7 ms·

Bitcoin as a Nonviolent Tool Against State Financial Censorship

51 points by miohtama 3y ago

Pxtl 3y ago
[flagged]
- boredumb 3y ago
  Yes, the key to all of this is you only allow the state to freeze assets of political dissidents you disagree with personally.
  - Pxtl 3y ago
    As opposed to the americans' approach of using pepper spray and truncheons and gouging out journalists eyes with baton launchers and rubber bullets? Yes, breaking up the protest by cutting off its funding was the civilized option.
    - asynchronous 3y ago
      Before or after we then pepper spray and bludgeon the protestors? We all saw the horses trample the crowd. You can’t hide Canada, you’re closer to a dictatorship then you think.
    - ok123456 3y ago
      How about neither?
    - alexb_ 3y ago
      You only think it's civilized because you agree with the outcome.
    - Ialdaboth 3y ago
      Protest is the civilized option during a political conflict.
    - retrac 3y ago
      The protest was cleared out physically with some ruckus, with around 200 people arrested in the final weekend after the emergency orders. The degree to which the protest was actually some coordinated plot of a small group vs. distributed manifestation of many different and not so organized groups is undetermined, as far as I know? So I'm not sure how much locking down the bank accounts of a couple dozen major players was actually responsible for clearing them out, as opposed to the police arresting those who were still there and towing their vehicles.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  I'm pro-vaccine, but boy has the anti-conservative takes aged poorly. Sincerely: Someone who is nothing. Maybe I'm an anarchist if it works, but most likely I'm pragmatic and issue centric on fiscal matters, and far left on social matters.
yieldcrv 3y ago
> Conclusion: … (c) bitcoin can be of great interest for human rights activists and NGOs, illustrating how misconceptions regarding its association with illegal activities should be reconsidered. for me it highlighted the relativity of “illegal“ When it comes to capital flows should I respect any nation’s rationale for a capital control? any nation’s rationale for freezing a custodial bank account or asset they know of? even in an individual nation with distributed enforcement, its not always respected or even an intended outcome is arbitrarily “dirty” bitcoin automatically cleaned because any sovereign country seized it for their arbitrary reasons? could any random municipality/state/nation state offer cleaning as a service? can chain analysis software even consider that or are merchants and exchanges going to be stuck flagging deposits automatically because it hit a silk road address 10 years ago, 100 hops back?
- balderdash 3y ago
  “Offshore banking” today brings to mind white collar criminals, tax evaders, etc. but over time it has served to protect people from capricious actions of the state. Not sure why one needs to resort to bitcoin when they could just use a bank account in the US (in the Canadian example).
  - simonh 3y ago
    They protect rich people from having to follow the rules that apply to everyone else. I say this as a conviction capitalist and neoliberal, but on this my friends on the left are quite correct.
    - balderdash 3y ago
      It’s the other side of the same coin is my point. It’s the same arguments with paper currency - only criminals use cash or is cash a way to avoid surveillance capitalism and confiscatory banking policies? Both!
  - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
    I feel like people make getting an offshore account sound easier than it is. I live in the US, and when I opened my US accounts, I needed to give them my SSN. Canadians don't have SSNs. Just now I tried opening an account at a few random Canadian banks, and they all say I need to be living in Canada. How is an average joe supposed to work around those requirements? I'm not saying it should be easier either. When you're dealing with state-issued currencies there are reasons for those restrictions. But the draw of bitcoin is that it's politically neutral and you don't need to jump through the hoops of any particular country, or hire a lawyer to navigate foreign laws. Just download an open source app and you're ready to go.
alexb_ 3y ago
> illustrating how misconceptions regarding its association with illegal activities should be reconsidered. What? The entire point of being a tool against state financial censorship is that, by definition, it's illegal.
- TSiege 3y ago
  I believe the author is more implying the morality of such restrictions, not their legality. It seems to me in the vein of the argument of MLK's argument of just vs unjust laws From "Letter from Birmingham Jail": > An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote.
  - CrazyStat 3y ago
    Then he should use the right word. Illegal means illegal, not immoral.
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  The student arguing that is has the potential for that doesn't contradict the fact that Bitcoin is not mainly used for illegal activities currently. Even if you assume buying weed on dark markets was a major driver of adoption in the early days (having followed the space early on I find that doubtful because the people who were in Bitcoin were mainly interested in the technology), when you look at it currently the vast majority of the funds isn't even moved much. It sits in cold storage as digital gold. It's mainly an investment these days. Even Blackrock is coming out with an ETF now, they just announced it a few days ago. As for criminals, they have learned that authorities understand blockchains a lot better than they used to, and that there are professional firms tracking crypto movements. It's all public after all. Unless they're in a jurisdiction where they're safe from prosecution because they have state backing, it's not really used illegally much any more. So these cases are more state terrorism, where countries like Russia or North Korea intentionally hurt businesses in enemy states, or at least turn a blind eye in the latter case. In those cases it's ultimately the internet that enables it.
throwaway22032 3y ago
It's all language, isn't it? I personally have never done anything remotely morally controversial with cryptocurrency. All taxes paid, no drugs. But I've almost certainly engaged in "money laundering" because it doesn't seem to be a well defined concept. It seems to me that the idea is that normal peer to peer interaction has to be regulated and reported. We need passport scans and logs of previous transactions and all of that stuff. I wouldn't even say that I don't agree with that - I just don't do it. I'm yet to be given a real explanation for why AML and other nonsense should exist beyond "that's just how it is".
- theamk 3y ago
  I believe that DDOS exthortionists and encryptor malware operators should be prosecuted, and I don't see how this can be done without money tracking with things like AML. (especially DDOS criminals.. they are the reason some sites switch from plain servers to Cloudflare, which is pretty bad for anonymous browsing.)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway22032 3y ago
    I don't see how AML prevents people from producing ransomware. It adds a little bit of friction to everyday users. It's not like the only way to derive benefit from money is to spend it in a regulated manner.
    - theamk 3y ago
      AML prevents people from profiting from ransomware, thus decreasing incentive to produce it. This may not matter much if you are talking about small amounts of money, but ransomware is not small. "I made a $10 million from ransomware and safely spent it on new house and luxury car, with little fear of anyone" is has a very different risk/benefit value from "I made $10 million from ransomware and had to deal with a various illegal dealers to cache it out (who now know my name and the fact I have millions of dollars). And I cannot spend it on new house or luxury car because IRS might get interested". (Granted, it is not perfect, I am sure there people with lots of illegal connections, as well as whole countries without AML laws. But nothing is perfect, and I am sure the AML laws do a great job at discouraging people from becoming cybercriminals)
emmender 3y ago
where is the study on "bitcoin as a tool in ransomware" ?
- Bilal_io 3y ago
  It's getting released next week along with the study on "the dollar and its big use in world wide illegal activities"
  - hospitalJail 3y ago
    Heck, Bitcoin is incredibly unsafe for illegal activities since everything is publicly recorded on a ledger. There is a reason people moved to Monero for such transactions.
miohtama 3y ago
May I ask why Master Thesis is flagged? It's an academic peer reviewed study. If you disagree with its content it should not be the reason for flagging.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Bitter people who knew about Bitcoin and never bought it.

