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I think the case for why strong encryption is important is much clearer than why untraceable financial instruments are important and I don't think it's super co

I think the case for why strong encryption is important is much clearer than why untraceable financial instruments are important and I don't think it's super compelling to argue that these things are actually the same, even if your opposition to government control is the same. I think it's actually pretty clear that almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an intermediary. We're not keeping our fiat currency in a safe under our bed after all.

CityOfThrowaway 1y ago
Yes, it might be true that most people aren't willing to keep their money under their beds for security reasons. But it shouldn't be illegal or somehow indicative of criminality. Same thing with self custody of crypto.
- kspacewalk2 1y ago
  It's not illegal. They're talking about flagging it as "suspicious". Lots of legal things are flagged as suspicious by law enforcement.
  - ozozozd 1y ago
    Would that make it a probable cause for searches and seizures? If so, that would be pretty bad right?
    - xp84 1y ago
      Yeah, with the appalling civil forfeiture concept that I hope everyone is aware of, I also feel uncomfortable with this word "suspicious." In brief summary: If the police search your car (let's just assume probable cause exists) in a routine traffic stop and find say, $50,000 in cash in a bag, they can charge the cash with a crime and arrest it, and unlike a person, it's guilty until definitively proven innocent. I don't think that's fair. And it's a big reason that holding more than a little cash is financially risky. On the other hand, up till now I'd argue it's more risky (just specifically in terms of potential for loss of the money) to have your BTC in Coinbase or say, FTX where mine was, than in self-custody. These notions may reverse if your crypto private keys can be seized automatically as "suspicious," and the civil forfeiture thing has proven that the police will do that.
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  it's already illegal. unless you keep tax records and receipts with all that money under your bed, probably cause and civil forfeiture can be broadly applied to it.
hombre_fatal 1y ago
I think it makes sense to start from the idea that you should be able to transfer funds to someone, like $100 to your mother, without needing the government or a megacorp to facilitate it. The same way I can gift my TV to my mom. Whether that's cash or cryptocurrency doesn't seem to matter since your argument would also apply to cash.
- Eridrus 1y ago
  If you start from an assumption that there should be no regulation, then your conclusion will be that there should be no regulation. That's not actually an argument for anyone who doesn't share your assumptions though and is largely just lazy thinking. Cash also has physical limitations that make large cross-border transactions hard, which crypto does not.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > If you start from an assumption that there should be no regulation, then your conclusion will be that there should be no regulation To be fair, they argued against intermediation. Not regulation. Requiring a filing for every $100 cash transfer to one's mother would satisfy their requirement.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    If you start with the assumption there should be regulation, even then IDK how you get there. You're regulating an "untraceable" utterance of a string of data. Pragmatically it's worse than trying to stop fentanyl, which is already impossible, and even trying to stop it has just made the gangs that much more powerful because they now control whole small nation-state tier light-infantry militias funded by black-market profits induced from trying to ban it. I honestly don't see any way to effectively ban cryptocurrency that has net positive utility. "Yay we caught some criminals, all it cost us was a dystopia!"
    - Eridrus 1y ago
      Nobody here is actually even arguing about the proposal here, just repeating platitudes and analogies. I don't actually care about this topic at all, but people should do a better job of defending their positions.
ozozozd 1y ago
I think you are conflating 2 things: - ability to privately give money to someone (mechanism is irrelevant, by hand or by way of a blockchain) - self-custody risks for uninformed users The first one is the privacy argument. Would you be comfortable if you’re not allowed to give the cash in your pocket to someone without someone watching over? If the answer is no, you are pro privacy for financial transactions. Cash has the privacy feature as a default. You can argue that 3rd parties that help you send cash don’t have to offer any privacy, but BTC isn’t that, and forcing it to be that way is an attack on privacy.
- Eridrus 1y ago
  I don't have a predetermined opinion on whether it is good or bad for cash to be untraceable. I think arguments for privacy are pretty poorly argued and often come down to "isn't the idea of someone watching you icky" which this thread is not disabusing me of.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    The main argument for privacy is that a lack of privacy is the primary vehicle of crimes against humanity. When you do not have privacy, you must then have trust. You are trusting, typically blindly, that your governments and other organizations will not use knowledge against you. Before the Holocaust, Germany built a registry of known Jews by census. Obviously at the time, nobody knew what it could be used for, the latent evil within just plain information. It was done innocently, naively. The same applies to all privacy violations. Yes, we could monitor, record, and analyze all text messages. Sure. What are the consequences of that? What if you live somewhere where being gay is punishable by execution? What if you out yourself? What if you're not even gay, but it seems as though you might be? Or what if you live in an authoritarian state, and dissent is punished with death? Your government has cornered you. They can do whatever they like, and you cannot so much as vocalize complaints. You may say, "oh well this isn't the case for me, so who cares?" Yes, now, in this particular point in time, in your very specific place. What garantees do you have that things stay that way? None. You are blindly trusting that those who hold your information will not weaponize it. You have given your enemies a gun, loaded it for them, held it up to your forehead, and said "please don't pull the trigger" As a thought experiment, imagine how differently the underground railroad would look if everyone had smartphones that were tracked and communications surveilled.
staplers 1y ago
almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an intermediary I agree, send me your bank account login info and I can keep it safe for you. Believing a profit-motivated corporation or individual is trustworthy long term especially in an age of quick mergers and acquisitions is .. deeply naive to say the least.
int_19h 1y ago
> We're not keeping our fiat currency in a safe under our bed after all. Only because Americans haven't had a proper large-scale bank crash for a while now. In countries where it does happen, people very much do keep their fiat currency "under the mattress" though. And it's good that they have that option.

