ㅤ

[o_e_l_e_o]

For that we have technologies available to keep Bitcoin fungible. We already have mixing/tumbling services and CoinJoin applications, which are undervalued by the community.

I agree, but you've just said you would recommend that newbies don't use these techniques. If people don't use them for fear of receiving tainted coins, then this nonsense metric has achieved exactly what it is designed to achieve - making invading your privacy and tracking your transactions trivially easy.

There is no technical solution to this purely political problem. We have - as o_e_l_e_o said - to stop buying in to this "taint" nonsense.

Exactly. I mix, coinjoin, and otherwise obfuscate every single coin I touch. I have never once had to deal with my coins being tainted because I do not deal with any entities which enforce such nonsense. Can you imagine if Walmart started saying every customer has to show the cashier their bank statement first so the cashier can see where their money is coming from? The result would be outrage as well as a huge hit to Walmart's profits. But for some reason this community, despite being founded on the principles of self ownership and no third party control, are fine with this exact scenario, and continue to use and support exchanges which are openly spying on you. It is mind boggling.

[witcher_sense]

No no, now you're again trying to 'exchange tainted coins for untainted ones' using technology. I use mixing and LN to cut ties in payment links, but be assured that in the future, the most 'tainted' UTXOs will be those coming out of mixing services

We don't need to use additional methods to keep bitcoin fungible since the most important and effective of them has been an essential part of the bitcoin network from the very beginning. It's mining. Mining is what makes bitcoin perfectly fungible because even when 'tainted' bitcoin goes through the process of mining and gets added to the block, at least part of it becomes clean again through transaction fees. To keep the political nonsense of taintness sound convincing, governments and other agencies would have to declare all transaction fees illegal since it is not possible to distinguish between legal and illegal coins once they get laundered through fees. They would have to go further and declare the very process of mining illegal because there is no way to control which coins are being laundered.

They will also surely give in to those agencies again if pressured and log mappings between inputs and outputs and provide them in case there was potential 'illicit activity' detected.

They can't log mappings between inputs and outputs, however, a malicious coordinator can log ties between unrelated inputs (it can learn which inputs belong to the same user), which is also very useful information for three-letter agencies.

[PrivacyG]

Can you imagine if Walmart started saying every customer has to show the cashier their bank statement first so the cashier can see where their money is coming from? The result would be outrage as well as a huge hit to Walmart's profits. But for some reason this community, despite being founded on the principles of self ownership and no third party control, are fine with this exact scenario, and continue to use and support exchanges which are openly spying on you. It is mind boggling.

There is a difference.  It is the way this community thinks.

They see Walmart as a store they pay at for groceries.  And they see Bitcoin and Centralized Exchanges as a way to get rich.  Here is where the discrepancy comes from.  They would not share personal information with Walmart because Walmart is the one getting paid by them.  You do not purchase an apple to sell it ten fold the next day.  But in their mind, Binance does offer you exactly this.  Buy AppleRocketshipMaster3000Coin today and tomorrow you may be a millionaire or continue to be broke.

But Centralized Exchanges give you the 'opportunity' to earn a massive amount of money by storing your shit coins there, by storing your Bitcoin there.  By staking Bitcoin, even if there is no such thing.  But the average brain thinks, sure!  Take my ID, take this picture of my willy or take my wife, this one might make me a millionaire so it is worth it.

There is also this thing that by verifying you can trade up to a hundred thousand or a million.  Maybe they have a false feeling of more power and wealth by having increased limits.  I do not even know why you would do that when you do not even have that much in your wallet anyway.  And then, there is either that they got their money frozen, something Walmart does not do, or they are so comfortable with themselves that they would rather give up information and avoid future hassle than keep their private information .. private.

Yes, even if they know they will most probably not become millionaires.  Even if they tried with a hundred shit coins and got scammed every time.  Even if their beloved exchange got hacked.  And yes, at the expense of many things.  Privacy, security, integrity only to name a few.  But unfortunately many were somehow psychologically shaped along the years in such a way that they are capable of compromising and giving up anything long as it brings them fame and money.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Wind_FURY]

I agree with everything in your post, and we are in the same side. But for the plebs' sake, especially for someone very new to Bitcoin, I won't recommend them to risk tainting their coins if they merely want privacy for the sake of privacy. That's just practically speaking ser.

Here's the problem with that, though: The more people who buy in to this "taint" nonsense, then the more powerful it becomes.

For that we have technologies available to keep Bitcoin fungible.

