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Topic: US to make Bitcoin use a FELONY unless report sender's social security number (Read 384 times)

legendary
Activity: 3080
Merit: 1500
This bill will push the US crypto users to use only centralized wallet providers like coinbase. Otherwise, it is impossible to track the SSN of the sender. It is only possible for centralized wallet service providers which is against the competition rule. That's really sad because it goes directly against the main characteristics of cryptocurrencies.

I am sure the banking lobby is pushing their best to have it implemented because the legislation looks really radical and would actively discourage people from using cryptocurrency.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18711
Recently it was found that a Bitcoin blockexplorer (walletexplorer) is most likely a honeypot run by Chainanalysis, which is contracted by the government to track user's IPs.
Slight correction - it's been known that walletexplorer is run by Chainalysis for years. Indeed, most block explorers are probably sharing information with blockchain analysis companies.



I'm not one to praise or even agree with Ted Cruz on pretty much anything, but his speech in defense of crypto was a good one and he made some very good points, notably that the vast majority of Senators have absolutely no idea what it is they are trying to regulate, how it functions, or what the outcome of these regulations will be. Unfortunately, despite that speech the bill already made it through the Senate, and now rests with the House, and I've yet to see enough Representatives speak out about it to really give me any hope that it will be amended or voted down.
legendary
Activity: 2562
Merit: 1441
US states like texas could have millions invested in local crypto mining.

This bill keeps getting worse and worse for the crypto industry, because no one is making any noise...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXFOSaMoX6g
'Strike The Whole Damn Thing': Senator Ted Cruz Calls For Crypto Rule Drop From Infrastructure Bill


Noise is being made. Most will never hear or know of it. But there definitely are many speaking out in opposition of crypto regulation in the infrastructure bill.
legendary
Activity: 1134
Merit: 1598
The US has been rapidly falling down the global rankings for individual freedom and civil liberties for years now.
The entire world has been that way. Speaking from Europe, there is not much hope left for our freedoms and rights either. They all seem to be on the edge of extinction.



This is insanity. It seems like someone is so desperate for everything we do to be under constant, continuous control. What this will turn into is the splitting of crypto users into those who are comfortable and do not care and those who do and are now considered terrorists/criminals. The fact that not giving your personal information about yourself and having privacy is rapidly turning into a crime is scary as shit. 1984 knocking on our doors, they're thirsty for your data and they will do whatever to own it and use it to their own agendas..
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 253
Nobody is going to see this thread in "Legal." Wish the mods would keep this in the main Bitcoin discussion forum...

Pelosi says vote to happen this week. Write to your congressman/woman! I just did.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nancy-pelosi-says-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-will-be-passed-this-week-if-not-monday/ar-AAOQqX2

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o
Most of these laws will be enforced via centralized exchanges. If everyone started trading peer to peer, then the government can pass whatever regulations on centralized exchanges they like, whatever KYC rules they like, whatever surveillance requirements they like, and it makes no difference.
This is true, but the government will start targeting peer to peer exchanges. Current problems with the current decentralized options:
  • Honeypot BTC sellers in decentralized exchanges like LocalBitcoins. No way of telling if the exchanges themselves are even run by the government.
  • Bisq development is currently occurring on a US/Microsoft owned website. Where will open-source development continue, if it is deleted?
  • Recently it was found that a Bitcoin blockexplorer (walletexplorer) is most likely a honeypot run by Chainanalysis, which is contracted by the government to track user's IPs.

Those alphabet agencies are already starting to target users. The politicians in government and their banker cronies are trying to suppress individuals from the free trade that crypto provides. This violates Satoshi's vision. This is all about control and maintaining the current power structure.

The best thing people can start to do is move their crypto off exchanges and find ways to maintain their privacy (running own nodes, VPNs, XMR, etc).
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18711
Yeah, that is pretty much their plan with CBDC, so they can track you all the time, and if you are not a good little boy or girl, they can just flip the switch and exclude you from everything
Don't forget that you are free though! Free to think like we want you to, to do what we allow, to spend your money where and when and on what we want you to. Just be a good little drone and you can be happy.

