Crypto industry lobbies to evade AML/CTF rules | Hacker News Reader

Crypto industry lobbies to evade AML/CTF rules

standwithcrypto.org

11 pointsMASNeo14 comments

This is a heavily editorialized and misleading submission title. The only thing on this page that could be construed to have anything to do with the submission title is that this organization appears to be lobbying the EU not to make self-hosted wallets (where you control your own keys) illegal.

I agree — I don’t see the connection between the items mentioned on the page and flat out AML/CTF evasion as the title suggests. If I’m wrong, someone please connect the dots.

To be fair ditching AML/CTF would be _good_, but that isn't what is going on in this article.

That argument can well be made, given how (un) effective it is. But what would be the alternative?

Does there need to be one? It's not clear to me where the moral good comes from AML in the first place. That's why things like Monero are so exciting.

If you are OK with child abuse, unfettered corruption, sex and weapons trafficking or scammers stealing your parents savings and generally like to wonder constantly if the next terrorist bomb or cyber attack happens close to you. Then there really is no need for such things as AML/CTF controls. That isn’t saying AML/CTF stops all crime but it’s making it more expensive and less criminal activity happens.

You are not alone with your view, in a sense Meta, Google and AWS as well as most social media platform act like they don’t think they need to have such controls. They just provide the platform.

By that logic AML/CTF controls would need to stop for banks and all others. Processing a payment for murder would become OK. Even though the killing would be a criminal act the payment processor would not have any obligation to support the investigation, they just processed a payment.

Is that aligned with your moral view?

The concerning aspect is 1 of 6 objectives so it’s no minor goal. The transmission to self-hosted anonymous wallets is what makes crypto so effective for fraud, sanction evasion, money laundering and other crimes. It clearly fails FATF Recommendation 16 and virtually all KYC standards. Seeing Coinbase and a German exchange support such an objective is rather unexpected.

All my life I've dreamt of fighting for and fulfilling FATF Recommendation 16. :D

I can only imagine what a nightmare real life must be like :D

I see nothing advocating against requiring KYC for user wallets and continuing to do wallet screening (which is the norm)

Analogous situation to self-hosted communication encryption keys, where criminals can host military-grade encryption keys on any common mobile device, allowing them to discuss child porn and terrorism in a way that the police cannot monitor

I count myself to the pro crypto camp but some of this ask is inviting criminals more than supporting legitimate use.

> I'm pro-crypto camp, yet I misquote and post misleading titles about it.

What did he mean by this?

I took editorial license on the title. Having worked to convince people that blockchain technology really solves more than just the privacy and payment problem I am just annoyed when the industry seemingly erodes trust established over years with a carelessly written manifesto. I just believe it merits more discourse.

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