EU moving towards total monetary surveillance and banning all anonymous payments
EU moving towards total monetary surveillance and banning all anonymous payments
How to contact your MEP: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en/contact
148 comments
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why would someone limit me how I can spend my earned and 40% already taxed (taken) money? I gave my life time to earn it, they take half of it and still forbidding me to use it?
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sorry but banning anonymous payments is pretty good for fighting corruption...
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Yes, but now there's an explicit law over which they can be prosecuted
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This is not true in France. Politicians that have proven fraud are arrested and charged. In France we have Sarkozy, Cahuzac, Fillon that were all charged with crimes.
They were president, minister and presidential candidate respectively. I'd be surprised if it was different in the USA. I'm seeing that trump is also being charged, the system seems to be working.
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Consumers payments deserves their privacy, but business ones needs absolutely to be fully traceable.
Could it be possible to use two different yet identical interchangeable currencies, one traceable for making business only, and one untraceable for consumers retail transactions?
loosely i.e.
- wages are Business currency converted and paid in Consumer currency, accounted for the amount paid to the consumer in his name
- end-users/home/consumer purchases are made from consumers anonymously in Consumer currency, and this is converted converted into Business currency upon transaction, keeping only the consumer name anonymous but tracing everything else
- B2B transactions are made in Business currency, fully traceable
... I don't know there is probably still a loophole
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I am pretty sure the lesser part of corruption is cash. Probably more stuff like exchanging a lucrative contract for political support.
They are not stupid. Afterall cash needs to be explained, a good contract gives you cash and the explanation.
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Can't say in terms of proportion cash vs. non-cash but one might want to watch the Qatargate recent documentary on Arte which shows that somehow a 700k EUR luggage was found in the house of a MEP. Piles of cash sound outdated yet clearly still exist nowadays.
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Cash is mostly traceable at point of contact unless you keep it in a money bin and don't spend it, though..
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The 500€ bill was removed from circulation because it was used almost exclusively for corruption and illegal trade.
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After the Panama Papers and everything like it I've experienced in my life, I truly believe it doesn't matter if very wealthy or powerful people are exposed on anything they do unless it involves what Epstein did. Financial crime is not generally of interest, regardless of how interesting it might be to you and me. Sure this can be used to fight corruption, but why is the system corrupt in the first place? Is this really going to be used against those corrupting influences or is it going to be used as another of the many tools in the drug war?
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But fighting corruption is not a goal I'm ready to pay any prize for.
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Russia almost did it. Now it's finally free of corruption!
Haha , nope. It's way more corrupt than before. You can even purchase on the dark web a list of items your person of interest bought this year.
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so ban it only for government (people and assets) related transactions
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True that. The system that we have is the product of many painful lessons, taught to us by global crises and crimes. People, who oppose this system, should stop reading nonsense on reddit and 4chan, and start with books and lectures from educated economists.
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That's literally what businesses do, it's called accounting. And if you read the underlying article and/or law, you'd see that this is targeting businesses, not individuals.
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You've just invented accounting haha
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i mean banks and law enforcement can already get that information
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There's a special status for some people in Russia, it's called Foreign Agent, and I believe they need to write down everything they spend money on this way
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This doesn't seem that much worse than American rules that have already been in place for a long, long time.
As it is, large payments or withdrawals must be reported to federal agencies, anything over $10k. This applies to cash transactions as well and the forms the IRS requires you to fill in a $10k+ cash transaction can be found here.
The biggest difference would be the impact on cash transactions and crypto transactions in the EU.
I'm pro-privacy, but a lot more crypto facilitates crime than not, so I don't really know why people would be shocked that governments would attack crypto specifically here (literally almost all ransomware uses crypto). Looks like way more of a crackdown on crypto than cash, but maybe that's just me. (On top of the fact that a lot of crypto isn't privacy-oriented. Looking at you, Bitcoin)
Related: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/venmo-paypal-zelle-must-report-600-transactions-irs-rcna11260
Two years ago USA put in rules for commercial digital transfers over $600 to be reported. Just pointing out that the EU's rules don't seem particularly draconian when weighed against already existing rules elsewhere.
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This doesn't seem that much worse than American rules that have already been in place for a long, long time.
Do you really want to be like the US, though? I think maybe that's not a great idea. (Source: am from US)
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Just because one country has it doesn't mean another should adopt it
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And the USA system is bullshit and I'm against it.