People need to abide the established laws
What if those laws are immoral, unjust, or corrupt?

their local exchange is already asking details where you are sending your money that you converted to fiat and where is the originating source of your crypto.
So stop using that exchange. Most of these laws will be enforced via centralized exchanges. If everyone started trading peer to peer, then the government can pass whatever regulations on centralized exchanges they like, whatever KYC rules they like, whatever surveillance requirements they like, and it makes no difference.
member
Activity: 1092
Merit: 67
They are really starting to feel threatened by bitcoin, going in all guns blazing to either bring it under their control or essentially make it illegal to use in any but the most superficial of ways. They want their CBDC to be the only digital currency anyone uses, so they can retain their power to monitor you, censor you, seize your assets, and print more when it suits.
Yeah, that is pretty much their plan with CBDC, so they can track you all the time, and if you are not a good little boy or girl, they can just flip the switch and exclude you from everything,
because CBDC will be connected with your digital identity.
It's not science fiction or conspiracy theory, everything is publicly revealed for people who want to read, and it's going to happen unless we stop them.

But how can you stop them as they are the ones who are formulating the laws? People need to abide the established laws, or else, they will face trouble or punishment. I think, it is not the first time I heard it. In one of the SEA countries, their local exchange is already asking details where you are sending your money that you converted to fiat and where is the originating source of your crypto. This is really ridiculous to think about. So what you can do, is find alternative ways to get around this.
legendary
Activity: 2212
Merit: 7064
They are really starting to feel threatened by bitcoin, going in all guns blazing to either bring it under their control or essentially make it illegal to use in any but the most superficial of ways. They want their CBDC to be the only digital currency anyone uses, so they can retain their power to monitor you, censor you, seize your assets, and print more when it suits.
Yeah, that is pretty much their plan with CBDC, so they can track you all the time, and if you are not a good little boy or girl, they can just flip the switch and exclude you from everything,
because CBDC will be connected with your digital identity.
It's not science fiction or conspiracy theory, everything is publicly revealed for people who want to read, and it's going to happen unless we stop them.
hero member
Activity: 2730
Merit: 585
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
Right from the start I have known that one of the major aims of the government towards cryptocurrency is to have control over it. I don’t think they want to ban Bitcoin or other crypto currencies, what they really want to do is just to control it just like they're controlling the banking sectors.

This is just like Where you are making use of your bank accounts, there are some certain amount that you will send as a transaction and it will require the bank to send your information to the central bank.so that's what they want to start doing now with cryptocurrency, and this is going to start with centralized exchanges, such as Coinbase and the rest of them. Earlier this year I saw a few people point out that such a thing is going to happen. Let’s hope that they vote against it.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18711
or are such tools still reserved only for some sophisticated spying?
I can't speak as to the accuracy of your other statements, but you can see for yourself the contracts the US government and associated agencies are taking out with various Blockchain Analysis companies:

Chainalysis - https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=VENDOR_FULL_NAME%3A%22CHAINALYSIS+INC.%22
Elliptic - https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=VENDOR_FULL_NAME%3A%22ELLIPTIC+INC.%22
Ciphertrace - https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=VENDOR_FULL_NAME%3A%22CIPHERTRACE%2C+INC.%22
Coinbase Analytics - https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/fpdsportal?indexName=awardfull&templateName=1.5.1&s=FPDS.GOV&q=VENDOR_FULL_NAME%3A%22COINBASE%2C+INC.%22

All in all, hundreds of contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. They aren't paying all that if they could just do it themselves, I'm sure.

I think that government parasites are getting desperate and this pretty much means that all privacy is going to be dead soon, if people don't complain and do something about it:
They are really starting to feel threatened by bitcoin, going in all guns blazing to either bring it under their control or essentially make it illegal to use in any but the most superficial of ways. They want their CBDC to be the only digital currency anyone uses, so they can retain their power to monitor you, censor you, seize your assets, and print more when it suits.
legendary
Activity: 2212
Merit: 7064
It's even worse than it sounds, and reading all those pages needs time to understand, but it looks like they are going to ban stablecoins,
then criminalize the use of privacy coins and anonymizing services like mixers and coinjoins, and they are getting ready for release of their CBDC or digital USD.
I think that government parasites are getting desperate and this pretty much means that all privacy is going to be dead soon, if people don't complain and do something about it:
Read detailed explanation in this reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/pqm1ba/new_us_crypto_regulation_far_more_invasive_than/
legendary
Activity: 3234
Merit: 5637
Blackjack.fun-Free Raffle-Join&Win $50🎲
This bill keeps getting worse and worse for the crypto industry, because no one is making any noise...

