Goodbye, privacy, goodbye, it was nice while it lasted.

[franky1]

certain people in this topic are trying desparetly to set up a narrative that people should avoid using services like bitpay and should instead pay a retailer direct. while also setting up that moving large amounts is a bad thing and people should use small amounts. and also people should use decentralised networks and decentralised mixers.. in short they are trying to find as many excuses for people to be prompted to lock up bitcoin and go play around with other networks of less security but the FAKE promises of privacy

what they do not realise is that their altnet they favour most is actually going to get even more regulated per user, than bitcoin is individually at its bitcoin core level.

yep they have made very many fake suggestions that bitcoin core is affected by new regulations while downplaying/ignoring/avoiding how their altnet nodes are going to get regulated.

here is what they should know
altnets that promote 'dex' might appear to be private and pretend to offer decentralised exchanging for fiat. or even unrecorded methods to 'route' a payment.. but, here is their problem

routing is a service for a fee.. yep if your allowing yourself to do 'routing' via associating a certain amount of balance of your altnet value to be used to 'autopilot' routes where you announce your channel as a possible route and a fee.. you are becoming a service provider.
however bitcoin core does not annouce itself as a service for a fee so bitcoin core is not under the new laws of "service provider"

also even if you can hide you identity when doing decentralised fiat exchanges on altnets.. your bank can clearly see you doing lots of random wire transfers to lots of random people. and under terms of most personal bank accounts , this is a big no-no, because its seen as you either doing money laundering for doing all these swaps of fiat between people, or seen as running a unregistered money service business.

yep it does not matter if your trading casino tokens, pokemon cards, or crypto, if your taking in many wire transfers from one bunch of people and sending out wire transfers to another bunch of people . your bank, without even knowing or caring about the platform/network/token you might be playing with. will just see the fiat movements and slap you with demands

yep using an altnet wont hide your wire transfers. so pretend that using an altnet to hide the crypto stuff also hides the fiat stuff.. it does not.

many people have tried to say 'localbitcoin' failed because 'bitcoin is centralised' when the reality is that the sellers on localbitcoins were independent and decentralised in regards to the bitcoin side..  but their bank accounts were flagged as running a possible illicit/unregistered business/service simply because of the amount of wire transfers being processed. its not localbitcoins fault. its the banking fault of personal account terms and conditions.

so if you want to use an altnet to do fiat swaps/routing for anything. you will have to register as a money service provider and have a business account and become regulated and file taxes on your income and outgoings.
yep the very feature of a certain network only works by publicly announcing your channel as a route.. for people to the route .. thus you cannot hide
(well you could in its early iterations, and could if you tweak your node to plan routes outside the new bolt method, but certain devs of that altnet prefer the public listing bolt version now, so goodluck with that fake 'privacy' statement now)

oh and having the altnet offering payment services via things like 'shopify' will make people need to give info because shopify is a service provider like bitpay. meaning the altnet is actually not trying to find ways to avoid bitcoins bitpay problem, instead they are just making false statement that their altnet is better than bitcoins network. .. (facepalm)

[1713553737]

1713553737

[Poker Player]

I see very interesting opinions in the thread, and rather than commenting on some of the aspects that you have mentioned, I wanted to share my personal experience with something that I see a parallel with and that has been going through my head a lot lately.

If I remember correctly I started playing poker online in 2009. At that time poker houses, and I understand that online gambling houses in general, either had a license to operate from a tax haven or operated without a license. No one sees a parallel with crypto gambling houses today?

If someone asked about taxation of poker profits in a poker forum, everyone said that there was a legal obligation to declare, and that they declared everything they earned, even though it was practically impossible for the states to know anything about their earnings unless the deposits and withdrawals were made by international transfer, which would take a long time and would probably be blocked by the bank because they were transfers to and from tax havens.

We were in the midst of the crisis that began in 2007/08 and until then the states had not paid much attention to online gambling, because before the bubble burst, the economy was doing very well (or rather we can say, it was super-inflated).

When the bubble burst, states started looking for money everywhere and one of the things that were targeted were online gambling houses.

Long story short, the result was quite disastrous. In part I understand that it is logical that the states ended up regulating the game and charging taxes for it, the problem is that in some cases they did it in the worst possible way, compartmentalizing a market that was once global.

