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cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

sorry but banning anonymous payments is pretty good for fighting corruption...

ToxicWaste ,

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.

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Cash is mostly traceable at point of contact unless you keep it in a money bin and don't spend it, though..

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Not necessarily, it's only traceable if you generate receipts on both sides. I don't know about EU law, but in the US, you only need to report cash deposits if they're over $10k, and if your deposits are always over $10k (e.g. you're a big retailer or something), another $10k here and there won't raise any eyebrows.

Cash is still king when it comes to corruption since it's easy to exchange it for favors w/o generating a receipt at all.

utopiah ,

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 Piles of cash sound outdated yet clearly still exist nowadays.

Safipok ,

Geoblocked

utopiah ,

Video, audio and subtitles via yt-dlp at https://fabien.benetou.fr/pub/home/ytdl/

I'll leave that for few days.

Safipok ,

Thanks!

agressivelyPassive ,

The 500€ bill was removed from circulation because it was used almost exclusively for corruption and illegal trade.

BruceLee ,
@BruceLee@lemmy.ml avatar

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.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

That's literally what businesses do, it's called accounting. And if you read the underlying article and/or law, you'd see that this is targeting businesses, not individuals.

Lmaydev ,

You've just invented accounting haha

cupcakezealot , (edited )
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i mean banks and law enforcement can already get that information

Gooey0210 ,

There's a special status for some people in Russia, it's called Foreign Agent, and I believe they need to write down everything they spend money on this way

LWD ,

Corrupt politicians can simply ignore the law. If they didn't ignore it, they wouldn't be very corrupt.

jol ,

Yes, but now there's an explicit law over which they can be prosecuted

LWD ,

Good point. My statement was a bit reductive, I just worry when it comes to creating the kind of blanket ban on stuff that people can work around if they're powerful enough.

Akisamb ,

This is not true in France. Politicians that have proven fraud are arrested and charged. In France we have Sarkozy, Cahuzac, Fillon that were all charged with crimes.

They were president, minister and presidential candidate respectively. I'd be surprised if it was different in the USA. I'm seeing that trump is also being charged, the system seems to be working.

tooLikeTheNope , (edited )

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.

  • wages are Business currency converted and paid in Consumer currency, accounted for the amount paid to the consumer in his name
  • end-users/home/consumer purchases are made from consumers anonymously in Consumer currency, and this is converted converted into Business currency upon transaction, keeping only the consumer name anonymous but tracing everything else
  • B2B transactions are made in Business currency, fully traceable

... I don't know there is probably still a loophole

uis ,
@uis@lemm.ee avatar

Putin's corruption works fine without anonymous payments

cupcakezealot ,
@cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

i mean does it really? russia is heavily sanctioned to the rest of the western world.

uis ,
@uis@lemm.ee avatar

Putin is not Russia

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

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?

hglman ,

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.

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

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.

humbletightband ,

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.

Endward23 ,

But fighting corruption is not a goal I'm ready to pay any prize for.

naut ,

so ban it only for government (people and assets) related transactions

summerof69 ,

True that. The system that we have is the product of many painful lessons, taught to us by global crises and crimes. People, who oppose this system, should stop reading nonsense on reddit and 4chan, and start with books and lectures from educated economists.

Cyberjin ,

Pretty sure corruption isn't using wire transfer 🫢
Comes in physical form that can't be tracked

Obonga ,

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.

pedroapero ,

I use Monero for donations too on a regular basis.
From what I understand, the people accepting donations would no longer be allowed to sell them to professional platforms (silly as those are the ones KYCing).

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I think they would be. If they're operating as a business, the requirement is that their wallet(s) is at a custodian, so all transactions can be audited. You could still donate to that charity, and that charity would still be able to sell them or use them to buy stuff from another entity, but there would be a paper trail for the charity and the businesses they interact with. It doesn't impact the person donating, only the receiver.

pedroapero ,

That would make sense. Thx

ToxicWaste ,

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.

agressivelyPassive ,

You have to register a car anyway. Where exactly is the problem?

ToxicWaste ,

nothing to hide nothing to fear, huh?

And i thought at least after Snowden we learnt this is bs...

agressivelyPassive ,

So you want people to be able to drive several tons of literal murder machines without any form of registration?

ToxicWaste ,

don't try to misunderstand ppl on purpose

agressivelyPassive ,

Then what else could you possibly mean?

undergroundoverground ,

What a sophilistic reply. No, car insurance is a thing. The purchase will no longer be anonymous, after you purchase car insurance for the car you just bought.

