My fear with strongly anonymous DeFi is indirectly harming the environment and supporting crime. Sadly doesn't look like Monero resolve these concerns.
People will do things with money that you're uncomfortable with. If it's criminal, then laws and enforcement and investigation will have to evolve. That doesn't mean "well, I guess we have to give up privacy now. "
Not your money, not your business. Privacy is important, and it's a binary proposition. It's either part of the currency or it's not. You can't have any gray area because people are fallible, malicious, and stupid. You design the system to disempower human foibles as much as you can. Monero does a good job of that.
Cash is much more difficult to take across borders... Monero is superior to cash for criminal activity in just about every way, the only downside is that it's a bit less liquid. This deflection about it being used in crime less than cash is weak to the point of bad faith.
The privacy argument has more to stand on though. Although I will say "not your money, not our business" is a pretty controversial take.
There should be absolutely nothing controversial with that. What I spend my money on that doesn't harm anyone is nobody's business but mine and whoever I'm paying. If it does harm someone, well, that's why we have laws and law enforcement. It's the harm - the crime - that gets punished or penalized. Just like someone who gets drunk and drives. The results can be heinous, so the action is appropriately and severely punished.
Anonymity, or fungibility, doesn't interfere with that. It simply requires that evidence of harm or crime not depend on an abstract exchange of information.
Monero (and others) does make ransom collection much more convenient/safe to do.
Isn't it its main use case, with probably purchasing drugs and arms?
I'm not saying that in theory people wouldn't want to privately purchase their baguette (sorry I'm French), it's just that in practice they generally don't care, unless they are doing something illegal.
I'm curious, for those of you who do, what do you actually purchase with monero that's legal? (And why?)
You want to tip people on Twitter with BTC and have your address exposed to everyone? You want people to be able to trace how much you have in that wallet? Why not let people see the transactions going through your checking account? You got nothing to hide, right?
It's a good point, but I was not thinking of using some other crypto currency instead, but just normal money (I don't have to make the amount on my account public to pay by credit card)
10 years later, wife believes I have acquired a mistress. She files divorce, and my bank statements are entered into the court as part of the divorce proceedings. The baguette vendor I visit every night when i sneak out to buy a baguette happens to be located next to the alleged mistresse's address (wife believes I was banging her and eating baguettes, in reality the only temptress was the baguette's vendor's sweet sweet tales of doughy goodness), and now in a number of US states I now owe her increased alimony for a "fault" divorce.
I walk sadly down to the baguette shop, sobbing into my smartphone, where I beg using my tiny remains after the divorce proceeding to buy just one stale baguette. The shopkeep takes pity and pulls last weeks remains out of the trash bin.
As the salt of my tears mix with the mold of the stale baguette, I sit in torment "why didn't I pay in Monero!"
-------- Epilogue -------
3 months later, I join the legion etrangere, the last respite for a soul with no money, no skills, and no baguettes. I have no family to miss me, and any wages I get in the civilian life are garnished. I'm deployed to Mali, a land of no baguettes. 5 more days until I finally get my 200 Euro's pay -- I finally can order a baguette. I hear a loud sound. Several tribesman surround me with pointed sticks. My FAL jams, and I feel the warm fiery sensation of the sticks piercing my organs, as the life force drains out of me. One more baguette was all I wanted. If only I had bought my baguettes with a fungible untraceable currency.
The main lesson I hear here is "don't get married especially if you are in the US" ;)
In France we are lucky enough to have another kind of civil union which is much less intrusive with what you can do with your baguette ;) and also have no consequences when you end it.
I have paid for splitting a ride share, tipping open source projects, donating to development funds, etc. I use it because I hate the trend of surveillance capitalism you see with crap like Venmo and even credit cards.
> Privacy is important, and it's a binary proposition.
It never used to be a binary proposition, it used to be somewhat proportionate because (a) there was a cost to surveillance and (b) there was a cost to acting covertly - crime was inherently local and hard to scale.