We could say is good that today the states charge taxes for online gambling, which is logical, the bad part was killing the goose that lays the golden eggs: there are fewer and fewer players, houses give less and less rakeback, the tables are getting harder and harder. This has been an inexorable trend with the exception of 2020 when lockdowns made a lot of people decide playing online poker while having a few beers.

I suppose that it is partly because I have lived through this experience that I am pessimistic regading the possible EU crypto payments regulation, although something similar does not have to be repeated, but it makes me think that in the end legislation will be implemented that will allow the states to continue collecting taxes and will greatly attack privacy, and it is not that the states of the EU are characterized precisely by having a great libertarian movement that can oppose this type of regulations.

[franky1]

another reason that crypto is becoming regulated by the financial agencies of government. is because instead of being treated as a product(like facebook credits) its being treated like a currency. thus regulated by currency agencies.

if bitcoin did not get classed as a currency. trading it would be classed as buying a product. but because its treated as a currency. trading it is an investment/money service business.

exchanges in 2010-2014 got away with not being regulated simply because crypto was not legally classed as a currency. so currency rules didnt apply. exchanges worked as retailers offering a product sale/refund to-from fiat
but now countries recognise crypto as a currency and so currency rules apply when swapping for fiat

[LUCKMCFLY]

If that goes through and gets implemented, it's pretty much the end of crypto and many fundamentals it's based on such as 'not-my-keys-not-my-coins'

No, it's not.
The foundations of cryptocurrency, as an idea, are very strong. It is well known that peer-to-peer, decentralized networks are unstoppable. Of course and they can be regulated, but there's a limit. If you deposit your coins to big, centralized exchanges you fall back on the central point of failure. Don't. Use a DEX. You'll always be able to move them across pockets without anyone's permission.
I know no fundamentals that include the transition from crypto to fiat currency. This is what's going to get harder to do.

This is true, plus that's just Europe and not the whole world. As someone who doesn't live in Europe, I do not care about what their laws about crypto is at all. To say that "crypto as we know it would be gone" requires the whole world to jump in on this, not just Europe. There are like 5 billion people give or take that doesn't really get impacted about this at all, nobody cares about this in that part of the world.
Only the European continent and the places that gets impacted by this would care about it. Which means that at the very very worst case (and not even that) it would only cause a "crypto as we know it would be gone in EUROPE" and that's it, nothing more than that.

exactly, who cares EU Parlament!!
I don't have time to bother about them.
If they made changes then surely only they and their people will suffer for their shitty decisions.
The whole world will follow the basic crypto rules "not your key not your coins"
I think people are becoming very jealous of Bitcoin. They have no idea what decision they are making! This is not a good thing at all.

I think that when it comes to money and somehow they want to tell you through regulations and No privacy so that you have less money, people simply become irreverent, because normally both the rulers and the banks have their money and it is a lot that they have, then they are not interested in people in their particular economies having money or being able to achieve financial freedom in an economy totally different from the traditional one, this is what we commonly call the advantage of the deflationary economy over the inflationary one, where the traditional and inflationary economy, the accounts know who it is, and they have all their data, while with Crypto if the person wants to maintain their anonymity, they will keep it that way so that no one messes with them, this is logical.

[franky1]

i know that people are concerned about privacy .. by this i mean the privacy people had pre 1960's (before debit/credit cards were invented) where cash was treated as private.

i know people are concerned that in a "cashless" society of electronic currency that everything can be tracked. well this is true. everything is tracked and logged somewhere.

but lets not go tin foil hat with silly propaganda that there are millions of government employees watching all these movements.
yes your trades and deposits/withdrawals are logged by service providers. and yes out of all of these logged items 1% of them get forwarded on to government systems. and out of those 1%.. 0.99% (99% of the 1%) are just logged on government systems but not seen by human eyes of government employee's.

im not saying dont care about privacy. im saying dont exaggerate what actually happens to your data by thinking that doing $1k will get you punished/visited at home by swat teams.

i personally have moved alot of money way beyond $1k values, and i do not get knocks at the door from government agents.

