The PATRIOT Act comes to cryptocurrency

[Upgrade00]

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

Out of curiosity.
Will positive comments about the proposed regulation also be taken into account and what stops the government from sponsoring comments encouraging it inorder to counter any criticism that it gets?

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[Smartvirus]

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.

Surely that’s a Draconian policy but by some means, the centralized exchanges have got a place in the cryptospace. Not just about there ease of operation but, these exchanges bridge the gap and resolve a simple issue of trust between both parties in a p2p trade with them serving as escrow. They also ensure you remain anonymous to the other party in a p2p trade but, not to them if I must make that clear.

There need to exists within a jurisdiction places them under certain laws which demands compliance at all level and as much as that is bad for business in the cryptospace, it’s something really useful to the government. I’m the absences of proper subsidiaries, it’s hard not to use.

[hatshepsut93]

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.

Bitcoin was clearly created with the assumption that the government will try to do something like that. Bitcoin community got too relaxed, too reliant on the centralized ecosystem. So yes, it will greatly shake the current ecosystem and community, it will be ugly, but ultimately Bitcoin will survive, and hopefully the ecosystem will become more decentralized and resilient to such moves by the government.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Is monero as private as everyone says?

Yes. The US government posted bounties of $625,000 for cracking Monero, which were not claimed, and no blockchain analysis company advertises Monero breaking services. The government (so far) are unable to break Monero, provided you use it properly.

Will positive comments about the proposed regulation also be taken into account and what stops the government from sponsoring comments encouraging it inorder to counter any criticism that it gets?

Yes and nothing, but they are still required to respond to negative comments, particularly any that can cite relevant laws explaining why this proposal is a crazy overreach.

[apogio]

Yes. The US government posted bounties of $625,000 for cracking Monero, which were not claimed, and no blockchain analysis company advertises Monero break services. The government (so far) are unable to break Monero, provided you use it properly.

I downloaded monero (not the full blockchain), out of curiousity. I used it through coin exchange in order to get rid of some UTXOs. My question remains: why is monero not very widespread? I would argue, according to all the comments and posts I have seen, that monero is a "good" coin.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Who knows? Maybe because it doesn't promise 1000% returns like most of the scam shitcoins people buy. There are no shitty ICOs or tokens or ordinals or other nonsense built on Monero. Or maybe because people who use Monero aren't super vocal about it. And there is zero media presence for Monero - governments and blockchain analysis companies don't like it, so centralized exchanges won't advertise it and the big sponsored crypto sites don't talk about it. And there was no pre-mine for the creators to splash on advertising campaigns or similar.

Personally, it's the only coin other than bitcoin I own and use.

[apogio]

Who knows? Maybe because it doesn't promise 1000% returns like most of the scam shitcoins people buy. There are no shitty ICOs or tokens or ordinals or other nonsense built on Monero. Or maybe because people who use Monero aren't super vocal about it. And there is zero media presence for Monero - governments and blockchain analysis companies don't like it, so centralized exchanges won't advertise it and the big sponsored crypto sites don't talk about it. And there was no pre-mine for the creators to splash on advertising campaigns or similar.

I will quote you by enumerating what you said:

1. it doesn't promise 1000% returns like most of the scam shitcoins
2. no shitty ICOs or tokens or ordinals or other nonsense
3. zero media presence for Monero
4. governments and blockchain analysis companies don't like it
5. centralized exchanges won't advertise it

Sounds good to me!!!

Sounds like monero has achieved what they wanted.

Sounds like "Monero above all", when it comes to privacy.

[Charles-Tim]

But I think it is worth knowing that monero is also adopted to some extent, despite the pressure from governments of many countries, and exchanges that delisted it.

There was a time monero was $0.2
In March 2020, monero was $25
In May 2021, monero had all-time-high, which was $519. Despite that many altcoins were existing long time ago but they did not had  all-time-high.

Monero price as of today is $157.5 which is 3 times lower than all-time-high. Unlike most altcoins that are 10 time or more lower than the highest price they got to in 2021

Monero has a marketcap of $2.89 billion and the 24th (as of today) on the lists of coins with the higher marketcap.

Sounds like "Monero above all", when it comes to privacy.

