A lot of people who are into cryptocurrencies will see this FinCen leak as vindication and proof that banks are money launderers.
But, this will be used against cryptocurrencies...
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See the correct analysis of this news is that AML/CTF and KYC don't work. They will never work because they try to control the *tool* not the *criminal act*. It's not the money that is illicit, it's the use of that money to commit crimes.
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I've talked about this extensively. Not only is the use of money as a crime-control mechanism ineffective, it has terrible consequences that increase poverty for billions by creating economic exclusion. So it's not just useless, it is "Worse than Useless"
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"Worse than Useless" is the title of a talk I gave about this topic. For the illusion of unatainable security and crime fighting we get two obvious and unavoidable results: billions cut out of the financial system and enormous corrupting power given to regulators and bankers.
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But despite this obvious truth, nothing is going to change. In fact, this report will be used to *increase* the use of controls and surveillance. In govt if something doesn't work, you do MORE of it. So this will result in stricter AML/CTF rules.
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These new rules will also not work. These new rules will also corrupt more bankers, regulators, cops and politicians. These new rules will destroy opportunity for millions more people. But they will offer the comfort of righteous rhetoric against evil while creating more evil
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As these new rules are applied, banking will become even harder for poor people, undocumented people and people on the fringes of society. It won't stop criminals from criming. It will stop poor people from rising out of poverty. It will make banks even more competition-proof
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These new rules will make government surveillance worse and will erode democratic institutions. They will make it possible for dictators to economically surveil, control, and eventually extinguish any opposition. They will use US surveillance tech to impose financial fascism
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Then of course, the need and value of open financial systems based on open, private, and uncensorable cryptocurrencies will increase dramatically. When all the money in the world has been deliberately broken to serve this unachievable goal, the only money that works is crypto
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More and more people will need to use cryptocurrency in order to participate in the global economy, because control-currency doesn't work as money. A medium of exchange can't also work as a medium of control. They break money to stop crime, even though it is a futile effort
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That makes crypto-currency a systemic threat, not to the economic nature of national money, but to the control and surveillance system of geopolitical money. Math money doesn't play politics, which makes it automatically "rogue" money.
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Open and private crypto-currencies won't comply with these regulations, because they CAN'T comply without breaking every feature and capability they have. If some try to comply they will have to compete against gov-crypto and facebook-crypto (they will lose)
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Then the war on cash and the war on "illicit" money becomes an all out war on the only money that still works. The free, open, borderless, neutral, immutable, censorship resistant money that crypto-currencies like Bitcoin offer
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The only type of money (crypto) that poor, undocumented, oppressed, and controlled populations can use will of course be attacked. But they will not have any choice but to continue to use cryptocurrency. Billions are already unbanked by fiat controls.
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This FinCen leak is worthy of our ridicule because it reveals the hypocrisy of those who argue that crypto-currency is for money launderers. Banking *is* money laundering on a massive scale. But the solution is not to tighten controls on money. That won't work
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The solution is to stop trying to use money (a tool) to fight crime (human nature). But if you think the hypocrites will back down and adopt sensible systems and laws that enable human trade and economic inclusion, you are wrong. They will double down with even more control
This isn't good news. This is the excuse they will use to double down on surveillance and control. To make money a tool of naked political power. No matter how many billions these measures condemn to poverty.
Watch "Worse than Useless" on Youtube:
Also "Money as a system of control"
Also on the issue of moral responsibility:
"Universal Access to Basic Finance"
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"A double-spend broke Bitcoin" FUD that was circulated by an irresponsible publication.
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There was a chain re-organization in the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a common occurrence that is part of Bitcoin's normal operation. It is a result of decentralized consensus under Proof-of-Work. All PoW chains do this.
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Two blocks were mined almost simultaneously, competing for the same height, meaning that they had the same parent block and were trying to extend the chain of the same block
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I hope more people doing honest work in Bitcoin and other blockchains boycott @Cointelegraph
This is not the first time they have published irresponsible clickbait that is poorly sourced and contains misinformation. They do a disservice to the entire industry.
@Cointelegraph I don't want to link to the article, because that would only drive more attention to that garbage.
It takes 10x the effort to debunk garbage that it does to write it.
@Cointelegraph If you are writing about a controversial topic, you don't quote 2 people from the competing systems (BSV, BCH) without any counterpoint or clarification from an actual Bitcoin developer or expert.
Probably can't find a serious person to talk to them because of their history
Many if not most Americans were against #MLK and the Civil Rights movement at the time. They justified the police brutality against peaceful protesters and assigned isolated violence to the entire movement. Exactly the way #BLM has been treated since Ferguson.
#MLK was accused of being a maxist, a terrorist, an enemy agent and a traitor. He and his family were targeted, surveilled, maligned, and terrorized by the FBI and law enforcement. Exactly the same as is being done to civil rights and #BLM movements today.
I need a data-minimization plugin that will wipe/clear specific fields from a Wordpress/Woocommerce customer database at regular intervals. We've been doing that manually but it doesn't scale.
I'm guessing I'm not the only one.
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The general idea is to remove information that we *need* to collect (e.g. shipping address) once we don't need it anymore. Woocommerce has some basic functions around data removal, but they're insufficient for the task.
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But first: Do you know of any such tool/plugin that can be configured to "Remove the address, zip, town fields from customer and user databases once the order status is complete or after N days/weeks/months"
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Yesterday, while everyone was helpfully explaining to me why Bitcoin is broken, obsolete and failing to fulfill it's mission, I ran my monthly payroll.
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I have a dozen people on my team, scattered across six countries and four continents. A multinational small business. Many get paid in Bitcoin or Ether.
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BTC payroll is batched in a single RBF transaction, sent from Segwit native addresses. I low-ball the fee by 50% usually and wait 30 minutes, then bump it if I need to. Mostly I don't need to.
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