No no, now you're again trying to 'exchange tainted coins for untainted ones' using technology. I use mixing and LN to cut ties in payment links, but be assured that in the future, the most 'tainted' UTXOs will be those coming out of mixing services.
The whole 'taint community' (governments and their friends) will tell you those, as well as Lightning funds, are all tainted, because it's not sure that they come from a 'good, non-criminal origin'. Their goal is not fighting criminality.

You're right! The taint community can simply say that all coins coming from "Service A", or "Off-chain Layer B" are all tainted! But talking about fungibility, what's the practical solution if they can even say that all Monero coins are "taintcoins".

If you compare the amount of crime conducted through BTC vs what is done through fiat, it's laughable. It's all about control. The authoritarians' preferred way for you to use Bitcoin is buying it in a KYC exchange, leaving it there and selling it later. At most, they want you to transfer it to a wallet and back into the exchange; they are trying to undermine its usage as a payment system entirely; especially if you introduce something that makes tracing harder.

I know! They're making criminals of ordinary people/plebs. But the cat is out of the bag, Bitcoin will enter gaps in markets, and especially those markets where it's truly needed.

That's why Wasabi changed course after being pressured by 3-letter agencies and now only mixes your inputs if they are 'untainted' (probably in the future only the case if coming directly from a centralized exchange). They will also surely give in to those agencies again if pressured and log mappings between inputs and outputs and provide them in case there was potential 'illicit activity' detected.

For simple untraceability/privacy without problems, I would recommend Wasabi to newbies for porn subscriptions or sex toy purchases that they want to hide from their wives.

There is no technical solution to this purely political problem. We have - as o_e_l_e_o said - to stop buying in to this "taint" nonsense.

I agree, and I have debated that taint doesn't exist in the blockchain. Plus that's why it's important that most of your Bitcoin that were converted from fiat should never be converted back to fiat. It's a practical solution.

[n0nce]

Can you imagine if Walmart started saying every customer has to show the cashier their bank statement first so the cashier can see where their money is coming from? The result would be outrage as well as a huge hit to Walmart's profits. But for some reason this community, despite being founded on the principles of self ownership and no third party control, are fine with this exact scenario, and continue to use and support exchanges which are openly spying on you. It is mind boggling.

There is a difference.  It is the way this community thinks.

They see Walmart as a store they pay at for groceries.  And they see Bitcoin and Centralized Exchanges as a way to get rich.  Here is where the discrepancy comes from.  They would not share personal information with Walmart because Walmart is the one getting paid by them.  You do not purchase an apple to sell it ten fold the next day.  But in their mind, Binance does offer you exactly this.  Buy AppleRocketshipMaster3000Coin today and tomorrow you may be a millionaire or continue to be broke.

These were exactly my thoughts as well. The ones that simply comply, are the ones that see Bitcoin as simply an investment like any other. I mean it depends how we define 'this community', of course. Personally, I don't consider myself in the 'same community' as the people who only see Bitcoin as a way to get rich and don't even understand its core principles.
I do get that the loudest voices and probably also largest group of people falls into that category though, but these people are no cypherpunks.

It's not possible for a cypherpunk to simply accept all those spying measures o_e_l_e_o described; all of us would react like the exemplary Walmart customer who would outrage if he had to prove fund origins when grocery shopping.

You're right! The taint community can simply say that all coins coming from "Service A", or "Off-chain Layer B" are all tainted! But talking about fungibility, what's the practical solution if they can even say that all Monero coins are "taintcoins".

[...]

For simple untraceability/privacy without problems, I would recommend Wasabi to newbies for porn subscriptions or sex toy purchases that they want to hide from their wives.

[...]

I agree, and I have debated that taint doesn't exist in the blockchain. Plus that's why it's important that most of your Bitcoin that were converted from fiat should never be converted back to fiat. It's a practical solution.

Aren't you contradicting yourself constantly here? On one hand you agree 'taint doesn't exist' and on the other hand, you 'recommend Wasabi' for 'avoiding problems'.

As for your first question: 'What's the practical solution if they can say that all Monero coins are tainted'; it's in the question. Everyone can define taint as they wish. It's a subjective, arbitrary thing that you can simply choose not to accept. Who gives them the authority to define such a thing as 'taint'? The blockchain knows no taint, and we should stick to the blockchain, not some arbitrary group of people trying to convince us of properties that are not written on the blockchain.

