The PATRIOT Act comes to cryptocurrency

[Despairo]

I think the slogan of "Buy Bitcoin" is over, we need a new slogan "Protect User's Privacy". Sooner or later US will crackdown the P2P exchanges that not comply with the regulation.

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?

People must be know if Bitcoin ETF is an IOU, where they not hold the real coins and trust the institutions to hold their coins. I think it's not a problem as long as people fine with that, this what freedom to choose is where you can choose to trust your coins with institutions or buy a real coins and hold it in your own wallet.

[1714565036]

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[Zaguru12]

It can't be denied that most of us here still don't like giving KYCs to centralized exchanges; even I don't want it either. 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?

By opportunity I think you meant high liquidity, this simply can be solved with if majority value privacy and decides to move towards the decentralized exchanges, this will reduce the liquidity on them and increase more liquidity on the decentralized exchanges. There are also CEX that do not require KYC at first, you can simply make use of them but be rest assured that they will definitely come back one day to ask for full KYC and as such do not leave your coins on them.

Now, the question is: who really controls our KYCs? Is the exchange centralized, or has it passed the requirements so that they can operate legally under the government of a country where their business is located internationally? Isn't it clear that the government is really in control because they don't like the decentralized system?

Needless to ask, it is simple, before you can get the autonomy to operate legally you need to be regulated and how is that done. The government will need the data of its citizens using your platform. Look at the reports of users funds that are got freezed by government, almost all of them are traced to their centralized exchange account.

[minor-transgression]

I'll misquote Greg Carlin "Think of how brainwashed the average person is, and then realise that half the population are more brainwashed than that."

If that half of the population got a text message letting them know they could watch themselves being auctioned online, they'd be over the moon if they fetched a higher price than the guy (or gal) before or after. 

They'd be texting their mates to let them know their good news.

After that they'd be only too happy to have their number tattooed across their forehead, and demand the the Government provide the service for cheap.

[mvdheuvel1983]

o_e_l_e_o  this so called PATRIOT Act should be called the DRACONIAN Act because that is exactly what it is. The PATRIOT Act does exactly the opposite of what patriot means and so this is why I think the DRACONIAN acts fits it better.

To explain this better for those who may not understand it, if this law is eventually passed you cannot do simple bitcoin transactions which you normally do without raising an eye brow from the US government. This simple transactions like sending bitcoin from multiple exchanges to your hardware wallet. Once the US government suspects you, they can confiscate your bitcoin and it is on you to prove that the bitcoin is yours and isn't used for laundering or terrorism financing.

The US is dong this to try and save the US dollar. People are dumping the global reserve asset and this piece of regulation is a desperate measure to try and save it. This is basically their attempt to control and even close the exits. Which is why they want us to own bitcoin through brokerage like the bitcoin ETF which is not real bitcoin and also to only have it on exchanges so they easily freeze it whenever they like.

All bitcoiners must fight against this vehemently.

[franky1]

o_e_l_e_o  this so called PATRIOT Act should be called the DRACONIAN Act because that is exactly what it is. The PATRIOT Act does exactly the opposite of what patriot means and so this is why I think the DRACONIAN acts fits it better.

patriot does not support "freedom"/individualism
patriot does support the country. aka government

EG an ex-pat american considers themselves american. but lives in another country. so is not supporting the american economy nor paying american tax nor voting nor many things

an ex-pat supports freedom/individualism more than a patriot

when you notice patriots singing to a flag and declaring their allegiance to the government.. you soon see what patriot really means

[nutildah]

The good news is the US government won't have the manpower to enforce compliance of such regulations to a T. They can only threaten non-complying entities with sanctions and criminal charges, which likely won't come to fruition unless something like the Lazarus Group is using said entity to launder funds.

What we see time and again is that investigations & raids are only conducted when the government has a strong chance of recouping their expenses... This goes all the way back to the Silk Road bust and continues through the ChipMixer takedown. This is also how the IRS operates: unless the government can more than recoup its cost, an audit is unlikely to take place.

I'll misquote Greg Carlin "Think of how brainwashed the average person is, and then realise that half the population are more brainwashed than that."

Funny enough George (not Greg) Carlin hated it when people accredited him on the internet for stuff he didn't say, but you  haven't received any sMerits yet so I sent you a couple of them.

[o_e_l_e_o]

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

Well, that's already covered under this proposal. This would be classified as "splitting CVC for transmittal and transmitting the CVC through a series of independent transactions", which by their new definition counts as mixing. And I know you are speaking about EUR, but this legislation will absolutely spread beyond the US and affect the whole world soon enough.

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

Spread the word.

If you are using Bitcoin the way the cypherpunks envisioned decentralized money, then Bitcoin fulfills its goal of being decentralized money.

Well yes, but that is missing the point. This bill will not affected me directly since I have never and will never use any KYC platform. But it will absolutely force more service providers down the KYC route, it will massively increase the barriers for new small businesses and service providers to start accepting bitcoin, it will turn many people off of bitcoin altogether, and it will create a two tiered system between "government approved bitcoin" and "free bitcoin". All of this is terrible for bitcoin on the whole.


