This comment was marked [dead] when I read it. I vouched it back into visibility. I wish people would respond with a comment if they disagree, rather than reporting it.

Meta-comment aside, there’s another population segment who suffer from overbearing AML/KYC regulations - homeless people. Many homeless people do not have any form of ID and hence cannot open a bank account. What option do they have? I would argue for low value accounts, say <$5000 annual transaction volume, AML/KYC enforcement should not be required. $5000 is such a small amount in the grand scheme of money laundering that the government should really focus on the bigger fish. Splitting your laundered money into many bank accounts would, or could, fall under existing structuring laws and would be easily detectable by any bank.

I haven’t even mentioned that in many countries, such as the US, you have absolutely no guaranteed right to banking access. Your access to banking can be shut off overnight by any one of the various middle men involved. Until these things are solved, and legal persons can be guaranteed access to banking then crypto is necessary.