• 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.

    • 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.

      • 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…

        • I think that’s a big reason I’m so pro-privacy. I’m sure if the US weren’t a couple steps ahead of you guys towards fascism, I’d prioritize other things, too. Hopefully you all can stop the march towards the right of your government before it gets worse.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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).

      • 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.