> It's handy to have a list of banks I can trust to not do anything stupid with the money.
That would be a list of banks that never - auth funds to dodgy looking overseas entities but will still lock your card for getting gas 4 counties away.
A list of banks that never did that would be meaningfully helpful. Alas, no helpful lists.
This is quite clearly a list of banks that will prevent you from doing one stupid thing with your money, but will not prevent you from doing many other stupid things with your money.
Did you just match the order of the previous poster, associating the word "deny" with a prefix that has been used to harass and marginalize society's most vulnerable for hundreds of years?
Or keep blacklist/whitelist since it comes from black and white which are colors and have nothing to do with race.
Rewriting etymology makes no sense IMHO. I kind of understand wanting to get rid of slave/master (though I’m not for it either, after all it is slaves and master when used in IT; we should not be afraid of words, but that’s another rant), but for black and white list it makes no sense to want to get rid of it AFAICT, apart from definitely saying black and white persons are indeed different.
When using stupid rules to rule the words, we get stupid things, like people wanting to change the word history to his or herstory. Yes, seriously.
Banks already do a lot of stuff to prevent their customers from being scammed, or engaging in criminal activities like drug dealing or money laundering. Since this is pretty much what crypto currencies seem to be used for, this is just another thing on that list of shady activities.
Hey, don't diss cryptocurrencies like that! They're not only good for pedestrian crimes like drug dealing and money laundering, cryptocurrency is the the currency of choice for the sophisticated criminal - the ransomware operator, the tax dodger, and the sanctions evader love it!
This has nothing to do with protecting customers from scams but everything with US pushed extreme AML policies and laws. The banks have to show the money trail and they worry the can’t with crypto so they just block it so they can tick regulatory boxes while shitting all over their customers. It’s very much not a good thing or because of you, the dear client.
No one cares until their account gets randomly closed without recourse.
> If you don't want to buy crypto, don't? I don't need a middle man for that.
I already don’t! But I also want my parents to be safe from the modern day equivalent of tech support scam, and good to see that some banks are being proactive about it.
I don't want my bank to decline my debit card when I have the funds. But I appreciate that they do it as a measure to evade fraud, because I've had that kind of fraud perpetrated on me and, prior to that, it was easy to imagine that it could happen. So a little friction in my transactions is a cost not a benefit of my banking. But the benefit I get from that cost is fraud protection.
Same thing applies here. If crypto were, on a measure, as fraudulent as it was not, then this might be heavy-handed. But as it is currently the source of more fraudulent activity, at least as it concerns these banks, than forthright activity, I'm happy for my bank to toll the cost of preventing crypto financial exchanging, for the benefit of fraud protection.
YMMV, of course. Different strokes for different folks. But, like the parent commenter, I'm happy with how my bank purports to handle crypto transactions.
But if someone has access to your account information in such a way that they can make purchases in your name isn't that a you, or your bank, problem? Couldn't that same person just spend the money elsewhere?
I'm just trying to understand the scenario here: you are caught up in a fraud, and unknowingly you give the fraudster access to information that they are able to leverage to make fraudulent purchases in your name and the 'win' here is that they can't spend it on crypto?
It seems like there are multiple points at which to address this problem prior to how they're spending your money.
Edit: I guess a lot of the comments are talking about the scam being that you are scammed into purchasing crypto somehow, a different scenario than someone having control of your account. Still though: people have been successfully swindling over the phone for a century. Having someone buy Monero instead of a wire transfer is just procedural.
I put my money in a bank to keep it safe. I'm not a bank or a fraud department, so I'm okay with the bank I trust to keep my money safe putting the brakes on something their experience says might be a problem.
My bank isn't on this list, but I wouldn't mind at least getting a text or app notification asking me to confirm it in the unlikely event I ever did anything with cryptocurrency.
I’d appreciate it not being at all possible to transfer funds from my bank to a crypto exchange. If my account has any connection with crypto there’s some kind of crime in progress.
I look forward to your post about how your bank randomly closed your account with no recourse based on a risk profile they do not have to tell you about
Banks don't ever choose to forgo handling money unless there is serious regulatory pressure. These are the people who are perfectly comfortable shaking down windows for a % interest on a mortgage. They do not care if someone (other than them) is losing money in crypto.
Given the number of people who are convinced crypto is "a scam"; it is a source of perverse pleasure to me at how hard the governments of the world are having to work to try and contain it.
> We've made this decision because fraudsters often use crypto assets to steal large sums of money from people. Blocking these payments is one of the ways we help keep you and your money safe.
Doesn't really seem that unreasonable, but I definitely have mixed feelings. I mean, if it's my money and I can confirm it's where I want to send it, my bank should send it, full-stop.
You could argue it's an excuse, since technically cryptocurrency competes with traditional bank transfers, but the fact is that it's actually pretty plausible and I'm not sure what this says about banking systems that it is.
A bank's misuse of money is carefully hidden, covered with a generations-old veneer. Read about the last three bank system crisis with the London-New York system in dollars.. there are dozens of good books about it. Decide for yourself who you want to do business with..
If your argument is "I can't do a bank run," that is the point. That is what regulators and policies to prevent systemic failures is for. Either my bank won't fail (JPMC) because it is GSIB [1] or FDIC will step in. There is someone with authority and trust of last resort. With crypto, it's just a bunch of tech bros saying "trust me." [2] If you trust tech bros more than regulators with regards to making your deposits whole (See: SVB, even when exceeding insurance limits [3]), ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Everyone can withdraw all their money at any time, as long as the any time is not the same time. According to the Bank Of Englad, 96% of money is held electronically (bank deposits),
4% of money is held physically in the form of cash (banknotes and coins), so while they may allow it, you'd need to give them time to print up some notes.
