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I met a youngish European guy who was working as a project manager for a DAO, I forget what they did but they made money and the staff got paid (crypto). It tu

by biztos 4y ago

I met a youngish European guy who was working as a project manager for a DAO, I forget what they did but they made money and the staff got paid (crypto). It turned out many of the people working for the DAO were anonymous and nobody in the DAO knew or cared who they were in real life. They did good work, got paid crypto, everyone was happy. When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Because sanctions and crypto are inherently incompatible. The former is a flex of institutional, state power. The latter is an exercise in screw-the-state libertarianism.
- Galanwe 4y ago
  I don't necessarily agree... I want widespread crypto, because I want to have the autonomy to initiate transfers myself, transparency of my accounts, easier back office, less payment middlemen, etc. Yet I would like a state managed crypto (e-euro?) so that a fraudulous transfer, stolen wallet, etc can be canceled. - We're in 2022 and I still can't have an API with my bank to analyze my purchases, I have to parse PDF monthly reports. - I still can't automate my savings without a third party robo advisor than requires me giving my account credentials. - I can't easily make FX swaps without a third party broker with 2 days wire transfers in/out. - I can't swap without a brokerage margin account. etc. Centralized crypto? yes please, it's still better than the current state of affairs. Not everyone lives in Europe or the US with fancy worldwide smart banking. Here in HK, banks are from the 90s. Crypto centralized would level the banking experience to the current century.
  - alex7o 4y ago
    Sadly the US is not that far ahead anyway, you also need to provided your bank credentials too. But yes the UK is light years ahead of everybody. But I am not sure centralized crypto would solve this, technically speaking crypto is a ledger. Banks also have ledgers but centralized, but you still don't have api control over that.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    I know it's not for everyone, but I love all the exotic synthetic financial products that can be built on top of crypto. Why should exotic synthetic financial products only be the realm of Wall Street?
jbm 4y ago
> When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen. Yeah, in the same position I wouldn't care about those either and would give you the same blank look. Economic sanctions are a political act, and I can think of many ethical positions (class, ethnic, religious solidarity, rejection of extremism, rejection of central economic controls, immediate humanitarian need for items that are sanctioned, etc..) that may lead someone to disregard them entirely. A practical concern here would be security (not knowing who is involved == not knowing if they have alternative goals). I suppose they may have been trying to implement zero-trust development practices (can that even exist?) but that sounds like a great way to put a big fat brake on any work being done. (Disclaimer: Never owned any crypto, nor have I ever violated any sanctions)
- throwaway290 4y ago
  It's criminal to evade sanctions for a reason. As a Russian can tell you that oligarchs being able to convert dirty money into cool western lifestyle is probably the what keeps this thieving and oppressing regime going. If they were cut off from this, the regime would fall because very few insane people would associate with Putin for reasons other than personal gain. But they are not cut off cold turkey and they still have avenues where sanctions are not applied, like crypto, so they have time to sort things out. Note that it's not illegal to provide humanitarian aid or help in other ways. It's not even illegal AFAIK to transact, as long as you make sure you are not involving anything or anyone sanctioned. (But I'm not a lawyer)
  - voldacar 4y ago
    The reason is that the government doesn't like it. Not particularly mystical or significant if you ask me.
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      The reason sanctions are evaded is that criminals don't like them. FTFY
  - Semaphor 4y ago
abacadaba 4y ago
i mean should be possible to verify your citizenship and your upstanding decentralized social credit score while still remaining anonymous. some sort of zkproof/verified credential magic fixes this right?
ddorian43 4y ago
> the did good work Please link to it so we can judge for ourself.
dannyw 4y ago
I don't check ID or run sanctions checks when I hire a photographer or cleaner, do you?
- biztos 4y ago
  Depends what you mean by "hire," and I suppose part of the point of a DAO is to make that ambiguous. But if you have a full-time photographer who turns out to be in North Korea, it might be inconvenient, and I say that with no ill-will towards North Korean photographers!

by biztos 4y ago

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Because sanctions and crypto are inherently incompatible. The former is a flex of institutional, state power. The latter is an exercise in screw-the-state libertarianism.

Galanwe 4y ago
I don't necessarily agree... I want widespread crypto, because I want to have the autonomy to initiate transfers myself, transparency of my accounts, easier back office, less payment middlemen, etc. Yet I would like a state managed crypto (e-euro?) so that a fraudulous transfer, stolen wallet, etc can be canceled. - We're in 2022 and I still can't have an API with my bank to analyze my purchases, I have to parse PDF monthly reports. - I still can't automate my savings without a third party robo advisor than requires me giving my account credentials. - I can't easily make FX swaps without a third party broker with 2 days wire transfers in/out. - I can't swap without a brokerage margin account. etc. Centralized crypto? yes please, it's still better than the current state of affairs. Not everyone lives in Europe or the US with fancy worldwide smart banking. Here in HK, banks are from the 90s. Crypto centralized would level the banking experience to the current century.
- alex7o 4y ago
  Sadly the US is not that far ahead anyway, you also need to provided your bank credentials too. But yes the UK is light years ahead of everybody. But I am not sure centralized crypto would solve this, technically speaking crypto is a ledger. Banks also have ledgers but centralized, but you still don't have api control over that.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  I know it's not for everyone, but I love all the exotic synthetic financial products that can be built on top of crypto. Why should exotic synthetic financial products only be the realm of Wall Street?

jbm 4y ago

> When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen. Yeah, in the same position I wouldn't care about those either and would give you the same blank look. Economic sanctions are a political act, and I can think of many ethical positions (class, ethnic, religious solidarity, rejection of extremism, rejection of central economic controls, immediate humanitarian need for items that are sanctioned, etc..) that may lead someone to disregard them entirely. A practical concern here would be security (not knowing who is involved == not knowing if they have alternative goals). I suppose they may have been trying to implement zero-trust development practices (can that even exist?) but that sounds like a great way to put a big fat brake on any work being done. (Disclaimer: Never owned any crypto, nor have I ever violated any sanctions)

throwaway290 4y ago
It's criminal to evade sanctions for a reason. As a Russian can tell you that oligarchs being able to convert dirty money into cool western lifestyle is probably the what keeps this thieving and oppressing regime going. If they were cut off from this, the regime would fall because very few insane people would associate with Putin for reasons other than personal gain. But they are not cut off cold turkey and they still have avenues where sanctions are not applied, like crypto, so they have time to sort things out. Note that it's not illegal to provide humanitarian aid or help in other ways. It's not even illegal AFAIK to transact, as long as you make sure you are not involving anything or anyone sanctioned. (But I'm not a lawyer)
- voldacar 4y ago
  The reason is that the government doesn't like it. Not particularly mystical or significant if you ask me.
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    The reason sanctions are evaded is that criminals don't like them. FTFY
- Semaphor 4y ago

abacadaba 4y ago

i mean should be possible to verify your citizenship and your upstanding decentralized social credit score while still remaining anonymous. some sort of zkproof/verified credential magic fixes this right?

ddorian43 4y ago

> the did good work Please link to it so we can judge for ourself.

dannyw 4y ago

I don't check ID or run sanctions checks when I hire a photographer or cleaner, do you?

biztos 4y ago
Depends what you mean by "hire," and I suppose part of the point of a DAO is to make that ambiguous. But if you have a full-time photographer who turns out to be in North Korea, it might be inconvenient, and I say that with no ill-will towards North Korean photographers!