Definitely. That is why converting bitcoin to monero and back to bitcoin on decentralized exchanges is advised as one of the means of mixing bitcoin. You can see mixer like [banned mixer] having monero bridge used to mix bitcoin in advanced mode. No coin is existing that gives this benefits.

[hugeblack]

Does anyone know what the impact of such a law (if passed) would be on the forum? I found that they are citing some of the reasons that prompted them to do so at ---->  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/09/ fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-on-ensuring-responsible-innovation-in-digital-assets/
If we search, we will find that some of the mixing service providers accused in the above list are present in this forum, and according to the page --->  https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php,

Bitcointalk.org is in US jurisdiction, and is subject to US subpoenas, wiretap orders, preservation orders (which would negate the above retention rules), and similar. Furthermore, our service providers could also be subject to similar orders without our knowledge. Note that we consider PMs to require a warrant in order to be released.

[blckhawk]

Is leaving the US a possible option? Because I've replied in an earlier post that being an expatriate working outside of the US but still making US pay grade and possibly living in other country might be an option against this act against cryptocurrency. The Carribean might be a good option, it's near the US and it's outside so you can still visit family or are they still able to tax you even if you live there?

[SamReomo]

I really don't know why they want Bitcoiners to be trapped in the traditional banking system is it that they don't want us to be independent and Kyced thing could be pretty much unacceptable for many Bitcoiners who don't want to reveal their identity in public. I guess they're doing this so that they can tax everyone who is hodling Bitcoin and that's the worst thing they can do with Bitcoiners.

People love and use Bitcoin because of its decentralized nature and now they want to take away that freedom from us. I'm not sure but I guess that all KYCed centralized exchanges have accepted their proposal of sharing the users complete data to the governments and that's why now they want to every Bitcoin holder to use Bitcoin via centralized exchanges.

[tranthidung]

If we search, we will find that some of the mixing service providers accused in the above list are present in this forum, and according to the page --->  https://bitcointalk.org/privacy.php,

Bitcointalk.org is in US jurisdiction, and is subject to US subpoenas, wiretap orders, preservation orders (which would negate the above retention rules), and similar. Furthermore, our service providers could also be subject to similar orders without our knowledge. Note that we consider PMs to require a warrant in order to be released.

theymos was summoned to US subpoenas after the Silk Road investigation.
Bitcoin Forum Bitcointalk.org Receives and Answers First Subpoena from DOJ.

DPR subpoena.

This is the first government request/inquiry I've received related to Ulbricht's case. I have received a few other inquiries for other cases.

All advertisements in Bitcointalk, in my understanding, falls into Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Section 230: Everything you must know about the rule that shaped the internet.

According to Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, no provider or user of an interactive computer service will be regarded as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

[Lucius]

I downloaded monero (not the full blockchain), out of curiousity. I used it through coin exchange in order to get rid of some UTXOs. My question remains: why is monero not very widespread? I would argue, according to all the comments and posts I have seen, that monero is a "good" coin.

I don't use CEX, so I don't know what the situation is with the most famous ones when it comes to that coin, but what I do know is that a few years ago in the EU there was increased pressure on the so-called "privacy coins" and that all local crypto exchanges in my country over night removed that coin (and some others) from their trading pairs. Given that people in most cases buy cryptocurrencies because they want to profit from them, privacy is not something that is valued, especially if it is also marked by the authorities as something bad.


I read the entire article from OP and I can only say that I am not at all surprised that all this is happening, because any decentralization that goes in the direction of finance is literally a thorn in the side of every government that wants to have absolute control over every individual and his life. Although there is quite clear evidence that cryptocurrencies are to a very small extent responsible for financing terrorism or money laundering (according to what Chainalysis claims) and that there should be much more focus on the classic methods used by terrorists/criminals. Unable to admit that their (FIAT) system is as full of holes as Swiss cheese, some governments look for the culprit on the completely wrong side, and it's even easier if that someone might not even defend himself.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Sounds like "Monero above all", when it comes to privacy.

Pretty much.

Monero has a marketcap of $2.89 billion and the 24th (as of today) on the lists of coins with the higher marketcap.

As far as I am concerned, the price of Monero is even less relevant than the price of bitcoin - it addresses a specific need, and it has been proven over years to work and work well. When Bitcoin fell ~80% I didn't care because the fundamentals hadn't changed. If Monero falls ~80%, the same applies.