Comments on the proposal are now open, and remain so until January 22nd: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/10/23/2023-23449/proposal-of-special-measure-regarding-convertible-virtual-currency-mixing-as-a-class-of-transactions#

[franky1]

comments for proposals should be to make bitcoin a private property again not a legal currency. then all these financial jurisdictions cant gain traction
(EG auctioned art is treated differently than currency)

there is no point playing whack a mole of certain definitions of certain niches whist still within the currency jurisdiction., if the overall definition of the whole still gives governments chances to change currency definitions 90 days after x or y.. you just end up in a endless loop of fighting

this also goes towards certain idols of a subnetwork. if they define their units of account as currency. and route it for a fee. they too become a MSB/MTS needing MSB/MTS licence

so redefine your unit of account to not be currency, but instead property. and define the utility of routing in a way that does not fit the definitions of a MSB/MTS

there were good reasons why governments were helpless and unable to do anything with bitcoin in 2009-2013... LEARN WHY

[cryptosize]

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").

Please don't be a conspiracy theorist/doomsayer.

Governments care for their people (according to some people).

[NotATether]

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.

It is very clear that this piece of legislation has a hidden agenda behind it to give the banking giants, Paypal, and other Wall Street outfits even more bitcoins than they may already own right now. As well as pretty much every other cryptocurrency that has a worth. Why? To make trillions of dollars in more obscene profits which will make for fat paychecks for their executive staff.

Comments on the proposal are now open, and remain so until January 22nd: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/10/23/2023-23449/proposal-of-special-measure-regarding-convertible-virtual-currency-mixing-as-a-class-of-transactions#

I notice there are 48 comments on this document, and yet none of them are even visible. Looks like they are withholding comments for "review" or whatever that means.

[stadus]

The way things are unfolding, it seems we're heading in that direction. Everything involving Bitcoin that the government can regulate, they want to intervene in. Exchanges and even gambling sites now require KYC, and this KYC requirement erases the anonymity that we intended to preserve. It's tough to accept that what Satoshi created for anonymous transactions and decentralization is becoming centralized, and anonymity is being stripped away due to KYC.

Why doesn't the government just create its own digital asset and let Bitcoin continue to function in our ecosystem? I'm sure the massive adoption we hope for could still happen even if they don't heavily regulate the market.

[kryptqnick]

For many reasons, I'm happy that I don't live in the US, and I guess this is now one of them. This proposal is extremely unfair. First, there's still a ton of cash people use without going through any KYC, right? Second, the vast majority of money laundering is occurring with the traditional banking systems with fiat currencies, not with cryptos, so it's unreasonable to impose the rules that don't seem to work and attack the crypto market while turning a blind eye to traditional money laundering. Oh, and as for terrorism sponsorship, which is mentioned in the article, I think that making things hard for everyone just because some people use cryptos to finance terrible organizations is totally uncalled for. And I love how the article shows how little the government has been actually trying to prove regarding the scope of illicit activities.
What's giving some comfort is that it's a proposal, so it's not enacted yet and there's some place for hope that it will be rejected.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I notice there are 48 comments on this document, and yet none of them are even visible. Looks like they are withholding comments for "review" or whatever that means.

It's standard protocol. No way the US government is going to let unmoderated comments be posted live to one of their websites. They should be posted once they've been checked for inappropriate content.

and anonymity is being stripped away due to KYC.

And because the majority of people complete KYC without a second though. Bitcoin wasn't designed so you can just comply with the same old fiat rules and regulations you've been complying with your entire life. The whole point of bitcoin is to remove the ability of faceless third parties to control you.

Why doesn't the government just create its own digital asset and let Bitcoin continue to function in our ecosystem?

Because bitcoin takes power away from the government and gives it to the people, and the government will never accept that.

For many reasons, I'm happy that I don't live in the US, and I guess this is now one of them.

If FinCEN are able to enact this, many countries will follow suit with their own such bullshit regulations. Don't think you are safe from this just because you aren't American.

[Franctoshi]

The government will surely go to any length to make sure they control what they don't control and this is the case here with Bitcoin, after seeing that they can't ban it or is difficult to ban it totally, now they have to employ a strategy of control by passing bills or laws that will pressure Bitcoiners to left with a tiny option than likely cooperate with those laws if possible.

This is a fight for privacy and freedom, So as the government is doing everything to get us on our knees, we must employ our strategy to try to avoid those traps they are setting up to get us on the knees,  totally avoiding the use of centralized exchanges if possible.

[Agbe]

This matter of Governments trying to control bitcoin in their different countries is getting complicating every day and night. But the matter what they can't win the war, when the matter has gotten out of hand then p2p will be fully implemented. And one thing I also discovered the centralized exchange prices of bitcoin is higher than decentralized exchange platforms. I have been checking this for a long time now and it still the same. Op, I click on the last link you provided on the Op and I make some comparations, men the Gap is very big but that is not withstanding, from all the links and articles you provided shows that the issue is very serious. And one thing I will also say about privacy is that, privacy is when you have not given your identity to anyone and once you do then it is no longer privacy. Like the all the people that are using centralized exchange platforms now is no longer anonymous because KYC has been given to the exchange and the only thing for them to do now is to abandoned the accounts and they should not send bitcoin to those accounts again. Even at that their information are still there but it will not have any effect on them because they are not using the accounts. Personally, I have been looking for a good price Decentralized Exchange DEX platform since but I have not seen and that was why I am using CEX, but with this serious warning, I have to look for a better DEX platform to be used.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

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.

