ECB hints regulators could pursue Bitcoin miners

[MoneroModel]

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/ecb-hints-regulators-could-pursue-bitcoin-miners/

Here's why we, the people, need privacy, security, and anonymity (the state can deem you a criminal whenever they want):

The Bitcoin network has a governance structure in which roles are assigned to identified individuals. Authorities could decide that these should be prosecuted in view of the large scale of illegal payments using Bitcoin. Decentralized finance can be regulated as forcefully as the legislator considers necessary.

[franky1]

a. its a bloggers opinion piece in a blog section of ECB... not a draft policy piece of the formal announcement section
b. the writer has no clue about anything beyond his own bias he read from elsewhere.
c. his wishes are based on his fallacies, not deep research

lets take one snippit

The history of Bitcoin has been characterised by price manipulation and other types of fraud. This may not be very surprising for an asset that has no fair value.

but bitcoin does have a fair value wholesale amount.. its just not the same as the retail market premium of CEX
.. much like many things in the world..
milk, bread has a hidden wholesale value price below the retail price
but in short yes bitcoin does have a underlying value which the market then speculates above
 
bitcoin is based on PoW that has real world cost of production..
if you look across the world at many countries electric costs. and base the PoW hashrate on cost of electric/hardware.. there becomes an underlying value..
when considering the cheapest most effective locations price to mine a considerable % of the network hashpower. this cheapest considerable% becomes the base. where by no one else can effectively undercut the market to earn enough coin to affect the market. no one wants to sell below the base because that would be a loss of real world costs.. thus becomes actual real world value bottom.. which the bitcoin market then speculates above based on other countries positions of higher costs and other reasons of desire, demand

EG if its $25k in Slavic/asian countries to mine. and $140k to mine in pacific island regions

all countries wont 'mine to sell' below $25k. slavic/asian countries would not want to sell @$25k as thats break even, no profit. so prefer to sell higher
where as pacific countries are willing to buy at any price below $140k as its discount compared to mining.
which if bitcoin peaks to the $140k line where even the most expensive miners on the planet can break even /profit, then majority then go on a selling sentiment which means there actually is a ceiling to market speculation..

(note the foundation value and premium ceiling change over time due to advancing costs due to hashrate cost of mining.. and its been proven the case in 2021-2022 top and bottom market limits correlating with those dates top and bottom mining considerations(other times to over the decade) )

..
just this snippet shows how the blogger does not know much about economics and how miners are involved in economics.

..
if i was the CEO of ECB running a ethical, honourable ECB for the best practices of economics. and if i then read that blog post and found out the blogger was an employee of ECB. id immediately want to investigate the bloggers credentials as it reeks of not understanding basic economics. and then fire him either way due to making statements that show he is not skilled in economics and instead just wants to display personal politics of biases

[MoneroModel]

Totally agree with you on the Bitcoin value and the quality of that opinion piece.
But maybe it's just me, my main concern is about the identified individuals in the Bitcoin network. The rhetoric around regulation reminds me of what happened with Tornado Cash...

[franky1]

Totally agree with you on the Bitcoin value and the quality of that opinion piece.
But maybe it's just me, my main concern is about the identified individuals in the Bitcoin network. The rhetoric around regulation reminds me of what happened with Tornado Cash...

tornado cash didnt get hit for just coding a mixer.. no matter what idiots with blogs will say
tornado cash owner got hit for directly receiving revenue for facilitating payments of specific criminal sourced funds knowingly via his service he used in participation of moving value

laundering by people physically involved in the movement of illicit funds for a fee/commission is a crime that is unrelated to just bitcoin.. its standard financial law which ECB want bitcoin payment services to also be under the jurisdiction of

as for your worry.. in regards to "governance structure in which roles are assigned to identified individuals"

firstly miners are just asics that hash, they are not governors, nor identified individuals

if the blogger was trying to make a point he would be suggesting(if you wash away his misguided mis-information)
known mining POOLS, known services should be prosecuted if found to be facilitating actively and intimately criminal sourced funding
its not to say arrest a dev for just making code. its if that dev then personally, wilfully, knowingly uses a feature that he personally gets commission from criminally sourced fund of, due to being actively involved in facilitating/supporting that criminal movement of funds via direct support/facilitation then that would be considered as facilitating money laundering.

using code that anyone can use and you not know who how or why they do... is totally different to knowing a criminal wants to move criminally sourced funding and agreeing to help them and then get paid for the help

i consider it as a hint that they want mining POOLS to identify themselves as VASPS (virtual asset service providers).. in the west known as MSB (money service businesses) that then need to see some blacklist of sanctioned funds and ensure they dont facilitate payments of

[Yamane_Keto]

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/ecb-hints-regulators-could-pursue-bitcoin-miners/

Today, Bitcoin transactions are still inconvenient, slow, and costly. Outside the darknet, the hidden part of the internet used for criminal activities, it is hardly used for payments at all.