51 points by miohtama 3y ago

Pxtl 3y ago

[flagged]

boredumb 3y ago
Yes, the key to all of this is you only allow the state to freeze assets of political dissidents you disagree with personally.
- Pxtl 3y ago
  As opposed to the americans' approach of using pepper spray and truncheons and gouging out journalists eyes with baton launchers and rubber bullets? Yes, breaking up the protest by cutting off its funding was the civilized option.
  - asynchronous 3y ago
    Before or after we then pepper spray and bludgeon the protestors? We all saw the horses trample the crowd. You can’t hide Canada, you’re closer to a dictatorship then you think.
  - ok123456 3y ago
    How about neither?
  - alexb_ 3y ago
    You only think it's civilized because you agree with the outcome.
  - Ialdaboth 3y ago
    Protest is the civilized option during a political conflict.
  - retrac 3y ago
    The protest was cleared out physically with some ruckus, with around 200 people arrested in the final weekend after the emergency orders. The degree to which the protest was actually some coordinated plot of a small group vs. distributed manifestation of many different and not so organized groups is undetermined, as far as I know? So I'm not sure how much locking down the bank accounts of a couple dozen major players was actually responsible for clearing them out, as opposed to the police arresting those who were still there and towing their vehicles.
hospitalJail 3y ago
I'm pro-vaccine, but boy has the anti-conservative takes aged poorly. Sincerely: Someone who is nothing. Maybe I'm an anarchist if it works, but most likely I'm pragmatic and issue centric on fiscal matters, and far left on social matters.

yieldcrv 3y ago

> Conclusion: … (c) bitcoin can be of great interest for human rights activists and NGOs, illustrating how misconceptions regarding its association with illegal activities should be reconsidered. for me it highlighted the relativity of “illegal“ When it comes to capital flows should I respect any nation’s rationale for a capital control? any nation’s rationale for freezing a custodial bank account or asset they know of? even in an individual nation with distributed enforcement, its not always respected or even an intended outcome is arbitrarily “dirty” bitcoin automatically cleaned because any sovereign country seized it for their arbitrary reasons? could any random municipality/state/nation state offer cleaning as a service? can chain analysis software even consider that or are merchants and exchanges going to be stuck flagging deposits automatically because it hit a silk road address 10 years ago, 100 hops back?

