Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
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Clickbait headline. The underlying article lists much more reasonable restrictions:
So non-commercial transations are fine, as are crypto transactions to non-custodial wallets.
Commercial transactions -
Aaah, the kind of transaction that most transactions are?
Operated by providers
Aah, so any business which accept crypto must KYC every one of their customers. This makes accepting crypto especially burdensome, which is half the point of this legislation in the first place.
So non-commercial transations are fine, as are crypto transactions to non-custodial wallets.
Unless you're using the wallet to buy or sell something. You know, the thing people use money for.
Why does the government need to have every transaction reported to them? Crime is bad because it causes harm. If harm is being caused, that means a person or entity is causing that harm. That means there is evidence. Follow that.
Police have more surveillance and crime-detecting tools than at any point in human history. Nearly every category of crime, particularly violent crime, is on a decades-long downtrend. We all travel with GPS monitors in our pockets. We all use credit cards instead of cash. We all are recorded by CCTV 90% of the places we go. We don't need to give them more financial surveillance because 'crime'.
I'm not saying these rules are perfect, but it doesn't help if you argue against rules that don't exist.
Commercial transactions are not "all" tx, and above 3000€ are obviously not the most common tx.
I do think the crypto restriction with no lower limit is too much, and I don't get why they focus on custodial wallets, but it's again not "all" tx.
Why does the government ...
Money laundering, tax evasion and corruption are real crimes with real consequences, and knowing about the flow of money is pretty much required to be able to detect them. It's a trade-off with privacy, so imo setting some limit for anonymous payments is the right thing to do. Idk if 3000€ is perfect, but it does seem reasonable.
Police have more surveillance and crime-detecting tools ...
We need some amount of oversight and surveillance, so imo it's not good enough to just exaggerate every proposal to the extreme and reject it on those grounds. These rules are not a total crackdown on anonymous payments, but they might still be too restrictive. But you kill every discussion about that if you just make up different rules entirely, instead of arguing about the rules that were actually adopted.
That's all pretty damn reasonable...
Unless you want to buy something with cash. Once they cross the line they won't stop until cash and anonymity are gone
And these limits will be tied to inflation?
What's the difference between commercial and business? I thought they were synonymous.
I think they are used synonymously in this article, but business could also mean B2B transactions, so between two businesses.
sorry but banning anonymous payments is pretty good for fighting corruption...
Corrupt politicians can simply ignore the law. If they didn't ignore it, they wouldn't be very corrupt.
Yes, but now there's an explicit law over which they can be prosecuted
After the Panama Papers and everything like it I've experienced in my life, I truly believe it doesn't matter if very wealthy or powerful people are exposed on anything they do unless it involves what Epstein did. Financial crime is not generally of interest, regardless of how interesting it might be to you and me. Sure this can be used to fight corruption, but why is the system corrupt in the first place? Is this really going to be used against those corrupting influences or is it going to be used as another of the many tools in the drug war?
The solution isn't to do nothing. This post reads like it's not in good faith. Like it's trying to promote giving up.
Of course. By suggesting that I don't think this will do anything about corruption and will if anything be a tool used for corrupt purposes, I don't mean to suggest that there is nothing to do about corruption. Even though I think the solutions to social and economic problems are rarely solved from the top down, I do think the issues can be addressed bottom up. The people have the power and it's only by circumstance that some people appear to hold the power.
I am pretty sure the lesser part of corruption is cash. Probably more stuff like exchanging a lucrative contract for political support.
They are not stupid. Afterall cash needs to be explained, a good contract gives you cash and the explanation.
Cash is mostly traceable at point of contact unless you keep it in a money bin and don't spend it, though..
Can't say in terms of proportion cash vs. non-cash but one might want to watch the Qatargate recent documentary on Arte which shows that somehow a 700k EUR luggage was found in the house of a MEP. Piles of cash sound outdated yet clearly still exist nowadays.
The 500€ bill was removed from circulation because it was used almost exclusively for corruption and illegal trade.
Consumers payments deserves their privacy, but business ones needs absolutely to be fully traceable.
Could it be possible to use two different yet identical interchangeable currencies, one traceable for making business only, and one untraceable for consumers retail transactions?
loosely i.e.
... I don't know there is probably still a loophole
But fighting corruption is not a goal I'm ready to pay any prize for.
I order to participate in the fight again corruption, would you mind sharing with us the list of payement you made this week? Please use the following format :
[date], [time] - [nature of the payement] - [transaction amount] - [beneficiary]
One transaction per ligne, in a chronological order.
You've just invented accounting haha
i mean banks and law enforcement can already get that information
Russia almost did it. Now it's finally free of corruption!
Haha , nope. It's way more corrupt than before. You can even purchase on the dark web a list of items your person of interest bought this year.
This doesn't seem that much worse than American rules that have already been in place for a long, long time.
