7 ms·

If we want to draw the connection to cash, companies that trade in large amounts of cash are also subject to regulation and reporting. For example, U.S. financ

If we want to draw the connection to cash, companies that trade in large amounts of cash are also subject to regulation and reporting. For example, U.S. financial institutions are required to file Currency Transaction Reports for deposit, withdrawal, exchange of currency, or other payment or transfer that involves more than $10,000. Any organization that is facilitating those trades is subject to financial regulation, even if the trade is in cash. Indeed, if the transaction crosses the border even individuals carrying cash have to report it for sufficiently large amounts: https://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/pages_manual/OLM_035.htm https://www.ffiec.gov/bsa_aml_infobase/pages_manual/OLM_035.... If anything this enforcement is treating bitcoin more like cash, not less.

abritinthebay 9y ago
Agreed. The problem is that Bitcoin wants to be taken seriously as a currency while at the same time not being subject to all the rules and regulations imposed on currencies. This was predicted years ago by most critics but was most often just hand-waved away by advocates, most responding that it was impossible to regulate the system itself. Well.. yeah, so you regulate assets and income of the people and companies involved. That's how it works with regular currency too. It's a problem any currency system has (even barter!)
- mirimir 9y ago
  Some of us see P2P cryptocurrencies as a way to opt out of government regulation. Governments can't regulate entities that maintain strong anonymity. Most vulnerable are asset movements to and from meatspace. But there are well-known methods for dealing with that.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    It's... like you're repeating exactly the objection I mentioned and not addressing the core problem with it. Oh no, that is what you just did. Ok then, carry on.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes, I'm arguing that these rules and regulations are the core problem.
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        you cant have your cake and eat it. you cant just opt out of regulation and not all the other things. you would litterally have to start your own nation from scratch.
        timbowhite 9y ago
        Do you think people like Rosa Parks should have started their own nation? [0] What an incredibly frightening way of thinking. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Rosa Park fought to get equal rights. You want to have privileges. The fact that you don't see that is the only frightening thinking here.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        mirimir 9y ago
        What we want is the right to be left alone. It's a form of nonviolent resistance.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Wanting to be left alone is exactly a privilege.
        roguecoder 9y ago
        Why do so many libertarian dudes suddenly all want to be Rosa Parks? And how did they miss the part where she was arrested and convicted, as part of a coordinated activist effort to change specific laws? She didn't just break the law and expect there to be no consequences. That's not how non-violence resistance works.
  - legulere 9y ago
    And governments have all reason to believe that when people try hiding money streams from them it is for something illegal like tax evasion, money laundering, etc. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to live in a world with even more powerful criminal forces.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      As I see it, the most powerful criminals control governments. And then they get to define whatever they don't like as criminal. The game is rigged. But fighting is pointless. It's better to just walk away.
      - legulere 9y ago
        The problem with no- or low-state solutions is that you remove accountability to the people that you even have in places like China.
        mirimir 9y ago
        I don't see a lot of "accountability to the people" anywhere. Just bullshit, propaganda and exploitation. The truly wealthy own everything, and the rest of us are pawns at best. It's been that way for thousands of years. I see the Internet as the best shot for transforming that. Because it can empower individuals, permit free and private association, create space for people to be free of coercion, and so on. Time will tell.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    > entities that maintain strong anonymity An impossible task for the vast majority of people. Especially since bitcoin is not anonymous.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      > An impossible task for the vast majority of people I freelance ;) > ...bitcoin is not anonymous Bitmixer.io / bitmixer2whesjgj.onion foggeddriztrcar2.onion / foggedddxlunnaaa.onion [Bitcoin Fog] grams7enufi7jmdl.onion/helix/light See https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-anonymity-part-7 https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-ano... (somewhat outdated, but hey).
gnu8 9y ago
The whole reason we need bitcoin is to circumvent these unjust and immoral laws. If the united states wants to maintain the predominance of the US Dollar as a medium of exchange and a reserve currency, the best thing it could do is repeal the Bank Secrecy Act and dismantle FinCEN.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > we need bitcoin is to circumvent these unjust and immoral laws What about fighting tax evasion is unjust or immoral?
  - 0x445424 9y ago
    The tax part.
Houshalter 9y ago
You are right that they are treating it similarly to cash. The problem is that our society is slowly criminalizing cash as well. If cops catch you with a large amount of cash, they can just take it with no recourse. It's assumed to be for criminal activity, since why else would anyone transport cash? Using cash is increasingly seen as suspicious and possibly criminal behavior. If you deposit a large amount of cash it's reported to the government and you may even be investigated. Some other comments below have better examples. The government stopped printing large bills and inflation is slowly going to make the smaller bills worthless. The same also applies to laws. The law says "any amount over $10,000 needs to be reported". And as inflation continues, the actual amount of value that represents becomes smaller and smaller from what it was when the law was originally written.
- barrkel 9y ago
  Before you run away with your paranoid hat on, think about it the other way around: voters want something done about organized crime, and politicians look for the easy wins. Since large untraceable cash transactions are almost always criminal in nature, it makes sense to lower the weight of evidence required to seize unusually large amounts of cash. And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me, because I don't deal in large cash transactions, and I can't imagine any world in which I would. The largest would be buying a second-hand vehicle privately, but I wouldn't spend 10k on a private purchase - the mugging risk is too high. Yes, poor saps do get caught up, especially if they're doing something like collecting money for charity - small numbers add up. They're ought to be easy ways of appealing the decision for legitimate reasons. I don't really buy the slippery slope argument either. I think the limit will be quickly raised once it's obviously too low.
  - rl3 9y ago
    Alternatively, the cops could do actual police work instead of robbing people of their cash at random. >And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me, because ... Statements such as those aren't sufficient justification for shredding freedoms that have existed for hundreds of years. It's also worth noting that the seized cash usually benefits the organization seizing it, creating a perverse incentive in the process.
firethief 9y ago
> accused of illegally selling more than $1,500 in bitcoins Unless I'm missing something, the threshold for reporting Bitcoin transactions is apparently now a fraction of that for cash (if there even is a threshold?).
wfunction 9y ago
Regarding how awesome Bitcoin must be, can I just take a moment to point out that only half the reason crap like randomware exists (and hits places like hospitals, etc.) is suboptimal security. The other half is untraceable digital payments. Food for thought.
- kemonocode 9y ago
  Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. Tainted money like that would need to be put through a Bitcoin tumbler which is unsafe and imperfect or only ever used to pay for other criminal activities as exchanging it for fiat in an exchange cooperating with any authorities could be pretty hard.
  - wfunction 9y ago
    > Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. And I was merely saying Bitcoin has been making untraceable digital payments possible (and practical/easy). Nowhere was I saying it is impossible to also use Bitcoin for traceable digital payments.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      And you'd still be wrong. There's nothing about bitcoin that makes payments untraceable (quite the opposite). It takes longer, but it's possible.
      - wfunction 9y ago
        "It takes longer, but it's possible"? That's like saying decrypting RSA "takes longer, but it's possible". Yeah, good luck.
        jpttsn 9y ago
        There used to be ransomware that demanded cash by mail. RSA analogy? Way too harsh.

