Topic: [XMR] Monero Speculation - page 2031. (Read 3313076 times)

They'd be walking straight into a trap where it would be checkmate to crypto if they tried to do that.

Something that gets overlooked quite easily in all these discussions is that nobody actually "owns" any crypto in any legal sense. The only type of cryptocurrency asset they could possibly regulate would be exchange traded funds (ETF's) because there is a legal contract there saying you own it.

Look around you at any person's significant asset portfolio - property, contents, car, inheritance, stocks, bank balance....every single thing of any significant value is governed by some kind of documentation where the legal system is the governing counterparty.

A blockchain address is not owned by anybody. You happen to know the private key to one or two, but the fact that a few people have the keys to my house doesn't make them owners of my house.

So all this talk of 'banning' is slightly mute. The 'trap' is that authorities would have to go to such lengths to legitimise cryptocurrency as money in order to get anywhere near regulating its ownership in the statutes that they'd just be boosting its valuation to kingdom come and increasing its profile as a store of value.

The nearest precedent I can think of is the prohibition on holding gold in the early 20th century. That was almost unenforceable even with bits of physical metal. But try coming round someone's home and searching for a set of private keys to a bitcoin address that don't respond to metal detection and that can float away up to an encrypted image on Google drive in seconds - it's a non starter for enforceability even if by some miracle physical possession of private keys found its way onto the statute books as a definition of 'ownership'.

Exactly. But then again, wouldn't people find way to evade this with cryptocurrencies too?

Yes, I bought a few k of Crypto Kingdom Gold this weekend. Needed to replenish the XMR stash.

 

Here is an example of the law in Spain. It bans bearer (not just cash) transactions that are payments from consumers to businesses, so it would also apply to crypto currency. Spain in a country where tax evasion is the national sport, followed by football (soccer).  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-19/spain-cash-transaction-ban-begins-as-rajoy-targets-tax-fraud. https://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2012/10/30/pdfs/BOE-A-2012-13416.pdf My take, knowing the culture well, is that this is doomed to failure since people with just use the "black money" for many day to day expenses that fall well below the threshold.

Well someones feeling bullish again and has turned their 1 xmr/2 secs buy bot back on lol 

in germany private cash transfer are unlimited. most private car trades are made in cash (reasoning is if the seller claims insolvency he keeps the car and the money - with cash its not possible)

BUT:
 - many companies have limits (e.g. "Deutsche Post" 2500€)
 - you have to explain yourself to your bank when depositing (i even had to explain myself once when i sold gold (directly at my bank) for just(!) 500€)

but i think you are right that cash will be more restricted.

It was my understanding (perhaps incorrect?) that these laws prohibited even private party cash transactions, not just merchant transactions.

Assuming correct (if not, wait a little while and it probably will be), this same law could likely apply to anonymous virtual coin transactions between private parties.

Anyway, at the moment I don't see much of a movement toward banning virtual currencies, and this is indeed somewhat surprising relative to expectations a few years ago, although I think the winds could shift on that, especially with respect to untraceable virtual currencies. Nothing is certain though.

In countries with exchange controls expect them to treat XBT or XMR the same as USD cash. In many cases this will mean either illegal or a very unfavourable exchange rate through "official" channels.

I really like you It would be really hard for governments to regulate Crypto users, even harder than cash payment users. All kinds of credit cards are easy to follow but they have no possible way to follow every cash payment. Same goes with Crypto payments.

In the United States and in Canada there are requirements that one report cash or bearer instrument transactions over a certain size and in certain circumstances but they are not illegal. In certain parts of the EU there are restrictions on merchants accepting cash for transactions over a certain amount. I also suspect that it is a matter of time before cryptocurrency regardless of how anonymous it is will be treated the same as cash is this respect.

As for cryptocurrency being made illegal in those countries with convertible widely traded currencies such as the US, EU, Canada etc the chances are very low and all indicators are against a move toward banning cryptocurrency. What we are seeing and will see is the regulation of all the intermediary players and service providers. It is for this reason that DRK has a much higher regulatory risk than XBT, or XMR, since the masternodes due to their limited number are a prime target for regulation. I would say the same for semi centralized structures such as delegated proof of stake, and currencies such as Ripple and Ethereum. In those countries with exchange controls for example Iceland, China etc., the changes are very high that cryptocurrency will be made illegal or already has.

Spending some time understanding how government regulation actually works, will go a long way to understanding  what the regulatory risks actually are. I stand by my position that a pure POW decentralized crypto-currency such as XBT or XMR has very little regulatory risk at the protocol level; furthermore there is already a fair amount of information on where the regulators actually stand. This in not the case at all with a very large proportion of the alt-coins and assets on the market today. The key thing to understand here is that any amount of centralization no matter how small will likely attract government regulation.

well, sure i see your point. however i am not sure we agree on what does illegal mean in this case. i am trying to argue that rather than straight out banning the crypto, it could be so strongly regulated, that you would not be able to convert it to real-world assets without a proper paperwork and tracking.

USD banknotes work the same way. Facilitating black markets but you can't really easily get that money into light without rising suspicion. I am not sure how it works but i am pretty sure you can't just walk into a bank and deposit a million dollars just like that.

on the other hand, i am sure that there will be countries banning crypto completely - there are many countries in the world. USA? not sure which way they will decide to go.

many people thought the same will happen to bitcoin.
but what happend? KYC/AML and regular compliance.

i think the same will happen to all anon coins.
governments are slow - cryptos are fast. as soon as we have good adoption around the world they have lost.

Just think how dangerous anonymous money can be to them compared to stuff they have already banned and it seems clear what's gonna happen. And as a cop-out/disclaimer, I said "some countries", so it's enough for my vision to come true if Vanuatu bans it.

The claim was that anonymous would be made illegal. I agree "guaranteed" is incorrect, but in this case by definition the countries wouldn't be able to track transactions, so that isn't a reason they wouldn't do it.

"Guaranteed" is a ridiculous assessment at this stage. At least try to back it up with some observable trend that is happening or at the very least why it can't go any other way in your opinion.
I think they could rather closely watch and regulate exchanges and track and tax transactions - withdrawing fiat or people buying goods/services above certain fiat amount.

Yea cause its easy to do, just pull down the switch in the White House

I think in Finland cash deposits of over 1000 EUR via atm's are checked by bank and if you go to the bank with over 2000 EUR they'll ask a few questions on where you got the money from.

I have to agree with you. If they have any reason to believe that Cryptocurrencies are threatening their own currency they'll make cryptos illegal to own. No idea how to control this kind of law though

Cash transactions above even a very modest size (e.g. 1000 EUR) are being made illegal in some countries and are already heavily restricted in the US. Not mention the implicit incremental cash ban of inflating away the value of the largest bill.

A bit OT but one of the more interesting proposals regarding Bitcoin (but applies to any coin) is to have a gateway that broadcasts transactions/blocks over a radio frequency. You could then at least receive payments without any active connection at all, just a passive receiver. You would only need a connection to send, but as you point out even  a carrier pigeon gateway could work for that.