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Here in Germany Cash payments for houses are a great way of laundering money for the mafia. Similar roles have als been proposed a while ago
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Still not a good enough reason to reduce the privacy and freedom of any citizen. I don't care if the mob uses cash, let the police track the serial numbers of their cash if they catch them doing crimes or whatever. The mob isn't my problem, but losing freedom is bad for every citizen.
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Italian here. Our right wing government who blinks an eye to all small entrepreneur in Italy (there are A TON here) recently increased the max cash payment from 2k to 5k. This is definitely a way to say "please be free to recycle a bit more oney" and to gain votes in exchange.
It's incredible how Germany, Austria, or Switzerland to name a few have this crazy high cash payment.
In fact our "ndrangheta" for example (Mafia from Calabria) expanded a lot in Germany due to this.
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This thread is a dumpster fire. Can someone explain to me why i should be concerned about the tracking of payments that as an average person will not happen outside of buying huge stuff like a car? While no one is forced to answer me i would like you to refrain from vague statements like "this is attacking your privacy", because i am interested in how. If you think its obvious feel free to ignore.
I think the biggest point that i could see being a problem is the crypto stuff because i once made a anonymous donation via monero (that because i was concerned but the target needed privacy). It was about 30€ or something. Would that be illegal under the new guidelines? And if so, why would i care, since it is supposed to be anonymous.
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Anonymity is important for various reasons. You can't predict everything bad a government will try to do to stifle freedom that a person may want to avoid. Off the top of my head, I could see someone trying to pay for an abortion or something like that in a southern state where it's illegal, for health reasons to save their own life.
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I think this is actually a very good example, thank you.
People from europe sometimes come a long as assholes ("wE aRe NoT iN tHe ShItTy UsA") while ignoring that political stability is not guaranteed. Neither is democracy. Sitting here germany i look very nervously at the many countries shifting to the right and getting more authoritarian.
I pray to all gods that the times we live in wont be very interesting for historians to come...
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This is Europe not that dumpster fire of a country.
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To me the problem is that you wouldn't be able to buy a car anonymously anymore, while it leaves the really rich pretty much untouched.
Art is a well known angle for money laundering or giving someone a huge sum of money pretty much without any regulation. Contracts for construction or even consulting are another way.
I don't have access to this kind of playground - chances are, you neither. But the people supposedly targeted by this kind of law (corrupt politicians, organised crime, ...), do have access to these things and are therefore not impacted.
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I use Monero for donations too on a regular basis. From what I understand, the people accepting donations would no longer be allowed to sell them to professional platforms (silly as those are the ones KYCing).
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I think they would be. If they're operating as a business, the requirement is that their wallet(s) is at a custodian, so all transactions can be audited. You could still donate to that charity, and that charity would still be able to sell them or use them to buy stuff from another entity, but there would be a paper trail for the charity and the businesses they interact with. It doesn't impact the person donating, only the receiver.
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Let's say you have political beliefs and would like to donate to such causes, March against genocide, stand with local essential workers, union fee. Some places like Hungary might be very dangerous if everyone knows what you spend money on.
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You don't need it right up until you need it.
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"It's not about me so I don't care"
Principles
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Depending how inflation goes €3k limit will soon be in the territory of regular smartphone price or any slightly more expensive household purchase. AFAIK €1k 3 decades ago would be about €3k now.
That is assuming no one tries to push the limits lower, which is almost guaranteed to happen.
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Well I'm not in the EU, but in my situation I live in a shithole in the US called Tennessee. I have cancer that can be removed, but I don't have the quarter of a million for the surgery. It's been impossible to get a surgeon to even look at me, 2 years looking and still no surgeons will even let me in their office.
I need medications but the med I need the most is $8000 a month, it suppresses my autoimmune system and alows me to heal. My cancer is vary rare, it's called a neuroendocrine tumor, it's caused by extreme stress, this is because I'm a natural born empath, but saying that out loud usually gets a knife in my back from anyone near me carrying dark energy.
But to get to the point, I can get some meds occasionally for cheap, as long as they're sold for cash, but if that gos away then I definitely will die much faster. Seems on par for the life I've lived, care about everyone, then have everyone try to kill me.
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Yeah i have heard about crypto being used to get cheaper medication, but i had forgotten, so thanks for taking your time and sharing this example.
I wish you the best health possible, better and cheaper medications and people that make your life better
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So, because the US can't get its shit together and you can't get medical help for neither cancer nor psychological issues, the EU - with pretty good universal healthcare - should allow cash payments without limit?