I've taken all my money out and moved banks several times in my life. It's a logistical hassle, but the actual movement of funds from bank A to bank B is very seamless. It happens literally all the time.
It depends who you are and where you are, but there’s no doubt that bank customers often have sudden, expensive, unexplained hold-ups in their attempts to withdraw. Sometimes, even for tiny amounts of very low 4 figures even. It can be terribly inconvenient.
It’s annoying, but you can ameliorate withdrawal bank hitches by advising the bank in advance of your plans. But if you don’t confirm it first, then do not expect to roll up at your bank and be handed $10,000 without hassle. Especially if you didn’t do it before.
This is NOT usually an issue of banks being frightened of a bank run, like some folks are guessing here.
It mostly is the bank’s low-level staff concern that a scam is in progress, that you are an idiot being cheated, and their fear that the bank will be liable and have to pay for your loss.
Less than 1% of people have more than $100,000 in cash in a single bank account.
The amount of those people that want to take all of their cash out - and not pop it in another bank (which includes buying something, assets, equities, etc) - is probably close to 0.
Very true. It’s almost always a non-issue (and could probably be ameliorated if you’re prepared in advance).
But, I’ll guarantee you, that one time in your life when you suddenly NEED $25,000 for emergency medical costs, or to close a critical business deal, or to pay for your wedding, or a parent’s funeral, or to help out friend or family in dire trouble?
Then, that one time, it is the biggest issue of your life. If a polite and cautious bureaucrat blocks it, then you will be angry about it forever.
And that one time is enough for one life.
You will not understand this until it happens to you.
And the threshold might not even be that high. I tried to take $8,000 from an account--at one of the fancy "private client" banks with a dedicated banker--and it took 10 days. This guy wanted to know how I intended to spend it. Essentially, the expectation was that I would ask permission and make my case for why I should be allowed the cash.
> NEED $25,000 for emergency medical costs, or to close a critical business deal, or to pay for your wedding, or a parent’s funeral, or to help out friend or family in dire trouble?
None of these are issues for anyone with that kind of money.
There's a thing called credit - which if you have that kind of cash - you have that kind of credit.
Sorry. But you speak from a position of privilege of which you are unaware, and you clearly have no idea about how this stuff sometimes works in the real world.
I apologize for being very rude. But you have never experienced this and you are wrong. I hope you never have this misfortune to learn this from personal experience.
I just so wish I didn't need a bank at all. I hate them and their 'policies', I don't trust them at all. They monitor my data and have their own goals that overrule my own. But I can't live without one in today's world.
Bitcoin was the proposal to become independent from banks. Everyone could be their own bank.
But then the speculators twisted the original intentions to safeguard their investments. And it basically became the banking system rebuilt in bitcoin. Like the exchanges instead of banks (the EU even has a proposal to make it illegal to keep money on private wallets), the KYC stuff so it's no longer possible to just create an account and work with it. I don't support bitcoin anymore, the idea was independence from big money but they simply took it over.
It is not Bitcoin that is the problem. It is the banks that are the problem.
Bitcoin is not the perfect bankless system of money that you might hope. But cryptocurrency is one step closer to making that happen. With cryptocurrency, there is an option to transact digitally outside of the government. That didn't exist before.
People trying to solve people problems with tech problems are sad when reality sets in and they discover the code is just a tool, not an enforcement mechanism or power structure that can override people. It is an OSI layer misunderstanding. Money is the currency of trust. People and trust.
You could say the same about SSL/TLS. Why don't we just pass laws that make spying/wiretapping illegal, and then send our passwords over the wire in plaintext? Privacy is a people problem, but we can still fight for it using tech. Tech won't solve all our problems, but it can definitely solve some.
I view bitcoin as on the same layer as TLS. The spirit of the internet was corrupted by Facebook/Google/etc, but the underlying tech still works. The spirit of bitcoin was corrupted by the exchanges and speculators, but the underlying tech still works. Both give you the power to take back some of the power that ordinary citizens have lost—if you know how to avoid the bad parts.
You're entitled to your perception, but not an outcome. Laws around value transfer, KYC, AML, consumer finance, etc exist current state. Fail to observe them at your own peril [1] [2]. TLS and in transit data encryption are legal and unencumbered, so viewing them at parity with systems like Bitcoin is not accurate.
Broadly speaking, data privacy is legal, monetary privacy is regulated (except in small fiat amounts under cash reporting limits). FinCEN, SARs, etc for US specific examples. An unregulated, distributed transfer of value system is unable to coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency. Do not pass go. Go directly to jail. OSI layers.
A bank freezing your account doesn't mean you've done something illegal. It means you've been caught in a bureaucratic machine that cares nothing for human outcomes.[1] If a bank tells me I can't move my legally-obtained money, and I have the power to say "screw the bureaucratic machine" and transact anyway, that's a win for society.
> An unregulated, distributed transfer of value system is unable to coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency.
You mean cash? Bitcoin is no more or less illegal than cash. In either case, follow the laws, pay your taxes, and you'll be fine. I'd rather deal with the IRS directly than argue over the phone with a customer service representative from Chase.
> You mean cash? Bitcoin is no more or less illegal than cash.
As I mentioned, cash has reporting requirements above small amounts ("except in small fiat amounts under cash reporting limits") [1]. Chainalysis exists as a business to provide reporting to governments for crypto transfers [2].
I paid for my car in cash, and nobody batted an eye. Car dealerships are not subject to banking regulations, only banks are. I don't know why people think that would suddenly change once bitcoin gets involved.
Governments pay companies to investigate people breaking the law with both cash and bitcoin. Cash and bitcoin are both coexisting just fine with existing financial regulations.
