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> I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work Absolutely this ! In this day and age, the last thing you want

> I imagine it's a horribly stressful problem to have with significant taxation and legal work Absolutely this ! In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. Its bad enough when you can prove the origins and you have to provide all the audit trail documentation. Ask anyone in the financial sector who has had to deal with compliance questions landing in their Inbox about a client's source of wealth. When you can't prove the origins, well, "not a good look" as the old saying goes.

exikyut 4y ago
Hmm, the sad aspect of ownerless currency. In these kinds of situations you need to be able to prove the funds didn't fall off the back of a truck, both in order to be able to use them in the present, and to viably tie them into the timeline in the long term. :/
SkyBelow 4y ago
Maybe I'm being naïve and idealistic, but I would think an open source project would have a much easier time of navigating this than a private individual. Open source projects are built off of donations of both money and time. As for what is being returned, the project itself existing helps enable many businesses leading to many people becoming rich. As for expenditures, large open source projects are open with how they spend their money, so where the money ends up going is easy to see as well. There is far less ability for something nefarious to be going on for why a person is being paid.
- msh 4y ago
  Banks want KYC information, even for donations, esp when its in these amounts.
  - nerf0 4y ago
    I don't see a problem. Of course banks want KYC, but that doesn't stop you from selling the crypto on e.g. Coinbase (also KYC'ed) and sending to your bank.
    - jon-wood 4y ago
      If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, and "don't worry yourself with that", or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen and a note sent to the relevant authorities.
      - prvit 4y ago
        >or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen For 99% of banks, you'd be totally wrong about that. > a note sent to the relevant authorities. This, of course, means literally nothing. Banks will "send a note" for just about any reason. This results in said authorities drowning under a mountain of millions of pointless suspicious activity reports.
      - PretzelPirate 4y ago
        > If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, I've deposited a larger lump sum into a US bank account and was never asked where it came from. I was then able to use that money the same day to pay off a loan.
      - ndaiger 4y ago
        What they actually tend to do is have someone in management call to congratulate you and invite you to discuss banking products. I know this from personal experience.
      - from 4y ago
        In the worst case your funds would be frozen for a couple months then you’d get a letter saying we are closing your account for compliance reasons and attached would be a cashiers check for the balance of your account. Then they’d file a SAR that would get put in a queue behind the millions of others because the government only reads a small fraction of them.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Large open source projects are set up as legal entities like corporations or foundations. But a small open source project doesn’t exist in the eyes of the law. In a way it’s the worst of both worlds if you’re doing non-profit-like things such as receiving large donations, but operating as a private person.
jaywalk 4y ago
> In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. If it was physical cash turning up on my physical doorstep, I certainly wouldn't mind :)
- noirbot 4y ago
  I dunno, I feel like if I walked outside and there was just a bag of cash out there, I'd be pretty hesitant to touch it. People generally don't just "lose" large amounts of cash, and may want it back. This is almost literally the plot of the movie A Simple Plan, amusingly, and many of the same stresses apply.

exikyut 4y ago

Hmm, the sad aspect of ownerless currency. In these kinds of situations you need to be able to prove the funds didn't fall off the back of a truck, both in order to be able to use them in the present, and to viably tie them into the timeline in the long term. :/

SkyBelow 4y ago

Maybe I'm being naïve and idealistic, but I would think an open source project would have a much easier time of navigating this than a private individual. Open source projects are built off of donations of both money and time. As for what is being returned, the project itself existing helps enable many businesses leading to many people becoming rich. As for expenditures, large open source projects are open with how they spend their money, so where the money ends up going is easy to see as well. There is far less ability for something nefarious to be going on for why a person is being paid.

msh 4y ago
Banks want KYC information, even for donations, esp when its in these amounts.
- nerf0 4y ago
  I don't see a problem. Of course banks want KYC, but that doesn't stop you from selling the crypto on e.g. Coinbase (also KYC'ed) and sending to your bank.
  - jon-wood 4y ago
    If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, and "don't worry yourself with that", or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen and a note sent to the relevant authorities.
    - prvit 4y ago
      >or even "I sold some crypto" are unlikely to be sufficient answer to avoid your account being frozen For 99% of banks, you'd be totally wrong about that. > a note sent to the relevant authorities. This, of course, means literally nothing. Banks will "send a note" for just about any reason. This results in said authorities drowning under a mountain of millions of pointless suspicious activity reports.
    - PretzelPirate 4y ago
      > If you deposit a quarter million dollars into your bank account out of the blue the bank are absolutely going to ask you where it came from, I've deposited a larger lump sum into a US bank account and was never asked where it came from. I was then able to use that money the same day to pay off a loan.
    - ndaiger 4y ago
      What they actually tend to do is have someone in management call to congratulate you and invite you to discuss banking products. I know this from personal experience.
    - from 4y ago
      In the worst case your funds would be frozen for a couple months then you’d get a letter saying we are closing your account for compliance reasons and attached would be a cashiers check for the balance of your account. Then they’d file a SAR that would get put in a queue behind the millions of others because the government only reads a small fraction of them.
pavlov 4y ago
Large open source projects are set up as legal entities like corporations or foundations. But a small open source project doesn’t exist in the eyes of the law. In a way it’s the worst of both worlds if you’re doing non-profit-like things such as receiving large donations, but operating as a private person.

jaywalk 4y ago

> In this day and age, the last thing you want is a large chunk of money turning up on your doorstep whose origins you cannot account for. If it was physical cash turning up on my physical doorstep, I certainly wouldn't mind :)

noirbot 4y ago
I dunno, I feel like if I walked outside and there was just a bag of cash out there, I'd be pretty hesitant to touch it. People generally don't just "lose" large amounts of cash, and may want it back. This is almost literally the plot of the movie A Simple Plan, amusingly, and many of the same stresses apply.