5 ms·

Sure governments can't easily control P2P transactions but as soon as you need money to pay taxes, rent, bills, groceries... cryptocurrencies won't take you ver

Sure governments can't easily control P2P transactions but as soon as you need money to pay taxes, rent, bills, groceries... cryptocurrencies won't take you very far, especially in a country that's banned them entirely.

roenxi 4y ago
If it is a corrupt country, why will the ban be effective? Even asking how they will ban it is an interesting technical question, people would have to be cut off from the internet and anything that can run linux. I live in Australia, and was interested in buying a privacy oriented cryptocurrency the other day. It was an interesting thing to realise that the government can't stop me in the usual way (regulatory pressure on the exchange to not let me trade) because I can buy ETH then swap that on some shady foreign exchange for what I actually want. Nothing illegal going on there as far as I'm aware, but unless they send in thugs to cut my internet connection there isn't a lot the government can do to control my actions without spending serious money on actually sending people to make me do things I don't want to. It is a nice change of pace from most assets. Eventually there someone is going to figure out zero-knowledge proofs enough that the tax office can't prove who owns anything or if a capital gain was made. That is going to be an extremely interesting development.
- martin8412 4y ago
  No, they would not need to cut anything off. They'll just need to penalise the usage. They could literally just execute you for the usage.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    And, notably, crypto makes it easy to do this years after-the-fact by examining the public ledger. At least if you buy contraband with cash someone would need to compromise the seller or surveil the transaction in real-time to catch you. If you're transacting crypto in a state where transacting crypto is illegal, you're one op-sec failure away from your wallet being linked to your true identity and revealing all past transactions.

roenxi 4y ago

If it is a corrupt country, why will the ban be effective? Even asking how they will ban it is an interesting technical question, people would have to be cut off from the internet and anything that can run linux. I live in Australia, and was interested in buying a privacy oriented cryptocurrency the other day. It was an interesting thing to realise that the government can't stop me in the usual way (regulatory pressure on the exchange to not let me trade) because I can buy ETH then swap that on some shady foreign exchange for what I actually want. Nothing illegal going on there as far as I'm aware, but unless they send in thugs to cut my internet connection there isn't a lot the government can do to control my actions without spending serious money on actually sending people to make me do things I don't want to. It is a nice change of pace from most assets. Eventually there someone is going to figure out zero-knowledge proofs enough that the tax office can't prove who owns anything or if a capital gain was made. That is going to be an extremely interesting development.

martin8412 4y ago
No, they would not need to cut anything off. They'll just need to penalise the usage. They could literally just execute you for the usage.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  And, notably, crypto makes it easy to do this years after-the-fact by examining the public ledger. At least if you buy contraband with cash someone would need to compromise the seller or surveil the transaction in real-time to catch you. If you're transacting crypto in a state where transacting crypto is illegal, you're one op-sec failure away from your wallet being linked to your true identity and revealing all past transactions.