Governs oppress bitcoiners for more than a decade now. Being aware that bitcoiners earn
real fiat money from their crypto transactions, governs around the world started to extort bitcoiners, for taking away the money these people earned without having the State helping them in any way.
People work, get paid for their work, but the State wants its share.Oppression grew bigger and bigger as time passed. For being able to coerce people to pay, governs around the world created laws which did not exist before,
trying to centralize what was meant to be decentralized. And people, in their greed, helped the State to extort them even more.
Prometheus gave fire to people, for warming up their homes and for preparing food, but people used it to fire up neighbors' houses. Similar, Satoshi gave Bitcoin for free to people, for helping them to get rid of the slavery imposed by governs and banks, for performing peer-to-peer transactions, without the intervention of any third party, but people, in their greed, created centralized crypto exchanges.
Some opportunists believed they will get rich by operating such exchanges. One of them is Charlie Shrem (
Yankee (BitInstant)). A young enthusiast, which adopted Bitcoin while he was in college. Later he launches BitInstant, one of first crypto exchanges and which, at some point, was running about 30% of all Bitcoin transactions. Later he ends up in jail, for aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business. He was also called "
Bitcoin's first felon".
Since Shrem's case, governs started to be even more strict with bitcoiners. A 2018
article informs that "
The so-called “Bitcoin Maven,” who admitted to operating an unlicensed bitcoin-for-cash exchange business and laundering bitcoin [...] was sentenced today to 12 months and one day in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $20,000".
Crypto exchanges soared and so did their users, without understanding that they are acting against Bitcoin's main principles: peer-to-peer / anonymity / pseudonymity / getting rid of middle man. New laws appeared also together with crypto exchanges, and they forced exchanges to impose KYC to their customers.
People's greed led them to:
- risk their money held at exchanges, as they were not in possession of their private keys
- risk their money, as many exchanges were hacked
- risk their personal information, as many exchanges were hacked and hackers used customers' personal information or even sold it on dark web (which led to even more risks for these people, as you may never know when a criminal shows up at your door and robs you, after buying all your personal information for 1$ from dark web)
- risk their money, as many exchanges simply froze their accounts
- risk their money, as many banks froze their accounts, after finding out that money came from crypto transactions
- risk they money
and also their freedom, in case they did not obey to the new laws issued by the govern.
Yet, only a few learned their lesson. Perhaps those which were wise and those which had to live at least one of the above mentioned situations.
And, as time passes, "crypto laws" become even more harsh and more complex. In many cases, also more ridiculous or raising more questions unanswered by anybody.
In Romania, for example, first crypto law was issued in 2019 but, until then, you were facing the risk of being accused of tax evasion, of having a criminal record or even of jail time for not declaring the fiat money obtained from crypto transactions, although there was no legal framework. Accountants did not know how to declare these incomes of their customers and authorities did not know how to answer to people's questions. After the law was issued, in early 2019, bitcoiners had to pay a 10% tax for the profits they made in the previous year. And, if their profits were greater than 12 minimum wages, they were supposed to pay also 10% of the amount of 12 minimum wages. This secondary tax was given for health system. Those which had losses in the previous year are not supposed to pay anything.
Still, the law is not clear. What is a miner supposed to do? If he made profits in the previous year but the hardware equipment he bought is far from being paid back, is the miner at a profit or at loss? And what happens with those miners which do not have anymore the bills / invoices of their hardware equipment? Nobody knows.
In the future new taxes may arise. More complex, more ridiculous.
In any case,
Bitcoin was not conceived for anything like that. It was not created for giving people more troubles, nor for getting them in jail in case they do not give to the State its share, a share for which the State did not make any contribution.
Everything is in the reverse sort of way than it should.Instead of rendering governs and banks as irrelevant, instead of getting the middle man out of equation, people's actions enforced these entities. And now, these entities fight back, oppressing people even more. All exchanges collect users' data for having them prepared for authorities. Bitcoiners go smiling at crypto exchanges -- nobody knows why -- and offer them
for free and at their own will their money and personal information. To make sure they'll become slaves again, users also associate their accounts from exchanges to bank accounts, thus allowing banks too to freeze their funds at will and also giving their data to authorities.
Then many obtain some fiat money from their crypto activities and, without knowing the very complex laws,
they become sitting ducks in front of authorities.
However, I believe that a limit will put all these to end. All these incorrect uses of Bitcoin, all govern and bank extortions, all the abuses of crypto exchanges.
And this limit will be reached when enough people will suffer from their greed, from their naïveté, from their stupidity. When enough of them will have criminal records and when enough of them will have to serve jail time. Only a drastic suffering will be able to open people's eyes.
And, when this will happen, bitcoiners will finally stop using exchanges. They will stop holding in bank accounts their fiat incomes obtained from crypto activities. Some will even avoid using fiat money. If all these will happen, then individuals will finally start using Bitcoin the way Satoshi created it: for their own benefit, for rendering governs and banks as irrelevant, for eliminating any middle man, for anonymizing their financial deals, for being their own bankers, for owning their private keys instead of allowing exchanges having them.
And when these will happen, all the previous oppression imposed by governs will turn against them. They will not be able to catch any other victim as their earlier victims know now how to protect themselves and how to use Bitcoin properly.
When these will happen, the prey will become the hunter.I don't know how much time will pass until all these will become real. But I have a feeling that, sooner or later, people will realize they suffered enough and they will say: "Enough!". And they will open their eyes and they will understand how to use Bitcoin. Not for the benefit of the State, but for their own benefit!
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