Here a reality check: KYC/AML is not your friend, it will not help you from getting scammed, it will not help you to have more trust in the people you are working with in cryptroland. It's one and only purpose (in this context) is to control the on and off ramp in exchanges that allow you to convert crypto to fiat and back again. To be able to track your financial activities and coerce you into revealing private information about profit and loss in exchanges around the world.
However, there is very little actual policy that has been written into law, anywhere, right now. Most of the news and PR spin coming from Governments around the world is pure FUD, then backpedaling. As a result of these quasi-empty, well timed threats coming out of news agencies that are literally being paid to churn out paid propaganda, many exchanges are voluntarily enacting KYC/AML policies to the effect of locking up peoples money, losing clients, and going out of business.
Exchanges are not banks. Right now, in the US, exchanges that do fiat to crypto and allow bank wires in and out of accounts are not currently required to send their customers a 1099K form, which is the form that reports to the IRS on profit, loss and income. Why is that? Because the IRS has still not set a clear policy on crypto. The last policy the IRS set was in 2014 in it's decision to classify Bitcoin as an asset instead of a currency, which pretty much the definition of a poison pill. And recently a Federal Court determined that it was the courts opinion that Bitcoin was not an asset, but a commodity.
KYC/AML has nothing to do with terrorism, or organized crime anymore, those guys from the Cartels, The Triads, The various Mob Organizations, Putins Oligarchs, they simply go right to the top and pay off or blackmail the government officials and regulators. They really don't even have to try and blackmail anybody anymore, cause most of these people in control of these things are just happy to take the money.
"The regulators aren't concerned about money laundering, except that they get their cut." - Paul H.Anyone who is in crypto and is fully supporting KYC/AML should have their head examined. KYC/AML is about control. Control of most of us here on these forums, the little people, the tax cattle.Satoshi Nakamoto's vision outlined in Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System:
"Abstract: A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work."
Bitcoin is the first decentralized digital currency, as
the system works without a central bank or single administrator. The
network is peer-to-peer and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes through the use of cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.
This reality is brought to you the people in the inside of the Global Fiat Cabal who happen to be very good stock traders who are making really good money in the various crypto to fiat exchanges around the world. Take some time to get to know know them, they are here among us:
A conversation overheard on a US based crypto trading floor a few weeks back by several retired successful stock brokers who now play the market of BTC to USD:Paul H: The regulators aren't concerned about money laundering, except that they get their cut. If they were, all the big banks would be shut down. They have already paid fines for money laundering. And we know they are continuing, because they have been fined again.
So, its not about money laundering, its about making sure the tax cattle cannot escape. All the little people have to stay and take their hair cut. (Like Crimea) While all the big boys, in the club, get to avoid such.
Fortunately, if the govern-cement does ban cryptos, it will only make them more valuable, and more people will use them. See any of the past prohibitions.
Ted C: Yep. The tax issue is huge. I think having such an open international exchange program is making the tax collector sweat. How can you possibly track the trades and gains on exchanges who are housed everywhere throughout the globe? You pretty much have to rely on the tax payer's honesty, and they are unlikely to do that.
$0.04
Robert G: Especially when honesty can cost you so much. Never speak of bitcoin and the Infernal Revolting Service will never ask you any questions. Speak of bitcoin and they will have you over a barrel and demanding to know everything and after all that they will fine you for not doing what they said (after) in the first place.
Paul H: They don't have to use bitcoin for money laundering If such currencies like monero and dash exist ))
Ted C: Yep, it's pretty difficult to launder money with crypto anyways. At least on a grand scale. You can turn it into cash easy enough, but the difficulty of laundering money has never been getting cash, it's getting fiat into a legit bank account without raising eyebrows. Still not easy to do with crypto.
Tony R: It will be interesting to see how cryptos for cannabis will fit into this world, as this blog says, less than 1 percent is used for money laundering. How do all the cannabis-related coins fit into this if they plan on using it for the exchange of cannabis (even legal cannabis)? Would that be considered "illicit activities" in the minds of regulators? Yet, the big banks are the biggest launderers of drug cartel money.
Fred S:It is simply the Big Corps finding an excuse to try to shut down Cryptocurrency
A little word to the wise: Coinbase has been thoroughly compromised. Move your accounts to Gemini, bitFlyer, anyone but Coinbase. We will soon see the garroted, rotting corpses hanging from the lampposts in cities around the US of the people betrayed by Coinbase when they caved in court, and most suspect that the price of the deal was an always open backdoor for the IRS to access information on US taxpayers with little or no resistance, going forward.