So you wouldn't have the police surveilling everyone unless that was critical to the stability of the state (Stasi etc), and it was infeasible to track cash transactions so a certain amount of crime and evasion was tolerated. But it was limited because cash is inherently bulky. Even a few million dollars is hard to carry around.
Now the internet has falsified both of those. Both crime and surveillance can be scaled up and globalized. So it has become binarized, with one of two outcomes: anonymous transactions + frictionless crime, including evasion of tax and currency controls; OR omnipresent surveillance of everyone and every transaction.
Cryptocurrency is accelerating towards one of those two outcomes. I just don't think it'll be the first one.
The dollar system is built on eternal growth and the oil economy, and its proof of work is endless wars. I'll take bitcoin and monero any day; they're much, much greener than what we currently have.
A wasteless means of payment and accounting is wishful thinking, from my point of view.
We don't really use cash anymore, but a digital representation of it. This comes with a lot of electricity consumption on datacenters, among other waste.
For example: financial institutions have to waste a lot of resources just to keep the system "safe", for you, the government, etc. Requires extensive cybersecurity, bureaucratic and legal spending.
How much of a carbon footprint does the global traditional cash and banking industry produce per usd relative to the equivalent footprint of a cryptocurrency?
It's not just electricity, it's concrete and steel for banks and parking lots, employees driving to and from work, armored cars transporting cash, etc. Traditional cash is many, many orders of magnitude dirtier than even the worst cryptocurrency.
If you could assess the cost in pollution and other harms, you'd also want to assess the value in jobs and infrastructure and other utility. I'd bet cryptocurrency ends up being a far better tool all around, especially if institutional protections can be emulated - some sort of fraud insurance and so on.
Anyway, it's silly to neg on crypto because it uses lots of power. Total red herring.
It's a good ambition to make crypto more efficient, but the fuss is all FUD memeing from the usual suspects.
I don't know how it could resolve the "supporting crime" concern, really. When something is anonymous/private, it's going to be used for things you don't like. It's then all about whether you think the tradeoff is worth it.
Personally, I think it is, but I understand how others can have different viewpoints. I think the logical conclusion if you take the opposite stance is that you're against anonymity and/or privacy, though.
> I think the logical conclusion if you take the opposite stance is that you're against anonymity and/or privacy, though.
People are all for anonymity until law enforcement can no longer catch criminals. There's a balance there your statement is lacking. It's kinda like saying if you support anonymity, you must be clearly pro-crime, which I don't think you are.
E.g. Banking regulations don't allow banks to publish details of customer's accounts. But KYC allows banks to report questionable activity to FINCEN, say. And that seems to strike a balance between regulation and anonymity.
> It's kinda like saying if you support anonymity, you must be clearly pro-crime, which I don't think you are.
I think it's that, if you are pro-catching-crime, you're against anonymity, because that's a prerequisite. If you're for anonymity, you don't have to be pro-crime, because crime isn't a prerequisite for anonymity.
> People are all for anonymity until law enforcement can no longer catch criminals.
That is certainly true. I just think that it's used against morally-good causes much more often than it's used against morally-bad, or at least that the benefit we get for the latter doesn't justify the former. One salient example is the security theater we have to go through in airports since 9/11, which have eroded the liberty of millions of people and have probably caught (or even deterred) zero people.
> if you are pro-catching-crime, you're against anonymity, because that's a prerequisite.
I'm not sure it is. It seems to me you can be pro-hoodie without being pro-murder. It also appears that being anti-murder doesn't require you to be anti-hoodie.
> One salient example is the security theater we have to go through in airports since 9/11, which have eroded the liberty of millions of people and have probably caught (or even deterred) zero people.
I won't say the TSA is good at their jobs. But I will say that anonymity ends at the door of an airplane. Now whether the former can do the latter is another question entirely.
True. The issue I have is that anonymity exists, it's just expensive, so only rich people have it. This makes the choice from "financial privacy or no financial privacy" to "financial privacy for the rich or for everyone".