I assume you are from the US so you have first-hand information - but I have read in some media that some people like EM, Saylor, Dorsey, and other prominent business people and investors are publicly protesting against such measures. Still, I'm surprised that people in the US who are very familiar with cryptocurrencies (and many studies claim that's exactly the case) don't really make more noise - although it's hard to expect people to protest in public on the street.



The US government also spend a lot of money hiring services such as Coinbase Analytics, CipherTrace, and Chainalysis, whose sole purpose is to use blockchain analysis combined with data obtained from other sources including exchange reporting, social media, database leaks, etc., to deanonymize users and addresses.

I may be wrong, but ES has discovered that three-letter agencies have been obsessed with blockchain monitoring and user identification long before Bitcoin became known to the general public, and that their tools are far more advanced than those developed by private companies. I may be missing something, but why hire someone if you have something that has already been paid for with taxpayers' money - or are such tools still reserved only for some sophisticated spying?
full member
Activity: 798
Merit: 115
Yes USA, we already know from day 1 your bankers want to ban crypto around the world... For now they are successful on forcing global trading to be held in $ so they can collect their taxes. You can bend the laws to ban crypto trading in US, but sooner or later swallowed by China and EU if you dont start accepting cryptocurrency.
mk4
legendary
Activity: 2870
Merit: 3873
Paldo.io 🤖
My first thought was how to determine if the recipient was a citizen. Is it naïve of me to think that bitcoin’s anonymity plays an important role in being asked to police it, that I think it’s easy to get away with it

It's common knowledge that Bitcoin isn't really anonymous, but pseudonymous. And "getting away with it" is probably not as easy as you think, especially for the common folk who frequently interacts with centralized KYC exchanges. Have you sent bitcoin to/from a centralized KYC exchange? Yep, your non-custodial wallet is automatically affiliated with your personal info.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18711
One thing that I wonder is how will the US government track the bitcoin payments and transactions if the sender never transacts with an exchange where KYC might have been done?
There are lots of ways to de-anonymize someone who is using bitcoin. It you use any centralized exchange, even without completing KYC, then you should assume they will report your email address, IP address, and other identifying information to the government. If you pay anyone using a centralized payment processor such as BitPay, then they will also report the same information along with details of any transactions you make. Perhaps you gave out your real name and address as part of buying some goods online, and that bitcoin address can now be linked to your and then linked in turn to other addresses which you use. Perhaps you used your email address to sign up for a gambling site. Perhaps you left a bitcoin address somewhere on your social media profiles. Perhaps you shared a bitcoin address via a non-encrypted email provider. Perhaps you used a web wallet. The list is endless.

The US government also spend a lot of money hiring services such as Coinbase Analytics, CipherTrace, and Chainalysis, whose sole purpose is to use blockchain analysis combined with data obtained from other sources including exchange reporting, social media, database leaks, etc., to deanonymize users and addresses.
member
Activity: 237
Merit: 67
Let's create the Indie Metaverse!
One thing that I wonder is how will the US government track the bitcoin payments and transactions if the sender never transacts with an exchange where KYC might have been done? tracking a user might be very difficult.. Am i missing something?
full member
Activity: 868
Merit: 150
★Bitvest.io★ Play Plinko or Invest!
And people still stupidly believe America is the home of the free. That is an absolute joke. There is already mass economic surveillance and it continues to get worse. How many terrorists and money launderers have they caught after enacting all these KYC/AML regulations? How many people are they protecting by limiting their access to cryptocurrency?
I don't think no one believes that BS anymore, probably the brainwashed and ignorant people are still believing that stuff, George Carlin has predicted this a long time ago, that the government is going to go after the social security.
legendary
Activity: 2268
Merit: 18711
Since this bill only applies to transactions that exceed the $10,000 threshold per OP's post. This means people could just launder the transfer even more making this law even harder to impose.
Deliberately transacting specific amounts in an attempt to evade the threshold is known as "structuring". This is a crime in the fiat system, and will presumably also be a crime for bitcoin with this new legislation.

