The PATRIOT Act comes to cryptocurrency

[o_e_l_e_o]

https://freedom.tech/patriot-act-comes-to-cryptocurrency/

A fantastic article authored by Seth For Privacy (https://nitter.cz/sethforprivacy), who is the Head of Strategy & Marketing for Foundation Devices, known for their Passport hardware wallet.

As I've mentioned in another thread, and as Seth explains in this article, this newest piece of legislation is an outright attack on bitcoin. It is clear the US government want the only way to use bitcoin to be through fully KYCed centralized exchanges. They are trying their hardest to absorb bitcoin in to the existing fiat system and surveillance state, and destroy the very thing that bitcoin is.

What can you do about it? Get your coins off of any centralized exchange and in to your own wallet. Close your KYCed accounts and refuse to ever complete KYC again. Use privacy tools. Anonymize your coins. Refuse to use any service or product which treats bitcoin as non-fungible and discriminates against or censors certain coins. Bitcoin was not made to become an off-shoot of the fiat system, to be another tool by which the government can can surveil, censor, and control. And if you happen to live in the US, start contacting your representatives about this draconian piece of legislation.

https://bitcoiner.guide/nokyconly/
https://kycnot.me/


Spam will be deleted.

[Three Millionth User]

You can't do anything about it until people start learning from their mistakes. And if someone has not yet realized that any KYC passed will backfire on them in the end, then there is nothing to be done about it. Moreover, state structures will soon begin to more strictly direct ordinary users towards services with different levels of verification. I am deeply convinced that sooner or later the US government will classify all services that exchange bitcoins anonymously as strictly prohibited. I believe it is not a problem for them to refer to any law, for example, section 311 (of the U.S. Patriot Act).

[Upgrade00]

The propaganda machines has been working for several years now to changed the narrative is on Bitcoin and privacy, and they've done such a good job at it that even some Bitcoin users start asking the question of 'why someone wants privacy?' and even those who do not ask the question and sees nothing wrong in wanting privacy does not d anything to protect theirs or teach others how to.

Refuse to use any service or product which treats bitcoin as non-fungible and discriminates or censors certain coins.

I am starting to do this now.
I often use some KYC services, albeit without completing KYC and felt that was okay cause I was not enabling the anti privacy war, but even if you do not send them your documents, the time period when you use such services, you are dependent on that as a central authority, so if you use an exchange but don't pass through KYC, they can still choose to freeze the coins you are about to trade for no reason and force you to send documents to identify yourself or abandon the coins you just sent. They also collect tons of other information about you which can easily be gotten if you don't use at form of anonymity tool.

You are also promoting those anti privacy platforms when you use them to trade, buy/sell or store your coins.

You can't do anything about it until people start learning from their mistakes.

They have to first realize what their mistakes are. Many people don't see using centralized platforms and submitting your documents as detrimental to their privacy.

[DooMAD]

You can't do anything about it until people start learning from their mistakes.

They have to first realize what their mistakes are. Many people don't see using centralized platforms and submitting your documents as detrimental to their privacy.

That's the tricky part.  Once you've lost it, it's often not an easy thing to obtain again.  By the time these people realise, they might not want to put in the required effort to regain their privacy and just lazily continue down the path the government are laying out.  I'd imagine that's exactly what the US are banking on. 

It's unfortunate that we're likely going to end up with a two-tier system.  Privacy for a few, surveillance for the many.  Purely because some people are negligent.

[Upgrade00]

That's the tricky part.  Once you've lost it, it's often not an easy thing to obtain again.  By the time these people realise, they might not want to put in the required effort to regain their privacy and just lazily continue down the path the government are laying out.  I'd imagine that's exactly what the US are banking on.  

Privacy lost cannot be regained, but one can choose to prioritize it after a period of not doing so and still achieve some levels of anonymity.

If I have submitted documents to two centralized exchanges and have email and password links around, I cannot redact that information, but I can isolate that from any future transactions I make.
If I buy Bitcoin anonymously through decentralized, P2P services and send them to an unused address on non custodian wallets, no one can link that activity to my already exposed identity. And if there is no transaction activity on my already exposed identity it hopefully doesn't get as much attention.
There's of course always the risk it is sold on the darkweb.

It's unfortunate that we're likely going to end up with a two-tier system.  Privacy for a few, surveillance for the many.  Purely because some people are negligent.

This will only increase the cost of privacy for the few.

[Zoomic]

I always wonder why centralized exchanges are still a big thing after everything that has happened already, since sudden collapses of big crypto platforms have been happening since few years ago, MT GOX was a good example.

The problem is not with the exchanges, it is the government and why the exchanges are involved is because the government can only successfully enforce their laws through the exchanges. The exchanges must comply with the rules of the government. Meanwhile, we need to understand that exchanges (CEX or DEX) are very big part of the cryptocurrency industry, the industry cannot do without the exchanges. If you check the number of newbies that come to this industry, majority of them came through the exchanges and instead of them to own non custodial wallet and save their keys, they will open account on exchanges.

The government cannot sensor all the bitcoin. There are still highly private people like the Op and some of us who doesn't dwell much on exchanges and KYC.