I could just say for instance, that all UTXOs that are sent to addresses starting with bc1q666.... are criminal, because they contain evil due to the number 666 or something like this. Of course, everyone will laugh at this 'taint definition' and not care about my opinion; continuing to accept coins from those addresses. We should not treat these 'taint definition companies' any different.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

I do take your point, but this issue is not unique to centralized exchanges. There are payment processors like BitPay which demand KYC and discriminate against tainted coins, and yet people still use it. We now have so called "privacy wallets" like Wasabi which are discriminating against tainted coins, and even then, people are still using it. Not only do these services not present the opportunity to become rich (regardless of how misplaced such a feeling is), but they are also used predominantly by people using bitcoin as a currency rather than an investment. And yet, these users are still happy to abandon their privacy and further the idea of taint by supporting these entities.

But talking about fungibility, what's the practical solution if they can even say that all Monero coins are "taintcoins".

Stop living by "their" rules. As I said, I have literally never had a problem with tainted coins because I will not use any service which enforces arbitrary rules on me. The whole point of bitcoin is to stop third parties having control over your money, and that includes allowing them to dictate to you whether or not your coins are good enough for them.

[n0nce]

The whole point of bitcoin is to stop third parties having control over your money, and that includes allowing them to dictate to you whether or not your coins are good enough for them.

Allowing people to dictate what coins are 'allowed' or 'good' reminds me of these 'anti-CBDC ads' that I saw recently.
https://twitter.com/SymbolSatoshi/status/1509325939444183040

The saying goes: 'give them an inch and they'll take a mile' - what's shown in those images is 'the mile' if you give them the 'tainted coins inch'.

[BlackHatCoiner]

They see Walmart as a store they pay at for groceries.  And they see Bitcoin and Centralized Exchanges as a way to get rich.

You make it sound as if it's mostly the users' fault. Sure, there's definitely responsibility individually, but what would you expect if I was the CEO of the most popular exchange? What if I portrayed Bitcoin as a way to make a quick lolly and had excessively good traffic and advertising in social media and search engines?

That being said, add that governments constantly try to brainwash everyone. They say that it's a direct threat to the economy, but in reality, it's direct threat to their control. When was the time when Christine Lagarde stated that cryptos are not currencies? Didn't the commercial banks send to everyone that they should not use cryptos as they're financially risky investments? How many times has the cyber crime secretary scared everyone for the volatility and the criminal usage?

Stop living by "their" rules. As I said, I have literally never had a problem with tainted coins because I will not use any service which enforces arbitrary rules on me.

This is not so simple. If a quarter of the total merchants accept Bitcoin using BitPay or Coinbase etc., you're unable to use many services. Same happens with Tor; you're excluded by many websites. Is that due to some government order, is it due to the fact that they feel they're fighting spam, whatever, you have this drawback.

If you don't care neither about those then it won't take long until you start living outside society.

[OROBTC]

...

For what it's worth (very little), I stopped by Wasabi's booth at the BTC conference in Miami Beach today and spoke to the guy manning it (my first stop after they opened the doors).  The guy there was NOT "nopara73". 

I asked him about this whole issue of Wasabi not allowing certain UTXOs to be used in their CoinJoin service.  He gave me a "plausible" response, essentially saying that the banned UTXOs would be those directly linked to wrongdoing (my wording), like for big BTC thefts, etc.  He said it would be uncommon (again, my wording not his).  Like I wrote above" "plausible"...  So, I really cannot knowledgeably comment any further, just don't know, but the fact that they are doing this is NOT GOOD, IMO.

I did not feel like grilling the guy any further as I had only today to see the show with lots to see & do.

[PrivacyG]

I asked him about this whole issue of Wasabi not allowing certain UTXOs to be used in their CoinJoin service.  He gave me a "plausible" response, essentially saying that the banned UTXOs would be those directly linked to wrongdoing (my wording), like for big BTC thefts, etc.  He said it would be uncommon (again, my wording not his).

Thank you for your input.  I however doubt it and what this guy said does not make it sound any better.

Good and bad or wrongdoing as you say is subjective.  If the one who decides what is good and bad has the power to ban the bad and does it, it now becomes an authority.  The more someone tries to explain how censoring is not bad, the more skeptical I am and the more I start to believe it is VERY bad.

I was thinking the other day about their censorship-by-compliance and that maybe the real censorship will not be as bad as it sounds.  Maybe they added this censorship just so authorities let them be.  But that is not good either, because at the end of the day what we all probably preferred is that they fought it rather than comply to it.

