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Comment by bufferoverflow | Hacker News Reader

Ridiculous. I can make anonymous payments with cash. This is a good example of regulations going too far.

There are limits to your ability to do so that are non-obvious, and the lack of those limits in the crypto space is a problem.

For example, you might be able to make a large payment in cash, but it will be difficult -- theoretically [0] -- for someone to bank that payment in one go without triggering money-laundering concern in their bank.

And unless you hoard cash outside a bank, you would similarly trigger notification rules at your own bank.

None of these systems are perfect, which is precisely why governments are uneasy about an automated system that could be even better at evading those rules.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/13/natwest-fin...

That is not an argument against cryptocurrency though. The bank is going to equally ask you the source of the income/funds. If the fund comes from an exchange, it came through an exchange -- there is paperwork. You have to declare any losses or gains from the currency or commodity exchange (depending on the country) to your tax agency. If you go in a back alley and change it somehow with cash you still need to declare the profit or loss for taxes. You of course could skip that but you could equally tax evade with cash or art and it would be less traceable.

I don't buy any of this. They just don't want to say politically that cryptocurrency makes it harder for them to seize assets or apply bank controls.

People in countries with uncertain futures or bank controls do hoard cash as is well known. And the banking system is known for assisting getting money to notorious and less than stellar organizations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17202827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19983153 (read first comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12346437

(Just from a quick look at hackernews archives for expediency.)

> The bank is going to equally ask you the source of the income/funds.

Those would be be the banks that cryptocurrency true believers think they are going to be replacing entirely, though, right?

It needs an entirely new legal framework.

At any rate -- my (business) bank won't ask me the source of cryptocurrency funds. They will see that they are cryptocurrency funds and then permanently close my bank account.

>Those would be be the banks that cryptocurrency true believers think they are going to be replacing entirely, though, right?

I am not sure how to answer here, as I am not sure what people want at times. I think I have the same question as you. Banks, like some other financial entities, unsurprisingly are more complicated than the average enthusiast wants to admit.

>It needs an entirely new legal framework.

I can't disagree there. I think we ideally want a different legal framework with or without decentralized currencies. The incentives are not aligned however (in my opinion). The illicit activities are too good and too profitable.

> They will see that they are cryptocurrency funds and then permanently close my bank account.

If I may ask could you communicate to me (discreetly or here), which region has that approach? In the USA and (some of) EU to my knowledge and experience that is not the case. You tell them where the money is from and they are happy. I hope that is not an impolite of a question.

Except you can't easily or risklessly transport meaningful amounts of cash.

You can't easily deposit or spend significant amounts of cash without raising flags everywhere.

Anonymous payments are critical to society. We’re already surveilled from every possible angle, total surveillance isn’t too far away. Many of these technologies are not well understood by the general public and of course their proprietors will never admit to any wrongdoing.

Our freedoms are eroding by the week. Many people here on HN right now probably don’t know what life was like prior to the Patriot Act.

I just want to be left alone, to think and behave freely, including the ability to share my ideas without fear of reprisal.

The freedom to send absolutely anonymous payments comes with the cost of people using said freedom to extort people in an untraceable manner, and fund illicit activities that harm society such as terrorism. Every freedom comes with a cost, but usually the freedom to do such an act greatly outweighs the cost.

I am interested in why we should live with the cost of this? What are the real benefits to society? Not just hypothetical ones, but what are real uses of paying someone completely anonymously that have the benefit of outweighing the real harms we have already seen?

The real benefits to society are absolutely tremendous.

Extrapolate just a few more years of this trajectory and any protest or political candidate that isn’t endorsed by the ruling class will be impossible to fund or donate to.

You can see it happening right before our eyes with the “Freedom Convoy” and the shutdown of donations and now freezing of bank accounts.

When you can walk up to your political opponents and simply switch off their campaign financing you no longer have a functional democracy.

I guess if you don’t like democracy then you could be totally fine with this trade-off?

But when you drive up to innocent citizens and switch off their city, do you have a functional democracy? Or is this the new way the US understands exporting democracy?

I see no correlation between ability to track and oppressiveness of regimes. Scandinavian countries are great at tracking their people and very much not oppressive for example.

> I just want to be left alone, to think and behave freely, including the ability to share my ideas without fear of reprisal.

That requires the government to behave nicely, as long as the government would attack you if they knew about these things you would have to live in fear regardless if they tracked you or not. Freedom doesn't come from hiding things from the government, it comes from ensuring that your government isn't behaving like shit, as otherwise you will always dread the government finding out about your stuff. A person who has to hide what he does from the government isn't free, he is basically a refugee in his own country.

I’m more afraid of my radical peers than the government.

However, the government is made up of my peers. I come to terms with this by reminding myself how insignificant I am, and I’m not worth harassing.

I’m not going to give an example but I hold a few unpopular beliefs. There are people who would like to see me die because of them.

This is no way to live.

> are great at tracking their people and very much not oppressive for example.

But they will put you in a cage with criminals as soon as you make some transaction they don't approve of.

With enough tracking it's a lot easier to enforce rules making being oppressive a lot easier.

The EU is becoming increasingly hostile towards cash as well (e.g. no more 200/500 euro bills, bank ATMs are disappearing, ban on 3000+ euro cash payments).

You think they aren't itching to ban cash too?

In a sense, time will.

In Canada, they withdrew the 500, 100 bills. This was 40 years ago, approx.

Now, the biggest bill, the 100, is more like a 20 was back then. Eventually, the 100 will be like a 5, then 1, and so on.

One day, you'll need a wheelbarrow of 100s, to pay your rent with cash, for example.

In this way, all transactions will slowly shift to electronic, and trackable.

The same is true of cash deposits, in Canada. Decades ago, a law was passed, and anything suspicious, or over 10k deposited, in cash, must be reported.

10k was a lot back then, when you could buy a house for less than 50k. Now isn't really.

Which means that over time, more and more cash users get tracked, and reported, by default.

yeah, cashless society is a terrifying phrase

Cash has scaling issues that creates pain points for illegal activities. Crypto does not.

And cryptocurrencies have huge scaling issues cashing out!

It is very hard to make anonymous payments in cash to third world countries and that is the problem they care about. There are all sort of checks and controls and costs associated with moving physical money between countries.

The real reason why, is making anon donation from anywhere, via in cash, which means so e level of physical exchange.

Canada went banana, because crypto was used for the protests. Had it been cash, it would be harder to donate from 1000s of miles away.

I think this is all about foreign influence, or at least, the scared perception of it being easier.

Imagine, your enemies funding the scariest parts of your soceity, an all anonymously, and from the comfort of 100% remote.

This is the fear, I think.

Banning crypto can't stop that. They can easily mail you diamonds in a letter. Pretty much undetectable.

You can see successful crypto actions in the chain. You can't tell if mailed cash arrived for real.

Anyhow, fear need not be rational.

Paynents with cash above a certain sum are also restricted in some legislations. In Italy they are illegal above a couple thousand euros, for example.

I feel like you want this to be "you can make anon physically so I should be able to digitally" when what would actually happen is new KYC requirements that cash transactions require scanning someone's government id.

Many countries have already made that more painful that by eliminating large bills.

> eliminating large bills

Surely you mean eliminating large denomination banknotes?

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