Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

cypherpunks ,
@cypherpunks@lemmy.ml avatar

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/

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)

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.

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

This feels like satire

shrugal , (edited )
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

Clickbait headline. The underlying article lists much more reasonable restrictions:

  • Anonymous cash payments over €3,000 will be banned in commercial transactions
  • Cash payments over €10,000 will even be completely banned in business transactions
  • Anonymous payments in cryptocurrencies to wallets operated by providers will be prohibited

So non-commercial transations are fine, as are crypto transactions to non-custodial wallets.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

That's all pretty damn reasonable...

possiblylinux127 ,
@possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip avatar

Unless you want to buy something with cash. Once they cross the line they won't stop until cash and anonymity are gone

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Yeah, that's my concern as well. However, most large cash purchases are things that are tracked anyway, like vehicles, houses, etc.

makeasnek OP , (edited )
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

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'.

shrugal , (edited )
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

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.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

so any business which accept crypto must KYC every one of their customers

No, any business must use a KYC custodian for their wallets. I don't think they'll need to KYC their customers, they'll just need to account for those transactions in their accounting.

So if the company accepts Monero, the Monero wallet would need to be with a custodian, but you'd be free to use Monero to buy stuff and remain anonymous. At least that's my read.

FarraigePlaisteach ,

What's the difference between commercial and business? I thought they were synonymous.

shrugal ,
@shrugal@lemm.ee avatar

I think they are used synonymously in this article, but business could also mean B2B transactions, so between two businesses.

TCB13 ,
@TCB13@lemmy.world avatar

more reasonable restrictions:

None of that is reasonable.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

And these limits will be tied to inflation?

kugmo ,
@kugmo@sh.itjust.works avatar

slippery slope, dumbass

Pantherina ,

Wtfff

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

Anybody who defends these actions by the EU is a poopy face

electric_nan ,

It's OK to be an outlaw.

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

HawlSera ,

creepy

Gooey0210 ,

I think people should create new and stronger communities to fight stuff like that

Topics, groups, etc, where people discuss and organize system fighting

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.

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

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

onlinepersona ,

How do you even ban anonymous crypto? It's anonymous 😅

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

BreakDecks ,

If you have €50,000 worth of Monero, they can't know and won't care. If you transfer it to someone else you'll be under the radar. If you try to cash out your Monero, they'll find out and you're in deep shit. Monero is worthless to most people if you you can't exchange for fiat.

onlinepersona ,

It's not a problem to get large sums of money out of money:

  • create a foundation, allow donations, get a few donations in monero, tada
  • spread it out to friends and family, let them take out the money in cash, receive money

Probably if you are able to fly to a country where there's lax rules on crypto exchanges and residency, you can get an address there, sign up for an exchange and get the monero out in that currency.
I'm sure if you asked a tax advisor how "optimize taxes" they'd give you a bunch of financial instruments to "not launder" money.

Honestly, these laws will probably mostly apply to people with large sums of money most normal people wouldn't dream of transferring anonymously.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

sugar_in_your_tea ,

This is for businesses, and businesses are required to have proper accounting and audits.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • privacy@lemmy.ml
  • random
  • incremental_games
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •