My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost.

[DrBeer]

I reread the introduction - but I still don't understand what is the reason? Is the author not saying something or deliberately omitting some nuances? Perhaps the bank was problematic, but the author decided to ignore the warnings? Perhaps the counterparties were not clean on their hands or fell under financial monitoring, which they also always inform about? There must be real reasons and grounds for blocking funds. Just like that "because we wanted it" can only be in countries with totalitarian or criminal regimes. Can the author publish funds blocking protocols, official letters? It will be transparent, understandable and open ... And this looks one-sided

governments and banks can steal at will buddy, better get with the program.

In fact, after making a deposit at a bank it is no longer considered legally your money, it's an obligation on the bank to repay, i.e. it is a loan.

This is what all these "bail-in" laws have been put in place for, "The Great Reset" is coming. Some stupid people have too much money loaned to the banks ... and the stupid governments have too many debts to pay off after wasting it on all manner of hare-brained (socialist) schemes. Match made in heaven.

Somewhere I may agree with your thoughts, but not everything is so bad and a little wrong For example, in my country there is a so-called "deposit guarantee fund", which, albeit not fully, but insures such situations. The meaning of this fund is that the state fund accumulates funds at the expense of the same commercial banks, and guarantees that at the expense of this fund, if the bank cannot fulfill its obligations, an amount of up to $ 12k will be paid. This, of course, does not compensate for a $ 50k deposit, but most depositors do not keep such amounts on deposits.
And what happened in Cyprus is a reaction to the criminal acts of the government, the government that the people themselves chose and allowed to bring the economy to such a state. I will say this - I have been to Cyprus often (as a tourist), so the population there is quite lazy, although in their situation they would have to try harder and work better. But all the time they were waiting for handouts from the EU, aid, loans, i.e. waited for someone to solve their problems for them. The result is quite predictable, and private businesses suffered by inertia ...

I have to agree with this, although as you note, the guarantee fund wouldn't cover this since it was the government that imposed the seizure.  

I think most people here would agree (as does the OP in the thread) that if the OP had held his assets in bitcoin, the government couldn't have seized it.

Unfortunately, I cannot completely agree - consider the option if a person stores bitcoin, for example, in a hardware wallet. And at a certain moment, he has a need to SELL bitcoin. What is he doing? That's right - it displays it on the stock exchange, and here a restrictive mechanism can easily work - they will ask for KUS, proof of the legal origin of bitcoin, a certificate stating that you are who you claim to be, and other nonsense, which will ultimately lead to the inability to return your funds. At the same time, I will say - if a person kept his funds in a more adequate country, and a more adequate bank, such a situation would not have happened to him either. I am still inclined to believe that the reason is not in the EU or the regulators, but in the fact that the person did not assess the risks associated with the financial system of Cyprus, which has long been "lame" and has been a "laundry room" for dubious funds for a long time.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I reread the introduction - but I still don't understand what is the reason? Is the author not saying something or deliberately omitting some nuances? Perhaps the bank was problematic, but the author decided to ignore the warnings? Perhaps the counterparties were not clean on their hands or fell under financial monitoring, which they also always inform about? There must be real reasons and grounds for blocking funds. Just like that "because we wanted it" can only be in countries with totalitarian or criminal regimes. Can the author publish funds blocking protocols, official letters? It will be transparent, understandable and open ... And this looks one-sided

governments and banks can steal at will buddy, better get with the program.

In fact, after making a deposit at a bank it is no longer considered legally your money, it's an obligation on the bank to repay, i.e. it is a loan.

This is what all these "bail-in" laws have been put in place for, "The Great Reset" is coming. Some stupid people have too much money loaned to the banks ... and the stupid governments have too many debts to pay off after wasting it on all manner of hare-brained (socialist) schemes. Match made in heaven.

Somewhere I may agree with your thoughts, but not everything is so bad and a little wrong For example, in my country there is a so-called "deposit guarantee fund", which, albeit not fully, but insures such situations. The meaning of this fund is that the state fund accumulates funds at the expense of the same commercial banks, and guarantees that at the expense of this fund, if the bank cannot fulfill its obligations, an amount of up to $ 12k will be paid. This, of course, does not compensate for a $ 50k deposit, but most depositors do not keep such amounts on deposits.
And what happened in Cyprus is a reaction to the criminal acts of the government, the government that the people themselves chose and allowed to bring the economy to such a state. I will say this - I have been to Cyprus often (as a tourist), so the population there is quite lazy, although in their situation they would have to try harder and work better. But all the time they were waiting for handouts from the EU, aid, loans, i.e. waited for someone to solve their problems for them. The result is quite predictable, and private businesses suffered by inertia ...

I have to agree with this, although as you note, the guarantee fund wouldn't cover this since it was the government that imposed the seizure.  

I think most people here would agree (as does the OP in the thread) that if the OP had held his assets in bitcoin, the government couldn't have seized it.

Unfortunately, I cannot completely agree - consider the option if a person stores bitcoin, for example, in a hardware wallet. And at a certain moment, he has a need to SELL bitcoin. What is he doing? That's right - it displays it on the stock exchange, and here a restrictive mechanism can easily work - they will ask for KUS, proof of the legal origin of bitcoin, a certificate stating that you are who you claim to be, and other nonsense, which will ultimately lead to the inability to return your funds. At the same time, I will say - if a person kept his funds in a more adequate country, and a more adequate bank, such a situation would not have happened to him either. I am still inclined to believe that the reason is not in the EU or the regulators, but in the fact that the person did not assess the risks associated with the financial system of Cyprus, which has long been "lame" and has been a "laundry room" for dubious funds for a long time.

You're engaging in heavy doses of willful ignorance or cognitive dissonance here. The EU banking system is fundamentally crooked by the facts of this specific case and the many other hundreds of millions that was stolen from innocent bank depositors in this Cyprus financial debacle. The courts allowed for it and all the same mechanisms and laws are in place for billions of euros to be stolen in exactly the same manner when future financial calamities again return to Europe in full force.
Some would argue that the current massive monetary inflation being pursued by the ECB is just a slow-burning disaster that is delaying the inevitable crash while causing great harm to innocent savers of euros, while wreaking terrible havoc and distortion on the economic systems of european nations.

[Sithara007]

Also Cyprus' banks were fine with laundering dirty Russian money : https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-takes-on-russias-favorite-money-haven-cyprus-1538316001 And Russian taxes were probably not paid on the money either.

It's a shame for the people affected that didn't do any of that...

Some of the deposits obviously belonged to those who wanted to launder the "dirty money" that was generated in Russia. But I believe that a majority of the funds belonged to ordinary Russians, who were attracted to Cyprus simply because of higher interest rates and a stable currency exchange rate. Anyway, I heard that the OP has since moved to one of the island nations in the Caribbean. He should have taken this step a few years ago.

[jaysabi]

I think most people here would agree (as does the OP in the thread) that if the OP had held his assets in bitcoin, the government couldn't have seized it.

Nothing is going to stop the government from seizing your assets if they want to. Even holding crypto, they may not be able to spend it, but if they lock you away for failure to comply with a court order, you haven't accomplished anything by failing to turn it over. Keeping your asset "safe" from the government is pointless if you're also not free to use your assets.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I think most people here would agree (as does the OP in the thread) that if the OP had held his assets in bitcoin, the government couldn't have seized it.

Nothing is going to stop the government from seizing your assets if they want to. Even holding crypto, they may not be able to spend it, but if they lock you away for failure to comply with a court order, you haven't accomplished anything by failing to turn it over. Keeping your asset "safe" from the government is pointless if you're also not free to use your assets.

I'm not sure if you realise it but you're arguing in defense of totalitarian government actions.

That maybe okay if you're from China, N. Korea or other heavily socialistic or facist countries, but it is not normal behaviour of countries in the Western liberal democratic tradition.

[cheezcarls]

This is why I would never ever going to store a lot of money in the bank because they are centralised and we don’t have full control of it. If I were in his shoes, I would be very stressed and depressed for a long time because of that amount. They have the power to freeze or “legally steal” our money that is stored from our bank accounts, but they can’t fully control our assets if they were stored in DEXs or decentralized wallets that are non-custodial.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Nothing is going to stop the government from seizing your assets if they want to. Even holding crypto, they may not be able to spend it, but if they lock you away for failure to comply with a court order, you haven't accomplished anything by failing to turn it over. Keeping your asset "safe" from the government is pointless if you're also not free to use your assets.