And say they truly only banned 'bad' UTXO's like those directly related to large thefts.  Will they NOT ban yours too if you are labeled a suspect by the authority deciding who was doing the wrong?  You see, this will become very similar to the 'money laundering' excuse.  Ban just the 'bad' UTXO's.  Then start questioning and banning you too because you are suspect.  Then why not start questioning everyone, because maybe they are part of it.  Especially the poor, because according to the European Union the criminal transactions are the smaller ones.  Jokes on you.

I will never buy this 'we are banning just the bad' excuse.  Because after all, it is an excuse for censorship and censorship can not be excused.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[Wind_FURY]

Can you imagine if Walmart started saying every customer has to show the cashier their bank statement first so the cashier can see where their money is coming from? The result would be outrage as well as a huge hit to Walmart's profits. But for some reason this community, despite being founded on the principles of self ownership and no third party control, are fine with this exact scenario, and continue to use and support exchanges which are openly spying on you. It is mind boggling.

There is a difference.  It is the way this community thinks.

They see Walmart as a store they pay at for groceries.  And they see Bitcoin and Centralized Exchanges as a way to get rich.  Here is where the discrepancy comes from.  They would not share personal information with Walmart because Walmart is the one getting paid by them.  You do not purchase an apple to sell it ten fold the next day.  But in their mind, Binance does offer you exactly this.  Buy AppleRocketshipMaster3000Coin today and tomorrow you may be a millionaire or continue to be broke.

These were exactly my thoughts as well. The ones that simply comply, are the ones that see Bitcoin as simply an investment like any other. I mean it depends how we define 'this community', of course. Personally, I don't consider myself in the 'same community' as the people who only see Bitcoin as a way to get rich and don't even understand its core principles.
I do get that the loudest voices and probably also largest group of people falls into that category though, but these people are no cypherpunks.

It's not possible for a cypherpunk to simply accept all those spying measures o_e_l_e_o described; all of us would react like the exemplary Walmart customer who would outrage if he had to prove fund origins when grocery shopping.

You're right! The taint community can simply say that all coins coming from "Service A", or "Off-chain Layer B" are all tainted! But talking about fungibility, what's the practical solution if they can even say that all Monero coins are "taintcoins".

[...]

For simple untraceability/privacy without problems, I would recommend Wasabi to newbies for porn subscriptions or sex toy purchases that they want to hide from their wives.

[...]

I agree, and I have debated that taint doesn't exist in the blockchain. Plus that's why it's important that most of your Bitcoin that were converted from fiat should never be converted back to fiat. It's a practical solution.

Aren't you contradicting yourself constantly here? On one hand you agree 'taint doesn't exist' and on the other hand, you 'recommend Wasabi' for 'avoiding problems'.

YES I am. Because in my original post, I was merely saying that it might be better for some users to use Wasabi to avoid future problems that they might be encountering with "taint". It's for practicality's sake.

As for your first question: 'What's the practical solution if they can say that all Monero coins are tainted'; it's in the question. Everyone can define taint as they wish. It's a subjective, arbitrary thing that you can simply choose not to accept. Who gives them the authority to define such a thing as 'taint'? The blockchain knows no taint, and we should stick to the blockchain, not some arbitrary group of people trying to convince us of properties that are not written on the blockchain.

But another problem for the "taint patrol", how can they distiguish which UTXOs came from "Mr. Heroine Dealer", and which came from "clean sources".

I could just say for instance, that all UTXOs that are sent to addresses starting with bc1q666.... are criminal, because they contain evil due to the number 666 or something like this. Of course, everyone will laugh at this 'taint definition' and not care about my opinion; continuing to accept coins from those addresses. We should not treat these 'taint definition companies' any different.

I agree with everything you stand for whole heartedly. But from a practical standpoint for the newbies/ordinary users, would you recommend services that would taint their wallets that might make it hard for them to sell their coins in exchanges? Or possibly even have legal problems? I personally would not want that responsibility. I believe I would recommend Wasabi for less problems with the "taint patrol" if the objective was to merely hide their porn subscriptions from their wives.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If a quarter of the total merchants accept Bitcoin using BitPay or Coinbase etc., you're unable to use many services.

There are usually alternatives. And if not, then contact the merchant in question and let them know they've lost business by using BitPay. Goes back to my point above that these services only keep getting away with insane levels of privacy invasion because people keep using them. If everyone refused to use BitPay, then the alternatives would grow significantly.

He gave me a "plausible" response, essentially saying that the banned UTXOs would be those directly linked to wrongdoing (my wording), like for big BTC thefts, etc.