abritinthebay 9y ago

Agreed. The problem is that Bitcoin wants to be taken seriously as a currency while at the same time not being subject to all the rules and regulations imposed on currencies. This was predicted years ago by most critics but was most often just hand-waved away by advocates, most responding that it was impossible to regulate the system itself. Well.. yeah, so you regulate assets and income of the people and companies involved. That's how it works with regular currency too. It's a problem any currency system has (even barter!)

mirimir 9y ago
Some of us see P2P cryptocurrencies as a way to opt out of government regulation. Governments can't regulate entities that maintain strong anonymity. Most vulnerable are asset movements to and from meatspace. But there are well-known methods for dealing with that.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  It's... like you're repeating exactly the objection I mentioned and not addressing the core problem with it. Oh no, that is what you just did. Ok then, carry on.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, I'm arguing that these rules and regulations are the core problem.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      you cant have your cake and eat it. you cant just opt out of regulation and not all the other things. you would litterally have to start your own nation from scratch.
      - timbowhite 9y ago
        Do you think people like Rosa Parks should have started their own nation? [0] What an incredibly frightening way of thinking. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Rosa Park fought to get equal rights. You want to have privileges. The fact that you don't see that is the only frightening thinking here.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        mirimir 9y ago
        What we want is the right to be left alone. It's a form of nonviolent resistance.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Wanting to be left alone is exactly a privilege.
        roguecoder 9y ago
        Why do so many libertarian dudes suddenly all want to be Rosa Parks? And how did they miss the part where she was arrested and convicted, as part of a coordinated activist effort to change specific laws? She didn't just break the law and expect there to be no consequences. That's not how non-violence resistance works.
- legulere 9y ago
  And governments have all reason to believe that when people try hiding money streams from them it is for something illegal like tax evasion, money laundering, etc. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to live in a world with even more powerful criminal forces.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    As I see it, the most powerful criminals control governments. And then they get to define whatever they don't like as criminal. The game is rigged. But fighting is pointless. It's better to just walk away.
    - legulere 9y ago
      The problem with no- or low-state solutions is that you remove accountability to the people that you even have in places like China.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        I don't see a lot of "accountability to the people" anywhere. Just bullshit, propaganda and exploitation. The truly wealthy own everything, and the rest of us are pawns at best. It's been that way for thousands of years. I see the Internet as the best shot for transforming that. Because it can empower individuals, permit free and private association, create space for people to be free of coercion, and so on. Time will tell.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > entities that maintain strong anonymity An impossible task for the vast majority of people. Especially since bitcoin is not anonymous.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    > An impossible task for the vast majority of people I freelance ;) > ...bitcoin is not anonymous Bitmixer.io / bitmixer2whesjgj.onion foggeddriztrcar2.onion / foggedddxlunnaaa.onion [Bitcoin Fog] grams7enufi7jmdl.onion/helix/light See https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-anonymity-part-7 https://www.ivpn.net/privacy-guides/advanced-privacy-and-ano... (somewhat outdated, but hey).