Disagree because you’re already getting screwed by the rich. Being anonymous doesn’t divorce from the “getting screwed” class, but it continues to aid the rich.
Financial anonymity is important — just because the panic of the day is “secret Nazis” doesn’t make this untrue. Consider a woman trying to escape domestic abuse, who has been financially trapped. If all transactions are untraceable, a $20 to “a grocery store” here and there can very well be her escape route. Same goes for oppressed individuals attempting to escape abusive families, neighborhoods, countries. Realistically the people you’re most worried about have used what they’ve always used to conduct their transactions anonymously: cash.
Just because the government knows about my bank account doesn't mean my wife/neighbor/rando does. No one is talking about radically public bank accounts; the surveillance is only for the government.
Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Doors and curtains also support crime, but somehow some basic privacy is fundamental human right. For now...
Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.
This is a common trope, but incorrect. Cash is really hard to do crime with. You can't actually get any meaningful quantity of it without having a SAR or CTR filed on you (or the person obtaining it). It's big and bulky, it's uniquely numbered and traceable. You can't deposit any meaningful quantity without having a SAR or CTR filed.
Converting it back into something digital, anonymously/untraceably requires laundering it where you end up losing 20-70% of the value.
Cash sucks for any meaningful crime.
Cash is designed to be traceable and to move millions of it would be truly a feat. On the other hand you can move billions of crypto for the fuck of it.
Crypto is good for crime.
> Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.
The US draws the right balance: your transactions are private until the court authorizes the police obtain them on the basis of probable cause. Now it may not be executed perfectly every time but that's advocating for reforming that system, not throwing it out.
You do have valid points, but again it's all about cost of doing business. Fortunatrly majority of criminals are just people making money and not just crazy who want to watch world burn. So if their ROI is 1000% and they're okay with the risks they still gonna run their shady businesses even if cost of doing business will double or triple.
War on drugs has proven that it's impossible to fight this kind of activity no matter how much resources you throw at it. And running scams / botnets / extortion on internet is way less risky criminal activity than selling drugs.
> The US draws the right balance
Unfortunately it doesn't work like this in most of the world and US isn't about to invite remaining 95% of world population to join the party.
It's not that I support criminals, but majority of crime on internet (not counting actually selling drugs) is either scams, botnets or extortion. IMHO they all can only be solved by combination of educating people better and improving systems security overall.
Instead western government promise to solve crime with surveillance, draconian AML policies and censorship. After all it worked so well in authoritarian countries all around the world. /s
>You can't actually get any meaningful quantity of it without having a SAR or CTR filed on you (or the person obtaining it). It's big and bulky, it's uniquely numbered and traceable. You can't deposit any meaningful quantity without having a SAR or CTR filed.
I could pressure wash houses for $200 a house everyday and get 100k in less than 2 years. Or bartend, work as a waitress for a few years, whatever. There's plenty of ways people end up with large sums of cash without a SAR or CTR. Some individuals conceivably may pull 2-3k a month out of an ATM for a few years, why would that flag a SAR on you? See this guy, who [1] despite having a bank account had 87k seized by thieves in blue on the side of the road, who meticulously kept ATM statements for most all of it.
> your transactions are private until the court authorizes the police obtain them on the basis of probable cause
What is the court that signs an order, based on probable cause of a crime, for each cash transaction over 10,000? What is the court that orders, based on probable cause, a bank file a SAR when they are suspicious of your transactions. What is the court that signs an order, based on probable cause of a crime, that you declare foreign bank accounts with a combined value above $10k? Can you point me towards the warrants that have been issued for each of these transactions that show the probable cause?
What is the court order, on probable cause, that requires foreign banks to comply with FATCA for Americans abroad?
What is the court order, on probable cause, that requires money transmitters to collect KYC on customers regardless of there being any probable cause whatsoever of a crime?
The idea your transaction are private until ordered by a court is absolute hogwash.
Money laundering just make it more expensive for criminals to get the profits. So does crypto due to ever moving exchange rates, comissions, etc.