i am not worried about the fake news propaganda that bitcoin-core will need to KYC all its users, because i actually read the US/EU law proposals and none of them actually even hint at that requirement

if we are to have a rational debate about privacy and its implications, we must start with the reality of the situation.
for instance if its not about wanting to remain private because your a criminal, but instead you dont want to have to pay taxes on your funds. there are actual tax avoidance methods(emphasis legally allowed avoidance not criminal evasion)
just look at the UK/US government politicians.(google them) they are happily giving themselves 'loans' to receive income without paying tax.
we can develop ways to instead of 'exchanging' crypto for fiat(legally defined as investment/income), we can set up 'loan services' where its listed in terms and conditions that we(as a service users username) are 'loaning' to our individual self, fiat/crypto at 0% interest with lots of non-conditions of repayment. EG 99 year repayment schedule with a $0.001 penalty for non re-payment in 99 years, which can be written off if loan recipient is deceased

if it is about not wanting to be seen because you are worried you could be seen as a criminal due to your activities. well we can try to have a rational debate about what services to avoid to ensure you are not spotted. EG many people dont realise that using mixers will actually get you spotted more by a service than you would if you just done a normal deposit into a service without the mixer... using known tor exit nodes, known VPN/proxy services will raise red flags too

so how about get more clever, such as setting up services where we loan our online pseudonym fiat to deposit into services which by terms of the service become tax exempt legally thus no need to report. and the same where online pseudonym 'loans' your human self on withdrawal.

basically re-define an exchange as something legally outside the remit of tax reporting, so that exchanges have less bureacracy.

also highlighting if you dont currently want fiat right now, simply dont use fiat based services

[malevolent]

Depends on how you define "friction". I would say requiring me to give them my name, address, phone number, employment status, information on where my money is coming from and where it is going, copies of my passport and driver's license, selfies, and copies of my latest colonoscopy, to then have to give up custody of my money and still risk being locked out my account and waiting months for support to get back to me to be far more friction than simply finding a well rated user and trading with them directly peer to peer.

True, especially in the past several years there's often even more friction compared with the legacy highly-regulated financial system. But these type of sites tend to be at the top when googling 'buy bitcoin' in English and in other languages. And they often started as less restrictive; many users will (sometimes happily, sometimes grudgingly) provide whatever is asked of them to continue using a given service. The requirements are also lower for people who try to buy/sell small amounts, so there's sunk cost to be taken into account, especially with services happy to accept money before freezing them and requiring verification.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

This is a very interesting analogy, but perhaps it gives some hope rather than just a bleak picture of the future. Once poker started getting clamped down on, then your options (correct me if I'm wrong) seemed to be either suck it up and accept the overly aggressive authorities, or stop playing, with many players choosing the latter. The same is not true of bitcoin. With centralized exchanges and other centralized services are being clamped down on, the alternative option remains to trade peer to peer, hold your own coins, spend bitcoin directly with merchants, and avoid centralized exchanges. In fact, the more people who do this, then the more bitcoin functions more like what it was designed to be - a peer to peer currency free from third party control.

Yes, I abhor the crazy privacy invasion and mass surveillance that is steadily progressing through this space, but the more authoritarian they become then (hopefully) the more people start using bitcoin as bitcoin was intended to be used.

And they often started as less restrictive; many users will (sometimes happily, sometimes grudgingly) provide whatever is asked of them to continue using a give service. The requirements are also lower for people who try to buy/sell small amounts, so there's sunk cost to be taken into account, especially with services happy to accept money before freezing them and requiring verification.

Absolutely agree, and services know this too. Let people sign up with a non-KYC account or minimal-KYC account and access some basic functions. Then, once they have started to use your service, confiscate their coins and hit them with more KYC demands. Options are then to give up your information or give up your coins. Most will choose the former. It's a particularly scummy and borderline criminal behavior that all the big exchanges do regularly, and it never fails to surprise me that people will continue to use services which pull this crap on them.

[malevolent]

many people have tried to say 'localbitcoin' failed because 'bitcoin is centralised' when the reality is that the sellers on localbitcoins were independent and decentralised in regards to the bitcoin side..  but their bank accounts were flagged as running a possible illicit/unregistered business/service simply because of the amount of wire transfers being processed. its not localbitcoins fault. its the banking fault of personal account terms and conditions.

Localbitcoins was a perfectly fine site that worked for in-person cash trades until the regulatory climate forced LBC to kill off that feature (they could have moved to a different jurisdiction but that wouldn't be enough in the long term).

[DooMAD]

Localbitcoins was a perfectly fine site that worked for in-person cash trades until the regulatory climate forced LBC to kill off that feature (they could have moved to a different jurisdiction but that wouldn't be enough in the long term).

But surely that functionality doesn't have to take the form of a centralised website?  That's a big, easy target for regulators.  Alternatively, it could work as an open-source, downloadable software client which matches up prospective buyers and sellers.  That way people can distribute the software via torrent or other hard-to-shut-down filesharing methods.  Why aren't we just doing that?

