I'm not the one arguing for "payment nuetrality". I'm just saying that such a provision wouldn't apply in the Pornhub case if it allowed for a suspected illegality escape hatch.

That's a cop-out, fraudsters don't announce themselves so naturally retail businesses look for proxy markers from which to draw inferences. There's an entire money-laundering industry that aims to handle this issue for organized criminals. If you don't engage with this fact than you're just handwaving away the problem, undermining any pro-cash advocacy you engage in.

The real cop-out is that HSBC and friends launder more money for terrorists and human traffickers on a bad day than your typical local racket does in a year, and they only ever receive a token fine and slap on the wrist.

Also true, but not germane to this discussion.

It’s germane in the sense that what you’re arguing against is a rounding error by comparison, consequently, not a material argument against cash-based money laundering in any meaningful sense.