Of course he did. This is always how authoritarian entities start their assault on your rights. "You're not a criminal, are you?" "Why won't you think of the children?" "Don't you want to stop terrorists?" And then it spreads to censoring you because you are supporting a cause the government doesn't like (Canadian truckers) or you happen to live in the wrong country (Russian citizens).

If they can censor someone else, then they can censor you. And to censor anyone, they must first spy on everyone. Wasabi will obviously try to spin up plausible sounding excuses here, but the fact remains that they are now an enemy of censorship resistance and therefore an enemy of privacy.

But from a practical standpoint for the newbies/ordinary users, would you recommend services that would taint their wallets that might make it hard for them to sell their coins in exchanges?

I would never recommend a newbie to use any service which enforces taint in any way. And again, if we are going to make newbies scared of tainted coins from day 1, then we are playing in to the hands of the authorities and doing exactly what they want - making sure newbies abandon their privacy immediately upon entering the space.

[Wind_FURY]

But from a practical standpoint for the newbies/ordinary users, would you recommend services that would taint their wallets that might make it hard for them to sell their coins in exchanges?

I would never recommend a newbie to use any service which enforces taint in any way. And again, if we are going to make newbies scared of tainted coins from day 1, then we are playing in to the hands of the authorities and doing exactly what they want - making sure newbies abandon their privacy immediately upon entering the space.

It will be a complicated issue from an idealistical perspective, but I believe in educating newbies and letting them make their own decisions as long as they know the risks/danger of what they want to do.

[nopara73]

I wonder who was "the guy manning the booth." The mask wearing anarchist or the suit wearing business man. Depending on who you met, you will get different answers to your questions, as their personality is the exact opposite. zkSNACKs is a company with over 30+ people already and opinions on blacklisting varies to a great degree from "this should'd been done long time ago" to "we must start working on decentralized coordination protocols." My take is that I'd not like to discriminate between users at all, but it had to be done, and I can only hope it wasn't already too late. At least Bitcoin privacy can flourish.

[n0nce]

It will be a complicated issue from an idealistical perspective, but I believe in educating newbies and letting them make their own decisions as long as they know the risks/danger of what they want to do.

There is no danger. Why is everyone always so afraid of everything? You're in Bitcoin and believe in free (as in freedom), anarchistic money, in decentralization and in no authorities but you let a random American company tell you that some coins are better than others and let them decide which ones are?
This is fucked. If you believe this and if you tell people this stuff, you're actually working against everything Bitcoin stands for and siding heavily with authoritarian, oppressive companies and organizations that wish nothing more than controlling every single thing you do, buy, everywhere you go, who you interact with and even what you think.

If a quarter of the total merchants accept Bitcoin using BitPay or Coinbase etc., you're unable to use many services.

There are usually alternatives. And if not, then contact the merchant in question and let them know they've lost business by using BitPay. Goes back to my point above that these services only keep getting away with insane levels of privacy invasion because people keep using them. If everyone refused to use BitPay, then the alternatives would grow significantly.

This is what we should focus on. Encourage self-custody, encourage normal Bitcoin acceptance through self-hosted BTCPayServer or similar systems and inform / educate merchants that often simply don't have the knowledge to know the difference between BitPay and BTCPayServer. If needed, provide them with resources on how to set everything up, as well. Information is power!

[BlackHatCoiner]

There are usually alternatives. And if not, then contact the merchant in question and let them know they've lost business by using BitPay.

This is what I'm saying. If they don't comply with my rules, which is much more usual with big businesses, I won't buy from them. There may be alternatives, but I won't get the same quality or the same quantity for the same price or even the same product as it may monopolize etc. Again, it's not as simple as "No privacy, no honey.".

This is what we should focus on. Encourage self-custody, encourage normal Bitcoin acceptance through self-hosted BTCPayServer or similar systems and inform / educate merchants that often simply don't have the knowledge to know the difference between BitPay and BTCPayServer.

I agree, we should play our part; it's personal responsibility in the end. I wonder, though, how much can those few affect.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It will be a complicated issue from an idealistical perspective, but I believe in educating newbies and letting them make their own decisions as long as they know the risks/danger of what they want to do.

I agree with that as well, but the problem of that approach is that when it comes to privacy, many newbies have completely compromised themselves long before they understand the full implications of what they have done. Once you have completed KYC at a centralized exchange or two, withdrawn those coins to a closed source wallet dependent on centralized services like Blockchain.com or Coinomi that can see all your addresses and everything you do, then it becomes impossible to wipe the slate clean and start again. By the time a newbie realizes the importance of maintain at least some of their privacy, their KYC documents are already all over the internet and blockchain analysis companies already have a profile on them.