gnu8 9y ago

The whole reason we need bitcoin is to circumvent these unjust and immoral laws. If the united states wants to maintain the predominance of the US Dollar as a medium of exchange and a reserve currency, the best thing it could do is repeal the Bank Secrecy Act and dismantle FinCEN.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> we need bitcoin is to circumvent these unjust and immoral laws What about fighting tax evasion is unjust or immoral?
- 0x445424 9y ago
  The tax part.

Houshalter 9y ago

You are right that they are treating it similarly to cash. The problem is that our society is slowly criminalizing cash as well. If cops catch you with a large amount of cash, they can just take it with no recourse. It's assumed to be for criminal activity, since why else would anyone transport cash? Using cash is increasingly seen as suspicious and possibly criminal behavior. If you deposit a large amount of cash it's reported to the government and you may even be investigated. Some other comments below have better examples. The government stopped printing large bills and inflation is slowly going to make the smaller bills worthless. The same also applies to laws. The law says "any amount over $10,000 needs to be reported". And as inflation continues, the actual amount of value that represents becomes smaller and smaller from what it was when the law was originally written.

barrkel 9y ago
Before you run away with your paranoid hat on, think about it the other way around: voters want something done about organized crime, and politicians look for the easy wins. Since large untraceable cash transactions are almost always criminal in nature, it makes sense to lower the weight of evidence required to seize unusually large amounts of cash. And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me, because I don't deal in large cash transactions, and I can't imagine any world in which I would. The largest would be buying a second-hand vehicle privately, but I wouldn't spend 10k on a private purchase - the mugging risk is too high. Yes, poor saps do get caught up, especially if they're doing something like collecting money for charity - small numbers add up. They're ought to be easy ways of appealing the decision for legitimate reasons. I don't really buy the slippery slope argument either. I think the limit will be quickly raised once it's obviously too low.
- rl3 9y ago
  Alternatively, the cops could do actual police work instead of robbing people of their cash at random. >And frankly, I'm fairly comfortable with that. It'll never affect me, because ... Statements such as those aren't sufficient justification for shredding freedoms that have existed for hundreds of years. It's also worth noting that the seized cash usually benefits the organization seizing it, creating a perverse incentive in the process.

firethief 9y ago

> accused of illegally selling more than $1,500 in bitcoins Unless I'm missing something, the threshold for reporting Bitcoin transactions is apparently now a fraction of that for cash (if there even is a threshold?).

wfunction 9y ago

Regarding how awesome Bitcoin must be, can I just take a moment to point out that only half the reason crap like randomware exists (and hits places like hospitals, etc.) is suboptimal security. The other half is untraceable digital payments. Food for thought.

kemonocode 9y ago
Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. Tainted money like that would need to be put through a Bitcoin tumbler which is unsafe and imperfect or only ever used to pay for other criminal activities as exchanging it for fiat in an exchange cooperating with any authorities could be pretty hard.
- wfunction 9y ago
  > Bitcoin payments are anonymous, but they are perfectly traceable. Quite the important distinction there. And I was merely saying Bitcoin has been making untraceable digital payments possible (and practical/easy). Nowhere was I saying it is impossible to also use Bitcoin for traceable digital payments.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    And you'd still be wrong. There's nothing about bitcoin that makes payments untraceable (quite the opposite). It takes longer, but it's possible.
    - wfunction 9y ago
      "It takes longer, but it's possible"? That's like saying decrypting RSA "takes longer, but it's possible". Yeah, good luck.
      - jpttsn 9y ago
        There used to be ransomware that demanded cash by mail. RSA analogy? Way too harsh.