I agree. Even cryptocurrency is not 100% safe from government seizure. As a first step, the FinCen has started identifying personal wallets. It is another fact that unlike the bank accounts and demat accounts, the government can't freeze these wallets and seize the funds without your inputs. On top of that, we have a number of cryptocurrencies which are centralized such as Tether and USDC.

[DrBeer]

Also Cyprus' banks were fine with laundering dirty Russian money : https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-takes-on-russias-favorite-money-haven-cyprus-1538316001 And Russian taxes were probably not paid on the money either.

It's a shame for the people affected that didn't do any of that...

Some of the deposits obviously belonged to those who wanted to launder the "dirty money" that was generated in Russia. But I believe that a majority of the funds belonged to ordinary Russians, who were attracted to Cyprus simply because of higher interest rates and a stable currency exchange rate. Anyway, I heard that the OP has since moved to one of the island nations in the Caribbean. He should have taken this step a few years ago.

It's a delusion. Only people close to the authorities or related by family ties with the Russian political "elite" have the opportunity to withdraw more or less large sums. The country's population is either simply poor, who cannot afford even minimal savings, or does not have such a right - they simply will not be allowed to freely buy a large amount of currency and withdraw it outside Russia.
And Cyprus and its banking system were indeed a laundry room for dirty money, and Russian criminal money was the basis there. Therefore, the victims were set up not by the EU, but by the Ministry of Finance, the government, the banks of Cyprus.

[CarnagexD]

So you got taxated by the country you live in under circumstances you may not have been aware of. You may as well try to file a case because that is a big loss in my opinion. Athough what boggles me the most is how this works. Is Cyprus a Socialist country? Why is the rich being made fo pay for the country's tax like you're their mom or something?

[aesma]

It's not about taxes. The banks were going to fail, there was going to be a bankrun, and at this point 100% of the money of everyone in Cyprus was at risk. So this decision was taken to do a haircut. You can see something similar happening when crypto exchanges are hacked.

[Sithara007]

It's not about taxes. The banks were going to fail, there was going to be a bankrun, and at this point 100% of the money of everyone in Cyprus was at risk. So this decision was taken to do a haircut. You can see something similar happening when crypto exchanges are hacked.

LOL.. seriously? The populist politicians took loans from countries such as Germany, so that they could splurge all that money on various welfare schemes and handouts (and a large part of it was stolen). In the end, they are unable to pay back the loans and Germany suggests them to rob the hard working people, who kept their life savings in banks. A 37.5% haircut was suggested initially, but the depositors lost around 90% of their funds and got some worthless shares of the bank in return.

[malevolent]

LOL.. seriously? The populist politicians took loans from countries such as Germany, so that they could splurge all that money on various welfare schemes and handouts (and a large part of it was stolen). In the end, they are unable to pay back the loans and Germany suggests them to rob the hard working people, who kept their life savings in banks. A 37.5% haircut was suggested initially, but the depositors lost around 90% of their funds and got some worthless shares of the bank in return.

Laiki Bank - anything above 100k EUR was lost.

Bank of Cyprus - 47.5% of the funds above 100k EUR were seized and were converted into shares.

As for why it happened, it's multifaceted:

https://www.mfsociety.org/modules/modDashboard/uploadFiles/journals/MJ~0~p1dg2hfl4fdhu1i4g1a4vu441ejj4.pdf

Or a shorter article:

https://www.cyprusprofile.com/articles/cyprus-banking-crisis-causes-and-consequences-bailout

[Sithara007]

It's a delusion. Only people close to the authorities or related by family ties with the Russian political "elite" have the opportunity to withdraw more or less large sums. The country's population is either simply poor, who cannot afford even minimal savings, or does not have such a right - they simply will not be allowed to freely buy a large amount of currency and withdraw it outside Russia.
And Cyprus and its banking system were indeed a laundry room for dirty money, and Russian criminal money was the basis there. Therefore, the victims were set up not by the EU, but by the Ministry of Finance, the government, the banks of Cyprus.