Is leaving the US a possible option?

A much easier option than that in the short term is just to close all your KYCed accounts and use bitcoin peer to peer as it was intended in the first place. Long term I would say leaving the US is a good plan for a whole host of reasons, given the mass surveillance machine the US government has turned in to.

I guess they're doing this so that they can tax everyone who is hodling Bitcoin and that's the worst thing they can do with Bitcoiners.

They are doing it so all bitcoin transactions can be easily monitored and surveilled. A population under constant surveillance is a population which is easy to manipulate and control, a population which will never dare to step out of line.

[NotATether]

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#

One new thing I want to note about this:

It has come to my attention that there is a similar draconian bill attempting to be passed by the IRS that would essentially require all crypto to be KYC'ed for all transactions to be allowed.

Some cool dudes made a site where you can submit an AI-generated complaint comment to the paper: https://treasuryraid.lexpunk.army/

I think it's a really cool idea and we should try to find a way to do it for this act too.

[panganib999]

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.

What part of "Anonymous" can these mofos in the government not understand? We've been at it for years now, these people are so concerned about "the dangers that crypto could pose in the AML integrity" that they laser-focused on regulating bitcoin instead of actually finding the time to crack down on industries where money laundering does happen (ahem, charitable organizations, carpet resellers, music industry, everything else where you can create clean money). I sometimes feel like we should just take our business elsewhere cause as long as these senile retards remain seated they will continue to do the most belligerent shit you could ever think of. There's harmony and peace with having a little anonymity, it's been like that for years now, why is it that they are pushing to do it NOW?

[Darker45]

Is this somehow expected, that at some point this would come? As the adoption or exploitation of Bitcoin grows, so will the enmity between the technology and the government?

Just a couple of weeks ago, in his Bitcoin Amsterdam speech, Snowden mentioned how he used Bitcoin to pay for the servers that would host the classified information that he shared with certain people.

I can also remember Andreas Antonopoulos mentioning how the efficiency of Bitcoin as money makes it desirable by both upright and crooked men.

And so as the volume of transactions grow and the number of users increase which, of course, include bad actors, the approach of the government against it also grows in severity.

I'm curious now, will you, then, encourage that people don't declare their Bitcoin holdings? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seemed to have advised people quite a while ago to just declare what they have to avoid possible troubles with the IRS.

[blckhawk]

Is leaving the US a possible option?

A much easier option than that in the short term is just to close all your KYCed accounts and use bitcoin peer to peer as it was intended in the first place. Long term I would say leaving the US is a good plan for a whole host of reasons, given the mass surveillance machine the US government has turned in to.

People should have left a long time ago if you asked me, Snowden's leaks should have been the lynchpin to the decision that people should leave US, but it just fizzled out through the years and people just moved on but the mass surveillance was still going on which is scary but if we're talking about mass surveillance, I don't think that China and other totalitarian regimes around the world would probably shame US in their mass surveillance programs, if only Bush didn't masterminded the 9/11 attacks, this whole thing wouldn't happen.

[Poker Player]

Well this is something along the same lines of what is underway in Europe and what I talked about back in the day.

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

The strange thing is that Europe took the lead in this before the United States, which is now lagging behind. But yes, the idea is to try to control Bitcoin transactions as banking transactions are controlled, and in Europe the last thing I read is that by January 2026 the full exchange of information between countries should be implemented.

To all this, apart from the advice given in the thread, such as not using CEX, I would like to add that you should use cash as much as possible when you have to pay with fiat. Taking care of privacy as much as possible with Bitcoin and then paying for everything with your smartwatch is not very coherent.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think it's a really cool idea and we should try to find a way to do it for this act too.

I don't think so. They will simply ignore any AI generated content, and all it does is water down genuine comments and complaints.

I'm curious now, will you, then, encourage that people don't declare their Bitcoin holdings?

I would encourage people, as I have always done, do trade exclusively peer to peer and to never complete KYC anywhere, so there are no third parties which can track all your bitcoin and share that information with anyone they like.

The strange thing is that Europe took the lead in this before the United States, which is now lagging behind.

Everything I've seen come out of the EU in relation to bitcoin has been just as bad/stupid/misguided/idiotic as what our government in the US spits out. This kind of mass surveillance of bitcoin will only spread if we don't fight to put a stop to it.