"You know, for all those totally, 100% legitimate and completely anonymous car purchases people make, that definitely won't be used by organised crime: honest."

pelicans_plight ,

Well I'm not in the EU, but in my situation I live in a shithole in the US called Tennessee. I have cancer that can be removed, but I don't have the quarter of a million for the surgery. It's been impossible to get a surgeon to even look at me, 2 years looking and still no surgeons will even let me in their office.

I need medications but the med I need the most is $8000 a month, it suppresses my autoimmune system and alows me to heal. My cancer is vary rare, it's called a neuroendocrine tumor, it's caused by extreme stress, this is because I'm a natural born empath, but saying that out loud usually gets a knife in my back from anyone near me carrying dark energy.

But to get to the point, I can get some meds occasionally for cheap, as long as they're sold for cash, but if that gos away then I definitely will die much faster. Seems on par for the life I've lived, care about everyone, then have everyone try to kill me.

Obonga ,

Yeah i have heard about crypto being used to get cheaper medication, but i had forgotten, so thanks for taking your time and sharing this example.

I wish you the best health possible, better and cheaper medications and people that make your life better

pelicans_plight ,

Thanks, I'm vary used to it by now, but still appreciated.

agressivelyPassive ,

So, because the US can't get its shit together and you can't get medical help for neither cancer nor psychological issues, the EU - with pretty good universal healthcare - should allow cash payments without limit?

pelicans_plight ,

Hey bud I'm glad narcissism, is working out for you. I really hope you're old so it don't catch up.

agressivelyPassive ,

For a supposed empath you act remarkably similar to an ahole.

You're describing a problem that literally does not exist in the EU to justify that a law in the EU is wrong. That's not very smart.

I wouldn't argue for tougher gun laws in Germany because you guys keep getting your children shot either.

pelicans_plight ,

That's actually one of my karmic debts I must pay off (arrogance,) but I already paid off 8 karmic debts, only four more to go if I live to 98 like most in my family.

I was probably a very bad person in my last life. That's why this is my road this time, I except my cancer, and if it takes me then so be it. I also apologize for thinking of everyone as one and everyones actions actually effecting everyone else regardless of country, I forget so many people are still so programmed with tribalism.

Also, if it helps you to understand, I grew up in an extremely conservative stronghold with rich assholes everywhere so I became a dark empath, found my way back mostly, but the dark still pounces out on someone now and then (I'm working on it.) Life's a journey and some don't want to even try to figure it out, but when you really really want to it starts to show you what you need to get where you need to be.

Life has actually been better then ever since the cancer, I still have a projected seven years left, so I'm working on turning the money machine back on and making the money to save myself in this shitty country I live in, but I never expect anyone to understand what it's like to feel others emotions your whole life in a family and community that refuse to except this stuff exists.

agressivelyPassive ,

Ok, so you're completely bonkers.

borari ,
@borari@sh.itjust.works avatar

that’s exactly what i’d expect a dark empath to say. sheathe your knife unless you want to get saddled with karmic debt bro. you’re limited to paying off karmic debt in transactions of no more than 3k eurohms each, and with this dark energy you’d be in karmic debt into the millions.

pelicans_plight ,

Don't worry, I only wrote this because someone here needed to hear these words.

theUnlikely ,

Don't worry, I can feel that the Force is strong with them. They have many midi-chlorians, so a karmic debt in the millions should be no problem.

Shyfer ,

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.

Lmaydev ,

This is Europe not that dumpster fire of a country.

AtmaJnana ,

The same Europe that is home to Orban and Vucic and Erdogan? Yeah, good thing you never elect right-wing ideologues with a penchant for authoritarianism.

Obonga ,

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...

Shyfer ,

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.

mea_rah ,

Depending how inflation goes €3k limit will soon be in the territory of regular smartphone price or any slightly more expensive household purchase. AFAIK €1k 3 decades ago would be about €3k now.

That is assuming no one tries to push the limits lower, which is almost guaranteed to happen.

LodeMike ,

You don't need it right up until you need it.

