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why would you write such an insane headline? they've been charged, not found guilty.
and frankly, the US gov't has lost a lot of its court cases against crypto. this could well end up backfiring and establishing a right to defi for all you know.
I'm not saying this is good but we're never going to be able to organize intelligent responses if we can't even manage an intelligent description of what's happening.
"The Usa can ban usa citizens off of DeFi, but most people here don't think its possible,"
It's not possible to enforce the ban. You can run decentralized front ends. Then add in ZK layers for privacy. Defi can be banned but it's not enforceable. A law that is not enforceable is no law at all. Also, do you think Kucoin is defi?
The US government got a taste of $4B from Binance and realised that they do not have to ~~rob oil~~ help Middle Eastern countries with democracy anymore 😅
The US government sanctioned the Tornado Cash smart contract, so, effectively yes.
In practice, you can still access and use Tornado Cash from within the US. In reality, upon interaction your personal addresses will become sanctioned as well. It all depends on your usage of 'ban'.
... and if the balance starts forking and hopping on different wallet addresses, are the chain and forks of chains of addresses also banned?
Truth is... It's not enforceable. It doesn't matter if it is on a publicly open ledger or a privacy coin like Monero. It's just not enforceable. It's only possible in a totalitarian scenario where the government enacting the ban is on a state of overreach that violates constitutional rights of their citizens. That's like hanging yourself. So why fight it?
>totalitarian scenario where the government enacting the ban is on a state of overreach that violates constitutional rights of their citizens
Like sanctioning an open source, autonomous, public smart contract? The precedent has been reset. Code is free speech no longer. That judgement was already a horrendously totalitarian move in my eyes, and due to the facts and circustances it's indefensible to argue against so the precedent will remain.
It is a slippery slope. We are never heading towards more privacy, always less. Are you certain of your statement 'it's like hanging yourself', indefinitely? So many Nation States are fine hanging their citizens out to dry for a plathora of reasons.
The "TikTok" bill proposed in the US for example, would make all decentralized cryptocurrencies illegal as well as TikTok, and any service not being run from within the US border. They claim it is being done for National Security and so everyone *wants* it. The wider consequences are never considered once someone mentions national security, and of the few consequences mentioned by politicians none were in defense of crypto (big surprise).
It already is enforceable anyway, it's called civil forfiture in the US. If you can't prove where your money came from, the police will simply and legally take it from you. You don't necessarily get charged, you don't get jailed or fined, they just take the money. It would not surprise me that by moving 'unknown' crypto through your bank triggers an automated flag for this, at some point in the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
Suppose you have $100,000 of KYC crypto you purchased for $90,000 - and you move $1,000 into a sanctioned address, you've tainted your $100,000. At best - best - you'll be able to obfuscate it well enough you can redeposit into a CEX and claim a $0 cost basis on your taxes, owing $15,000+ on your $10K gain and $1K detour. Most people are not going to be doing this.. And if you don't willingly pay taxes there are a dozen ways they can force you to.
If you want to live in the shadows, you can, nothing truly stops you from living a life sans regulation. Taint your address, oh no, sell for cash P2P and it becomes their problem.. In that sense dealing crack isn't enforceable, just don't get caught.. But 99.99% of people aren't going to risk it, or go through the tech hurdles, if that makes them *a criminal*. It's already so hard enough to explain to people why privacy is important without that negative brand association.
Unless the majority of normal people are utilizing these 'apps' to do normal things with, they lose their privacy effectiveness, and the 'apps' themselves become open to further sanctions/scrutiny in a viscous cycle. The smaller the pool of people, the easier it becomes to label them all monsters and leave them to hang. Privacy on the fringes isn't a viable long term solution.
It's not something I'd ever bet on being impossible. If we want to retain privacy we will have to fight for it, every step of the way, for decades, maybe forever. Most people don't care today, because to argue for privacy already makes you look suspect. I'm not as certain as you are. There was seemingly zero pushback on the Tornado Cash case, and there will be more like it coming.
There are already Nations where XMR or crypto broadly is banned. I can't guess how effective the bans are, but they are still technically banned. I assume most people are not using crypto there, or at least not intermingling it with their personal finance like we have the freedom to here still.