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- tacking of payments gives those in power (banks, [bad] governments,...) Mechanism to completely profile and manipulate you. Your spendings says EVERYTHING about you. You might not care because you're living in peaceful and stable (e.g. not in economic crisis like Venezuela) times, but the world and many governments are visibly changing for the worst. It gives them unlimited power to introduce any kind of taxes and fines or means of blocking you from moving away with your money to somewhere else. You don't agree? They can still get to your money.
- limiting cash or anynomous payments takes away your financial freedom and strongly increases your dependency on banks. Banks put limits on your money that you can't fully control, they block your transactions for whatever they find suspicous. They can charge you whatever they want. There's a lot of corruption and money laundering with banks, that are the the most regulated institutions in the world ( except for armies probably), proving that even with a lot of control and legislation, those in power can still do whatever the fuck they want. Banks also take risks with your money and there have been crisises caused by them before. Most of them invest in oil, war and other ventures that are profitable for them. They manipulate markets for profit and for the worse of the common man. There's a lot you can read about those things. Becoming so strongly dependant on banks give governments limitless power on what to do with your money and block it whenever they want. Truckers protested against government in Canada => bank accounts blocked.
Whether or not some or all of these examples matter to you, one thing you have to understand and always defend is: you are the boss of your of money. Your ownership and control over your money is evenly linked to how much freedom you have.
Another thing you also have to understand, even if you think full visibility and control for governments is a good thing to solve crime, corruption and/or money laundering: there are and have ALWAYS been black markets. And the worse countries are off, the stronger these markets become.
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There isn't really. Most people are unaware that most crash transactions and withdrawals anywhere close to those amounts will almost always have to be reported to the government of whatever country you're in. But, you know, EU bad....
There's no wholesome reason to need 10k in cash. Even the examples here of paying for an abortion is a problem with reproductive freedom and not cash. You're not suddenly going to get away with it because you "sneakily" withdrew 10s of 000s in cash, right before you travelled to a state where abortion was legal. Political donations can be made in small, repeated sums. Specifically, as they dont sell large value items.
Unless you're a hired assassin, a paedophile network, a corrupt politican or a drug cartel it's not going to effect your business.
In reality, most of the nay sayers are people who take cash payments for the work they do to avoid paying the taxes the rest of us have to pay, for the things we all use.
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Three easy payments of $999.99!
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The limit is not by single payment but by purchase/receipt.
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Isn't a simple solution to split the purchase then? I will buy the tires for 8000€ and the rest of the car for 9000€.
I know this is nitpicking and they're not doing this for cases like the above. People targeted by this will have other simple solutions to work around it.
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It's OK to be an outlaw.
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Anybody who defends these actions by the EU is a poopy face
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Grab #Monero
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So that you can't sell later ?
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Yeah but it's hard to get hard money like gold coins or silver. Holding currency isn't an option
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I think people should create new and stronger communities to fight stuff like that
Topics, groups, etc, where people discuss and organize system fighting
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that nostr link doesn't load for me but this is the url that the post in the screenshot is ultimately linking to: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-cash-cap-and-ban-on-anonymous-crypto-payments-results-in-financial-paternalism/
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all Im thinking of is how payment processors have been acting as legislators lately to outlaw porn.
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Thanks, US puritanism.
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Wtfff
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This feels like satire
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creepy
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Honestly, it's nice to see that they included cash.
Good luck enforcing it, of course, but the traditional banking system is where the vast majority of all financial crimes occur. Which is partially what drives working class people toward alternative currencies. You want to clean up crypto? Clean up your own house first.
It's no different than in business. You have to earn buy-in from your stakeholders. Commoners fleeing to crypto is indicative that governments haven't earned that buy-in, and we all know why: People believe their governments serve the rich and powerful.
Meanwhile the rich will have minimal issue laundering their money regardless of which tech is used, they'll just experience different delays and transaction fees depending on the method.
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Would it make sense to have #CashAwarenessMonth? https://lemmy.ml/post/7968927
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Are you seriously suggesting me to contact my MEP based on the clickbait title you've written? Wow.
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How do you even ban anonymous crypto? It's anonymous 😅
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If you have €50,000 worth of Monero, they can't know and won't care. If you transfer it to someone else you'll be under the radar. If you try to cash out your Monero, they'll find out and you're in deep shit. Monero is worthless to most people if you you can't exchange for fiat.
