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Comment by intotheabyss | Hacker News Reader

Just wrap your Bitcoin into renBTC on Ethereum, and exchange it for DAI stablecoin. Then, deposit it into a zero knowledge mixer contract called tornado.cash and withdraw to a fresh address. Now you've broken the link. An entirely decentralized process of converting BTC into a stablecoin without an intermediary while maintaining some privacy.

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How many bites of the pie did you lose during those 4 transactions? Besides, you still need to convert DAI to fiat to use it IRL in most ways, DAI is just another form of space money despite being pegged to the dollar.

I could also see criminalization of mixing tools being a thing.

It's already a thing - it's money laundering to conceal the source of funds that may have been used in an illegal activity.

No, I mean criminalization of mixing services in specific, regardless of their use. In the same vein as KYC laws.

It's currently not illegal to obscure your financial trail as long as it's not in service of anything that is itself illegal, but I could see the legislators saying that any funds from a mixer are to be considered tainted, and made de facto illegal all on their own.

> How many bites of the pie did you lose during those 4 transactions?

Probably between ~1-2%, if that.

That would depend on the transaction size and market, no? As early as yesterday, any single transaction involving ETH would have cost no less than $3 due to gas prices even at the slowest acceptable pace, and that's before the bid/ask spread on the exchanges eat some more

I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that while crypto cuts out a lot of the obvious middlemen, there are a lot more hidden ones. It is currently non-economical to do small transactons.

Right, so how do I convert stable coin to cash to pay my rent?

I’d need to go through a registered money exchange and the gov’t will have a record of my name and the cash I received in the exchange. If it’s enough cash they will ask about the source of funds.

In the end you still need to convert/exchange that last rinse crypto into cash. The exchanger may want to know where you've got that crypto from and the person(s) that sent you the crypted have been subjected to KYC. Just like with real money.

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