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From the article: > According to one letter, penned by Epik’s SVP of strategy and communications, Robert Davis, PayPal inquired about offshore accounts, money

by mcintyre1994 6y ago

From the article: > According to one letter, penned by Epik’s SVP of strategy and communications, Robert Davis, PayPal inquired about offshore accounts, money transmission licenses, and "other queries related to cross‐border activities and law enforcement." > “[The questions] were absolutely absurd, and well outside of any knowledge or experience we have as a domain registrar,” said Davis. These sound to me like things PayPal very obviously should be asking of anyone using them to run a cryptocurrency. Interesting that they've taken down the masterbucks page now linked in the article and with the archived note about tax advantages, and moved it to masterbucks.com which their FAQ claims they control: https://www.epik.com/support/knowledgebase/using-masterbucks/ https://www.epik.com/support/knowledgebase/using-masterbucks...

dashundchen 6y ago
Yes, I think many people commenting here have jumped to react to the headline with their own political views, not the article. Perhaps the title should reflect it's over money laundering, not content of Epik's clients. Anyone who has read stories of or dealt with Paypal before knows they will cut off access if they even have an inkling of illegal activity happening. Their relationship with the banks and payment processors depends on it. So it's no surprise Epik advertising tax evasion using Paypal would get them terminated. Epik doesn't really help their case with the response letter, it's written in a unhinged fashion without any substantiation of their claims of censorship by "Paypal executives".
- cft 6y ago
  That's called selective enforcement
  - lykr0n 6y ago
    It totally is. They're selectively enforcing their policy against people large enough to catch the attention of PayPal's Compliance Teams. Automated actions are taken against small accounts, Manual Enforcement will happen against large accounts.
djsumdog 6y ago
It's kinda shitty if Epik knows they are participating in questionable business practices, can't answer basic questions needed for SEC, and then turn around and try to spit this out as the whole thing being political. This hurts people who want to run independent alternative platforms in the long term.
- glasss 6y ago
  >This hurts people who want to run independent alternative platforms in the long term. This is what I'm most concerned about. If someone wants to get an independent registrar or other piece of infrastructure set up in the future, they shouldn't be associated with, or have to deal with the stigma of others that have done similar things just to end up conducting illegal activities. It will eventually lead people to believe that anyone who wants to break the mold will eventually do illegal things, so they might as well just not allow that to begin with.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  They don’t care. Today’s political climate (in the US) encourages divisiveness, so if anything can be spun as a left vs. right issue, it will. Especially if it’s a far-left or far-right organization.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    A solid warning sign of impending social collapse.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      That's what you get when you start treating politics as though it is a teamsport instead of a way to run a country, and where parties try to undo as much as possible of their predecessors.

dashundchen 6y ago

Yes, I think many people commenting here have jumped to react to the headline with their own political views, not the article. Perhaps the title should reflect it's over money laundering, not content of Epik's clients. Anyone who has read stories of or dealt with Paypal before knows they will cut off access if they even have an inkling of illegal activity happening. Their relationship with the banks and payment processors depends on it. So it's no surprise Epik advertising tax evasion using Paypal would get them terminated. Epik doesn't really help their case with the response letter, it's written in a unhinged fashion without any substantiation of their claims of censorship by "Paypal executives".

cft 6y ago
That's called selective enforcement
- lykr0n 6y ago
  It totally is. They're selectively enforcing their policy against people large enough to catch the attention of PayPal's Compliance Teams. Automated actions are taken against small accounts, Manual Enforcement will happen against large accounts.

djsumdog 6y ago

It's kinda shitty if Epik knows they are participating in questionable business practices, can't answer basic questions needed for SEC, and then turn around and try to spit this out as the whole thing being political. This hurts people who want to run independent alternative platforms in the long term.

glasss 6y ago
>This hurts people who want to run independent alternative platforms in the long term. This is what I'm most concerned about. If someone wants to get an independent registrar or other piece of infrastructure set up in the future, they shouldn't be associated with, or have to deal with the stigma of others that have done similar things just to end up conducting illegal activities. It will eventually lead people to believe that anyone who wants to break the mold will eventually do illegal things, so they might as well just not allow that to begin with.
colejohnson66 6y ago
They don’t care. Today’s political climate (in the US) encourages divisiveness, so if anything can be spun as a left vs. right issue, it will. Especially if it’s a far-left or far-right organization.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  A solid warning sign of impending social collapse.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    That's what you get when you start treating politics as though it is a teamsport instead of a way to run a country, and where parties try to undo as much as possible of their predecessors.