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> The reason: They want to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. > Criticism comes from the Pirate Party. “A complete ban on anonymous payments wou

> The reason: They want to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. > Criticism comes from the Pirate Party. “A complete ban on anonymous payments would not have any appreciable reducing effects on crime, but it would deprive innocent citizens of their financial freedom. For example, to collect donations, opposition figures like Alexej Navalny are increasingly dependent on anonymous donations in virtual currencies around the world,” says Patrick Breyer, MEP for the Pirate Party Germany and member of the LIBE committee. The critique is 100% on the money. This will not stop criminals, at all. They will continue to use privacy coins such as Monero which are entirely untraceable by design. The only people hit by this are legitimate business or causes who offer crypto payments, or grey area businesses such as cannabis shops. The timing coinciding with the Emergency Act in Canada, feels like this is likely about suppression of undesirable political groups.

louwrentius 5y ago
> This will not stop criminals, at all. Laws don't stop criminals at all, but we still have them and we still try to enforce them. > They will continue to use privacy coins such as Monero In the end you need an off-ramp where you convert Monero into actual currency and that's where you get fucked. Frankly speaking, the $5 wrench XKCD comes to mind. There is no conspiracy here, except that we want to keep society functional and not be disrupted by tools that mostly cater to criminals.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  This just rehashing the "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" fallacy
  - louwrentius 5y ago
    None of the digital payments were anonymous, but still private. You don't need anonymity to have privacy. Before you downvote, really think about this for a moment. Because you'll realise that almost none of your payments are anonymous, unless you pay cash (while being recorded).
    - dotnet00 5y ago
      I disagree, privacy without anonymity isn't really privacy at all, it's little more than trusting that the other party is going to be nice to you (which backfires extremely often, eg porn site or dating site payments are "private" until they mess up their security and everything is out in the open). "True" privacy requires anonymity and the fact that existing systems have been terrible on that end isn't much justification for banning systems that do have proper privacy.
    - tarboreus 5y ago
      First, I do use cash..kind of weird to act like cash is an edge case. Second, how is your information private if an intermediary or intermediaries knows what you bought, when, and for how much? In some hypothetical world where PayPal, Mastercard, or Visa didn't immediately turn around a blab to everyone in sight what I just did, fine, but that's not remotely the world we live in.
- pooper 5y ago
  I like the ideas behind taler. » GNU Taler is an open protocol for an electronic payment system with a free software reference implementation. GNU Taler offers secure, fast and easy payment processing using well understood cryptographic techniques. GNU Taler allows customers to remain anonymous, while ensuring that merchants can be held accountable by governments. Hence, GNU Taler is compatible with anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulation, as well as data protection regulation (such as GDPR). https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-api-tutorial.html https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-api-tutorial.html
  - JPLeRouzic 5y ago
    Is there a Wordpress plugin?
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> The only people hit by this are legitimate business or causes who offer crypto payments It wouldn't affect as many businesses as you think. My bank (a large bank which is partly state-owned since the financial crisis) would refuse me banking service immediately if I accepted payments in cryptocurrency, and it is not the only bank to do so. (Not that it remotely bothers me that this is the case.)
ivan_gammel 5y ago
„At all“ is a bold statement and probably wrong one. Even if you use Monero to pay for a large drugs delivery, you will need to convert that money to buy something from the legal sector of economy. Money laundering becomes much more complicated thing, because the exchange becomes both a bottleneck for criminals and a breadcrumb for law enforcement.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  For example that New York City couple that bungled the off ramp.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

louwrentius 5y ago

> This will not stop criminals, at all. Laws don't stop criminals at all, but we still have them and we still try to enforce them. > They will continue to use privacy coins such as Monero In the end you need an off-ramp where you convert Monero into actual currency and that's where you get fucked. Frankly speaking, the $5 wrench XKCD comes to mind. There is no conspiracy here, except that we want to keep society functional and not be disrupted by tools that mostly cater to criminals.

dotnet00 5y ago
This just rehashing the "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" fallacy
- louwrentius 5y ago
  None of the digital payments were anonymous, but still private. You don't need anonymity to have privacy. Before you downvote, really think about this for a moment. Because you'll realise that almost none of your payments are anonymous, unless you pay cash (while being recorded).
  - dotnet00 5y ago
    I disagree, privacy without anonymity isn't really privacy at all, it's little more than trusting that the other party is going to be nice to you (which backfires extremely often, eg porn site or dating site payments are "private" until they mess up their security and everything is out in the open). "True" privacy requires anonymity and the fact that existing systems have been terrible on that end isn't much justification for banning systems that do have proper privacy.
  - tarboreus 5y ago
    First, I do use cash..kind of weird to act like cash is an edge case. Second, how is your information private if an intermediary or intermediaries knows what you bought, when, and for how much? In some hypothetical world where PayPal, Mastercard, or Visa didn't immediately turn around a blab to everyone in sight what I just did, fine, but that's not remotely the world we live in.
pooper 5y ago
I like the ideas behind taler. » GNU Taler is an open protocol for an electronic payment system with a free software reference implementation. GNU Taler offers secure, fast and easy payment processing using well understood cryptographic techniques. GNU Taler allows customers to remain anonymous, while ensuring that merchants can be held accountable by governments. Hence, GNU Taler is compatible with anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulation, as well as data protection regulation (such as GDPR). https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-api-tutorial.html https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-api-tutorial.html
- JPLeRouzic 5y ago
  Is there a Wordpress plugin?

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

> The only people hit by this are legitimate business or causes who offer crypto payments It wouldn't affect as many businesses as you think. My bank (a large bank which is partly state-owned since the financial crisis) would refuse me banking service immediately if I accepted payments in cryptocurrency, and it is not the only bank to do so. (Not that it remotely bothers me that this is the case.)

ivan_gammel 5y ago

„At all“ is a bold statement and probably wrong one. Even if you use Monero to pay for a large drugs delivery, you will need to convert that money to buy something from the legal sector of economy. Money laundering becomes much more complicated thing, because the exchange becomes both a bottleneck for criminals and a breadcrumb for law enforcement.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
For example that New York City couple that bungled the off ramp.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]