And again, I see no risk in my coins being tainted. I'm not going to use any entity which pays any attention to taint, because by doing so those entities are anti-bitcoin.

zkSNACKs is a company with over 30+ people already and opinions on blacklisting varies to a great degree from "this should'd been done long time ago" to "we must start working on decentralized coordination protocols."

And you don't see the problem of a so called "privacy service" employing people who think that censoring users isn't going far enough? Wow.

[Wind_FURY]

It will be a complicated issue from an idealistical perspective, but I believe in educating newbies and letting them make their own decisions as long as they know the risks/danger of what they want to do.

There is no danger. Why is everyone always so afraid of everything? You're in Bitcoin and believe in free (as in freedom), anarchistic money, in decentralization and in no authorities but you let a random American company tell you that some coins are better than others and let them decide which ones are?

This is fucked. If you believe this and if you tell people this stuff, you're actually working against everything Bitcoin stands for and siding heavily with authoritarian, oppressive companies and organizations that wish nothing more than controlling every single thing you do, buy, everywhere you go, who you interact with and even what you think.

OK, if you say so. But I personally don't want to be responsible if newbies' coins are withheld by an exchange just because I told them "there is no danger". Especially newbies who are Coinbase users.

I am also starting to believe that Bitcoin should not be as "black" or "white", there are areas in the middle for all types of users.

[n0nce]

By the time a newbie realizes the importance of maintain at least some of their privacy, their KYC documents are already all over the internet and blockchain analysis companies already have a profile on them.

First of all, I like to inform people before they sign up anywhere and upload their documents. It turns out, many of the people I talk to did try to sign up, but were 'scared off' from the website asking for such personal details. I really like to see and foster this skepticism and use it to aid me explain the importance of Bitcoin and of its proper usage.

If someone did use such an exchange before, there are certainly ways to 'start off clean' again. I created a discussion thread about this a while back and I think my recommendation would be to sell all the Bitcoin off again, through that same exchange. That would allow you to prove you 'don't own them anymore'. Then burn those wallets, addresses, anything you've used (most newbies just bought and maybe withdrew to be honest) and start off fresh.

OK, if you say so. But I personally don't want to be responsible if newbies' coins are withheld by an exchange just because I told them "there is no danger". Especially newbies who are Coinbase users.

Does everyone see the contradiction in the bold highlighted part?
Wind_FURY; you care about your friends' funds, yet allow them to use a centralized exchange? How does that make any sense?

Yes, there is a real risk of exchanges closing accounts, denying payments, blocking funds, getting hacked, fake getting hacked, exit scam and the list goes on. That's not an argument against Bitcoin or 'tainted UTXOs', it's a strong argument not to use exchanges.

Now they want to censor you and have the audacity to try to convince you that you're the one at fault by claiming you aren't using good UTXOs, but they're the very entity deciding which are fine and which aren't. This would be laughable in any other scenario. As described earlier, imagine going to the store, the cashier taking your $50 bill and saying 'it is a little dirty, you cannot use it', and confiscating it. That's not an argument against old paper bills, it's an argument to rebel against that store.

[o_e_l_e_o]

OK, if you say so. But I personally don't want to be responsible if newbies' coins are withheld by an exchange just because I told them "there is no danger". Especially newbies who are Coinbase users.

If the user is already neck deep in fully-KYCed zero-privacy zero-sovereignty bottom-of-the-barrel centralized exchanges like Coinbase, then I can completely understand where you are coming from. But as n0nce has correctly pointed out, the enemy here isn't the privacy protecting techniques and services; it is the centralized exchanges which are fighting against your basic rights.

If a grocery store said "You can't shop with us unless you provide us a copy of your bank statement", then no one would say "You better make sure you use a bank which provides PDF statements", but rather everyone would say "Don't use that store".
If an employer said "You can't work with us unless you provide us a copy of your entire internet browsing history", then no one would say "Make sure you never use incognito mode", but rather everyone would say "Don't work for that employer".
If a bank said "You can't open an account with us unless we can see all your online chat history", then no would say "Make sure you use insecure and unencrypted messaging apps", but rather everyone would say "Don't use that bank".

If an exchange says "You can't use us unless you provide a copy of all your documents and let us monitor all your financial dealings and transactions", then why do people say "Make sure you comply and don't use any privacy protecting techniques" rather than "Don't use that exchange"?