[n0nce]

Localbitcoins was a perfectly fine site that worked for in-person cash trades until the regulatory climate forced LBC to kill off that feature (they could have moved to a different jurisdiction but that wouldn't be enough in the long term).

But surely that functionality doesn't have to take the form of a centralised website?  That's a big, easy target for regulators.  Alternatively, it could work as an open-source, downloadable software client which matches up prospective buyers and sellers.  That way people can distribute the software via torrent or other hard-to-shut-down filesharing methods.  Why aren't we just doing that?

That's exactly what Bisq is doing. The software runs directly on your computer, syncs to the Bitcoin network and connects with other peers over Tor. It then broadcasts your sell or buy offer to them and aggregates everything in a pretty nice GUI. Multiple fiat payment methods are supported, as well as in-person cash.
But the trading volume is relatively low with a few hundred FIAT<>BTC transfers per week. https://bisq.markets/

I would like to mention that I'd prefer recommending 'Bisq and X and Y' because always recommending the same service makes you sound like a shill, I realize that. However, sadly I am not sure there is a lot of competition in this 'P2P anonymous exchange' market. I'm happy to be told otherwise and to get more recommendations, though!

[o_e_l_e_o]

I would like to mention that I'd prefer recommending 'Bisq and X and Y' because always recommending the same service makes you sound like a shill, I realize that.

Ones that I personally have used and recommend (in order of preference) are Bisq, LocalCryptos, and HodlHodl.

Another I am aware of which generally has a good reputation but I have never used personally and so would not recommend based on that alone is AgoraDesk.

I've also recently become aware of RoboSats (only available via Tor) which is a very new exchange looking to facilitate fiat/Lightning trades. One to keep an eye on, but again, I am not vouching for it by any means.

[m2017]

many people have tried to say 'localbitcoin' failed because 'bitcoin is centralised' when the reality is that the sellers on localbitcoins were independent and decentralised in regards to the bitcoin side..  but their bank accounts were flagged as running a possible illicit/unregistered business/service simply because of the amount of wire transfers being processed. its not localbitcoins fault. its the banking fault of personal account terms and conditions.

Localbitcoins was a perfectly fine site that worked for in-person cash trades until the regulatory climate forced LBC to kill off that feature (they could have moved to a different jurisdiction but that wouldn't be enough in the long term).

Localbitcoins has a long-standing reputation and has proven itself, this is indisputable. But times are changing and no one is able to resist the pressure of governments. I don't know if you have seen this news: Localbitcoins submitted data of over 100,000 Russian users to the tax authorities. I'll give you the first link I can find on this thread.

After such actions, will you still have a desire to use this "perfectly fine site"? What if your name ends up in such a database?

[n0nce]

I would like to mention that I'd prefer recommending 'Bisq and X and Y' because always recommending the same service makes you sound like a shill, I realize that.

Ones that I personally have used and recommend (in order of preference) are Bisq, LocalCryptos, and HodlHodl.

Another I am aware of which generally has a good reputation but I have never used personally and so would not recommend based on that alone is AgoraDesk.

I've also recently become aware of RoboSats (only available via Tor) which is a very new exchange looking to facilitate fiat/Lightning trades. One to keep an eye on, but again, I am not vouching for it by any means.

Thanks, I will have a look at / try them!

Localbitcoins has a long-standing reputation and has proven itself, this is indisputable. But times are changing and no one is able to resist the pressure of governments. I don't know if you have seen this news: Localbitcoins submitted data of over 100,000 Russian users to the tax authorities. I'll give you the first link I can find on this thread.

This seems like a design flaw to me, though. If you implement it 'right' (such as in Bisq), there are no servers that could store user data and the only time your payment information leaves your device is when someone accepts your offer - because somehow they need to know where to send the fiat / btc. That way, no matter how much pressure someone puts on Bisq devs or how hard someone tries to hack their servers, they won't find customer data, because it is decentralized and stays on people's own machines.

When I'll check out those other recommendations by o_e_l_e_o I will focus on this aspect a lot, since it's kind of a game-changer for me. I might actually make a review / comparison thread if it doesn't exist yet. Would need to collect more information / experience first, though.