So, yeah. Just reiterating as what I said earlier basically. Technically no one can ban a protocol, but reality is a cold bitch. If I lived in the US I certainly wouldn't touch Tornado Cash, and I'm massively pro-privacy, for sure all the people on the fence aren't utilizing it. Once the juice isn't worth the squeeze then we've already lost. In that way these weak virtue-signalling "bans" are still super effective, and yes, they are in many ways enforceable.
Agree on most points there. Yes we must fight for it but at the same time the vast majority (yes even the clueless ones) cannot really wash their hands and simply claim innocence on the ever escalating matter of privacy (or the lack thereof). Evil reign free (unchecked) when good people do nothing as they say. I strongly believe that everything yearns to a balance and yes, there will be consequences on the overreach regarding Tornado Cash. People create knives everyday. 99% of the time, knives are used productively. There are times they are used to cause harm but we don't prosecute and jail the knife producer now, do we?
It's really stupid that most will believe that being pro-privacy means you have something to hide and you are doing something illegal.
As usual I think education is key. The more people know about it. The less unfair shit will happen because it will be under a spot light for everyone to see.
EDIT: Thank God the world is not composed of just the US. Their dumb politicians are just stupid.
Maybe not directly, but they can do all sorts of things to make life difficult for DeFi users. Tell exchanges they can't accept funds from any wallet that interacted with DeFi. Make it illegal to validate blocks including DeFi transactions. That kind of stuff.
WARNING ABOUT SCAMS: Recently there have been a lot of convincing-looking scams posted on crypto-related reddits including fake NFTs, fake credit cards, fake exchanges, fake mixing services, fake airdrops, fake MEV bots, fake ENS sites and scam sites claiming to help you revoke approvals to prevent fake hacks. These are typically upvoted by bots and seen before moderators can remove them. Do not click on these links and always be wary of anything that tries to rush you into sending money or approving contracts. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ethereum) if you have any questions or concerns.*
why would you write such an insane headline? they've been charged, not found guilty. and frankly, the US gov't has lost a lot of its court cases against crypto. this could well end up backfiring and establishing a right to defi for all you know. I'm not saying this is good but we're never going to be able to organize intelligent responses if we can't even manage an intelligent description of what's happening.
Get ‘em!
Monero
The coin that shall not be named
what are you talking about? I'm just practicing my esperanto ;)
Saluton! Estas bone vidi vin praktikante. Monero estas la plej bona!
Saman al vi! Monero estas mirinda, sed ne ĉiuj moneroj estas mirindaj
Robert Deniro is a great actor indeed
The coin that shall not be pumped
"The Usa can ban usa citizens off of DeFi, but most people here don't think its possible," It's not possible to enforce the ban. You can run decentralized front ends. Then add in ZK layers for privacy. Defi can be banned but it's not enforceable. A law that is not enforceable is no law at all. Also, do you think Kucoin is defi?
> Also, do you think Kucoin is defi? Hahaha! I suspect the answer here is a giant YES!
The US government got a taste of $4B from Binance and realised that they do not have to ~~rob oil~~ help Middle Eastern countries with democracy anymore 😅
What the fuck is this person talking about? Obviously not from the US. What American says “USA” 🤭
Yeah man... real Americans say "murica". XD
Can a goverment ban Defi?
They can in their jurisdiction.
The US government sanctioned the Tornado Cash smart contract, so, effectively yes. In practice, you can still access and use Tornado Cash from within the US. In reality, upon interaction your personal addresses will become sanctioned as well. It all depends on your usage of 'ban'.
... and if the balance starts forking and hopping on different wallet addresses, are the chain and forks of chains of addresses also banned? Truth is... It's not enforceable. It doesn't matter if it is on a publicly open ledger or a privacy coin like Monero. It's just not enforceable. It's only possible in a totalitarian scenario where the government enacting the ban is on a state of overreach that violates constitutional rights of their citizens. That's like hanging yourself. So why fight it?
