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This post misses a couple of key points about illegality. Do not break this law if it's passed. Here's why. Once your government determines that participation

This post misses a couple of key points about illegality. Do not break this law if it's passed. Here's why. Once your government determines that participation in crypto networks without using a registered intermediary is illegal, they have reasonable grounds to subpoena network providers for participation in such networks. Once your government can reasonably determine that your IP address has accessed a crypto network without using an intermediary, then they have probable cause for search and seizure of your digital and physical property. If you are caught by any means to be using VPNs or TOR to dodge network-layer inspection, this will result in more strict sentencing decisions, as doing so can be interpreted as knowingly breaking the law. Additionally, as a bonus risk to everyone who knowingly participates in crypto, consider the malware problem: If you're infected by malware that is doing so without your knowledge or consent, you may regardless be found liable, depending on how poorly the law is written and how poorly the authorities choose to treat you, if you are found to be knowingly participating in crypto in any respect whatsoever. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice, seek legal counsel, etc.) EDIT: Or any law like it passed it any non-US country, either!

wmf 6y ago
It sounds like you're talking about domestic mass surveillance but there's no way the US would use such a dangerous tool just to find random cryptocurrency geeks.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  NSA employees used PRISM data to spy on romantic interests, I don't see why this is any more dangerous
  - wmf 6y ago
    And AFAIK those employees were fired because that is against NSA policy and tons of laws.
    - HideousKojima 6y ago
      Why weren't there controls in place to prevent them looking at it in the first place? And that's assuming all the ones who did so were actually caught
  - lwhalen 6y ago
    I think OP was being sarcastic....
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  Your comment highlighted a point I consider valid, though likely not the one you intended; I’ve added a footnote about non-US countries, as many of them have no such reservations about wiretapping network traffic to catch financial criminals.
auston 6y ago
I disagree, if this is passed, everybody break it and call your congress person / senators and complain that it was passed. disclaimer: also not a lawyer.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Too few people know enough about crypto, and also care enough, for you to get lost in a sea of folks breaking the same law. It'll be a short list of very loud, vocal, easy targets. I'd wanna be as far away from that as I could be. Especially since a very large use case for crypto - especially in non-custodial wallets - especially people avoiding KYC, is crime. The ratio of ancaps to criminals on this list is likely very low. [edit] The real risk of finding yourself on this shortlist of non-custodial wallets is suddenly finding yourself on the wrong side of the IRS. Most blockchains are pseudonymous, and the government has tools to track and de-pseudonymize, or at least map and aggregate - transactions. If the government wanted to go after you for breaking this law, they'd probably just throw together a quick list of people the IRS should start poking around at. They know as well as you do that you probably didn't report every transaction you've ever done on every exchange, DEX, or platform. That's tax fraud, straight up. Much easier to prove, and much harder to argue on merits. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if your government is coming for you, no amount of magic beans in your computer will keep you or your value safe. If you don't trust your government you've got bigger problems than crypto. If you trust your government crypto is irrelevant. As Beria, Stalin's side-kick said, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    TIL that “ancap” is some sort of slang for, apparently, “anarcho-capitalists”, here.
    - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
      It’s slang for anarcho-capitalist/ism everywhere.
  - Jorge1o1 6y ago
EGreg 6y ago
Now do the same argument for HTTPS and also using the color red in your websites.
oanna 6y ago
Or just break it and any other law you feel like. If they come for you, grab your rifle. We've had 28 years where the people in power get to do whatever they like with no consequences. Ordinary people might as well have a turn.
novok 6y ago
If you VPN / Tor almost everything (except services that ban you from using a VPN), I don't know if they have much of a leg to stand on about that part. I use VPNs so my ISP does not have a record of my internet traffic to sell to internet marketers and many other perfectly legal and moral reasons.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  I can’t remember the name of one of those famous cases of people that got arrested for thinking that they could use TOR to break the law without punishment, but there’s been so many by now that I honestly don’t feel bad having forgotten. No doubt someone else does - Russ something, maybe? No doubt there’ll be some sort of “but it’s decentralized” reply and, yeah, it’s decentralized, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily untraceable. Bitcoin isn’t the sort of thing that’s worth betting my freedom on. YMMV.
  - novok 6y ago
    Traceability through VPN / Tor is a different thing than being charged more for using a VPN, and I was more referencing the USA vs any generic country.
- gruez 6y ago
  >If you VPN / Tor almost everything (except services that ban you from using a VPN), I don't know if they have much of a leg to stand on about that part presumably they can also ban VPNs while they're at it, but it doesn't seem plausible. If your threat model is a tyrannical government willing to do anything (ie. ban encryption, backdoor every piece of computing equipment, install 1984 style telescreens everywhere), then there's no real way to defend it.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > If your threat model is a tyrannical government willing to do anything (ie. ban encryption, backdoor every piece of computing equipment, install 1984 style telescreens everywhere), then there's no real way to defend it. Well, there is, you just have to abandon the premise that doing what your adversary tells you to do is the right thing. Putting telescreens everywhere doesn't help them much if every one of them is immediately smashed with a rock and anyone who comes to repair it is also smashed with a rock. This requires a certain amount of public resistance, because you can't be the only one doing it, but a certain amount of public resistance is what systems like that tend to generate. And when you're not the only one doing it, they run out of telescreens and telescreen repair personnel before you run out of rocks.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
This kind of alarmist narrative sidesteps some simple economic realities: as soon as non trivial amounts of wealth are locked up in blockchains, basically the powers that be are hopelessly dependent on them. Rich people outlawing being rich is prevented by power facilitating corruption. BTC for all its flaws already is well on its way to replace the Switzerland as a popular place for all sorts of shady characters to park their wealth; hence the high prices. Owning a crypto wallet is of course nice but it is the financial equivalent of putting money in an old sock under your bed: it's kind of not very safe at all. Sure they are hard to hack or break into but the very real scenario you have to worry about more than the government coming after you is that of a person with a gun forcing at gun point you to transfer your belongings to their wallet. What's going to happen is that those people currently making use of loopholes in our laws to avoid paying taxes by using crypto currencies will find that using their secret stashes of wealth in a system that basically implements an extremely hard to forge transaction history, is going to be increasingly hard. There are ways around that but it doesn't change the reality that working in secret in a surveillance society is going to be increasingly hard. And like it or not, that's where we are heading. George Orwell was only off by a few decades. In any case, laws can be changed and they change all the time. Changes provide short term opportunities. But the long term perspective is always that people with power impose their will on people without.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  > BTC for all its flaws already is well on its way to replace the Switzerland as a popular place for all sorts of shady characters to park their wealth; hence the high prices. You saw what happened to banking in Switzerland for Americans, right? Not the best analogy on which to make your case. The law of the United States has a long arm, and it's questionable at best to believe that BTC is out of its reach.
  - EGreg 6y ago
    How are they planning to shut down BTC if it doesn’t give up all their American customers? :-)
arisAlexis 6y ago
You are describing a country that resembles N. Korea much more than USA. I believe the upcoming administration will not favor and reverse such laws.
- Proven 6y ago
  I assume you mean Biden. He's going to make it worse because people deplatformed by the socialists and globalists (I mean Twitter, YouTube and others) are increasingly using crypto to fund themselves. You seem to mistake the Dems' unwillingness to fight crime for support of freedom of expression.
DanBC 6y ago
> you may regardless be found liable How would the accused have the mens rea?