[franky1]

here is some lessons to learn about privacy..
ill use fiat as the established example.

when you buy things from walmart with your debit card. your bank only sees you->walmart $xxx.xx
this does not raise any red flags, because walmart is a legit business. your bank has no need to ask for what you have bought.
yes walmart keeps receipt records of your purchases(not your bank. nor government) BUT it is possible for there to be some future need to have your bank ask about a certain purchase and make a court order for your bank to ask walmart to disclose the details of your receipt.. but this is not a default thing. its the exception..

however if your bank offers you 'cashback' on purchases.. watch out. this is your bank bypassing the government overwatch exception, and instead is where your bank as a business wants YOUR PERMISSION to gather your purchase items lists from walmart so that your bank(as a business) can sell that data to other companies who may want to advertise their similar products to you

this is not about government surveillance. this is about the bank as a business getting your consent to invade your privacy for their financial gain with an enticement that you can make money too from their invasion of privacy

what you will find is that many CEX and even DEX will try to sell your data to other businesses. and yes. many of the new laws that allow businesses to share data, are not done by government wanting oversight at their level. but from businesses lobbying government to make these rules to allow businesses to make profit.

a bank/business does not need to wait for a court order from a government to be able to pass data, IF the terms and conditions of the bank/business makes the customer persuaded into signing upto/opting-into something that gives that bank/business permission to pass data

its why even here in the UK your medical records are still deemed private. unless you as the patient have opted into a service that allows data to be shared.

i say all this because even if there is no current law that has the government keeping records on everyone. (yep i said that the government does not store all database records of all coinbase customers, FACT) due to laws around needing court orders and suspected reported behaviour to trigger a court order request..

however coinbase or any exchange can simply put in the small print of their T&C of membership accounts that the member of coinbase by signing upto the service has by default opted into a scheme allowing their data and even their deposit taint analysis to be passed onto third parties
. they currently are not asking for consent to sell your data.. but they can.. EASILY

but they do ask for your implied consent to bypass the court order requirement.
here is one example of coinbase bypassing the court order requirement by getting your consent that allows them to pass info around without the need of a court order (getting your consent/authorisation)
https://www.coinbase.com/legal/user_agreement/united_states

1.3. Consent to Access, Processing and Storage of Your Personal Data & Identity Verification. During registration for your Coinbase Account, or at any other time deemed necessary by Coinbase, you agree to provide us with the information we request for the purposes of identity verification, providing Coinbase Services to you, and the detection of money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, or any other financial crimes and permit us to keep a record of such information. The information we request may include certain personal information, including, but not limited to, your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth, taxpayer identification number, government identification, and information regarding your bank account (such as the name of the bank, the account type, routing number, and account number) and in some cases (where permitted by law), special categories of personal data, such as your biometric information. You consent to us accessing, processing and retaining any personal information you provide to us for the purpose of us providing Coinbase Services to you.
This consent is not related to, and does not affect, any rights or obligations we or you have in accordance with data protection laws, privacy laws and regulations. You can withdraw your consent at any time by closing your account with us. However, we may retain and continue to process your personal information if we reasonably believe it is necessary in order to comply with laws or regulations. In providing us with this or any other information that may be required, you confirm that the information is accurate and authentic. You agree to keep us updated if any of the information you provide changes. You authorize us to make inquiries, whether directly or through third parties, that we consider necessary to verify your identity or protect you and/or us against fraud or other financial crime, and to take action we reasonably deem necessary based on the results of such inquiries. When we carry out these inquiries, you acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be disclosed to credit reference and fraud prevention or financial crime agencies and that these agencies may respond to our inquiries in full. This is an identity check only and should have no adverse effect on your credit rating. We reserve the right at all times to monitor, review, retain and/or disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, sanctions programs, legal process or governmental request. Further, you authorize your wireless operator (e.g., AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Verizon, or any other branded wireless operator) to use your mobile number, name, address, email, network status, customer type, customer role, billing type, mobile device identifiers (IMSI and IMEI) and other subscriber status details, if available, solely to allow verification of your identity and to compare information you have provided to Coinbase with your wireless operator account profile information for as long as you have a Coinbase Account. See our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy for more information on how we process your personal data and the rights you have in respect of this.

[o_e_l_e_o]

After such actions, will you still have a desire to use this "perfectly fine site"?

As malevolent stated though, this never used to be the case. I used LocalBitcoins many years ago when they were still a peer to peer exchange with no KYC requirements and no invasion of your privacy. However, now they are little better than most other centralized exchanges and if you use them you have little to no privacy. As soon as a service starts asking for KYC, time to abandon that service.