That's the tricky part.  Once you've lost it, it's often not an easy thing to obtain again. 

Privacy lost cannot be regained, but one can choose to prioritize it after a period of not doing so and still achieve some levels of anonymity.

Yea, if you do not validate your data on exchanges, to a certain time the data would become invalid. Which is better than revalidating the data with the fear that your privacy is already gone.

[Z-tight]

Yea, if you do not validate your data on exchanges, to a certain time the data would become invalid. Which is better than revalidating the data with the fear that your privacy is already gone.

It is hard to understand you here, but any data you submit to a centralized service does not become 'invalid', they store your data and do not delete it, but just because you have already lost your privacy doesn't mean you can go on and register on many different other centralized services, because the more your data is in the hands of different centralized services, the more likely it is to get leaked or exposed.

If you want to stop using centralized services and protect whatever privacy you have left, you must close your accounts on centralized services and do not use wallets that are already linked to your identity, if you add using Coinjoins and mixers to it, then you'll get somewhere, people who think their privacy is already lost for good need to do this.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Many people don't see using centralized platforms and submitting your documents as detrimental to their privacy.

Using centralized exchanges is no longer just detrimental to your privacy and your security as it always has been - it's now detrimental to even owning bitcoin at all. If we don't fight against this you won't be allowed to own bitcoin at all. All you will be allowed to own is an IOU on the centralized spreadsheet of some centralized exchange, and we've seen plenty of times over the last few years that such a thing is completely worthless.

This proposal is disastrous for bitcoin on the whole, but even if you don't care about bitcoin at all and are only here to make fiat profits, this bill should worry you.


Here's something else to keep an eye on, and I'll post updates here as relevant: https://nitter.cz/Bill_Fowler_/status/1716288705655083017#m

Once this proposal is formally published, there will be a 90 day window to submit comments as a first step to legally challenging this nonsense.

[suzanne5223]

You can't do anything about it until people start learning from their mistakes.

Yes, but we can't until that happens before the message is passed across to the people because new people are entering the crypto market every day who are still naive about the benefit of privacy.
This is what people like James Lopp, and Seth are doing by spreading the words about the true intention of the government, and this is also one of the reasons why I am scared of the Bitcoin spot ETF despite its going to increase the crypto market cap because it could be the weapon to treats bitcoin as non-fungible or I am I the only thinking about this?

[coolcoinz]

I don't use centralized exchanges. Haven't done so for the last 5+ year. Fortunately you can still exchange EUR 1k per transaction with no KYC here. Used to be 10k, now it's 1k, so the noose is tightening, but it's going to be very hard for them to lower this limit, as this would have to come with fiat currency withdrawal limits at ATMs and all that.
Anyway, the system can be "cheated" as the limits aren't per day, but per transaction, so it only makes things annoying, but not impossible to accomplish

As for the US, they're obviously trying to attack bitcoin by making the public think that it's used by terrorists, and since there's a war in Palestine and Palestinians are being labeled as terrorists, it all makes sense. There's always going to be the right side of the conflict. The side that pays more, that can offer more if it wins, and so on.
This is just a proposal and there were many similar proposals in the past that did not get approved, so time will tell how this goes.

[Upgrade00]

Fortunately you can still exchange EUR 1k per transaction with no KYC here. Used to be 10k, now it's 1k, so the noose is tightening, but it's going to be very hard for them to lower this limit, as this would have to come with fiat currency withdrawal limits at ATMs and all that.

It just seems that the safest option is to use an exchange that allows the freedom to trade anonymously and not to play around the regulation as it gets stricter. There are decentralized options that require no KYC that one can opt for.

Anyway, the system can be "cheated" as the limits aren't per day, but per transaction, so it only makes things annoying, but not impossible to accomplish

If someone spammed this system with multiple maximum order transactions the exchange will very likely flag such an account after a while and freeze what's left on it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

This bill is beyond insane. It literally tries to discriminate anyone owning Bitcoin, unless they're running a fully KYC-operating centralized exchange. And the genius part, is that it is backed by the good assumption that the majority of Bitcoin users store their coins there, so it won't affect them (as it would if they made it officially illegal).

Every true Bitcoiner living in the US should take action.

Once this proposal is formally published, there will be a 90 day window to submit comments as a first step to legally challenging this nonsense.

Is there anything the people outside the US can do to help? Or do comments get submitted eponymous?

[apogio]

Close your KYCed accounts and refuse to ever complete KYC again. Use privacy tools. Anonymize your coins.

3 months ago, I have decided to permanently delete my Binance account. Meanwhile, I havent used binance since 2022.

The majority of my actions and decisions are based upon this forum.

Just one more note to anyone like me having coins from KYC exchanges. It is ok to have them, just don't mix them with the non-kyc ones. Privacy is everything. If you want to get rid of your KYC coins, that's even better and you will find many ideas in the forum.

[digaran]

So FATF is coming to crypto after all these years, finally they get it. This makes you wonder, it's not the world elites who run the global policy making machine but rather a bunch of mentally happy people, after 14 years they got this idea.