The biased opinions are obvious from the beginning but franky1 made good points.

Decentralized finance can be regulated as forcefully as the legislator considers necessary.

This is almost the only correct sentence in the article. Governments can track Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and try to impose restrictions on them under the pretext of laundering money or running illegal activities. I expect soon to see some DeFi talking about new standards, which may include KYC.

[franky1]

Governments can track Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and try to impose restrictions on them under the pretext of laundering money or running illegal activities. I expect soon to see some DeFi talking about new standards, which may include KYC.

yep pretty much the jist of it if your offering a service(business) that facilitates currency movement, you'll need to register as a money business/vasp.. which then entails things like prevent transfers of sanctioned/blacklisted funds, kyc and audits and reporting of suspect behaviour of customers.

i seen it happen in the UK years ago, in regards to 'localbitcoins.com' which was like a craigs list of private OTC decentralised traders listing
though hard to identify at the localbitcoin site before it itself needed to KYC listers.. UK banks were watching when personal(non-business) bank accounts who were moving alot of cash back and forth to lots of new strangers (signs it wasnt just grandma getting/giving birthday money) where the banks flagged these as suspicious and then asked the account holder about his activity to inform him he needed a business bank account plus a MSB licence to continue doing what he was doing. which then entailed reporting and audits and kyc of each trade

[OcTradism]

ECB did not update information about Bitcoin mining industry that has been actually becoming more and more environmental friendly with higher sustainable power mix used in Bitcoin mining.

We can read insightful resources and debunk their invalid attack on Bitcoin mining industry.

https://endthefud.org/energy
https://bitcoincleanup.com/
Bitcoin Mining Council Survey confirms Year on Year improvements in sustainable power and technological efficiency.

[MoneroModel]

tornado cash owner got hit for directly receiving revenue for facilitating payments of specific criminal sourced funds knowingly via his service he used in participation of moving value

using code that anyone can use and you not know who how or why they do... is totally different to knowing a criminal wants to move criminally sourced funding and agreeing to help them and then get paid for the help

We can all agree that bad people doing bad things should be punished, franky1. However, I'm concerned about the precedent set by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control when it placed "Tornado Cash" (code) on its "Specially Designated Nationals" sanctions list. This is unprecedented (code is not a 'National'!) and has serious implications for free speech and academic freedom. This action effectively prohibits anyone in the United States from "dealing" with Tornado Cash (code). What really gets my attention is how these actions could potentially affect freedom of speech. Government must not make choices that impact the sharing of code, academic progress, and scientific research. Two lawsuits, one brought by Coin Center and another by Coinbase, are questioning whether OFAC was authorized at all to sanction Tornado Cash and whether the sanctions order violates the Constitution. These cases could really shape our future.

Plus, there's this overarching theme of (financial) privacy that keeps popping up in various ways. By the way, I know we've got some old-school veterans on this forum who probably remember the cryptography wars—when code was printed in books and on T-shirts as a form of protest and activism. It's a testament to how cyclical history can be. If it turns out I'm just being alarmist, I'll be the happiest to admit it. 😅

[franky1]

I'm concerned about the precedent set by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control when it placed "Tornado Cash" (code) on its "Specially Designated Nationals" sanctions list. This is unprecedented (code is not a 'National'!)

its not about "code" (you have been reading mis-informed blogs/tweets) its about if that code operates as a service
there is a term "software-as-a-service" SaaS)

ill quote something related to the court judgement

The court rejected this argument finding that Tornado Cash’s DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) which is responsible for maintaining and upgrading Tornado Cash and receives revenue from its operation, is an “association” which counts as a “person” under the statute.

companies, services, trusts, organisations, foundations, federations, associations are classed as entities (legal persons/ nationals)
so they did not ban 'code'. the banned a service, specifically a MSB Money Service Business

its not about now making all code a "person". EG microsoft office word document is not a entity/person/national. visual studio code is not a service
but if that code compiles and then operates as its own service. its treated as a service rather than just code/software

the court did not decide all code/software are services.. but via evidence proved tornado was operating as service and was not simply "code"/software

yes this has other implications where by when code starts operating as a organisation, association, as a service.. then jurisdictions start applying
for instance blockstreams liquid is an example(its federation), another would be LN users that offer "routing" would be payment facilitators/ money services

[Poker Player]

Well, I am not surprised by the ECB because it is clear that it has a lot of Bitcoin haters, among them these two who say that it is not even useful as an investment and that it should be regulated until it is practically banned. I don't know if it's the two of them or people who think the same way that are on the way to implement legislation that equates Bitcoin transactions to banking transactions, although the last I heard they agreed to a limit of 1,000 euros below which there would be anonymity in crypto transactions. But I think that limit will be lowered or outright removed with the final legislation.

