The DOJ just released a report that explicitly says that use of privacy coins like Monero is a "high risk activity" and "indicative of possible criminal conduct".
https://cointelegraph.com/news/doj-says-use-of-privacy-coins...
https://cointelegraph.com/news/doj-says-use-of-privacy-coins...
"Indicative of possible criminal conduct" means more than just "looking like a criminal." That means, if you were to be arrested for something, your use of Monero might count as evidence that you were involved in criminal activity. Combined with enough other circumstantial evidence, it might even contribute to your conviction, even without a smoking gun. This would depend on the judge and jury, but it's worth noting.
I don't think it's "better" for people to ignore the risks of certain behaviors and pretend those risks don't exist. You apparently care a lot about optimizing a particular dimension: privacy. Recognize that other people have different mixes of priorities. Not everyone must agree with yours. Some people who disagree with you might even comment on this very site, as offensive as that is.
A bigger issue might be if it counts as "probable cause" to get a warrant. Seizure of records and computers would put a crimp in anyone's day, even with no conviction or even an arrest.[0] Heck, even if all it does is in practical terms is to raise the odds of an IRS audit a bit, or raise the odds of an audit becoming a criminal investigation (by being considered a "badge of fraud"[1]), that would be enough to squelch adoption.
[0] Maybe Steve Jackson Games should start working on a "Cryptopunk" GURPS module and get raided[2] again: http://www.sjgames.com/SS/
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraudulent_conveyance
[2] Holy crapoly, that was 30 years ago. Damn, I feel old.
If everyone took your advice no one would protest, write a political comment against anyone in power, take any position that isn't accepted by all and be ready to drop that opinion when society shifts.
You live in a free society. Use your freedom or risk losing it.
Privacy has never been more important to the aggregate HN commenter than it is today. Moreover, nothing I said enjoins people from making political statements or protests.
Alternatively, buy bitcoin through your bank. Use it to buy monero on an exchange.
Alternatively, wait 6-9 months and exchange your btc with xmr using an atomic swap, on-chain.
How do you ensure this person does not know who you are, whilst also ensuring they don't steal your $1m?
> Alternatively, buy bitcoin through your bank. Use it to buy monero on an exchange.
Difficult to do this anonymously.
Using cash then localmoneros or bisq would be fine.
Deliberately hiding the origin of funds is itself criminal conduct, though. It's true that AML statutes tend to be hyperspecific, because it's a difficult area to regulate. So areas like crytocurrency mixing are gray and uncertain even among law enforcement lawyers. It's not true, however, that there is an inherent right to unrestricted private transfer of money.
Bascially, the statement you're reading is not saying "Mixing is probably illegal because the money must have been illegal to begin with". It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."
At some point governments are going to need to step in and clarify this with laws. But don't fool yourself: Crypto mixers are going to end up being subject to effectively the same reporting requirements that banks are. What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.
I'm sort of amazed they didn't outlaw mixers ages ago, however
> What you want (perfect financial privacy) you can't have, sorry. That ship sailed decades ago.
Perhaps that's true in principle, just as it's true to say obtaining (insert illicit drug of choice here) in perfect safety from the law enforcement agencies is not possible. The USA can only shut down USA mixers. The only way to deal with mixers operating outside of USA law is to prosecute the USA citizen sending his money to a mixer. That is orders of magnitude harder because they can't know if a newly minted bitcoin address is owned by a mixer, or belongs to a USA citizen.
It may not be perfect, but given one of bitcoin's niche's is a payment system for illegal activities that are already very much imperfect, the protection offers is undoubtedly good enough.
You can have it. You just need to do everything in cash and not use the banking system. Of course, there's a lot of advantages to the banking system... But you can still use things like safety deposit boxes for storage, gold to help protect against inflation, etc.
Money laundering is a crime, all by itself. It doesn't matter where the money comes from or what form it takes. The spirit behind AML legislation, long established, is that the government has the right to see where money is held and to whom it is transferred.
Minutiae about mechanism might appeal to software nerds, but it doesn't address the underlying issue. This fight was fought, and lost, more than half a century ago.
No, money laundering is deliberately hiding the origins of the proceeds of crime. Making an effort to maintain financial privacy is not in itself illegal.
>>It's saying that "Mixing is probably money laundering on its face, no matter where the money came from."
No, money laundering is by definition hiding the origins of illegally obtained money. If the money is not the proceeds of criminal enterprise, then hiding its origins is not, by definition, money laundering.
Exercising privacy-protection with respect to legally obtained money may be illegal, or with new laws be made illegal, but it does not and will not ever fall under the definition of money laundering, as that is not the definition of money laundering.
I guess that the final question will be if it's used more for "good" or for "bad" purposes (or maybe just if the amount of "bad" purposes surpasses a certain acceptable level).
(same thing about cash - I think that most governments keep introducing stricter rules about cash withdrawals/deposits/transfers)
Yes, possible, focus on the "can/might". In general I would say that it's less likely (on the other hand there will always be 100% chances of the opposite, meaning that there will always be N bad citizens brainstorming about how to use "the system"/"any system" for their own advantage).
> When the government consistently omits threats from state bodies in its risk analyses, then the public tends to overlook that danger and ...
Well, it can be true (meaning that in general people are probably more prone to accept compromises when they feel threatened), but such a general discussion is in my opinion out of context here. Monero was designed to handle transactions in a way that pushes privacy to the extremes, unluckily at the same time the same mechanism can be used as well by criminals.
Personally I think that "currently" the ones benefiting of the features offered by a cryptocurrency like Monero are mostly criminals as I don't think that most people have a strong need for highly-private transactions (might change in the future). Monero's other features of flexibility/access/etc... (to e.g. be able to trade in 3rd world countries without the need to have a bank account) are already offered by other cryptocurrencies.
I would say the potential risks from the state are much more extreme, even if they are less likely to materialize.
>>Monero are mostly criminals as I don't think that most people have a strong need for highly-private transactions
Cryptocurrencies right now are largely unusable due to them actively compromising their users' privacy.
Crypto users are aware of this and their attempts to cover their digital tracks makes use of crypto cumbersome.
Privacy-protected crypto solves this.
https://www.perkinscoie.com/en/news-insights/anti-money-laun...
“Companies that choose to offer AEC products should consider the increased risks of money laundering and financing of criminal activity, and should evaluate whether it is possible to adopt appropriate AML/CFT measures to address such risks.”