We should throw out AML/KYC for good. The americans pushed this in a big way from 9/11 onwards as a weapon. Governments can go fight whatever they want - but there shouldn't be an expectation that it's ok to trample over the rights of ordinary people as they do so.
Right's aren't being trampled on with AML/KYC. The only people really complaining about these regs are criminals and those who chose to take money out of the conventional system using unregulated entities and later thinking they are somehow entitled to bring that back into the conventional system without hurdles.
Whatever doubt you have about the development of decentralised cryptocurrency, you can be 100% sure that sooner than you'd imagine, we will be moving to digital currencies and cash will be taken out of the equation. In that scenario - given your love of AML/KYC, that will mean a reality in which every single thing that you have ever purchased will sit on a database somewhere.
Great, that should have a terrific impact on reducing the black economy that cheats us all of tax revenue. I'm not buying anything illegal, Visa or Mastercard already have records of 95+% of what I spend. I don't buy much of the conspiracy theories, so I have nothing to fear from them knowing 100%.
The internet - we were told it was a haven of criminals and pedo's.
I don't remember anyone ever claiming that 40% of internet activity was criminal or pedo related?
Your buddy on here suggested that Bitcoin only had value as a tool of criminals. That's plain wrong.
Many have claimed that, I didn't. I see is as having a disproportionate amount of illicit use, it facilitates criminals, most particularly cybercriminals (but hey, that's job security for me).
We can rake over the coals once more if you wish. You're 40% study is outdated. Secondly, if MIT couldn't determine the nature of 70%+ of transactions, it calls into question how they managed that in the 'industry reviewed' [sic] study you cited.
The Oxford University study is from 2017, the Sydney study was Decmber 2018, the MIT one was published only 5 months after that. They all publish their methodology, MIT by their own admission took a very conservative approach, and only looked at a very small sample size.
Criminals use cars - should we ban cars? Let governments and authorities go fight crime in every other way. However, to throw out people's financial privacy and trample over that using fighting money laundering as a pretext is not acceptable.
Criminals do use cars, I don't think anyone is suggesting we should ban them. That would be grossly disproportionate. The vast, vast majority of car use is not associated directly with criminal activity.
I never called for crypto currencies to be banned, some folks embedded in financial services or government may be, but I don't think they're in the majority. With criminal use of cars, we equip our police forces with ANPR so they can see car registration details and tax/ insurance details on the registered user, they are informed of criminals operation in their area, etc., all in order to better detect illegal activity and make it more difficult for these criminals to carry out their activities.
What a number of the crypto community is now pushing for is greater anonymity and privacy to the point where regulation is impossible, where the detection of criminal activity becomes impossible. In the car analogy, that would be the equivalent of removing all car registration, driver licensing, insurance and tax databases, removing all speed cameras, and even the ability of the police to stop any motorist behaving in any way what they choose. Essentially, allowing all drivers to completely ignore the law, and drive as they choose with impunity. I don't think that would make our roads safer.