I just hope that what you are saying is true, and most of the money belonged to the corrupt officials and tax evaders. Even then, that money would have been repatriated back to Russia, rather than fed to the central bank. But I am sure that there would have been some collateral damage, and the OP is a perfect example. Anyway, these incidents will hopefully result in an increase in mainstream adoption of decentralized cryptocurrency.

[DrBeer]

It's a delusion. Only people close to the authorities or related by family ties with the Russian political "elite" have the opportunity to withdraw more or less large sums. The country's population is either simply poor, who cannot afford even minimal savings, or does not have such a right - they simply will not be allowed to freely buy a large amount of currency and withdraw it outside Russia.
And Cyprus and its banking system were indeed a laundry room for dirty money, and Russian criminal money was the basis there. Therefore, the victims were set up not by the EU, but by the Ministry of Finance, the government, the banks of Cyprus.

I just hope that what you are saying is true, and most of the money belonged to the corrupt officials and tax evaders. Even then, that money would have been repatriated back to Russia, rather than fed to the central bank. But I am sure that there would have been some collateral damage, and the OP is a perfect example. Anyway, these incidents will hopefully result in an increase in mainstream adoption of decentralized cryptocurrency.

It is extremely simple to check this - find a typical resident of Russia and offer him to open a foreign currency account, for example, in Germany. For 10.000 euros. Or even 5,000 He will tell you what awaits him ... Starting from the lack of such amounts and ending with a huge set of restrictions for withdrawing funds by an ordinary resident of Russia, not close to the ruling elite ...
And Cyprus has long flirted with Russia, which generously paid for the "European rebels". There are such people in Spain, Greece, Italy, Germany, France - parties, politicians, ... This is all a long-standing process called "agents of influence", and which, according to the idea, should help Russia achieve beneficial solutions within Europe, and now the EU. In the "new era", after the collapse of the USSR, everything was tied to the monopoisation of the hydrocarbon market in favor of Russia. Remember at least where Gerhard Schroeder works now In the same way, other politicians / structures were "sponsored" through various mechanisms. Greece and Cyprus, especially the latter, were very densely "fed from the hand" of the Kremlin, this is no secret to anyone. Cyprus was promised huge financial flows in exchange for a "convenient" tax-free and SLOWLY CONTROLLED banking system of Cyprus. Some receive a huge amount of money in their pocket banks, while others get the opportunity to withdraw huge amounts from Russia, without supervision and financial monitoring. The result is well known!

[Smartprofit]

This story shocked me!  Because of European bureaucrats, the author lost all his money, he went bankrupt. 

At the same time, such risks are only increasing.  In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic crisis, such situations can recur over and over again.  Now there is a transformation of the entire world financial system.  Fiat money is becoming unreliable.  We all need to be as careful as possible. 

The best store of value is Bitcoin.  Bitcoin was originally created to operate in systems where there is no trust between people.

[aesma]

It's not about taxes. The banks were going to fail, there was going to be a bankrun, and at this point 100% of the money of everyone in Cyprus was at risk. So this decision was taken to do a haircut. You can see something similar happening when crypto exchanges are hacked.

LOL.. seriously? The populist politicians took loans from countries such as Germany, so that they could splurge all that money on various welfare schemes and handouts (and a large part of it was stolen). In the end, they are unable to pay back the loans and Germany suggests them to rob the hard working people, who kept their life savings in banks. A 37.5% haircut was suggested initially, but the depositors lost around 90% of their funds and got some worthless shares of the bank in return.

What you're describing is what happened in Greece (and Spain, Portugal). I'm not sure it's what happened to Cyprus, rather, Cyprus' banks were invested in Greece, and took a haircut when all Greek investments took one. Everyone says that the Greek bailout bailed banks out, in particular French and German ones, but a 50% haircut is significant, enough to kill Cyprus' banks.

Reading this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Cypriot_financial_crisis

If you lost 3 million euros you can get Cypriot citizenship !