> I paid for my car in cash, and nobody batted an eye. Car dealerships are not subject to banking regulations, only banks are. I don't know why people think that would suddenly change once bitcoin gets involved.
I am only commenting to warn others, as this is absolutely not true, and you have a dangerous misunderstanding of financial regulations. You would not be told if a report was filed, to do so is illegal.
> Generally, any person in a trade or business who receives more than $10,000 in cash in a single transaction or related transactions must complete a Form 8300, Report of Cash Payments Over $10,000 Received in a Trade or BusinessPDF. Form 8300 is a joint form issued by the IRS and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and is used by the government to track individuals that evade taxes and those who profit from criminal activities. Although the cash reporting requirements apply to many types of businesses, auto dealerships frequently receive cash in excess of $10,000 and are required to comply with the filing requirements.
> Penalties. You may be subject to
penalties if you fail to file a correct and
complete Form 8300 on time and you
cannot show that the failure was due to
reasonable cause. You may also be
subject to penalties if you fail to furnish
timely a correct and complete statement
to each person named in a required
report. A minimum penalty of $25,000
may be imposed if the failure is due to
an intentional or willful disregard of the
cash reporting requirements.
> Penalties may also be imposed for
causing, or attempting to cause, a trade
or business to fail to file a required
report; for causing, or attempting to
cause, a trade or business to file a
required report containing a material
omission or misstatement of fact; or for
structuring, or attempting to structure,
transactions to avoid the reporting
requirements. These violations may also
be subject to criminal prosecution which,
upon conviction, may result in
imprisonment of up to 5 years or fines of
up to $250,000 for individuals and
$500,000 for corporations or both.
That is tax code, not a banking regulation, no? But on topic, nobody is preventing you from transacting with whatever quantity you want of your own cash. You just need to pinky promise to the government that you'll file the right forms with your taxes. Same as you would with bitcoin.
So again, why is cash able to "coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency", but bitcoin isn't?
> That is tax code, not a banking regulation, no? But on topic, nobody is preventing you from transacting with whatever quantity you want of your own cash. You just need to pinky promise to the government that you'll file the right forms with your taxes. Same as you would with bitcoin.
It appears your argument is "I don't like the law." Good luck to you. Statute is clear on the topic. I have made my best effort attempt to educate.
> The Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970, its amendments, and the other statutes relating to the subject matter of that Act, have come to be referred to as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The BSA authorizes the Department of the Treasury to impose reporting and other requirements on financial institutions and other businesses to help detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the regulations implementing the BSA require financial institutions to, among other things, keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, file reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. The BSA is sometimes referred to as an "anti-money laundering" (AML) law or jointly as “BSA/AML,” and is codified at 12 U.S.C. 1829b, 12 U.S.C. 1951-1960, 31 U.S.C. 5311-5314, 5316-5336, and includes notes thereto.
> It appears your argument is "I don't like the law."
???
Read again:
> You mean cash? Bitcoin is no more or less illegal than cash. In either case, follow the laws, pay your taxes, and you'll be fine. I'd rather deal with the IRS directly than argue over the phone with a customer service representative from Chase.
It seems like you want to paint me as a criminal because I dared to use any currency other than USD, and then reported it on my taxes? If you're not able to engage with my questions directly instead of changing the subject, I'll assume you're not posting in HN's spirit of curiosity, and end the conversation here.
I would even argue that cryptocurrencies are worse than banks. They are unregulated and some politicians believe wrongly it is good. That is the worst possible combination?
By design cryptocurrencies make rich people richer. Either they buy more graphics-cards or disks or just steal processor power (a reminder: JavaScript in your browser can mine for others). The attempt with disk space make it even worse (Who had that idea? A drive manufacturer envy on Nvidia/AMD?). In the meanwhile electricity is wasted. And criminals love it.
There was never a chance that Bitcoin would improve anything. At least cash is anonymous and doesn’t need an internet connection.
btw.
Good news? Yes!
Real time transfer (SEPA) will likely soon not cost more than regular transfer in the EU. Good banks already don’t charge that. And it is a common federated standard. It is more complicated than forcing everyone to be a customer of one bank (named PayPal) but already works well for years.
If only the bitcoin algorithm had been designed with a slow-but-steady inflation rate built in.
That would have eliminated the speculative "store of value" incentive and created a true currency.
Inflation is not a boogieman. When slow and steady and predictable its a net positive for society. It incentivizes investment and doing productive things with your money instead of holding it in non-productive gold or gold-like digital commodities.
Slow and steady predicable inflation can be a net positive, but not necessarily. It's current implementation is not slow nor steady. Among other things, unchecked debt inflation leads to global military conflicts without democratic support.
> If only the bitcoin algorithm had been designed with a slow-but-steady inflation rate built in.
Or just with a fixed block subsidy. A pure linear emission. That would already strongly deter speculation, as it takes a century to get supply inflation rate down to 1%.
That's my favorite thing about Grin, the simplicity of the emission curve. It doesn't lend itself well to early speculative adoption, but it does work really well for long term utility, which is supposed to be the point of all this.
I know, there's so much more beauty in Grin, cut through, your absolutely wonderful proof of work scheme, but the simplicity and elegance of the emission scheme was what first piqued my interest and made me realize this is no steel reinforced bridge, this is a stone pyramid.
Indeed Satoshi design would've been like that, eventually we got Chainlink to 'to know the real world value of things.'and Ampleforth used that in the design to have perfect elastic supply
The incentive designers of the system disagree with you fundamentally that it is a net positive. In their mind, investing is risk taking for a profit by allocating capital where there is potential to be beneficial, saving money shouldn't involve risk. Saving money isn't supposed to be productive. Yet with a type of money that devalues over time, it is impossible to save money, so one must invest. This leads to all sorts of market distortions, in particular monetization of non money assets such as housing.
