Topic: Rep. Jim Himes of CT Allegedly Sneaks in Anti-Crypto Provision into Bill - page 2. (Read 330 times)

A lot of the guys on Twitter are eager to donate to whoever runs against him, Democrat or Republican. Come to think about it, the crypto community needs a website with a report card of politicians as well as to help bring crowdfunding money to support politicians who are running against specifically anti-crypto ones.

they tried that with the bitlicence. it allowed them to then request money service businesses in NY to get licenced or not be allowed to operate. by august 8th 2015.
there was from june 24th 2015 a 45day grace period to apply for a licence or be banned from operating in NY. the ban started on august 8th 2015 for non licenced crypto businesses.

most countries dont actually want to perma-ban crypto. they just want to ban it just long enough to then legislate the use of it under their conditions(licence/permit)

EG china banned all crypto but now wants to licence NFT services to chinese businesses.


well the EU managed to get world wide websites to do the 'cookie' policy.

there are many things that can be done to prevent us customers using foreign services. like legislation to demand google not list a site breaking the rules in search results and report the site to their ISP, thus not actually shut down the website. but just make it difficult to be seen by US customers looking for the site.
these days you dont need to invade a premises and unplug their network connection. you simply need to ask a isp/dns service to not list them, thus remove traffic accessing the service.

much like ISP's block movie streaming services and torrent sites

In case, this proposed bill will eventually be a law, centralized exchanges operating in the territory of USA can be affected and they would have no choice but to follow the guidelines in the implementation of the law. I am then waiting in case Coinbase will be issuing statement on this bill in the House since if this can be a law then their millions of customers can be affected. Surely, a bill like this can be a big deterrent factor why no one in his right mind would be basing in USA if the business is a centralized crypto exchange so they better be based in El Salvador instead. And then this can be another big reason why DEX is a lot better than CEX.

Please correct me if I got it all wrong.

Should the prevention of crypto exchanges providing liquidity for cryptocurrencies be equated with shutting them down? I don't think so. That's probably going too far in its interpretation. If at all, it will probably just cleanse trading platforms of fake orders and volumes. If such prevention is implemented, thousands of shitcoins might lose liquidity and die. Well, it's going to be a problem to many but will also be a sort of a protection to a lot at the same time. After all, we all have an idea how huge of these centralized exchanges' reported volumes are fake.

And it's not about privacy. As a matter of fact, the death of centralized exchanges might preserve privacy more than jeopardize it.

How, indeed.  I've long wondered how the US would go about implementing a complete ban on crypto if they were ever inclined to do so, and the only answer I could ever think of was by simply passing a law outlawing the use of it.  I'm not sure how a US law would prevent off-shore exchanges from providing service to US customers.  Some might not give a shit, some might comply, but I think only places like Coinbase, Gemini, and other US-based crypto exchanges would be truly affected by a law like this.

Do you live in Connecticut?  If not, there's no way for you to do anything about this jackass being in office.  And CT has been a blue state (majority Democrats) for as long as I can remember.  Hopefully this piece of shit provision will never see the light of day.  Hopefully the Winklevoss twins are doing something about this (and other crypto gazillionaires, too).

Another aspect to this debate is market or industry sentiment. Thus, while policy specifics can be debated - and there is certainly room for that in bills - it's also important to take into account investor psychology. If legislators are perceived as hostile to an industry - again we are talking about mere perception - it can potentially hinder investment and hence innovation, since we can roughly equate them. Thus, bad language in bills is harmful aside from the very practical aspects of their enforcement. So the wording of legislation is important to foster innovation.

funny part is

i procrastinated that segwit would activate due to mandated bips.... it happened
i procrastinated that LN is being labelled as bitcoin 2.0 for everyone to use instead of using bitcoin daily.. it happened

yep i am cynical, and critical thinker. but my thoughts come with references and data to back them up. not emotion
i actually pulled out a key thing to campaign over.. the 120 being removed. and explained how 0-e-l-e-o thought it was a grace period before an order is activated, when infact it was a limit to how long an order can last. which has been removed meaning orders can now last longer.


i dont rely on twitter/blog influencers to form my opinion by them handing me a script to recite. i read the source data, i then check it out and verify. 0-e-l-e-o seems to have just jumped straight into the same script recited on the blog found in the tweet. and then his buddy(you) defend him without you checking if o-e-l-e-o is right or not..
sorry but social drama does not make things fact just because 2 people can poke emotion into a discussion.

try spending more time researching and less time crying and social dramatising then crying more when someone bites back

after all
atleast i dont go full utopia of altnets and full bitcoin doomsday exaggeration("100mb by midnight, or broke")

but it is funny how you have not even bothered to read the topic or add substance to the topic content but just came here to start social drama .. as you always do

I think times have changed, and today exchanges are making much more money than in the past, and therefore we can expect more activity in lobbying against anti-crypto provisions in the future.

