Topic: [Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges - page 8. (Read 2773 times)

Add one more to the list, please.

Known scam site Bitlucy(crap).com is apparently very concerned about mixed coins:

8.8. Strict Anti-Coin Mixing Policy - Bitlucy has a strict policy against mixing coins. In accordance with the KYC and AML policies outlined in our terms. If a deposit or withdrawal is suspected of being received from or sent to an address that is associated with the mixing of coins, Bitlucy reserves the right to indefinitely hold a transaction until one of the following is complete: (1) The withdrawal is refunded to the same address through which the deposit was made from; or (2) the withdrawal is sent upon a full and thorough KYC and AML account verification and everything is accurate; or (3) the withdrawal is refunded and full gameplay has been reached.

What a joke.

Because you don't know there's an alternative, and if you don't know that, then you will, rationally, fall back on thinking that's the only solution there is. No matter how unfair it is, if you can't imagine of something better, your brain will, automatically, stop thinking about the problem. You will get to admit it, sooner or later.

But, it's time to change this. We do have a better alternative now. Bitcoin, that eliminates dishonest human behavior. There are no words in this system. Words are empty, they take no part in the way we construct consensus. Action is what matters. There's no faith in this system. Proof-of-Work is self-authenticating. Bitcoin is, ultimately, more fair.

And that's before we even talk about the efficiency aspect.

No arguing there. It's probably the weirdest business we have. Then again, "money" is weird too. To quote Henry Ford:
I believe this is still true. Why work all your life for a tiny amount of money, while central banks create a million times more money than you earn in a lifetime in a millisecond?

This, by the way, is why I'm in Bitcoin. Central banks can't create more. And I believe they truely fear that.

That's not always possible. For one, what are you going to do with that huge pile of cash afterwards? Buying something else with cash (like, another car at a dealership) will require proving source of funds. I mentioned in the past on this forum, that trying to buy a car over 10,000€ with cash required proving source of funds.
Further, are you willing to accept 1BTC worth of cash without checking it? A bank is usually a good way to check the money is good; either meet with the buyer at their bank and have them withdraw the money in front of you (that would work) or you go to your bank and try depositing it. But that won't work if you want to skip the bank altogether.

It's absurd, for sure. Just the fact that they get bailed out if they make bad business decisions, using taxpayer money, while every other business doesn't. Or the fact that they just buy politicians and nobody turns an eye; while it's essentially simply bribing. Or, as you say; that they define 'taint' without having an easily linkable history of funds like the Bitcoin blockchain does. What's also absurd is that I can't talk to a representative if it's weekend, if it's too early or too late, if it's a national holiday and probably many more cases; which means it's disfunctional 50% of the time. It's just a bad system. (rant over)

I would always choose payment in cash for trading like this, this option is also available in Bisq face-to-face, or accept several smaller payments in your bank accounts, in different time periods.
It's a good idea to some choose crowded public place for this trade, and not some dark corner of the night.
You can buy a car and most things, unless it's lamborgini or something super expensive that would attract lot of attention.

Isn't this banking system weird all together?
There is no magical formula that turns money from dirty to clean, it's just numbers on screen and they all have history to show if you go back enough.
It's just some dudes with seating in chair central control station saying what is clean and what is not.
Oh and they also control offshore banks, when they need them 

I guess then things will only substantially change when Bitcoiners will start bribing donating and funding politicians.

Not just that, but the banks keep these politicians in power by generous donations and funding their campaigns, as well as constantly funding them after they have been elected with gifts, grants, and other lobbying.

Have a look at: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F03

This shows you the breakdown of funding by commercial banks in 2021-2022 in the US. Feel free to choose a different financial sector or election cycle from the menu on the right. Make sure to check out both the total campaign donations as well as the total lobbying spending.

As long as our politicians are so heavily funded by banks, then the banks will continue to be allowed to launder money and other illegal activities. They may occasionally get hit with some inconsequential fine of a few million dollars to keep up the façade, but nothing that actually affects their bottom line.