I personally though do believe that a slow and predictable, to the point of being unchangeable, supply increase is better, but not for the reason you mentioned. I think the system is a commons, having to store and upkeep a record of everyone's wealth, and that simply storing wealth is a use case of money, and so no perpetual inflation is a subsidy of those using the money to save at the cost of those spending. People just storing wealth on a system that requires active maintenance at no cost are free riders. The inflation rate is their share of the cost to keep the system alive. So in these systems I have a preference for a linear, algorithmic perpetual emission of coins. Two of my favorite (from a technical perspective) networks that do just that are Monero and Grin.
Yes, there's all kinds of garbage built on top of the underlying foundation, most of which is spam, scams, surveillance, or centralized unfree profit extraction.
But none of that prevents me from using the underlying foundation directly, free of spam and scams. The foundation still works perfectly.
>> Chase UK is the first bank on the list
If you have an account at Chase, and Chase censors Coinbase, but Chase willingly connects with Wise and Wise connects with Coinbase, then it's easy to see how to do what you want to do with your money.
And if you value the freedom to do what you want with your own money, then only keep small balances with nanny-banks. Treat them like hot wallets and keep large balances in cold storage elsewhere.
Let it play out. Withdraw from the bitcoin world for a while if you like, but I wouldn't say it's over. Of course places where you buy it with national currencies are going to have to comply with KYC laws. Of course as people speculate, in the original sense of trying to glean the future through reason, that if they come to the conclusion that it has utility, or that other people think it has utility, they'll attempt to profit on their foresight. Your complaints were to be expected whether it failed or succeeded; if it succeeded then this is a phase. I wouldn't write it off just yet.
A few jobs ago, there was a huge influx of hacking attempts coming from some specific part of India. Until we could figure out the best way to detect and block those nefarious connections, we decided to just block ALL traffic from that area. It felt wrong to me, but as long as it was temporary, it made sense.
That said, I'm against a bank deciding they're uncomfortable with a very popular, secure digital asset indefinitely. Figure it out, bank. Don't be so bankey.
If Bitcoin or Ethereum or any kind of cryptocurrency achieves mass adoption, why would there not be a block list of “known bad addresses” that would flag your wallet and the grocery store would refuse to transact with you?
Governments, corporations, and individuals would all want to have guardrails in place to prevent fraud and abuse. Let alone, any kind of attempt at controlling transactions to terrorist organizations or sanctioned individuals.
You and I could certainly transact privately but if your wallet address was flagged, I would need to do so using a separate private wallet address and never transfer funds to or from that to my wallet address that I use with my employer or the store. Maintaining perfect opsec forever to never link those addresses lest the big bad government flags me.
So why wouldn’t they have the same systems in place that they have today if we were on Bitcoins instead of dollars? And if the issue is bad governance, why would we even need bitcoin? It’s clear the solution is fixing the government and corporations.
But if we’re using an L2 like the lightning network or some Ethereum based one, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Using specific smart contracts with the guardrails I am talking about, your flagged addresses wouldn’t be able to open or complete that transaction without my approval.
And also this highlights why cryptocurrency probably won’t achieve mass adoption. Being able to send nfts that are actually viruses that drain a user’s wallet if they interact with it could allow for automated fraud on a scale never seen before.
This fictional scenario would have people not sharing their L1 address. Like you currently don’t share your bank account number when you use a credit card.
I’m highlighting how cryptocurrency would probably not be adopted as it works today and would likely have guardrails to prevent fraud, abuse, and a block list of “bad addresses” associated with transactions the government and corporate do not approve of. Like how fiat works today. It’s on cryptocurrency advocates to explain how mass adoption would avoid bad governance. And if we can eliminate bad governance by developing strong legal protections, rights to privacy and so on, why is the transition to crypto necessary if you had a right to freely, privately, and securely make digital transactions?
We don’t even need to invent a hypothetical scenario to say that wouldn’t work. Tornado cash was shutdown by the US government. Why would operations like that and wallet addresses associated with those types of transactions, not be banned in a crypto mass adoption scenario?
>why would there not be a block list of “known bad addresses” (for cryptocurrencies)
It’s a good question.
The soft libertarian crypto-advocate answer might be: Because this discrimination based on ‘badness’ of transaction purposes is antithetical to the whole original ethos of Bitcoin.
The practical answer, in my opinion, might be: Because this powers the adoption of Zero Knowledge obfuscation technologies that make tracing transactions almost impossible. So then the only solution is a total ban on all non-approved, untracked financial transactions, which is a frightening intrusion into personal liberties.
And, obviously, many people’s answer would be: Yes, that sounds good, and it will protect us from many bad things.
So the solution to me is protecting personal liberties with respect to private transactions. A right to privacy with regards to digital transactions, a culture of impeaching, recalling, or otherwise voting out politicians who propose legislation that would curtail those rights, and a legal system that would punish corporations and people who violate others rights to privacy doesn’t necessarily mean that we need crypto. It could help facilitate that, but fiat, specifically cash can do all that (just not yet digitally).
Well, yes. Good. We work the political, regulatory and legal systems to develop this utopia. I agree this is what we should be working towards. I am delighted by your optimism, it’s wonderful.
But, looking At Washington right now (for example), can you honestly see this happening anytime soon? I’m sorry, but I can’t.
I think we should think about how we can work around that gridlock, even if we’re just doing it to pressure the powers-that-be (government, banks etc) to do a slightly better job.
Substantial amount of various systemic reforms would be required to reach this. Election reform, voting reform, constitutional reforms (to the point a new one would probably be necessary), and so much more. All while, like you point out, dozens if not hundreds of thousands of people, politicians, legal frameworks, and corporate interests would work to undermine, delay, or prevent these reforms.