In the meanwhile something is already being done.


^^ This is a quote from an article written 3 months ago. So, let's hold our breath, guys. Let's hope that exchanges, who have made so much money thanks to their customers, will do something to defend the rights of those customers and their own right to make even more money.

And without a hint of irony.  Priceless. 

How is it when you're the one who sees a problem, you can engage in as much hyperbole and far-flung fairy tales as you like, but the moment anyone else sees a problem with anything, you act as though they're just being dramatic and it's not as bad as they think?

You've prognosticated dozens of doomsday scenarios in your time on this forum, so maybe check to see how rickety your greenhouse is before you start casting stones.

just quoting again to emphasise the exaggerations, mainly for comedy but to summarise how its all silly fear from those that took more time reading a conspiracy blog as their opinion rather than reading the actual wording of the bill (without said conspiracy leaning preset-bias)

1. its not yellen simply saying so, its not on a whim.
2. she cant just write an order on a post-it note. there are processes and things inplace that she needs to go through
3. she still has a process of consulting multiple agencies and assessing the negative impacts, and the lawfulness.
4. she cant just say 'close account X' for no reason

even that is a bit of a exaggeration..
the exchange has to record keep (locally within the exchange(same as usual)). and only report users that flag up as potential money launderers, criminals, terrorists, ransomware(same as usual)

EG if yellen tells an exchange that some ransomware used address bc1qransomwareretirement
then the exchange could check the taint of its users deposits and if a deposit was tainted with that ransomware funds. THEN that users records would be reported.

this does not mean that the users funds are frozen at the time of the report. the exchange then needs to receive an order once fincen/nat sec does an investigation

its not the case that all users are reported for every transaction all because they had transactions in the same block or blockchain that a ransomware transaction occured in.
only the user with ransomware taint would be reported if a order was to report ransomware related transactions[/list]

I read through the documents, though many of the things there were speculated and not actually facts. There is not major threat to exchanges. I sense some kind of media hype.
The major thing propose there was to extend  bank secrecy act to cryptocurrency. This means exchanges will be compelled to remit every details of customers transactions to the state's  criminal investigation file.
My take:

• The provisions will grossly go against people's privacy. So, such attempt will not work
• The major clause there about account freezing was just a speculation of the writer I think.
  

• Anyone using an exchange should expect anything of this nature, so it is not something so strange.

im going to have to laugh here.

o-e-l-e-o is taking a context of still requiring that she doesnt go against any law/regulation.. to make it sound like she can do as she pleases at a whim..
ignoring things like she still needs to consult many other agencies and assess the burden/legality any action she takes might have..

but hey. instead of arguing about the removal of the 120 limit of action. he wants to argue that yellen is an outlaw and can do anything for any reason. totally ignoring how the representatives would quote back to o-e-l-e-o that yellen cant just do as she pleases. listing the reasons

You would have thought so, but the big centralized exchanges have shown absolutely zero interest in spending some of their fortunes to defend bitcoin in the past or to campaign against other pieces of damaging legislation. I wouldn't be holding my breath they'll step up now.

I don't disagree, but most of DeFi isn't actually decentralized at all, and is ran from centralized exchanges and services hosted on centralized servers and owned and operated by a small number of individuals, or operating on smart contracts with a small number of people holding editing privileges, and so on.

As permitted by law. And this law permits her to do it without order or regulation.

The old law quite clearly states that subsection (b)(5) (this is the subsection allowing accounts and transactions to be frozen) "may be imposed only by regulation."
The new law quite clearly states that this subsection may be imposed "by order, regulation, or otherwise as permitted by law."
Even if you don't understand what this means (as you evidently don't), anyone can clearly see it is a loosening of requirements. She no longer needs an order or regulation.

Here's some more info: https://www.coincenter.org/new-bill-would-hand-treasury-blank-check-to-ban-crypto-at-exchanges/

firstly. what o-e-l-e-o misses out on is that yellen cant decide what she wants and freeze any account as she pleases on a whim

because she is restricted by:

meaning she has to get a court order.. (means she has to explain why, and a judge has to agree)
its a reason already listed in regulation or law. (she is not creating law, she has to follow the law.. as fincen does)

she has to obide by the laws. and can only request a account to be frozen if its deemed to have broken the law.

its not that she has new powers that fincen do not. its that she has the SAME powers as fincen.
the removal of (3) 120days. is not about any grace period before something becomes new law. its that any current order used to only be active for 120 days. but now can last longer.

where she and fincen both have to actually provide proof and reasoning for requesting a account to be frozen
..
as for the rest of the twitter rant and attached blog about shutting down an exchange purely for confirming a block that was made by some foreign asic farm.. thats just pure BS crazy nonsense

if people like o-e-l-e-o actually read it and campaigned for "dont allow special measures to last beyond 120 days!"
instead of his conspiracy "does this mean new laws can happen without notice"

he might actually have a more realistic campaign

old (3)

new (3)

as seen she still needs to seek authorisation from governors of the FRS, banking agency, secretary of state, SEC, CFTC NCUA. and assess any impact she makes.

the only difference is those orders can only last 120 days prior revision, but now has no end point.