Powerful, this is what every serious minded bitcoiners should first seek after to know and understand the difference between these and otherwise, some will be using bitcoin yet feels unsecured thesame way they have been dealing with using the fiat economy system and currency, if you're interested in bitcoin, then know this and have a perfect peace with your entire investment in bitcoin without any risk or fear of missing out.

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.

Maybe this will also let he governments or regulatory bodies take actions over every other centralized exchanges or organizations that take advantage of bitcoin to colonize others without offering the same privacy and decentralization function people should enjoy from bitcoin, if governments were also found in this mess, then all they were after is a chase after air.

[franky1]

many things even in fiat are not declared as being a MSB/MTS

ordering a taxi is not a money service business even though people deposit money into a taxi app and the taxi company then sends funds(minus commission) to the driver at the end of shift

a taxi company head office does not do any driving of cabs itself and just facilitates the payments of journeys. yet they get to define themselves not as a MSB but as a transportation service.

so think outside of the box of the definition of money service business and create a service that is described as something else but still produces end result as another withdrawal address gets funds from a different deposit address.. BE SMART.

when you want privacy dont advertise people should use a mixer. tell them to use a driverless car transportation service that offers 99% refunds if the car does not turn up(a lame example)

ive hinted enough without spelling it out. but lets see who is smart enough to do something and work out other methods to get the results they want without being considered a MSB

[DooMAD]

many things even in fiat are not declared as being a MSB/MTS

ordering a taxi is not a money service business even though people deposit money into a taxi app and the taxi company then sends funds(minus commission) to the driver at the end of shift

a taxi company head office does not do any driving of cabs itself and just facilitates the payments of journeys. yet they get to define themselves not as a MSB but as a transportation service.

so think outside of the box of the definition of money service business and create a service that is described as something else but still produces end result as another withdrawal address gets funds from a different deposit address.. BE SMART.

when you want privacy dont advertise people should use a mixer. tell them to use a driverless car transportation service that offers 99% refunds if the car does not turn up(a lame example)

ive hinted enough without spelling it out. but lets see who is smart enough to do something and work out other methods to get the results they want without being considered a MSB

Did you attend the same business school as Donald Trump?  The similarities are mounting.   

Just because it's in your nature to be deceitful and dishonest, doesn't mean other people are.  There are numerous problems in founding a business under false pretenses like that.  How do you market your service to your target audience without giving the game away?  When your business is audited, how do you explain the unusually high percentage of refunds?  Why would anyone who isn't a criminal found a company on the basis of a lie?  Such a company may not have to register as an MSB, but they'll still have to answer to some form of regulatory body, depending on what industry sector they pretend to serve, and they'll likely still be subject to whatever AML requirements are enforced by those regulators.

The sensible people in the room are campaigning to ensure legitimate day-to-day interactions are not lumped in with illicit activity.  But you're just there at the back shouting "hAvE yOu TrIeD oPeNiNg A bUsInEsS tO cOmMiT mOnEy LaUnDeRiNg?".  That's completely moronic (even for you).  If you were truly smart, you'd realise that real life doesn't match your fevered daydreams.  You can't just go telling people to open a "front" to commit money laundering and act like you've solved the issue.

Simple fact is, all these mixing services you so clearly despise actually operate under a greater level of integrity than you do.  They are open and honest about the service they provide and the principles they uphold.  You have no such principles.  All you do is lie and deceive.  You're disgusting.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Personally, I have been looking for a good price Decentralized Exchange DEX platform since but I have not seen and that was why I am using CEX, but with this serious warning, I have to look for a better DEX platform to be used.

The price on a DEX is what you make it. The price usually favors the maker, because the maker posts an offer for other people to accept. If you don't see a price you like, then post your own offer and wait for other people to accept it. You'll potentially get lower trading fees as well depending on the platform by being the maker rather than the taker.


Looks like the first couple of comments are now starting to show up:

This proposal is a gross regulatory overreach. First, the free transmission of value from one party to another is fundamental to our american values. This proposal limits this, inserts the state into our every day lives needlessly, and is a significant encroachment on our basic freedoms.

Any further nonsense from franky1 will be deleted. Please keep this on-topic.

[apogio]

Quote from the article:

Tools that allow you to reclaim your financial privacy like Samourai Wallet (a powerful, privacy-preserving wallet for Bitcoin) and Monero (a cryptocurrency that protects sender, receiver, and amount in every transaction) are indispensable tools for freedom, and should be something you practice with regularly, no matter what the state says.

Ok so Samourai is top notch in terms of privacy. I love Samourai when it is connected to my own node, even if I don't use it regularly. We should note however that Samourai is not a panacea and if it is not properly set up, it can be bad for privacy.

Is monero as private as everyone says? I am surprised it is not that widespread since it is mentioned too much in privacy related posts and articles.