They are possible. But it isn’t easy. I just feel, that what cryptocurrency advocates want is really a right to privacy. That the current systems do not have. A currency using a hardcoded hyper deflationary monetary policy and is barely able to make a fraction of the current rate of fiat transactions is hopefully not what they are actually after.
It doesn't quite work like this, what the banks are doing is blocking the ingress/egress points, the points where real money is transferred back and forth from real money to blockchain money. The bank never sees a bitcoin address and it would be rather useless anyway.
The way bitcoin wallets work nowadays is that when you have some bitcoin on an address and you sent some coins to somebody it splits into two addresses, the receiver and a new address signed with your wallet key. But it is non-trivial to introspect the blockchain to know which of the two addresses you control now. It isn't perfect anonymity but it also isn't as trivial as creating a blocklist of addresses or wallets.
My argument is, if we wave a magic wand and suddenly all transactions are now in Bitcoin (or Ethereum or whatever) instead of dollars, without changing our culture, rights, and everything else, why would we not end up in the current system of guardrails, block lists, proscribed organizations and individuals?
Without a legal right to private digital transactions why would the mass adoption of Bitcoin make that a reality and the system not just be rebuilt in a few years? And if we had a legal right to private digital transactions, why would Bitcoin even be used for everyday transactions if dollars are good enough?
Well I was just commenting on the technical side of things. I would assume that the people who advocate / invented Bitcoin believe that the monetary system with those regulations is corrupt/repressive/broken. The point of Bitcoin is a technical workaround of these issues they see. If those issues didn't exist there would be no reason for Bitcoin to exist.
The point isn't to fix the system, its to figure out a way around the system. To make the regulation of Bitcoin/etc. a technical impossibility. So even if you don't have a right to private digital transactions it doesn't matter. Right now, you don't need a bank to transfer bitcoin to/from dollars, there exist already countless ways around it.
Thats all to say if you believe in unregulated capitalism and not that there are very good reasons for a lot of the regulations, and even the parts that are corrupt or broken should not lead you to advocate for no regulations at all, which would effectively end up in a Mad Max dystopia.
This list contains (among other types of identifiers) a bunch of cryptocurrency addresses, and exchanges/hosted wallets/etc in the United States will refuse to do business with you if there's any association with one of these addresses.
I am generally against crypto (although was 'for' it 10 years ago). But I wouldn't be happy if my bank did this unless they also put in place similar restrictions, presumably for 'my own good', on transferring money to online gambling apps. I see too many advertisements for online gambling that I'm quite disgusted by it.
The only justifiable rationale for blocking such transactions, IMO, is to try to help your customers from being scammed or, more broadly, putting themselves into a precarious financial situation. Hence why they should have similar blocks on gambling.
But really, where I transfer my money is not the bank's business, and they often offer their own products that would allow people to put themselves into a bad financial position, e.g., trading on margin. So it comes off less as 'this is for your own good' and more as 'we will not allow you to engage in what we see as our competition.'
Regardless of how you feel about crypto (I have never been a fan), the fact that banks and credit card companies have become non-elected dictators regulating all of global commerce should be alarming to you.
A banking license, granted by the government, is quite literally a license to print money via the fractional reserve system.
If we're granting you a license to print money, you cease to be a private business who can choose your customers. You are a provider of government infrastructure, and should not be allowed to block any commerce that hasn't been declared illegal by legislation created by our elected representatives.
You can check my comment history, I have never purchased a cryptocurrency in my life and have been loudly critical of it since the first mainstream mania in 2017.
However, I do not believe banks, which we allow to exist, should be allowed to become non-elected dictators, blocking fully legal transactions based on whatever the media mood of the day is.
Putting all the blame on the banks is simplifying matters. A lot of this is consequence of regulation.
KYC requirements makes touching customers with crypto really risky, since KYC essentially codifies guilty until proven innocent. High volume cash businesses have been seeing this a lot too.
If you take this in context of patio11's post the other day on banks this is good!
Some people will use cryptocurrency for various legitimate reasons. For that group, let them have a list of banks that will let them do cryptocurrency stuff. If they have the agency to find a bank that allows these transactions, they at least understand the potential for scams, fraud, etc.
And some people will be involved in cryptocurrency-scams where thieves steal their life savings away. For that group, the unsophisticated bank user, cryptocurrency-off is probably a good thing.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 197 ms ] threadThat would be a list of banks that never - auth funds to dodgy looking overseas entities but will still lock your card for getting gas 4 counties away.
A list of banks that never did that would be meaningfully helpful. Alas, no helpful lists.
How dare you?
Rewriting etymology makes no sense IMHO. I kind of understand wanting to get rid of slave/master (though I’m not for it either, after all it is slaves and master when used in IT; we should not be afraid of words, but that’s another rant), but for black and white list it makes no sense to want to get rid of it AFAICT, apart from definitely saying black and white persons are indeed different.
When using stupid rules to rule the words, we get stupid things, like people wanting to change the word history to his or herstory. Yes, seriously.
We have to stop.
If you don't want to buy crypto, don't? I don't need a middle man for that.
No one cares until their account gets randomly closed without recourse.
I already don’t! But I also want my parents to be safe from the modern day equivalent of tech support scam, and good to see that some banks are being proactive about it.
Same thing applies here. If crypto were, on a measure, as fraudulent as it was not, then this might be heavy-handed. But as it is currently the source of more fraudulent activity, at least as it concerns these banks, than forthright activity, I'm happy for my bank to toll the cost of preventing crypto financial exchanging, for the benefit of fraud protection.
YMMV, of course. Different strokes for different folks. But, like the parent commenter, I'm happy with how my bank purports to handle crypto transactions.