That won't ever change either, as long as the top-tier politicians use banks themselves for their shady businesses, right?

I'm pretty sure that EU legislation is more lax than most countries' individual laws; as we've seen with the house sale in Portugal and no VAT or other taxes on crypto. This is now all a tangent on its own in this topic, so to get back on it; I don't think EU legislation calls for blacklisting of UTXOs. And therefore countries who want to be more crypto-friendly could explicitly position themselves in favor of fungibility and against 'taint'. In my opinion though, most people don't even realize that this taint and blacklisting is happening or ignore it; there must be demand / public interest for 'taint denying' Bitcoin services / exchanges / countries; then they will in one way or another emerge.

I don't think it matters. They know banks are used by criminals, but banks consider money from other banks clean.

Something tells me receiving a bank transfer from El Salvador (which has one of the highest crime rates in Latin America) will be a big red flag.

Portugal won't help much, it's part of EU and thus has to follow EU legislation.

That was my impression, too. So it means if politicians one day find out that criminals use centralized exchanges as well, cashing out via centralized exchange won't be any better than P2P or decentralized, right?

It seems to me like you need some sort of 'government-approved party' in your crypto-to-fiat-path to prevent issues with larger amounts. What if new exchanges are going to be based in a crypto-friendly country like Portugal or El Salvador; such an exchange could probably get away with accepting all UTXOs, without blacklisting, while at the same time being 'governmentally-approved' so that banks won't need to thoroughly question source of funds when cashing out.

One of the things they check is indeed if you sent money to a centralized exchange In the past.

Unless you decide you want to deposit the cash (in a large amount) to your bank again.

The banks just tries to cover their asses, especially after the huge fines they've had recently for not doing enough against money laundering. Even though, as far as I know, those fines were based on fiat money laundering.

Okay; so because I didn't buy via KYC exchange in the first place (therefore 'not traceable in my name'), they'll ask more questions compared to another sale and may / may not steal my fiat money?
Then I guess a P2P (cash in hand) trade of those BTC might be possible or otherwise a direct sale for BTC. In that case you will be sure not to get anything stolen from you and as long as your tax documents are fine, there won't be issues on that front either.

That's because the bank has liabilities / duties to the country it operates in and a registered exchange (company) is an easy / no headache source of funds for them, right?

Yep. It may vary per country, but I'd expect a letter asking many questions (just shy of the color of my underware).

They'll also ask for a copy of your taxes, including your savings at other banks. Privacy? Lol. If you don't like it, they'll close your account.

Not really: the car is traceable in your name.

I think the proper term in English is a wealth tax, but indeed, filing it and paying your annual taxes avoids jail time if you ever buy a jet or something.

You'll be fine, as long as you answer all privacy invading questions your bank asks.

From what I've seen, using an established exchange makes the bank "easier" because they know at least the other party isn't a criminal. Now let's say you sell 1 BTC and receive $20,000 tainted dollars P2P. Then what?

Not so simple if the money come from a complete stranger. But, if they come from a well-known, billion dollar worth of company, "the bell might not ring". Again, though, I'm not so sure what to do with the tax office.

It isn't, because, first of all I can't evade the taxation of a mobile (in contrast with bitcoin), and second, there's normally a legal framework around that and I know what I should do, how much it'll cost me in the end etc.

Unfortunately, not.

Me neither, but I have a feeling that people who use a centralized exchange cover up this issue. Maybe I need to reach an accountant.

You're saying if I sell 1BTC on Bisq and I suddenly get $20,000 via bank transfer, which on other days doesn't happen too often, the bank is going to ask questions? I mean, you could just reply to those questions honestly and say you bought BTC at a certain earlier point in time and sold it online. I don't think it would be a big issue; it's going to be similar to buying (or selling) another expensive item like a car.