LemmyHead ,
  • tacking of payments gives those in power (banks, [bad] governments,...) Mechanism to completely profile and manipulate you. Your spendings says EVERYTHING about you. You might not care because you're living in peaceful and stable (e.g. not in economic crisis like Venezuela) times, but the world and many governments are visibly changing for the worst. It gives them unlimited power to introduce any kind of taxes and fines or means of blocking you from moving away with your money to somewhere else. You don't agree? They can still get to your money.
  • limiting cash or anynomous payments takes away your financial freedom and strongly increases your dependency on banks. Banks put limits on your money that you can't fully control, they block your transactions for whatever they find suspicous. They can charge you whatever they want. There's a lot of corruption and money laundering with banks, that are the the most regulated institutions in the world ( except for armies probably), proving that even with a lot of control and legislation, those in power can still do whatever the fuck they want. Banks also take risks with your money and there have been crisises caused by them before. Most of them invest in oil, war and other ventures that are profitable for them. They manipulate markets for profit and for the worse of the common man. There's a lot you can read about those things. Becoming so strongly dependant on banks give governments limitless power on what to do with your money and block it whenever they want. Truckers protested against government in Canada => bank accounts blocked.

Whether or not some or all of these examples matter to you, one thing you have to understand and always defend is: you are the boss of your of money. Your ownership and control over your money is evenly linked to how much freedom you have.

Another thing you also have to understand, even if you think full visibility and control for governments is a good thing to solve crime, corruption and/or money laundering: there are and have ALWAYS been black markets. And the worse countries are off, the stronger these markets become.

Safipok ,

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.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

"It's not about me so I don't care"

Principles

undergroundoverground ,

There isn't really. Most people are unaware that most crash transactions and withdrawals anywhere close to those amounts will almost always have to be reported to the government of whatever country you're in. But, you know, EU bad....

There's no wholesome reason to need 10k in cash. Even the examples here of paying for an abortion is a problem with reproductive freedom and not cash. You're not suddenly going to get away with it because you "sneakily" withdrew 10s of 000s in cash, right before you travelled to a state where abortion was legal. Political donations can be made in small, repeated sums. Specifically, as they dont sell large value items.

Unless you're a hired assassin, a paedophile network, a corrupt politican or a drug cartel it's not going to effect your business.

In reality, most of the nay sayers are people who take cash payments for the work they do to avoid paying the taxes the rest of us have to pay, for the things we all use.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

So a ban on crypto and CCP like control over all finances?

LWD , (edited )

OP, your post is a mess.

  1. It's not "total monetary surveillance," it's limited to cryptocurrency and high (>$11,000) cash payments.
  2. You shouldn't encourage people to contact the EU before showing them what's actually happening
  3. Your Snort post doesn't work on my browser and it's a pretty bad social network anyway.

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:

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-cash-cap-and-ban-on-anonymous-crypto-payments-results-in-financial-paternalism/

(ETA better info and links)

naut ,

why would someone limit me how I can spend my earned and 40% already taxed (taken) money? I gave my life time to earn it, they take half of it and still forbidding me to use it?

chiliedogg ,

Hiding money in anonymous crypto is a way to avoid paying taxes or launder money.

Trump made crypto trading cards so Russia and Saudi Arabia could contribute to him anonymously.

naut ,

So if that is a problem, focus and investigate, why I have to do anything with that? And that is US, this is EU.

lemmylem ,

Source?

summerof69 ,

Are you seriously suggesting me to contact my MEP based on the clickbait title you've written? Wow.

naut ,

Would it make sense to have ?
https://lemmy.ml/post/7968927

Gargari ,

Grab

pedroapero ,

So that you can't sell later ?

Fridgeratr ,

Yeah, lose all your money so you don't have to worry about it being surveilled!

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

More than 97% of monero buyers are in profit right now. Nobody on earth lost more than 10% buying monero

LWD ,

Do you see the irony of people treating a cryptocurrency in name as a cryptostock in reality?

LWD ,

Monero is like an unregulated stock. If you want to use it for a purchase, you want to wait until as late as possible to actually purchase any.

A better strategy for staying private would just be hoarding money under your bed.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

Yeah but it's hard to get hard money like gold coins or silver. Holding currency isn't an option

Squizzy ,

I have spent €3000+ in cash a few times in the last few years but I dont really mind this tbh.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

Don't give up on your rights just because it's easier to be lazy and not defend them. Stand for all them, whatever they might be

tired_n_bored ,

I'm all for privacy and I'd use Monero all the time, but this kind of regulations heavily damaged the mafia so tbh let's go for it. I'm not gonna spend 3k per transaction regardless

abcxyz ,

Lol, what a shill. I guess that's because the mafia follows rules?

tired_n_bored ,

If banks and shops don't accept and give paper money to randoms, bad people have a more difficult life.