I'm just trying to understand the scenario here: you are caught up in a fraud, and unknowingly you give the fraudster access to information that they are able to leverage to make fraudulent purchases in your name and the 'win' here is that they can't spend it on crypto?
It seems like there are multiple points at which to address this problem prior to how they're spending your money.
Edit: I guess a lot of the comments are talking about the scam being that you are scammed into purchasing crypto somehow, a different scenario than someone having control of your account. Still though: people have been successfully swindling over the phone for a century. Having someone buy Monero instead of a wire transfer is just procedural.
My bank isn't on this list, but I wouldn't mind at least getting a text or app notification asking me to confirm it in the unlikely event I ever did anything with cryptocurrency.
e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/s/X2qBxazYm6
that is what banks like the ones on this list do
Given the number of people who are convinced crypto is "a scam"; it is a source of perverse pleasure to me at how hard the governments of the world are having to work to try and contain it.
Do you also take perverse pleasure at environmental pollution and how hard everyone has to work to contain it? What about road accidents?
https://www.chase.co.uk/gb/en/support/crypto/
> Why don't you allow crypto asset payments?
> We've made this decision because fraudsters often use crypto assets to steal large sums of money from people. Blocking these payments is one of the ways we help keep you and your money safe.
Doesn't really seem that unreasonable, but I definitely have mixed feelings. I mean, if it's my money and I can confirm it's where I want to send it, my bank should send it, full-stop.
You could argue it's an excuse, since technically cryptocurrency competes with traditional bank transfers, but the fact is that it's actually pretty plausible and I'm not sure what this says about banking systems that it is.
[1] ("Global systemically important banks")
[2] https://web3isgoinggreat.com/charts/top ("$69,522,310,172 has been lost to hacks, scams, fraud, and other disasters since January 1, 2021.")
[3] https://fortune.com/2023/03/12/all-silicon-valley-bank-depos... ("‘Systemic risk exception’ invoked to fully protect all Silicon Valley Bank depositors, Fed rolls out new backstop for banking sector")
Cash isn't really a thing here anymore due to the government's extreme incompetence at guaranteeing our safety.
I just didn't insist on cash.
Yes, but…
Just Google “large withdrawal problem”
Or just read this: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/sep/12/big-cash-withd...
It depends who you are and where you are, but there’s no doubt that bank customers often have sudden, expensive, unexplained hold-ups in their attempts to withdraw. Sometimes, even for tiny amounts of very low 4 figures even. It can be terribly inconvenient.
It’s annoying, but you can ameliorate withdrawal bank hitches by advising the bank in advance of your plans. But if you don’t confirm it first, then do not expect to roll up at your bank and be handed $10,000 without hassle. Especially if you didn’t do it before.
This is NOT usually an issue of banks being frightened of a bank run, like some folks are guessing here.
It mostly is the bank’s low-level staff concern that a scam is in progress, that you are an idiot being cheated, and their fear that the bank will be liable and have to pay for your loss.
The amount of those people that want to take all of their cash out - and not pop it in another bank (which includes buying something, assets, equities, etc) - is probably close to 0.
This is a non-issue for almost everyone.
Very true. It’s almost always a non-issue (and could probably be ameliorated if you’re prepared in advance).
But, I’ll guarantee you, that one time in your life when you suddenly NEED $25,000 for emergency medical costs, or to close a critical business deal, or to pay for your wedding, or a parent’s funeral, or to help out friend or family in dire trouble?
Then, that one time, it is the biggest issue of your life. If a polite and cautious bureaucrat blocks it, then you will be angry about it forever.
And that one time is enough for one life.
You will not understand this until it happens to you.
None of these are issues for anyone with that kind of money.
There's a thing called credit - which if you have that kind of cash - you have that kind of credit.
Sorry. But you speak from a position of privilege of which you are unaware, and you clearly have no idea about how this stuff sometimes works in the real world.
I apologize for being very rude. But you have never experienced this and you are wrong. I hope you never have this misfortune to learn this from personal experience.
I apologize for my impolite manner here.
Bitcoin was the proposal to become independent from banks. Everyone could be their own bank.
But then the speculators twisted the original intentions to safeguard their investments. And it basically became the banking system rebuilt in bitcoin. Like the exchanges instead of banks (the EU even has a proposal to make it illegal to keep money on private wallets), the KYC stuff so it's no longer possible to just create an account and work with it. I don't support bitcoin anymore, the idea was independence from big money but they simply took it over.
Bitcoin is not the perfect bankless system of money that you might hope. But cryptocurrency is one step closer to making that happen. With cryptocurrency, there is an option to transact digitally outside of the government. That didn't exist before.
I view bitcoin as on the same layer as TLS. The spirit of the internet was corrupted by Facebook/Google/etc, but the underlying tech still works. The spirit of bitcoin was corrupted by the exchanges and speculators, but the underlying tech still works. Both give you the power to take back some of the power that ordinary citizens have lost—if you know how to avoid the bad parts.
Broadly speaking, data privacy is legal, monetary privacy is regulated (except in small fiat amounts under cash reporting limits). FinCEN, SARs, etc for US specific examples. An unregulated, distributed transfer of value system is unable to coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency. Do not pass go. Go directly to jail. OSI layers.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/tornado-cash-founders-c...
[2] https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/12/former-ethereum...
> An unregulated, distributed transfer of value system is unable to coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency.
You mean cash? Bitcoin is no more or less illegal than cash. In either case, follow the laws, pay your taxes, and you'll be fine. I'd rather deal with the IRS directly than argue over the phone with a customer service representative from Chase.
[1]: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/seeing-like-a-bank/
As I mentioned, cash has reporting requirements above small amounts ("except in small fiat amounts under cash reporting limits") [1]. Chainalysis exists as a business to provide reporting to governments for crypto transfers [2].
