Crypto just feels like the end result of dinosaurs (or stuck in a rut thinkers) at basically all levels of government. Whatever you think crypto should or shouldn't be, it probably isn't this. I'm...
Crypto just feels like the end result of dinosaurs (or stuck in a rut thinkers) at basically all levels of government.
Whatever you think crypto should or shouldn't be, it probably isn't this. I'm not totally against dialing back some of the insane rules that are out there, but this also strikes me as "cool so everyone will just dump their money in crypto and call it a loss?" levels of stupid, and that's obviously before you get to "oh and it'll fund a whole shitload of awful things even easier".
Also personally this just annoys me because I also think, that again, whatever crypto is or isn't, Tether in the ecosystem is just a timebomb. Maybe they'll figure something out, maybe the future is just "fuck you" backed fiat with a mixture of bullshits and scams, but this certainly isn't going to put any pressure on tactics like theirs, or competitors.
Every day there is news of something that the Trump admin has done. It seems to always fall into one of 4 categories: It's something that is directly corrupt, or facilitates corruption Like this...
Every day there is news of something that the Trump admin has done. It seems to always fall into one of 4 categories:
It's something that is directly corrupt, or facilitates corruption
Like this story, abusing pardon power, etc
It's something fascist or facilitates fascism.
For example mass deportation of immigrants, firing military leaders, and otherwise consolidating power, inciting an insurrection, etc
He made plain to see ways that our Presidential Republic is incredibly vulnerable to a few bad actors and how vibes based government and writing laws "from the heart" are incompatible with modern...
He made plain to see ways that our Presidential Republic is incredibly vulnerable to a few bad actors and how vibes based government and writing laws "from the heart" are incompatible with modern society?
I don't know about objectively because policies always have trade-offs. I like the changes to relax showerhead restrictions since they're a miniscule contributor to total water usage.
Has he done anything considered objectively good for the country?
I don't know about objectively because policies always have trade-offs. I like the changes to relax showerhead restrictions since they're a miniscule contributor to total water usage.
I'd argue the methods he's using to do these things still make them negatives. Sure, I agree that the penny is probably best removed from our currency, but not really by presidential fiat. That's...
I'd argue the methods he's using to do these things still make them negatives. Sure, I agree that the penny is probably best removed from our currency, but not really by presidential fiat.
That's the part I don't want us to lose sight of. Making the trains run on time won't ever be worth the loss of freedom or destruction of the separation of powers.
It appears to be official now. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, when illicit activity is routed via crypto infrastructure, then it no longer qualifies as money laundering.
Earlier this week the Department of Justice's deputy attorney general Todd Blanche sent out an internal staff memo saying that the digital asset industry (read: crypto) is "critical to the nation’s economic development." (Editor's note: it's not.) As such, staff have been instructed to stop targeting crypto platforms such as exchanges, mixers like Tornado Cash and ChipMixer, and offline wallets for the "acts of their end users."
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This marks a radical departure from long-established financial law on Planet Earth, where financial institutions are generally held responsible for the "acts of their end users," and are pursued when criminals use them to "conduct their illegal activities." It's what's known in law as money laundering.
Money laundering is a two-sided crime. There's the first leg: a criminal who has dirty money. And there is the second leg: the criminal's counterparty, a financial intermediary (a bank, crypto exchange, remittance platform, money courier, or helpful individual) who processes the dirty funds. Both legs are prosecutable. That's precisely what happened to both TD Bank and its cartel-linked customers when they were charged last year. Financial providers are held liable for the crimes of their users.
The same two-sidedness goes for sanctions evasion. There is the sanctioned party and there is the financial platform that facilitates their evasion. Both are indictable.
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In effect the entire technology has been handed a get-out-of-money-laundering-jail-free card. A detached observer could safely assume that crypto platforms will respond by easing up on their compliance measures—they won't be indicted, after all—which, in turn, will allow more bad actors to make use of their services.
The memo provides more details. It's quite likely that both the ongoing Tornado Cash case (which I've written about extensively) and the ChipMixer case will be dropped, as the memo explicitly states that the Department will no longer target mixing and tumbling services. Tornado Cash, a smart-contract based mixer, operates with a large proportion of its infrastructure running through automated code, whereas first-generation mixers like ChipMixer are entirely human-operated. The latter had mostly disappeared thanks to a series of successful criminal convictions, but will spring back into action as the threat of indictment recedes—leading to more anonymity for the entire system, including for criminals.
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This decriminalization of crypto money laundering is a ratification of how much of the crypto ecosystem already operates. Just last week, for example, I wrote about stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle allowing Garantex, a sanctioned Russian exchange, to hold balances of their stablecoins. The issuers seem to believe that providing access to illicit end users like Garantex is legal. And now, it seems, the government has confirmed their view by no longer targeting unhosted wallets for the "acts of their end users."
Crypto just feels like the end result of dinosaurs (or stuck in a rut thinkers) at basically all levels of government.
Whatever you think crypto should or shouldn't be, it probably isn't this. I'm not totally against dialing back some of the insane rules that are out there, but this also strikes me as "cool so everyone will just dump their money in crypto and call it a loss?" levels of stupid, and that's obviously before you get to "oh and it'll fund a whole shitload of awful things even easier".
Also personally this just annoys me because I also think, that again, whatever crypto is or isn't, Tether in the ecosystem is just a timebomb. Maybe they'll figure something out, maybe the future is just "fuck you" backed fiat with a mixture of bullshits and scams, but this certainly isn't going to put any pressure on tactics like theirs, or competitors.
Every day there is news of something that the Trump admin has done. It seems to always fall into one of 4 categories:
It's something that is directly corrupt, or facilitates corruption
Like this story, abusing pardon power, etc
It's something fascist or facilitates fascism.
For example mass deportation of immigrants, firing military leaders, and otherwise consolidating power, inciting an insurrection, etc
Also keep an eye on this story, which looks like a "little green men" incident: Panama opposition party accuses US of 'camouflaged invasion
It's something incompetent
For example "signalgate" scandal or the head of the Department of Education Linda McMahon thinking AI was A1.
It's something otherwise illegal or unconstitutional
The random tariff nonsense which so far has been a pump & dump which he's been bragging about
Has he done anything considered objectively good for the country?
He made plain to see ways that our Presidential Republic is incredibly vulnerable to a few bad actors and how vibes based government and writing laws "from the heart" are incompatible with modern society?
I don't know about objectively because policies always have trade-offs. I like the changes to relax showerhead restrictions since they're a miniscule contributor to total water usage.
In the same vein, getting rid of the penny would also be a small win. A broken clock is right twice a day.
I'd argue the methods he's using to do these things still make them negatives. Sure, I agree that the penny is probably best removed from our currency, but not really by presidential fiat.
That's the part I don't want us to lose sight of. Making the trains run on time won't ever be worth the loss of freedom or destruction of the separation of powers.
100%, dropping the penny is the right thing to do, but the executive isn't supposed to control the pursestrings.
From the blog post:
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