[MoneroModel]

its not about "code" (you have been reading mis-informed blogs/tweets) its about if that code operates as a service
there is a term "software-as-a-service" SaaS)

yes this has other implications where by when code starts operating as a organisation, association, as a service.. then jurisdictions start applying
for instance blockstreams liquid is an example(its federation), another would be LN users that offer "routing" would be payment facilitators/ money services

I've noticed that it's not the first time you've made assumptions about what I read, franky1, and I'd like to clarify my sources to avoid any misunderstandings. I mainly follow the Tornado Cash situation through eff.org and am also somewhat familiar with software-related terminology))

The main point I wanted to emphasize in my initial post was the state views on Bitcoin and distributed / decentralized technologies, as well as the potential for authorities to harshly deal with them (eh, us / some of us).

The Bitcoin network has a governance structure in which roles are assigned to identified individuals. Authorities could decide that these should be prosecuted in view of the large scale of illegal payments using Bitcoin. Decentralized finance can be regulated as forcefully as the legislator considers necessary.

I'm happy for any state that has you as a citizen, and I genuinely hope that none of us will ever have to choose between state views on Bitcoin "code as an entity" and our shared interest, passion, and investment in the Bitcoin topic. Peace ✌️

[franky1]

again you say you understand terminologies, but then end the message by saying that they view code as an entity..
.. no they dont

its when software is used AS A SERVICE..

EG bricks are not a service. but when people use bricks together to build a building and that building is not residential but used as a retail shop. then its a business..

if bricks make a building that is just used for residents or warehousing or as a ornament, or temple.. its not a service business
i hope you get it now if you replace the word code for brick, software for building, organisation for church, retailer for business, and so on

as for your upset that i point out suggestions that you get triggered by exerts you found via social media, blogs, opinion sites,  rather than actual policy.
this very topic shows you are forming wild opinions based on a opinion piece(ledgerinsights) which is mentioning words of a blogger opinion on a blogger section of a site..
none of which actually highlight actual MICA policy nor the IOSCO policy

heres an exert from IOSCO

Recommendation 1 – Analyze DeFi Products, Services, Activities, and Arrangements to
Assess Regulatory Responses
A regulator should analyze DeFi products, services, activities, and arrangements, occurring
or located within its jurisdiction, with a view to applying its Existing Framework or New
Framework, as appropriate, to the offer of financial products, the provision of financial
services, and the engagement in financial activities (or to products, services, and activities
that behave like, or have been substituted by investors for, financial products, services, and
activities), in accordance with the principle of “same activity, same risk, same
regulation/regulatory outcome.” To do so, a regulator should aim to achieve a holistic and
comprehensive understanding of such DeFi products, services, activities, and arrangements.
A regulator should assess what technological knowledge, data, and tools the regulator needs
to understand, and analyze DeFi products, services, activities, and arrangements, to inform
regulatory responses

as you can see they are clearly defining the difference between product, service and activities
of which fiat based activities, services and products have separate categories of regulations also

which they want to analyse crypto products services and activities to see where they can apply current fiat policy category to said crypto based category

so its not a broad stroke of all code is a entity, it depends on what that code does

i do not like the governments over reach, i prefered the era of bitcoin pre 2013 before it was ratified as a currency. because back then it was open to any use without regulation over reach, much like trading pokemon cards has no regulation oversight

but, you have to know the critical details of your enemy to know what battles to wage.
so research the actual policies and dont rely on blogger opinions.. and yes that also means dont take my word for it, but instead DYOR and learn whats actually happening with MICA and IOSCO.. from their actual policies and official documents. not blogger opinion snippets that trigger you

..
in short, yet again
tornado was not shut down due to "code" it was operating as a money service without a money service business licence and not following regulations.. thats how it got caught . and then charged with other things  due to using its SERVICE to facilitate laundering where the guy that made the service got paid a fee for facilitating laundering in full knowledge of what he was doing..
and i dont mean he facilitated by just coding, he actually after coding then went on to operate as a service and got his hands and mind involved in the payments, and got paid a fee for doing it

id rather know the facts so that i can inform, warn people of risks in what they do.. rather than just get triggered by click bait blogs
EG i dislike certain subnetworks, but id rather know the facts to even warn them that becoming a payment "router" or a "federation" rather than just a user making independent payments. changes their position from user to service provider(if they operate as a router/federation), which then has implications on them