balderdash 3y ago
“Offshore banking” today brings to mind white collar criminals, tax evaders, etc. but over time it has served to protect people from capricious actions of the state. Not sure why one needs to resort to bitcoin when they could just use a bank account in the US (in the Canadian example).
- simonh 3y ago
  They protect rich people from having to follow the rules that apply to everyone else. I say this as a conviction capitalist and neoliberal, but on this my friends on the left are quite correct.
  - balderdash 3y ago
    It’s the other side of the same coin is my point. It’s the same arguments with paper currency - only criminals use cash or is cash a way to avoid surveillance capitalism and confiscatory banking policies? Both!
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago
  I feel like people make getting an offshore account sound easier than it is. I live in the US, and when I opened my US accounts, I needed to give them my SSN. Canadians don't have SSNs. Just now I tried opening an account at a few random Canadian banks, and they all say I need to be living in Canada. How is an average joe supposed to work around those requirements? I'm not saying it should be easier either. When you're dealing with state-issued currencies there are reasons for those restrictions. But the draw of bitcoin is that it's politically neutral and you don't need to jump through the hoops of any particular country, or hire a lawyer to navigate foreign laws. Just download an open source app and you're ready to go.

alexb_ 3y ago

> illustrating how misconceptions regarding its association with illegal activities should be reconsidered. What? The entire point of being a tool against state financial censorship is that, by definition, it's illegal.

TSiege 3y ago
I believe the author is more implying the morality of such restrictions, not their legality. It seems to me in the vein of the argument of MLK's argument of just vs unjust laws From "Letter from Birmingham Jail": > An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have the unhampered right to vote.
- CrazyStat 3y ago
  Then he should use the right word. Illegal means illegal, not immoral.
trompetenaccoun 3y ago
The student arguing that is has the potential for that doesn't contradict the fact that Bitcoin is not mainly used for illegal activities currently. Even if you assume buying weed on dark markets was a major driver of adoption in the early days (having followed the space early on I find that doubtful because the people who were in Bitcoin were mainly interested in the technology), when you look at it currently the vast majority of the funds isn't even moved much. It sits in cold storage as digital gold. It's mainly an investment these days. Even Blackrock is coming out with an ETF now, they just announced it a few days ago. As for criminals, they have learned that authorities understand blockchains a lot better than they used to, and that there are professional firms tracking crypto movements. It's all public after all. Unless they're in a jurisdiction where they're safe from prosecution because they have state backing, it's not really used illegally much any more. So these cases are more state terrorism, where countries like Russia or North Korea intentionally hurt businesses in enemy states, or at least turn a blind eye in the latter case. In those cases it's ultimately the internet that enables it.

throwaway22032 3y ago

It's all language, isn't it? I personally have never done anything remotely morally controversial with cryptocurrency. All taxes paid, no drugs. But I've almost certainly engaged in "money laundering" because it doesn't seem to be a well defined concept. It seems to me that the idea is that normal peer to peer interaction has to be regulated and reported. We need passport scans and logs of previous transactions and all of that stuff. I wouldn't even say that I don't agree with that - I just don't do it. I'm yet to be given a real explanation for why AML and other nonsense should exist beyond "that's just how it is".

theamk 3y ago
I believe that DDOS exthortionists and encryptor malware operators should be prosecuted, and I don't see how this can be done without money tracking with things like AML. (especially DDOS criminals.. they are the reason some sites switch from plain servers to Cloudflare, which is pretty bad for anonymous browsing.)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  I don't see how AML prevents people from producing ransomware. It adds a little bit of friction to everyday users. It's not like the only way to derive benefit from money is to spend it in a regulated manner.
  - theamk 3y ago
    AML prevents people from profiting from ransomware, thus decreasing incentive to produce it. This may not matter much if you are talking about small amounts of money, but ransomware is not small. "I made a $10 million from ransomware and safely spent it on new house and luxury car, with little fear of anyone" is has a very different risk/benefit value from "I made $10 million from ransomware and had to deal with a various illegal dealers to cache it out (who now know my name and the fact I have millions of dollars). And I cannot spend it on new house or luxury car because IRS might get interested". (Granted, it is not perfect, I am sure there people with lots of illegal connections, as well as whole countries without AML laws. But nothing is perfect, and I am sure the AML laws do a great job at discouraging people from becoming cybercriminals)

emmender 3y ago

where is the study on "bitcoin as a tool in ransomware" ?

Bilal_io 3y ago
It's getting released next week along with the study on "the dollar and its big use in world wide illegal activities"
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  Heck, Bitcoin is incredibly unsafe for illegal activities since everything is publicly recorded on a ledger. There is a reason people moved to Monero for such transactions.

miohtama 3y ago

May I ask why Master Thesis is flagged? It's an academic peer reviewed study. If you disagree with its content it should not be the reason for flagging.

hospitalJail 3y ago
Bitter people who knew about Bitcoin and never bought it.