wmf 6y ago

It sounds like you're talking about domestic mass surveillance but there's no way the US would use such a dangerous tool just to find random cryptocurrency geeks.

HideousKojima 6y ago
NSA employees used PRISM data to spy on romantic interests, I don't see why this is any more dangerous
- wmf 6y ago
  And AFAIK those employees were fired because that is against NSA policy and tons of laws.
  - HideousKojima 6y ago
    Why weren't there controls in place to prevent them looking at it in the first place? And that's assuming all the ones who did so were actually caught
- lwhalen 6y ago
  I think OP was being sarcastic....
floatingatoll 6y ago
Your comment highlighted a point I consider valid, though likely not the one you intended; I’ve added a footnote about non-US countries, as many of them have no such reservations about wiretapping network traffic to catch financial criminals.

auston 6y ago

I disagree, if this is passed, everybody break it and call your congress person / senators and complain that it was passed. disclaimer: also not a lawyer.

arcticbull 6y ago
Too few people know enough about crypto, and also care enough, for you to get lost in a sea of folks breaking the same law. It'll be a short list of very loud, vocal, easy targets. I'd wanna be as far away from that as I could be. Especially since a very large use case for crypto - especially in non-custodial wallets - especially people avoiding KYC, is crime. The ratio of ancaps to criminals on this list is likely very low. [edit] The real risk of finding yourself on this shortlist of non-custodial wallets is suddenly finding yourself on the wrong side of the IRS. Most blockchains are pseudonymous, and the government has tools to track and de-pseudonymize, or at least map and aggregate - transactions. If the government wanted to go after you for breaking this law, they'd probably just throw together a quick list of people the IRS should start poking around at. They know as well as you do that you probably didn't report every transaction you've ever done on every exchange, DEX, or platform. That's tax fraud, straight up. Much easier to prove, and much harder to argue on merits. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if your government is coming for you, no amount of magic beans in your computer will keep you or your value safe. If you don't trust your government you've got bigger problems than crypto. If you trust your government crypto is irrelevant. As Beria, Stalin's side-kick said, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  TIL that “ancap” is some sort of slang for, apparently, “anarcho-capitalists”, here.
  - __blockcipher__ 6y ago
    It’s slang for anarcho-capitalist/ism everywhere.
- Jorge1o1 6y ago