If anyone doesn't know what is FATF, it is Financial Action Task Force, established to control the "money" in the world, meaning that they would want to know about a transaction even if it was just to buy a cup of coffee, just to make sure there is no money laundering and terrorist financing involved.  If you wanna know whether they monitor all your transactions or not, check to see if your government has signed up to join this task force or not, if they have, you are already exposed.
Welcome to 2030 agenda(a plan for the "new world order", or "novus ordo seclorum").

[hatshepsut93]

It is clear the US government want the only way to use bitcoin to be through fully KYCed centralized exchanges. They are trying their hardest to absorb bitcoin in to the existing fiat system and surveillance state, and destroy the very thing that bitcoin is.

It doesn't really matter as long as they don't force miners to censor non-compliant transactions. They can't stop anyone from using privacy tools, doing p2p transactions, paying to services that don't comply, etc. If you are using Bitcoin the way the cypherpunks envisioned decentralized money, then Bitcoin fulfills its goal of being decentralized money.

[Zaguru12]

The propaganda machines has been working for several years now to changed the narrative is on Bitcoin and privacy, and they've done such a good job at it that even some Bitcoin users start asking the question of 'why someone wants privacy?' and even those who do not ask the question and sees nothing wrong in wanting privacy does not d anything to protect theirs or teach others how to.

If you ask people who do not have any problem with KYC exchanges you will definitely get the answer that it is use to reduce the risk of crimes or can be used to track down people using it to commit crimes ( at least that’s what the government wants them to believe). The same government that can’t tame down crimes done with fiat and transactions done through banks that have almost all users data.

People will tell you that without centralized exchanges they can exchange their funds and if you suggest decentralized exchanges for them the next question goes to the point that decentralized exchanges do not have much liquidity compared to their counter part. How will they get the liquidity when are busy using the centralized ones, it is not that this liquidity is something that is bought, once we migrate and use more decentralized exchange and give it more liquidity we will be at least saving bitcoin primary purpose which is privacy

Just one more note to anyone like me having coins from KYC exchanges. It is ok to have them, just don't mix them with the non-kyc ones. Privacy is everything. If you want to get rid of your KYC coins, that's even better and you will find many ideas in the forum.

It is not ok to have them as long as they are linked to you. Separating them wouldn’t matter much as they could still be traced to you ones they exists, get total rid of them either by mixing them or converting them to fiat and then buy those coins back from decentralized exchanges.

[Alpha Marine]

People have become so used to the usual fiat/banking/centralized systems to the extent that they don't even see anything wrong with using centralized exchanges.
Even if your privacy means nothing to you, why are you so comfortable keeping your funds in a centralized exchange?
How do they sleep peacefully at night knowing they could wake up to devastating news about that exchange or that the exchange has frozen their account or the coins in it?
We don't have to be nonchalant about things like this.

And if you happen to live in the US, start contacting your representatives about this draconian piece of legislation

The sad part is that, if this works in the US, many countries would follow this path.

[examplens]

3 months ago, I have decided to permanently delete my Binance account. Meanwhile, I havent used binance since 2022.

The majority of my actions and decisions are based upon this forum.

Just one more note to anyone like me having coins from KYC exchanges. It is ok to have them, just don't mix them with the non-kyc ones. Privacy is everything. If you want to get rid of your KYC coins, that's even better and you will find many ideas in the forum.

I don't know if you know, but the Mixtum which you promote in your signature, enter Bitcoins into their service that originate from exchanges Binance, OKEx, DigiFinex, Cryptonex etc...
It is highly likely that some payments came to you from one of those KYC exchanges.
https://[banned mixer]/#how

[pooya87]

In my opinion the biggest threat that United States poses to Bitcoin is not through centralized services (that's not new anyways), the biggest threat is to the network itself through 3 things: (1) miners (2) nodes (3) developers.
We've already seen their actions in (1) and (3) like the shenanigans of MARA pool and bringing in bitcoin developers to CIA headquarters for questioning and god knows what else! I still don't know of any case where they tried getting to nodes, specially since a lot of them are running on centralized servers such as Amazon and other remote servers in EU that US can easily influence/exert its power.

So although warning individuals about using centralized KYCed crap services is good and we should continue doing that but I believe the more important concern should be the 3 points above, specially the hashrate that has been growing in US or more importantly any mining pool that is geographically located in a place where US can control (US mainland and colonies).

[Upgrade00]

It doesn't really matter as long as they don't force miners to censor non-compliant transactions. They can't stop anyone from using privacy tools, doing p2p transactions, paying to services that don't comply, etc. If you are using Bitcoin the way the cypherpunks envisioned decentralized money, then Bitcoin fulfills its goal of being decentralized money.

• They CAN start a crackdown on privacy tools for whatever boogey reason,
• They can do the same to P2P platforms and any other service that doesn't comply for the same non existent reason.

If this is allowed the cost of privacy will keep growing until those seeking it are considered to be doing something illegal.

It's just that, due to the situation and opportunity, we still can't avoid submitting our KYC because we have something that needs to be released to an exchange that is under this regulation, or else we won't be able to release our money on their exchange site platform, right?

There are a couple of non KYC compliant options that you can use.