[1] https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/2021...
[2] https://www.chainalysis.com/regulators/
Governments pay companies to investigate people breaking the law with both cash and bitcoin. Cash and bitcoin are both coexisting just fine with existing financial regulations.
I am only commenting to warn others, as this is absolutely not true, and you have a dangerous misunderstanding of financial regulations. You would not be told if a report was filed, to do so is illegal.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8300.pdf
> Generally, any person in a trade or business who receives more than $10,000 in cash in a single transaction or related transactions must complete a Form 8300, Report of Cash Payments Over $10,000 Received in a Trade or BusinessPDF. Form 8300 is a joint form issued by the IRS and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and is used by the government to track individuals that evade taxes and those who profit from criminal activities. Although the cash reporting requirements apply to many types of businesses, auto dealerships frequently receive cash in excess of $10,000 and are required to comply with the filing requirements.
> Penalties. You may be subject to penalties if you fail to file a correct and complete Form 8300 on time and you cannot show that the failure was due to reasonable cause. You may also be subject to penalties if you fail to furnish timely a correct and complete statement to each person named in a required report. A minimum penalty of $25,000 may be imposed if the failure is due to an intentional or willful disregard of the cash reporting requirements.
> Penalties may also be imposed for causing, or attempting to cause, a trade or business to fail to file a required report; for causing, or attempting to cause, a trade or business to file a required report containing a material omission or misstatement of fact; or for structuring, or attempting to structure, transactions to avoid the reporting requirements. These violations may also be subject to criminal prosecution which, upon conviction, may result in imprisonment of up to 5 years or fines of up to $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations or both.
So again, why is cash able to "coexist with nation state regulations and desires to control the currency", but bitcoin isn't?
It appears your argument is "I don't like the law." Good luck to you. Statute is clear on the topic. I have made my best effort attempt to educate.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/chapter-I/subchapter-A... ("§ 1.6050I-1 Returns relating to cash in excess of $10,000 received in a trade or business.")
https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-and-regulations/ba... ("Bank Secrecy Act")
> The Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act of 1970, its amendments, and the other statutes relating to the subject matter of that Act, have come to be referred to as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The BSA authorizes the Department of the Treasury to impose reporting and other requirements on financial institutions and other businesses to help detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the regulations implementing the BSA require financial institutions to, among other things, keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, file reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might signify money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. The BSA is sometimes referred to as an "anti-money laundering" (AML) law or jointly as “BSA/AML,” and is codified at 12 U.S.C. 1829b, 12 U.S.C. 1951-1960, 31 U.S.C. 5311-5314, 5316-5336, and includes notes thereto.
???
Read again:
> You mean cash? Bitcoin is no more or less illegal than cash. In either case, follow the laws, pay your taxes, and you'll be fine. I'd rather deal with the IRS directly than argue over the phone with a customer service representative from Chase.
It seems like you want to paint me as a criminal because I dared to use any currency other than USD, and then reported it on my taxes? If you're not able to engage with my questions directly instead of changing the subject, I'll assume you're not posting in HN's spirit of curiosity, and end the conversation here.
This is more true in the last couple decades than it ever has been
By design cryptocurrencies make rich people richer. Either they buy more graphics-cards or disks or just steal processor power (a reminder: JavaScript in your browser can mine for others). The attempt with disk space make it even worse (Who had that idea? A drive manufacturer envy on Nvidia/AMD?). In the meanwhile electricity is wasted. And criminals love it.
There was never a chance that Bitcoin would improve anything. At least cash is anonymous and doesn’t need an internet connection.
btw.
Good news? Yes! Real time transfer (SEPA) will likely soon not cost more than regular transfer in the EU. Good banks already don’t charge that. And it is a common federated standard. It is more complicated than forcing everyone to be a customer of one bank (named PayPal) but already works well for years.
That would have eliminated the speculative "store of value" incentive and created a true currency.
Inflation is not a boogieman. When slow and steady and predictable its a net positive for society. It incentivizes investment and doing productive things with your money instead of holding it in non-productive gold or gold-like digital commodities.
Or just with a fixed block subsidy. A pure linear emission. That would already strongly deter speculation, as it takes a century to get supply inflation rate down to 1%.
I know, there's so much more beauty in Grin, cut through, your absolutely wonderful proof of work scheme, but the simplicity and elegance of the emission scheme was what first piqued my interest and made me realize this is no steel reinforced bridge, this is a stone pyramid.
Indeed Satoshi design would've been like that, eventually we got Chainlink to 'to know the real world value of things.'and Ampleforth used that in the design to have perfect elastic supply
I personally though do believe that a slow and predictable, to the point of being unchangeable, supply increase is better, but not for the reason you mentioned. I think the system is a commons, having to store and upkeep a record of everyone's wealth, and that simply storing wealth is a use case of money, and so no perpetual inflation is a subsidy of those using the money to save at the cost of those spending. People just storing wealth on a system that requires active maintenance at no cost are free riders. The inflation rate is their share of the cost to keep the system alive. So in these systems I have a preference for a linear, algorithmic perpetual emission of coins. Two of my favorite (from a technical perspective) networks that do just that are Monero and Grin.
I see it like the free internet.
Yes, there's all kinds of garbage built on top of the underlying foundation, most of which is spam, scams, surveillance, or centralized unfree profit extraction.
But none of that prevents me from using the underlying foundation directly, free of spam and scams. The foundation still works perfectly.
>> Chase UK is the first bank on the list
If you have an account at Chase, and Chase censors Coinbase, but Chase willingly connects with Wise and Wise connects with Coinbase, then it's easy to see how to do what you want to do with your money.