It is not only bombs and guns, it's an intricated system of black market, black job that Redditors from other countries have no idea about 👍

cuchilloc ,

I’m sorry sir, it looks like you are exhibiting individual thought, we need to open you up and change your brain for a government approved Brain-a-tron.

abcxyz ,

Enjoy your distopia and thank you for enlightening me of how money laundering, black market and kyc works. Keep parroting "security" and "for the kids" though ;)

tired_n_bored ,

Man I am on your side. I love privacy and security. I can't stand "for the kids" rhetoric. I wouldn't be using Lemmy otherwise. But The limit to 5k€ per transaction is really useful, has already damaged mafia, and prevents big chunks of money to go untraced, leaving room for privacy for regular people. In an ideal world I would be against such action, but I do believe this is the best thing to do when 10% of your GDP is produced illegally.

I also want to apologize for my previous message which could have been interpreted as passive aggressive, it was not intended as such.

MonkderZweite ,

They track the trade of art too?

agressivelyPassive ,

How do you think they're paying for art?

MonkderZweite ,

Money > Art > Suspicious business.

Suspicious business > more Art > more money.

agressivelyPassive ,

more money.

....soooo someone paid money? Which would fall under the regulation.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

NFTs invented nothing, they copied the shady scam/money-laundering business of IRL art

Mango ,

Three easy payments of $999.99!

kilgore_trout ,
@kilgore_trout@feddit.it avatar

The limit is not by single payment but by purchase/receipt.

monsdar ,

Isn't a simple solution to split the purchase then? I will buy the tires for 8000€ and the rest of the car for 9000€.

I know this is nitpicking and they're not doing this for cases like the above. People targeted by this will have other simple solutions to work around it.

blazera ,
@blazera@lemmy.world avatar

all Im thinking of is how payment processors have been acting as legislators lately to outlaw porn.

crispy_kilt ,

Thanks, US puritanism.

shortwavesurfer ,

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.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

You obviously didn't read it. This is specifically targeting businesses, not individuals, so you'll still be able to use Monero and whatnot to buy stuff from companies, they just need to have their crypto wallets at a custodian (presumably for tax transparency). Likewise with cash transactions, large transactions are rare and unnecessary between businesses.

admin ,
@admin@monero.town avatar

If that is actually the case, the crypto portion is at least not that bad. The 10k limit on cash transactions is just not feasible in some industries though.

szczuroarturo ,

Yeach im most worried about used car market. Thats the only place that i know of where large amounts of cash is exchanged most often.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I'm pretty sure this is business to business, not customer to business. So you could still buy that €11k car, the bank would just need to deposit it instead of handing that €11k to the wholesaler in cash (they'd need to use a bank transfer for that).

I could be wrong though, it just depends on what "business transactions" means. Is it only B2B, or B2C counts too?

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Monero is a terrible investment long term. Pricing is hard because the value is always changing

shortwavesurfer ,

What do you mean? I've been using Monero for over a year and in that time one Monero has always equaled one Monero. /s

It's only when you price it in fiat currency that the price changes.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

How about against the price of gold? You also will see it change

shortwavesurfer ,

True, i have never measured it against gold. Though my guess is that price action would be pretty muted since both are decently stable.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Monero is not stable

shortwavesurfer ,

I did not say stable. I said decently stable. Since Monero is actually used as money and changes hands often, the price fluctuations do exist, but they are less than they might otherwise be. Monero took a big shock recently during the Binance de-listing and dropped 30% which lasted for all of about a week before it was back to a decent equilibrium and only a month to recover most of that loss. It has recovered 20% of the original drop, even though there are fewer people using it. Because it removed some speculation from the market. More people over time are realizing that Bitcoin is not the promise they understood it to be and are leaving for Monero.

Shyfer ,

How does Monero avoid the problem of Bitcoin? Of just being used for investment and not currency?

shortwavesurfer ,

Low fees, a focus on privacy, not calling itself "digital gold"

Shyfer ,

But is it still deflationary? I may be wrong, but I feel like any currency that is deflationary over inflationary encourages hoarding instead of spending.

shortwavesurfer ,

Just because it's deflationary doesn't mean that it's not spent primarily because you still need electricity, food, gas, and other things. So you are forced to spend it whether you want to or not. Monero itself is not technically deflationary as 0.6 new coins are released every 2 minutes forever. What you end up with is that Inflation asymptotically approaches zero until an equilibrium is reached where new coins are created at the same rate that coins are destroyed through negligence, etc. Right now, Monero has an inflation rate of about 0.85% and falling all the time.