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It's not a problem to get large sums of money out of money:
- create a foundation, allow donations, get a few donations in monero, tada
- spread it out to friends and family, let them take out the money in cash, receive money
Probably if you are able to fly to a country where there's lax rules on crypto exchanges and residency, you can get an address there, sign up for an exchange and get the monero out in that currency. I'm sure if you asked a tax advisor how "optimize taxes" they'd give you a bunch of financial instruments to "not launder" money.
Honestly, these laws will probably mostly apply to people with large sums of money most normal people wouldn't dream of transferring anonymously.
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This is for businesses, and businesses are required to have proper accounting and audits.
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So a ban on crypto and CCP like control over all finances?
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I'm all for privacy and I'd use Monero all the time, but this kind of regulations heavily damaged the mafia so tbh let's go for it. I'm not gonna spend 3k per transaction regardless
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Lol, what a shill. I guess that's because the mafia follows rules?
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I have spent €3000+ in cash a few times in the last few years but I dont really mind this tbh.
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Don't give up on your rights just because it's easier to be lazy and not defend them. Stand for all them, whatever they might be
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So, Europe limiting people's freedom, even more. Why am I not surprised? Use Monero and build the circular economy. Give the middle finger to these clowns. People in the US need to do the same thing because we are headed down the same path. That's why I always suggest if you have Monero not turning it back into Fiat ever.
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You obviously didn't read it. This is specifically targeting businesses, not individuals, so you'll still be able to use Monero and whatnot to buy stuff from companies, they just need to have their crypto wallets at a custodian (presumably for tax transparency). Likewise with cash transactions, large transactions are rare and unnecessary between businesses.
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Use Monero, burn the planet, don't buy anything useful with it as it can be made illegal after one legislation and don't forget to actively swap it between 10 other different cryptocurrencies. Also thanks to Microsoft for hosting Monero official source code repository.
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burn the planet
How much energy does it take to run the banking sector?
don't buy anything useful with it as it can be made illegal after one legislation
Yeah, good luck with that. It's censorship resistant. So that legislation doesn't fucking matter.
actively swap it between 10 other different cryptocurrencies
Funny as most stuff can be purchased in Monero without swapping.
Also thanks to Microsoft for hosting Monero official source code repository.
which could be easily changed at any time.
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148 comments
Clickbait headline. The underlying article lists much more reasonable restrictions:
So non-commercial transations are fine, as are crypto transactions to non-custodial wallets.
Aaah, the kind of transaction that most transactions are?
Aah, so any business which accept crypto must KYC every one of their customers. This makes accepting crypto especially burdensome, which is half the point of this legislation in the first place.
Unless you're using the wallet to buy or sell something. You know, the thing people use money for.
Why does the government need to have every transaction reported to them? Crime is bad because it causes harm. If harm is being caused, that means a person or entity is causing that harm. That means there is evidence. Follow that.
Police have more surveillance and crime-detecting tools than at any point in human history. Nearly every category of crime, particularly violent crime, is on a decades-long downtrend. We all travel with GPS monitors in our pockets. We all use credit cards instead of cash. We all are recorded by CCTV 90% of the places we go. We don't need to give them more financial surveillance because 'crime'.
I'm not saying these rules are perfect, but it doesn't help if you argue against rules that don't exist.
Commercial transactions are not "all" tx, and above 3000€ are obviously not the most common tx.
I do think the crypto restriction with no lower limit is too much, and I don't get why they focus on custodial wallets, but it's again not "all" tx.
Money laundering, tax evasion and corruption are real crimes with real consequences, and knowing about the flow of money is pretty much required to be able to detect them. It's a trade-off with privacy, so imo setting some limit for anonymous payments is the right thing to do. Idk if 3000€ is perfect, but it does seem reasonable.
We need some amount of oversight and surveillance, so imo it's not good enough to just exaggerate every proposal to the extreme and reject it on those grounds. These rules are not a total crackdown on anonymous payments, but they might still be too restrictive. But you kill every discussion about that if you just make up different rules entirely, instead of arguing about the rules that were actually adopted.
No, any business must use a KYC custodian for their wallets. I don't think they'll need to KYC their customers, they'll just need to account for those transactions in their accounting.
So if the company accepts Monero, the Monero wallet would need to be with a custodian, but you'd be free to use Monero to buy stuff and remain anonymous. At least that's my read.
None of that is reasonable.
And these limits will be tied to inflation?
What's the difference between commercial and business? I thought they were synonymous.
I think they are used synonymously in this article, but business could also mean B2B transactions, so between two businesses.
That's all pretty damn reasonable...
Unless you want to buy something with cash. Once they cross the line they won't stop until cash and anonymity are gone