While I often use sites like LocalCryptos and HodlHodl, they are not immune from this either, and with the right amount of pressure on the right people they could also be forced to either shut down or to start demanding KYC. If that ever happens, then again, I will abandon them. The upside here is that since they are peer to peer exchanges they don't hold custody of any of my coins, so can't seize them and lock me out of my account like centralized exchanges do when they start ramping up their KYC requirements.

As n0nce says, this is what makes Bisq stand out. It is open source software you run yourself and connect directly to other trades over Tor. No amount of KYC requirements can stop me from running the software. Asking Bisq to collect KYC details would be the same as asking "Bitcoin" to collect KYC details - there simply isn't a centralized entity to do so, nor a realistic way to do it.

[amishmanish]

Privacy Ah.. Nothing private these days, A kid is born its photo goes online. We live in information age and in future identity theft will be most serious and challenging crimes. We don’t know even today someone might be using a mobile phone with our identity documents to issue it. So it become more important to protect our identity by hook or crook.. The governments will try to decrypt the crypto, but there will be geniuses who will find a way to keep working silently and anonymously..

[coupable]

The latest news info - UK wants to be a crypto hub and plan to exploit the crypto potential, what about EU - did they still want to commit a crypto suicide with their overregulations? I guess will soon find out?! UK probably made the right choice leaving the EU.

In my country, you don't really have to use a centralized exchange in order to spend or withdraw bitcoin and other coins. Everything happens in the dark-market , so if someone is not able to use P2P platforms, he can always deal with local buyers and sellers who are running closed groups (mainly in discord and facebook) and can even use escrow services from group admins.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Looking at the topic, I see that somehow when transactions are made with BTC, they require KYC in some establishments, be it in a store, or even more so in a bank, but honestly, the mixers are somehow the solution, in the country where I live, everything, they absolutely look for the way that should be done to do what we want, at one point transactions were made with the so-called traveling dollars that were looking for points in another country as if they were in other countries, now one thing that is even easier as the fact of acquiring privacy, I do not see it as something so complicated, if we allow our data to be given to government organizations and declare that we have BTC, I think we are totally lost, but if not, there are many ways to evade, the most reckless is in the dark web, it is a dangerous way but it exists.

Privacy and anonymity for me is becoming more and more difficult, so much so that I would dare to say that in less than 10 years it will be very difficult to possess it.

[Gyfts]

-snip-

Bitcoin is indeed above government regulations, but each country or government has its own rules or regulations. The government will not fully regulate Cryptocurrency they only regulate the entrance but not for the inside. Don't worry, your personal wallet will still be decentralized and only you can manage it, because you own the private key.

as long as you don't publish your personal wallet address, everything will be safe.
stay away from exchanges that require KYC if you really don't want to be exposed.

It really is not. You should not take regulations lightly. The government can and absolutely will ban Bitcoin given the opportunity, using regulations as a cudgel to force compliance. They don't need your private keys nor do they want them. As long as they can convince everybody else that isn't yet a Bitcoin user that they should not adopt, their goals have been accomplished.

Due to the specific characteristics and risk profile of crypto-assets, the information obligation should apply to crypto-assets transfers, regardless of the value of the transfer.[/b] There are clear indications that crypto-asset activities associated with criminal activities and terrorism financing are often transfers of small value. Furthermore, crypto-assets and related technologies enable criminals to split high value transfers into small amounts across multiple wallet addresses in order to avoid detection of AML/CFT monitoring systems and to carry out illicit activities via structured transactions to a scale and global reach not available to wire transfers.

This is insanity, and coincidentally the U.S. also invoked terrorism or national security as a reason for regulation of crypto currency. It's becoming a pattern of lies and deception. Almost like there's collusion.

[marine4u]

Bitcoin is indeed above government regulations, but each country or government has its own rules or regulations. The government will not fully regulate Cryptocurrency they only regulate the entrance but not for the inside.

They won't be able to ban bitcoins and worldwide users like I know they will try to manage bitcoins/ want to embrace bitcoins and drag bitcoins with them because they crave and want bitcoins but obviously  Obviously, they won't be able to do that.  The evolution of always open, decentralized technology will welcome the world in the next few years.

When geopolitics has alliances, why can't bitcoin have coalitions from countries that are considering bitcoin's legitimacy in the future?  Whether the government of each country is urgent with regulations or not, it has been proven through the history of the development of bitcoin.