Shyfer ,

OK that's pretty cool actually. I hope it works out without the pitfalls of Bitcoin and other crypto.

shortwavesurfer ,

Nothing's ever certain in the future. But at least for the last 10 years, it has worked. And I think it will continue to work. I think the main problem with Bitcoin is the people using it are so locked into "oh this is the best and there's nothing better" that they can't see the problems. If something came along that made Monero look like a child's toy, and it was that much better, I would switch, not die on that hill.

admin ,
@admin@monero.town avatar

Monero is actually the least volatile crypto asset that is not specifically designed to be pegged to fiat.

smileyhead ,

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.

shortwavesurfer ,

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.

ReversalHatchery ,

Also thanks to Microsoft for hosting Monero official source code repository.

which could be easily changed at any time.

Not just that. Git would let the devs know if the repository contents were maliciously changed.

JackRiddle ,

Please do remember that the banking industry provides banking for the entire world, instead of ~ten thousand people. It does cost a lot of energy, yes, but the energy per person is far less than with any cryptocurrency.

shortwavesurfer ,

The point of crypto is for everybody on earth to be their own bank and be part of the financial system, which is something the banks cannot do.Also, the bank's banking system and governments have gotten us into the situation we are in now where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. I don't know who said it, but I heard a quote once that said something to the effect of, let me control what a man uses as money, and I care not who makes his laws.

szczuroarturo ,

And yet most cryptocurrencies are mostly used as a investments instead of using them for their intended purpose which is transactions .

shortwavesurfer ,

Which I agree is a problem. I don't see them as an investment. I see them as a way to get out from under the authoritarian rule of governments. Unfortunately, we have what we call the number go up crowd and we don't like them very well.

JackRiddle ,

The poor get poorer and the rich get richer because of the economical system we live under, not because of the banking industry. Crypto isn't going to solve that.

I agree that banks are not to be trusted, but a blockchain hasn't proven to be a safe option either.

You also just skipped over my comment. I take that means that you acknowledge that crypto is extremely wasteful and would never scale unless gigantic changes were made to how it functions?

shortwavesurfer ,

Not at all. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer due to inflation, which is caused by government spending and central banks creating money out of nothing and saying that it has value when it does not. Not all crypto is extremely power-hungry. Take Monero, for example, as it is mined with CPUs only, which everybody has access to. If cryptocurrency mining ends up using less power than the banking system, then that is a net positive instead of a net negative. The majority of cryptocurrency losses have not been because of the blockchain, but because of services built on top of it that should not have existed to begin with, such as exchanges, lending companies, etc. When you give your crypto to somebody else, it is no longer your crypto, and that's where people have messed up by giving their crypto to places like FTX, Mt Gox, etc. There's also quite a lot of mistakes made with two-factor authentication via SMS which is not secure to maintain a cryptocurrency account such as Coinbase. When somebody tries to explain that you should not hold your keys on exchanges, a lot of times you get feedback about, oh, that's too much work. Well, if you're not going to care about your money, nobody else will. One of the big major points of crypto is to eliminate the trusted third party.

SnotFlickerman , (edited )
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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.

Juviz ,

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

AnagrammadiCodeina ,

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.

Crow_of_Minerva ,
@Crow_of_Minerva@feddit.it avatar

Italian here too. It's sad how the EU has to make us do the smart things as we are incapable of them

RaoulDook ,

Still not a good enough reason to reduce the privacy and freedom of any citizen. I don't care if the mob uses cash, let the police track the serial numbers of their cash if they catch them doing crimes or whatever. The mob isn't my problem, but losing freedom is bad for every citizen.

Crow_of_Minerva ,
@Crow_of_Minerva@feddit.it avatar

The mob isn't your problem unless you live in a society shaped heavily by them. In that case, this act has more pros than cons

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Just because one country has it doesn't mean another should adopt it

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

And the USA system is bullshit and I'm against it.

agent_flounder ,
@agent_flounder@lemmy.world avatar

This doesn't seem that much worse than American rules that have already been in place for a long, long time.

Do you really want to be like the US, though? I think maybe that's not a great idea. (Source: am from US)

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