What's strange to me is that these two pieces of news came out at the same time and have the $10k threshold for Bitcoin.
Harder to sneak things through in an unrelated bill when they make more major changes. Easier for them to sneak this through under the pretense of "just making it the same as fiat", and then sneak through lowering the threshold in some healthcare bill or something further down the line.

This is stripping the freedom away from people, exact opposite of what the US might portray itself to be.
What the US tells people it is and what is actually is are two very different things. The US has been rapidly falling down the global rankings for individual freedom and civil liberties for years now.
hero member
Activity: 1890
Merit: 831
Now that's just preposterous and at the same a violation of the rightd of people to be free and have liberty to use anything that has come from the Internet, I hope that this law won't be pass because it's a hassle and it's impeding the freedom of the people and it's sort of invading their privacy.

There were speculations about how the Biden government is going to be more friendly towards the cryptocurrencies like bitcoins and we do see that now, that it's not going to happen. This is stripping the freedom away from people, exact opposite of what the US might portray itself to be.

And people still stupidly believe America is the home of the free. That is an absolute joke. There is already mass economic surveillance and it continues to get worse. How many terrorists and money launderers have they caught after enacting all these KYC/AML regulations? How many people are they protecting by limiting their access to cryptocurrency?

They do worse in the papers but they do know how to keep up the appearances therefore at the end of the day all this political drama is only bad for the people living there and also the people it would affect in the long term.

- people have to protest / safe protest with regards to covid
- voice their opinions
- make sure they involve political leaders who are + for Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies

Might be hard to do but I do believe it can be done. Hopefully the government will consider for real what they are doing.
-
sr. member
Activity: 1680
Merit: 379
Top Crypto Casino
And people still stupidly believe America is the home of the free. That is an absolute joke. There is already mass economic surveillance and it continues to get worse. How many terrorists and money launderers have they caught after enacting all these KYC/AML regulations? How many people are they protecting by limiting their access to cryptocurrency?
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 2017
I am not surprised by this. They want to control Bitcoin in the same way they control banking transactions, whether they can is another thing.

This is a very weak move from congress that could easily be bypassed by the thing they are trying to prohibit with this law: Money Laundering. Since this bill only applies to transactions that exceed the $10,000 threshold per OP's post. This means people could just launder the transfer even more making this law even harder to impose.

Don't be surprised if they lower it to $600, as they want to do with bank transactions:

The IRS would know more about our bank accounts with new legislation.
Quote
Legislation proposes reporting inflows and outflows of cash over $600 for both individuals and businesses to the IRS.

What's strange to me is that these two pieces of news came out at the same time and have the $10k threshold for Bitcoin.
hero member
Activity: 2114
Merit: 603
Funnily enough, these fossils in the government actually think they're helping the United States. If anything, they're pushing demand and innovation towards other countries. We really need people in the board who actually knows this stuff, rather than these guys that I wouldn't even be surprised if some of them couldn't operate a modern computer properly.

That is indeed true. I don't know how the tech giant and modernised country like USA is not accepting the bitcoin with full fledge and what can I say wholeheartedly? They should be the one putting an example of modern country around the world but they are just going in the old deep shit and making the world laugh at them. Government of US can make miracles if they invent proper use of blockchain and bitcoin. They are the richest of all yet do not want their peeps to use the bitcoin and bring more money into the country.

Considering that biggest employers of tech giants are in the USA, they should start the informal payment system via bitcoin wallets and let peep use it so that they can bring more investors to the crypto space and develop their country to higher dimensions. But all they wanna do is keep it away from the rich of "americans".
legendary
Activity: 2828
Merit: 1515
Privacy concern of course, but this is probably aimed at trying to target money launderers or tax evaders. Now that USD is failing miserably with high inflation rates, they want to target those that are relying on Bitcoin to protect their wealth, or day to day users as a currency. US politicians couldn't spell bitcoin so expect them to vote on whatever would stagnate crypto growth so they can milk it for every ounce of revenue possible.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
That would be excellent news if it came true. In fact a much better news would be if US outright banned bitcoin and prevented everyone from going near it.
That simply means more of this scarce currency for the rest of the world, specially those fast developing countries that are growing their economy. More importantly this would be keeping bitcoin out of the pockets of corrupt American corporations and billionaires that have been trying to accumulate it, and possibly corrupt the ecosystem in the near future.