And if you value the freedom to do what you want with your own money, then only keep small balances with nanny-banks. Treat them like hot wallets and keep large balances in cold storage elsewhere.
That said, I'm against a bank deciding they're uncomfortable with a very popular, secure digital asset indefinitely. Figure it out, bank. Don't be so bankey.
Governments, corporations, and individuals would all want to have guardrails in place to prevent fraud and abuse. Let alone, any kind of attempt at controlling transactions to terrorist organizations or sanctioned individuals.
You and I could certainly transact privately but if your wallet address was flagged, I would need to do so using a separate private wallet address and never transfer funds to or from that to my wallet address that I use with my employer or the store. Maintaining perfect opsec forever to never link those addresses lest the big bad government flags me.
So why wouldn’t they have the same systems in place that they have today if we were on Bitcoins instead of dollars? And if the issue is bad governance, why would we even need bitcoin? It’s clear the solution is fixing the government and corporations.
And also this highlights why cryptocurrency probably won’t achieve mass adoption. Being able to send nfts that are actually viruses that drain a user’s wallet if they interact with it could allow for automated fraud on a scale never seen before.
I’m highlighting how cryptocurrency would probably not be adopted as it works today and would likely have guardrails to prevent fraud, abuse, and a block list of “bad addresses” associated with transactions the government and corporate do not approve of. Like how fiat works today. It’s on cryptocurrency advocates to explain how mass adoption would avoid bad governance. And if we can eliminate bad governance by developing strong legal protections, rights to privacy and so on, why is the transition to crypto necessary if you had a right to freely, privately, and securely make digital transactions?
An empty new wallet doesn’t help you pay for groceries right now.
It’s a good question.
The soft libertarian crypto-advocate answer might be: Because this discrimination based on ‘badness’ of transaction purposes is antithetical to the whole original ethos of Bitcoin.
The practical answer, in my opinion, might be: Because this powers the adoption of Zero Knowledge obfuscation technologies that make tracing transactions almost impossible. So then the only solution is a total ban on all non-approved, untracked financial transactions, which is a frightening intrusion into personal liberties.
And, obviously, many people’s answer would be: Yes, that sounds good, and it will protect us from many bad things.
But, looking At Washington right now (for example), can you honestly see this happening anytime soon? I’m sorry, but I can’t.
I think we should think about how we can work around that gridlock, even if we’re just doing it to pressure the powers-that-be (government, banks etc) to do a slightly better job.
They are possible. But it isn’t easy. I just feel, that what cryptocurrency advocates want is really a right to privacy. That the current systems do not have. A currency using a hardcoded hyper deflationary monetary policy and is barely able to make a fraction of the current rate of fiat transactions is hopefully not what they are actually after.
The way bitcoin wallets work nowadays is that when you have some bitcoin on an address and you sent some coins to somebody it splits into two addresses, the receiver and a new address signed with your wallet key. But it is non-trivial to introspect the blockchain to know which of the two addresses you control now. It isn't perfect anonymity but it also isn't as trivial as creating a blocklist of addresses or wallets.
Without a legal right to private digital transactions why would the mass adoption of Bitcoin make that a reality and the system not just be rebuilt in a few years? And if we had a legal right to private digital transactions, why would Bitcoin even be used for everyday transactions if dollars are good enough?
The point isn't to fix the system, its to figure out a way around the system. To make the regulation of Bitcoin/etc. a technical impossibility. So even if you don't have a right to private digital transactions it doesn't matter. Right now, you don't need a bank to transfer bitcoin to/from dollars, there exist already countless ways around it.
Thats all to say if you believe in unregulated capitalism and not that there are very good reasons for a lot of the regulations, and even the parts that are corrupt or broken should not lead you to advocate for no regulations at all, which would effectively end up in a Mad Max dystopia.
This list contains (among other types of identifiers) a bunch of cryptocurrency addresses, and exchanges/hosted wallets/etc in the United States will refuse to do business with you if there's any association with one of these addresses.
The only justifiable rationale for blocking such transactions, IMO, is to try to help your customers from being scammed or, more broadly, putting themselves into a precarious financial situation. Hence why they should have similar blocks on gambling.
But really, where I transfer my money is not the bank's business, and they often offer their own products that would allow people to put themselves into a bad financial position, e.g., trading on margin. So it comes off less as 'this is for your own good' and more as 'we will not allow you to engage in what we see as our competition.'
Once it more fully built out, I can talk to my parents about moving all their assets to one of these banks.
They are already on the receiving end of scams and their bank stopped a fraudulent transfer to someone claiming to be my brother.
Last thing I want is them sending their money to some unrecoverable crypto scammer.
I was hoping the pendulum would swing back to sanity on this.
Is the term back to neutral or still considered harmful?
A banking license, granted by the government, is quite literally a license to print money via the fractional reserve system.
If we're granting you a license to print money, you cease to be a private business who can choose your customers. You are a provider of government infrastructure, and should not be allowed to block any commerce that hasn't been declared illegal by legislation created by our elected representatives.
The Crypto Bro Force is still high with this one...
However, I do not believe banks, which we allow to exist, should be allowed to become non-elected dictators, blocking fully legal transactions based on whatever the media mood of the day is.
How do new Bitcoins enter circulation again?
KYC requirements makes touching customers with crypto really risky, since KYC essentially codifies guilty until proven innocent. High volume cash businesses have been seeing this a lot too.
Some people will use cryptocurrency for various legitimate reasons. For that group, let them have a list of banks that will let them do cryptocurrency stuff. If they have the agency to find a bank that allows these transactions, they at least understand the potential for scams, fraud, etc.
And some people will be involved in cryptocurrency-scams where thieves steal their life savings away. For that group, the unsophisticated bank user, cryptocurrency-off is probably a good thing.