Also just want to remind you that the world doesn't end on US soil and once you moved cash to a different country this kind of tracking becomes more and more complicated.
Cash is legitimately harder to launder than some cryptocurrency. It's not about the expense, it's the infrastructure you have to build. Front companies and shell companies to move the money around. The more cash you have to launder the more of these entities you'll need.
The more paper records you generate the more likely you're going to get raided by the FBI, Scotland Yard, etc.
How are you going to get huge quantities of cash across borders without anyone noticing? Even the Narcos know thats a bad plan, they used binders of gift cards.
Lol do you have any idea how porous the US-Mexico border is? Money can cross the same way 10s of thousands of kilos does, only traffic is even less scrutinized going south than it is going north.
I'm not a money laundering expert, but when you already using crypto with a huge chance to lose 10-30% on exchange rate flunctations I don't believe it's that hard to come up with an idea.
Let's say you'll make a fake startup funded by VCs from all around the world. There is plenty of people who will love to buy few million dollars with 30% discount.
This isn't about some petty crime though, but again it's much easier to move smaller amount of money anyway.
Then why are you regurgitating this uninformed vomit passing as currency expertise? You clearly don't understand how money laundering works with paper cash, and you think the only thing that matters is "cost".
Okay, now this is rude. We're on public forum here sharing our opinions. Mine are based on the fact that I do know how online criminals operate as well as how money laundering work in my country.
I really can't speak about US and how FBI works, but again most of online criminals are not operate in the US.
Whatever. Go forward with your witch hunt. I personally never use crypto myself, though do some contract development on Eth-powered projects.
As about money laundering your opinion is one of a person living in western country with working institutions and strong legal frameworks. Unfortunately this isn't the case in many places around the globe. There is tons of countries where everything is just a question of % you want to pay.
Saddam Hussein who controlled his own currency (and even had his face on it) wanted US Dollars. The wanting of US Dollars (and laundering them) isn't limited to those who live in a western country.
Ultimately, you just have to let go. Every possible action you take in your life could be taken advantage by criminals. Do you want to let that restrict you ability to lead your life? I don’t.
Indeed it is a trade-off. And leaks revealing the dirty tricks of the rich and powerful make me wonder how effective KYC and similar controls are in practice. Yet it's that very visibility that motives people to act.
So perhaps the ideal is a sliding scale. The more powerful you are then the less anonymity/privacy you should be allowed, at least in financial or political matters.
Careful what you wish for, it's a double-edged sword: do you really want anti-abortion activists abusing funders of Planned Parenthood...? Or anti-immigration extremists harassing funders of NGOs who help Afghan refugees...?
There's lots of things that an order of magnitude more folks do that harm the environment than DeFi/cryptocurrency/shitcoin gambling. I'd love to revisit the environmental impacts of cryptocurrency after we've moved to electric cars, decreased car usage, decreased HVAC waste, made our toilets/sinks/showers more efficient, made our factories run on hydrogen instead of coal, and clean up shipping emissions. Once we're even halfway down that list, then I think we're ready to tackle the environmental question of cryptocurrency.
> What is lost if DeFi were more heavily regulated or outlawed? What is lost if shipping were more more heavily regulated / outlawed?
Getting people to agree on "low-hanging fruit" is very difficult. Even on here you'll see people that are fine with using energy on crypto. It'll be an even taller order convincing folks that shipping should be outlawed or tightly restricted, especially folks living in rural car-dominated areas of Anglo countries. Then you'll have to mount a new fight to convince people to heavily restrict the bath and restrict shower usage. Oh and keeping your lights on all night. Then start a campaign to restrict running the AC. There will undoubtedly be folks who'll try specifically to find holes in restrictions as well, such as buying a propane stove on areas where gas stoves are banned, then you'll need to amend all of these restrictions and burn ever more political capital.
Much simpler to tax energy based on emissions. If that means PoW crypto will never be profitable, then they can pound sand. That way you also won't have lobby groups grandfather weird exceptions on restrictions to preserve their precious market.