In a decade from now when the balance of power (in all aspects including economical) is shifted, America will be left behind.
member
Activity: 1218
Merit: 49
Binance #Smart World Global Token

Unfortunately, I could not really sense that there is a united and solid voice of crypto holders, enthusiasts and supporters in the USA. I am suggesting that there should be more coherence in fighting and standing to this attempt to make the USA another police state and now controlling Bitcoin as if taxing is not enough. I am hoping this bill will not be approved as is. This is already an intrusion into people's freedom and privacy.
newbie
Activity: 24
Merit: 6
My first thought was how to determine if the recipient was a citizen. Is it naïve of me to think that bitcoin’s anonymity plays an important role in being asked to police it, that I think it’s easy to get away with it
legendary
Activity: 3178
Merit: 1054

crypto companies will move out of US if they continue to grip.
social security number sent to some is danger. these men didnt think of what this could do. surely this will not be approved. the government is having a hard time coming up with solutions because obviously they don't control BTC.
legendary
Activity: 3542
Merit: 1352
Cashback 15%
They are trying so hard to bar people from entering the cryptospace, and leaving their dear fiat in the dust. Such a bill would only force people to find ways and avoid the repercussions as hard as they could rather than do this crazy stuff that the lawmakers are trying to impose. The more they restrict people into doing something, the more the people try hard and get what they want. The US should be the ones leading the charge towards innovation and crypto development but no, they just want to lag behind other countries and focus on other mundane things that will just make things hard for their people.
sr. member
Activity: 1666
Merit: 426
This is a very weak move from congress that could easily be bypassed by the thing they are trying to prohibit with this law: Money Laundering. Since this bill only applies to transactions that exceed the $10,000 threshold per OP's post. This means people could just launder the transfer even more making this law even harder to impose. Sometimes the efforts won't count especially if a lot of money will be used to mobilize this if it ever getsthe chance to be passed as a full-fledged law.
Funnily enough, these fossils in the government actually think they're helping the United States. If anything, they're pushing demand and innovation towards other countries. We really need people in the board who actually knows this stuff, rather than these guys that I wouldn't even be surprised if some of them couldn't operate a modern computer properly.
What transpired during their court discussion last 2018 with Mark Zuckerberg is enough evidence that the guys some of us had allowed to be on the Senate don't know jackshit about anything regarding the internet. Even the simple process of logging into an account seemed so complex that they can't wrap their measly brains around. How can we trust these people to impose such a bold move and effectively execute it?
mk4
legendary
Activity: 2870
Merit: 3873
Paldo.io 🤖
Funnily enough, these fossils in the government actually think they're helping the United States. If anything, they're pushing demand and innovation towards other countries. We really need people in the board who actually knows this stuff, rather than these guys that I wouldn't even be surprised if some of them couldn't operate a modern computer properly.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 253
The House of Representatives is voting on the 27th to require that the recipient of Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) report the social security number, sender’s name, birth date, address and profession for total amounts >$10,000 from one entity (i.e. Binance, CoinBase, PayPal, etc.). Failure to do this would be a FELONY! This is a de facto ban of cryptocurrencies in the United States, unless they are processed through big tech.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-proposal-to-regulate-digital-asset-transactions-should-be-struck-2021-09-15
Quote from: Nasdaq
An overlooked provision in the Senate-approved infrastructure bill1 would dramatically expand the government’s surveillance of Americans’ economic activity and diminish America’s role in developing an important new technology.
...
The section 6050I proposal would impose onerous surveillance and reporting duties on all Americans, with fines or prison for those who fail (or perhaps are unable) to comply.
...
In this hypothetical system of complete financial surveillance, “any person” means what it says (and includes businesses or other entities). “Receive” means, take possession for any reason. “Report it” means, first, to verify the payer’s name, birth date, address, profession, and Social Security or tax ID number. Then, to promptly send that information — along with the amount received and the reason for the transaction — to the government on a form signed under penalty of perjury.

Contact your US House representative and tell them to vote against this "infrastructure bill".

Here are the rest of the horrible provisions in this bill that also ban crypto mining and software development.

This bill keeps getting worse and worse for the crypto industry, because no one is making any noise...

Read detailed explanation in this reddit post (thanks dkbit98):
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/pqm1ba/new_us_crypto_regulation_far_more_invasive_than/
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