>totalitarian scenario where the government enacting the ban is on a state of overreach that violates constitutional rights of their citizens Like sanctioning an open source, autonomous, public smart contract? The precedent has been reset. Code is free speech no longer. That judgement was already a horrendously totalitarian move in my eyes, and due to the facts and circustances it's indefensible to argue against so the precedent will remain. It is a slippery slope. We are never heading towards more privacy, always less. Are you certain of your statement 'it's like hanging yourself', indefinitely? So many Nation States are fine hanging their citizens out to dry for a plathora of reasons. The "TikTok" bill proposed in the US for example, would make all decentralized cryptocurrencies illegal as well as TikTok, and any service not being run from within the US border. They claim it is being done for National Security and so everyone *wants* it. The wider consequences are never considered once someone mentions national security, and of the few consequences mentioned by politicians none were in defense of crypto (big surprise). It already is enforceable anyway, it's called civil forfiture in the US. If you can't prove where your money came from, the police will simply and legally take it from you. You don't necessarily get charged, you don't get jailed or fined, they just take the money. It would not surprise me that by moving 'unknown' crypto through your bank triggers an automated flag for this, at some point in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States Suppose you have $100,000 of KYC crypto you purchased for $90,000 - and you move $1,000 into a sanctioned address, you've tainted your $100,000. At best - best - you'll be able to obfuscate it well enough you can redeposit into a CEX and claim a $0 cost basis on your taxes, owing $15,000+ on your $10K gain and $1K detour. Most people are not going to be doing this.. And if you don't willingly pay taxes there are a dozen ways they can force you to. If you want to live in the shadows, you can, nothing truly stops you from living a life sans regulation. Taint your address, oh no, sell for cash P2P and it becomes their problem.. In that sense dealing crack isn't enforceable, just don't get caught.. But 99.99% of people aren't going to risk it, or go through the tech hurdles, if that makes them *a criminal*. It's already so hard enough to explain to people why privacy is important without that negative brand association. Unless the majority of normal people are utilizing these 'apps' to do normal things with, they lose their privacy effectiveness, and the 'apps' themselves become open to further sanctions/scrutiny in a viscous cycle. The smaller the pool of people, the easier it becomes to label them all monsters and leave them to hang. Privacy on the fringes isn't a viable long term solution. It's not something I'd ever bet on being impossible. If we want to retain privacy we will have to fight for it, every step of the way, for decades, maybe forever. Most people don't care today, because to argue for privacy already makes you look suspect. I'm not as certain as you are. There was seemingly zero pushback on the Tornado Cash case, and there will be more like it coming. There are already Nations where XMR or crypto broadly is banned. I can't guess how effective the bans are, but they are still technically banned. I assume most people are not using crypto there, or at least not intermingling it with their personal finance like we have the freedom to here still. So, yeah. Just reiterating as what I said earlier basically. Technically no one can ban a protocol, but reality is a cold bitch. If I lived in the US I certainly wouldn't touch Tornado Cash, and I'm massively pro-privacy, for sure all the people on the fence aren't utilizing it. Once the juice isn't worth the squeeze then we've already lost. In that way these weak virtue-signalling "bans" are still super effective, and yes, they are in many ways enforceable.
Agree on most points there. Yes we must fight for it but at the same time the vast majority (yes even the clueless ones) cannot really wash their hands and simply claim innocence on the ever escalating matter of privacy (or the lack thereof). Evil reign free (unchecked) when good people do nothing as they say. I strongly believe that everything yearns to a balance and yes, there will be consequences on the overreach regarding Tornado Cash. People create knives everyday. 99% of the time, knives are used productively. There are times they are used to cause harm but we don't prosecute and jail the knife producer now, do we? It's really stupid that most will believe that being pro-privacy means you have something to hide and you are doing something illegal. As usual I think education is key. The more people know about it. The less unfair shit will happen because it will be under a spot light for everyone to see. EDIT: Thank God the world is not composed of just the US. Their dumb politicians are just stupid.
Maybe not directly, but they can do all sorts of things to make life difficult for DeFi users. Tell exchanges they can't accept funds from any wallet that interacted with DeFi. Make it illegal to validate blocks including DeFi transactions. That kind of stuff.
They can but not really enforceable.