I’m always heartened to see another local news team start digging into asset forfeiture. Especially the ones that don’t sugarcoat the findings with headlines that read like they were cr…
Unless you use something like Monero it’s still useless since blockchain is neither anonymous, not private and since all exchanges requires KYC (Know Your Customer), your identity will be tied to that money.
So just do that? I don’t get this argument that lack of anonymity is a fatal flaw when various effective anonymizing solutions exist.
But anyway that talking point isn’t even relevant in this circumstance. It doesn’t matter if it is possible in theory for someone with access to exchange records to uncover a link between you and your crypto holdings. Cops looking to mug you at a traffic stop or the airport are not going to find it practical to do that, and even if they did they have no way to take it from you simply because it isn’t a physical object. It’s an objective fact that cryptocurrency is massively more resistant to civil forfeiture than physical cash.
I see this as being about control as much as threat model. Using a bank as a defense against civil forfeiture is exactly what these cops are calling people criminals for not doing.
Unless you use something like Monero it’s still useless since blockchain is neither anonymous, not private and since all exchanges requires KYC (Know Your Customer), your identity will be tied to that money.
So just do that? I don’t get this argument that lack of anonymity is a fatal flaw when various effective anonymizing solutions exist.
But anyway that talking point isn’t even relevant in this circumstance. It doesn’t matter if it is possible in theory for someone with access to exchange records to uncover a link between you and your crypto holdings. Cops looking to mug you at a traffic stop or the airport are not going to find it practical to do that, and even if they did they have no way to take it from you simply because it isn’t a physical object. It’s an objective fact that cryptocurrency is massively more resistant to civil forfeiture than physical cash.
It’s only not a flaw if people do take those extra steps. By default, it’s not anonymous and that is an important caveat.
As is a bank account if that’s the threat model. Everything is relative to a threat model you want to protect from.
I see this as being about control as much as threat model. Using a bank as a defense against civil forfeiture is exactly what these cops are calling people criminals for not doing.
I agree with you there.