CityOfThrowaway 1y ago

Yes, it might be true that most people aren't willing to keep their money under their beds for security reasons. But it shouldn't be illegal or somehow indicative of criminality. Same thing with self custody of crypto.

kspacewalk2 1y ago
It's not illegal. They're talking about flagging it as "suspicious". Lots of legal things are flagged as suspicious by law enforcement.
- ozozozd 1y ago
  Would that make it a probable cause for searches and seizures? If so, that would be pretty bad right?
  - xp84 1y ago
    Yeah, with the appalling civil forfeiture concept that I hope everyone is aware of, I also feel uncomfortable with this word "suspicious." In brief summary: If the police search your car (let's just assume probable cause exists) in a routine traffic stop and find say, $50,000 in cash in a bag, they can charge the cash with a crime and arrest it, and unlike a person, it's guilty until definitively proven innocent. I don't think that's fair. And it's a big reason that holding more than a little cash is financially risky. On the other hand, up till now I'd argue it's more risky (just specifically in terms of potential for loss of the money) to have your BTC in Coinbase or say, FTX where mine was, than in self-custody. These notions may reverse if your crypto private keys can be seized automatically as "suspicious," and the civil forfeiture thing has proven that the police will do that.
1oooqooq 1y ago
it's already illegal. unless you keep tax records and receipts with all that money under your bed, probably cause and civil forfeiture can be broadly applied to it.

hombre_fatal 1y ago

I think it makes sense to start from the idea that you should be able to transfer funds to someone, like $100 to your mother, without needing the government or a megacorp to facilitate it. The same way I can gift my TV to my mom. Whether that's cash or cryptocurrency doesn't seem to matter since your argument would also apply to cash.

Eridrus 1y ago
If you start from an assumption that there should be no regulation, then your conclusion will be that there should be no regulation. That's not actually an argument for anyone who doesn't share your assumptions though and is largely just lazy thinking. Cash also has physical limitations that make large cross-border transactions hard, which crypto does not.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > If you start from an assumption that there should be no regulation, then your conclusion will be that there should be no regulation To be fair, they argued against intermediation. Not regulation. Requiring a filing for every $100 cash transfer to one's mother would satisfy their requirement.
- mothballed 1y ago
  If you start with the assumption there should be regulation, even then IDK how you get there. You're regulating an "untraceable" utterance of a string of data. Pragmatically it's worse than trying to stop fentanyl, which is already impossible, and even trying to stop it has just made the gangs that much more powerful because they now control whole small nation-state tier light-infantry militias funded by black-market profits induced from trying to ban it. I honestly don't see any way to effectively ban cryptocurrency that has net positive utility. "Yay we caught some criminals, all it cost us was a dystopia!"
  - Eridrus 1y ago
    Nobody here is actually even arguing about the proposal here, just repeating platitudes and analogies. I don't actually care about this topic at all, but people should do a better job of defending their positions.

ozozozd 1y ago

I think you are conflating 2 things: - ability to privately give money to someone (mechanism is irrelevant, by hand or by way of a blockchain) - self-custody risks for uninformed users The first one is the privacy argument. Would you be comfortable if you’re not allowed to give the cash in your pocket to someone without someone watching over? If the answer is no, you are pro privacy for financial transactions. Cash has the privacy feature as a default. You can argue that 3rd parties that help you send cash don’t have to offer any privacy, but BTC isn’t that, and forcing it to be that way is an attack on privacy.

Eridrus 1y ago
I don't have a predetermined opinion on whether it is good or bad for cash to be untraceable. I think arguments for privacy are pretty poorly argued and often come down to "isn't the idea of someone watching you icky" which this thread is not disabusing me of.
- const_cast 1y ago
  The main argument for privacy is that a lack of privacy is the primary vehicle of crimes against humanity. When you do not have privacy, you must then have trust. You are trusting, typically blindly, that your governments and other organizations will not use knowledge against you. Before the Holocaust, Germany built a registry of known Jews by census. Obviously at the time, nobody knew what it could be used for, the latent evil within just plain information. It was done innocently, naively. The same applies to all privacy violations. Yes, we could monitor, record, and analyze all text messages. Sure. What are the consequences of that? What if you live somewhere where being gay is punishable by execution? What if you out yourself? What if you're not even gay, but it seems as though you might be? Or what if you live in an authoritarian state, and dissent is punished with death? Your government has cornered you. They can do whatever they like, and you cannot so much as vocalize complaints. You may say, "oh well this isn't the case for me, so who cares?" Yes, now, in this particular point in time, in your very specific place. What garantees do you have that things stay that way? None. You are blindly trusting that those who hold your information will not weaponize it. You have given your enemies a gun, loaded it for them, held it up to your forehead, and said "please don't pull the trigger" As a thought experiment, imagine how differently the underground railroad would look if everyone had smartphones that were tracked and communications surveilled.

staplers 1y ago

almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an intermediary I agree, send me your bank account login info and I can keep it safe for you. Believing a profit-motivated corporation or individual is trustworthy long term especially in an age of quick mergers and acquisitions is .. deeply naive to say the least.

int_19h 1y ago

> We're not keeping our fiat currency in a safe under our bed after all. Only because Americans haven't had a proper large-scale bank crash for a while now. In countries where it does happen, people very much do keep their fiat currency "under the mattress" though. And it's good that they have that option.