EGreg 6y ago

Now do the same argument for HTTPS and also using the color red in your websites.

oanna 6y ago

Or just break it and any other law you feel like. If they come for you, grab your rifle. We've had 28 years where the people in power get to do whatever they like with no consequences. Ordinary people might as well have a turn.

novok 6y ago

If you VPN / Tor almost everything (except services that ban you from using a VPN), I don't know if they have much of a leg to stand on about that part. I use VPNs so my ISP does not have a record of my internet traffic to sell to internet marketers and many other perfectly legal and moral reasons.

floatingatoll 6y ago
I can’t remember the name of one of those famous cases of people that got arrested for thinking that they could use TOR to break the law without punishment, but there’s been so many by now that I honestly don’t feel bad having forgotten. No doubt someone else does - Russ something, maybe? No doubt there’ll be some sort of “but it’s decentralized” reply and, yeah, it’s decentralized, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily untraceable. Bitcoin isn’t the sort of thing that’s worth betting my freedom on. YMMV.
- novok 6y ago
  Traceability through VPN / Tor is a different thing than being charged more for using a VPN, and I was more referencing the USA vs any generic country.
gruez 6y ago
>If you VPN / Tor almost everything (except services that ban you from using a VPN), I don't know if they have much of a leg to stand on about that part presumably they can also ban VPNs while they're at it, but it doesn't seem plausible. If your threat model is a tyrannical government willing to do anything (ie. ban encryption, backdoor every piece of computing equipment, install 1984 style telescreens everywhere), then there's no real way to defend it.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > If your threat model is a tyrannical government willing to do anything (ie. ban encryption, backdoor every piece of computing equipment, install 1984 style telescreens everywhere), then there's no real way to defend it. Well, there is, you just have to abandon the premise that doing what your adversary tells you to do is the right thing. Putting telescreens everywhere doesn't help them much if every one of them is immediately smashed with a rock and anyone who comes to repair it is also smashed with a rock. This requires a certain amount of public resistance, because you can't be the only one doing it, but a certain amount of public resistance is what systems like that tend to generate. And when you're not the only one doing it, they run out of telescreens and telescreen repair personnel before you run out of rocks.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

This kind of alarmist narrative sidesteps some simple economic realities: as soon as non trivial amounts of wealth are locked up in blockchains, basically the powers that be are hopelessly dependent on them. Rich people outlawing being rich is prevented by power facilitating corruption. BTC for all its flaws already is well on its way to replace the Switzerland as a popular place for all sorts of shady characters to park their wealth; hence the high prices. Owning a crypto wallet is of course nice but it is the financial equivalent of putting money in an old sock under your bed: it's kind of not very safe at all. Sure they are hard to hack or break into but the very real scenario you have to worry about more than the government coming after you is that of a person with a gun forcing at gun point you to transfer your belongings to their wallet. What's going to happen is that those people currently making use of loopholes in our laws to avoid paying taxes by using crypto currencies will find that using their secret stashes of wealth in a system that basically implements an extremely hard to forge transaction history, is going to be increasingly hard. There are ways around that but it doesn't change the reality that working in secret in a surveillance society is going to be increasingly hard. And like it or not, that's where we are heading. George Orwell was only off by a few decades. In any case, laws can be changed and they change all the time. Changes provide short term opportunities. But the long term perspective is always that people with power impose their will on people without.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
> BTC for all its flaws already is well on its way to replace the Switzerland as a popular place for all sorts of shady characters to park their wealth; hence the high prices. You saw what happened to banking in Switzerland for Americans, right? Not the best analogy on which to make your case. The law of the United States has a long arm, and it's questionable at best to believe that BTC is out of its reach.
- EGreg 6y ago
  How are they planning to shut down BTC if it doesn’t give up all their American customers? :-)

arisAlexis 6y ago

You are describing a country that resembles N. Korea much more than USA. I believe the upcoming administration will not favor and reverse such laws.

Proven 6y ago
I assume you mean Biden. He's going to make it worse because people deplatformed by the socialists and globalists (I mean Twitter, YouTube and others) are increasingly using crypto to fund themselves. You seem to mistake the Dems' unwillingness to fight crime for support of freedom of expression.

DanBC 6y ago

> you may regardless be found liable How would the accused have the mens rea?