Maybe the only catch would be that - in your words - 'there is no legal framework for cryptocurrencies in your country'. I'm honestly not sure what happens if there is no 'category' for cryptocurrency at all, but I believe most countries do have something by now; so of course make sure that you're legally allowed to own a large sum of BTC without telling anyone, if you want to keep it 'hidden', prior to selling it.
If you're in a country that has property tax (I believe such as LoyceV), and plan to sell it for fiat in the future, make sure to tell them yearly how much BTC you own (denominated in fiat) and you can hold it anonymously (no need to hand public keys or anything like that) without problems. Then, when the day comes that you're selling it all on Bisq, there shouldn't be any issues. Since they can go back and see that you always declared ownership of them and paid your taxes on them.

In general I don't think using a centralized exchange to do something illegal in your country, is going to make it legal. If you follow your laws in the first place, you can pretty surely sell P2P without worries. If you didn't follow some law, which later makes it hard to sell your crypto, it will be just as hard if you use a centralized exchange.

There's one case, though, in which I justify the use of centralized exchanges: If you're sending (or receiving) a lot of money via a bank account or another financial institution and there is no legal framework for cryptocurrencies in your country.

This is some trouble, because not only do you have to somehow justify the transaction to the bank, but you also have to be aware of some special-arbitrary treatment from the tax office. Using a centralized exchange is probably going to pull you through the former, but I'm not so sure about the latter. Exchanging with Bisq in this case might not be a wise move.

I've got another incentive! Money


What do you mean with revenue sharing? Something like staking / lending features?
Right now, in the case of Bisq the profit you get for 'participating' is that your order stays online. There's no need and no use for you to keep the application running if you don't try to buy / sell which I think is the simplest and most secure way to do things. Sure, you could incentivize users to run their Bisq nodes to 'host' other people's offers and such, so that it's not mandatory to keep the application running to buy or sell. But I don't think it's a good idea; it would make things unnecessarily complicated and introduce many more failure points.

Integrating Lightning is definitely going to be a big step for Bisq (or other decentralized exchanges), as it will allow to DCA more easily and also to quickly get small amounts of fiat when you need it, without requiring to pay relatively high on-chain fees (since it's multisig and there are Bisq fees and whatnot).

I'd definitely agree that having the peace of mind that there's not a company behind the scenes that can mess things up is a big bonus.

There is really no incentive to use use centralized exchanges.
Yes, it's probably easier to use them and there is much bigger volume that is probably automated or fake.
You can't get better incentive than knowing your coins are not sent to some third party man who will track your every step and scan your every move and transaction.

We don't know how the future of decentralized exchanges will look like, but it's totally possible to create some revenue sharing that would create profit for everyone who participate in that dex.
Using something like Lightning or other second layer solution, with improved privacy would be big advantage for me, and you don't have to worry about angry employee stealing your data because he got sacked from with work.

Honestly, if throughout multiple years of using centralized exchanges, only once you get an account frozen or closed, once you get coins blacklisted, once your exchange exit scams you, or even if you want to withdraw your funds when you buy Bitcoin - a decentralized exchange will actually be cheaper.

In another thread people reported some exchanges' withdrawal fees for Bitcoin are around the $20 mark; if that's not 'getting less money in your pocket / wallet', I don't know what is.

The new (good) ones have to be better than those they are trying to replace. In every sense of the world. If it's a combination of good and bad, most people will just continue using the sites they are comfortable with. Unfortunately, it mostly boils down to how much money/crypto will eventually end up in someone's pocket or wallet. You are not going to get to most people telling them how decentralized exchanges are better and explaining the reasons why that is, when all they see is that the centralized one gives them $50.000/coin, while the best offer on the decentralized one is only $49.200.   

Then there is the issue with marketing. Have you ever seen an ad or commercial for Bisq? Me neither. But if you watch sports, you can see centralized exchanges in the biggest sports competitions nowadays. Money buys new customers.