What he would effectively be doing is destroying the centralized cryptocurrency exchanges but also giving more incentive and a much larger boost to the DeFi sector. I see that as a good thing. Centralization has no place in crypto! Sooner or later, we will phase it out with privacy coins and Defi. Even if there is a fiat disconnect, the crypto world is already much too large to be destroyed. So basically it will become a split paradigm with crypto slowly becoming the real money and Fiat becoming extinct.

No problems there.

I suspect a lot of lobbying to be done by the exchanges against this provision since this would ultimately put them out of business. And they're not exactly your average joe campaigner - these are private and publicly held companies with billions of dollars of revenue between them all.

Once again, franky1 has completely misinterpreted the bill and has decided that he and he alone has the only true meaning of it, despite the people whose entire jobs it is to read and write such bills think the opposite.

Here is the text in question (page 1485 of this document: https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/BILLS-117HR4521RH-RCP117-31.pdf)

The important points to note are "(B) by striking paragraph (2)", and "(C) by striking paragraph (3)". Let's head over to see what Section 5138A of the US Code says in paragraphs (2) and (3) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5318A):


So this is all getting wiped. So yes, the special measures franky1 has outlined have always existed, but could only be implemented by regulation. Now they can be implemented by Janet Yellen (who's not exactly friendly to bitcoin) simply saying so, with absolutely no formal notice, due process, public involvement, legal challenges, etc. They used to have a time limit associated with them - that's been scrapped too.

If Yellen decides she wants to, she can now make any exchange freeze your account or even freeze all accounts (i.e. stop the exchange from operating) on a whim, and there is no process by which she can be stopped, delayed, challenged, etc.

This needs challenged. Call your representatives. And get your funds off centralized exchanges before it's too late.

seems like another over exaggeration of the wording.. much like the crazy nutjob conspiracy of the 'devs are broker' thing last year that spread on twitter

seems someone thinks that asking an exchange to record keep its customers trades.(in the bill) is now sounding like destroy exchanges in a tweet

sorry but the bill does not say anything about unilaterally shutting down exchanges

the special measures in the tweets linked exaggeration blog are said like this

reality is 4of 5 special measures ask an exchange to monitor and record keep customers transactions
and report activities deemed as possibly money laundering/criminal
the 5th allows the secretary to send an order to freeze a customers account if deemed illegal activity has occured

this is not new powers. this is the same powers as all money exchanges have to be regulated by

so here is the rational view of the bill
firstly every transaction is not put on a 'criminal investigation file'  fincen and SEC are not going to be given reports every millisecond of every transaction.
an exchange just has to record keep. and build a policy to notice certain flags that appear as laundering. and only report those. and its then the authorities who investigate and if deemed illegal(laundering/terrorism/ransomware) related the authorities get a court order to then ask the exchange to freeze the account

this is the same policy as any fiat exchange for the last few decades

..

the exaggeration blog also tries to make it sound like if a exchange even has a node confirming blocks where a block is from russia, the exchange can be charged as a money launderer(facepalm)

seems someone wants to go to crazy town and misinterpret the actual wording to make it sound crazy, and then blame the crazy on the bill. (like the crazy exaggeration of devs are brokers' exaggeration last year by twitter nuts)

personally i dont want to see any government over-reach that goes beyond consumer protection.. but when there are people exaggerating what is included in a bill. it makes it that much harder to fight any real problems, becasue when a bunch of conspiracy people are trying to get a bill repealed for non existent crazy reasons they made up. bill representatives think any campaign against a bill are just conspiracy loonies. thus the bill representatives close their ears to any real campaign treating real campaigns if they are also the conspiracy crazy ones

if only these people thought rationally and actually looked for real flaws in a bill instead of making up crazy exaggerations/conspiracies, then campaigns to get representatives of a bill to listen might get some more attention when real flaws come up.

Jim Himes, a Democratic congressional representative of Connecticut, has allegedly masterminded sneaking in a provision into the America Competes Act that potentially gives the Secretary Treasury the unilateral power to stop cryptocurrency exchanges from providing liquidity for cryptocurrencies - essentially shutting them down. Here is Jerry Brito of Coin Center on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/jerrybrito/status/1486349099314130952

"Included in the America COMPETES Act just introduced in the House, and which will very likely pass in some form, is a provision that would be disastrous not just for cryptocurrency but for privacy and due process generally."

[...]

"The so-called 'special measures' provision (proposed by @jahimes) would essentially give the Treasury Secretary unchecked and unilateral power to ban exchanges and other financial institutions from engaging in cryptocurrency transactions. How would it do this?"

He should be voted out!