As it is, large payments or withdrawals must be reported to federal agencies, anything over $10k. This applies to cash transactions as well and the forms the IRS requires you to fill in a $10k+ cash transaction can be found here.
The biggest difference would be the impact on cash transactions and crypto transactions in the EU.
I'm pro-privacy, but a lot more crypto facilitates crime than not, so I don't really know why people would be shocked that governments would attack crypto specifically here (literally almost all ransomware uses crypto). Looks like way more of a crackdown on crypto than cash, but maybe that's just me. (On top of the fact that a lot of crypto isn't privacy-oriented. Looking at you, Bitcoin)
Related: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/venmo-paypal-zelle-must-report-600-transactions-irs-rcna11260
Two years ago USA put in rules for commercial digital transfers over $600 to be reported. Just pointing out that the EU's rules don't seem particularly draconian when weighed against already existing rules elsewhere.
Just because one country has it doesn't mean another should adopt it
Here in Germany Cash payments for houses are a great way of laundering money for the mafia. Similar roles have als been proposed a while ago
Italian here. Our right wing government who blinks an eye to all small entrepreneur in Italy (there are A TON here) recently increased the max cash payment from 2k to 5k. This is definitely a way to say "please be free to recycle a bit more oney" and to gain votes in exchange.
It's incredible how Germany, Austria, or Switzerland to name a few have this crazy high cash payment.
In fact our "ndrangheta" for example (Mafia from Calabria) expanded a lot in Germany due to this.
OP, your post is a mess.
For people who are looking for actual info:
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-seeks-cash-payment-limit-tougher-money-laundering-rules/a-68024075
https://finbold.com/anonymous-crypto-wallets-now-illegal-in-the-eu/
Or the source OP was using:
(ETA better info and links)
This thread is a dumpster fire. Can someone explain to me why i should be concerned about the tracking of payments that as an average person will not happen outside of buying huge stuff like a car? While no one is forced to answer me i would like you to refrain from vague statements like "this is attacking your privacy", because i am interested in how. If you think its obvious feel free to ignore.
I think the biggest point that i could see being a problem is the crypto stuff because i once made a anonymous donation via monero (that because i was concerned but the target needed privacy). It was about 30€ or something. Would that be illegal under the new guidelines? And if so, why would i care, since it is supposed to be anonymous.
Anonymity is important for various reasons. You can't predict everything bad a government will try to do to stifle freedom that a person may want to avoid. Off the top of my head, I could see someone trying to pay for an abortion or something like that in a southern state where it's illegal, for health reasons to save their own life.
I think this is actually a very good example, thank you.
People from europe sometimes come a long as assholes ("wE aRe NoT iN tHe ShItTy UsA") while ignoring that political stability is not guaranteed. Neither is democracy. Sitting here germany i look very nervously at the many countries shifting to the right and getting more authoritarian.
I pray to all gods that the times we live in wont be very interesting for historians to come...
I think that's a big reason I'm so pro-privacy. I'm sure if the US weren't a couple steps ahead of you guys towards fascism, I'd prioritize other things, too. Hopefully you all can stop the march towards the right of your government before it gets worse.
To me the problem is that you wouldn't be able to buy a car anonymously anymore, while it leaves the really rich pretty much untouched.
Art is a well known angle for money laundering or giving someone a huge sum of money pretty much without any regulation. Contracts for construction or even consulting are another way.
I don't have access to this kind of playground - chances are, you neither. But the people supposedly targeted by this kind of law (corrupt politicians, organised crime, ...), do have access to these things and are therefore not impacted.
Let's say you have political beliefs and would like to donate to such causes, March against genocide, stand with local essential workers, union fee. Some places like Hungary might be very dangerous if everyone knows what you spend money on.
So, Europe limiting people's freedom, even more. Why am I not surprised? Use Monero and build the circular economy. Give the middle finger to these clowns. People in the US need to do the same thing because we are headed down the same path. That's why I always suggest if you have Monero not turning it back into Fiat ever.
Use Monero, burn the planet, don't buy anything useful with it as it can be made illegal after one legislation and don't forget to actively swap it between 10 other different cryptocurrencies. Also thanks to Microsoft for hosting Monero official source code repository.
burn the planet
How much energy does it take to run the banking sector?
don't buy anything useful with it as it can be made illegal after one legislation
Yeah, good luck with that. It's censorship resistant. So that legislation doesn't fucking matter.
actively swap it between 10 other different cryptocurrencies
Funny as most stuff can be purchased in Monero without swapping.
Also thanks to Microsoft for hosting Monero official source code repository.
which could be easily changed at any time.
It's OK to be an outlaw.
that nostr link doesn't load for me but this is the url that the post in the screenshot is ultimately linking to: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-cash-cap-and-ban-on-anonymous-crypto-payments-results-in-financial-paternalism/
This feels like satire
creepy
Wtfff
