I'm a curious person so I wanted to know a little more about this Marian Muller. Another pro-KYC, pro-AML, pro-international-sanctions advocate...
In September 2017 he wrote in
a post on Linkedin that he believes “Bitcoin shines in two key use cases:
International transfers for the unbanked and financially excluded, and as a store of value.”
Financially excluded people, right? He's so interested in their fate that when a non-KYC exchange like eXch just does its job as an exchange, it becomes a
mixer (the "M-word" of cryptospace!) - just because it refuses to check whether users are
Financially excluded or not (because when they're excluded, they should be refused e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e!).
In the same Linkedin post he explains how happy he was to have found
Reza on his trip to Iran, to exchange BTC for FIAT (his bank card didn't work in Iran).
For Reza, Bitcoin is one of very few options that enables him to conduct business internationally
The thousand-dollar question: Tell us Marian, how would Reza do without services like eXch as an Iranian citizen?
Does he know that people like him, who promote KYC and AML checks at every turn, contribute to isolating people like Reza? How would Reza conduct its business internationally if everyone was following Marian's demands?
Can Reza use Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, or any regulated CEX? Not at all.
Why does he now want those who are “financially excluded” by big banking and globalized groups to be financially excluded by crypto exchanges as well?
Wasn't it practical for these “excluded” people to have existing and doable solutions to give him FIAT for BTC when his bank card didn't work while he was on vacation? I know Bitcoin is P2P by nature, but how would he have found Reza if localbitcoin had imposed KYC at the time?
I'm going to quote his cheesy backpacker post on Linkedin again:
Of course this may not be an option forever — if sanctions are taken seriously, increased regulations might at some point exclude countries like Iran from international cryptocurrency transfers. But for now, Bitcoin is providing many people in Iran with opportunities they would not usually have access to. Not only did I get to experience a real-world use case of how Bitcoin is helping local entrepreneurs grow their businesses, but also how it can help idiotically naïve tourists like me survive in a financially excluded country.
Looks like things have changed a lot in Marian's mind since 2017... Reading his recent blog post about eXch, I conclude eXch should therefore apply all the international sanctions imposed by the US/Western world. On the other hand, when it comes to cheap vacations in Tehran hostels, sanctions shoud no longer exist..
TLDR: For Marian Muller, over-regulation and surveillance are good for earning a living, but when it comes to go on vacation and his privileged Westerner's bank card doesn't work, then he's happy for people to benefit from unregulated services he's paid to defame in everyday life. Making money by rotting the lives of certain peoples, then spending this money in their countries because it's cheap: that says a lot about his integrity.
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