Crypto crackdown in progress: It may only be a matter of time before your bank blocks you from purchasing crypto
India bans cryptocurrency
We saw it from Google, Facebook, and many banks. It is now clear that certain groups of companies are for banning, blocking, censoring, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Debit card purchases from certain banks are now being blocked in the United States and elsewhere. Ads are banned on social media. And just recently India has officially banned the sale of crypto for fiat which effectively short circuits cryptocurrency in that country.
Are these efforts to ban cryptocurrency futile? While a complete ban might be futile what it does is it keeps the technology from every becoming mainstream. If the goal is to suppress mainstream adoption then blocking, banning, censoring, is a means of doing this. It could be that certain people in certain companies view Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as immoral similar to what Bill Gates has expressed. It is also possible that certain powerful individuals in government view all who have cryptocurrency as tax cheats, money launderers, criminals, etc, as people in these government positions are inherently suspicious of their citizenry. Whatever the cause is, the point is that the crackdown which I predicted many months ago is now in progress and global.
Approximately 4 months ago (before the price drop occurred in crypto) I predicted in my blog:
"The government crackdown on crypto is about to start in the US".
In that blogpost I made this quote:
I predicted that this would happen. We saw crypto banned in China, in Russia, in many other countries. Now that Bitcoin is over $11,000 we are about to see crypto get banned in the United States. They will not directly ban it but will make it so much of a burden to use it (tax increases, deliberate complexity, etc) that no one will be able to do anything with crypto beyond buy and hold. The crackdown will be so harsh that I expect there will be people who will receive life sentences over not revealing their crypto holdings to the government. We may even see a special police agency created specifically to accelerate the crackdown.
This is what I predict will happen and I maintain this prediction. While I'm bullish on crypto as a whole I think because of this crackdown mainstream adoption is temporarily out of reach. In addition to the current predictions based on the global political climate I am now ready to make a new prediction.
I predict there will be a massive split in the crypto community between those who seek to comply with regulators and those who refuse. Those who plan to comply will be forced to support different strategies, different crypto currencies, and take a less confrontational approach. Those who plan to resist will have to support the crypto currencies of resistance and take a more activist level approach. In my opinion mainstream adoption requires compliance. In addition, those who want to keep their profits which they earned from crypto will be required to comply one way or another. Those who are into crypto but who don't care if Bitcoin goes down in price even to $1, will be free from the fear of massive losses associated with non compliance.
In my opinion the crypto community now faces a choice. The choice will be between compromise with regulators, government entities, large corporations, where a solution for co-existence is found, or confrontation without compromise where by technical means activists simply refuse to concede any losses to regulators, government entities, and large corporations. The choice the community makes will be reflected in the prices which I suspect are to some degree manipulated on many levels, whether you believe people are cashing out to pay taxes due to the IRS, or you believe banks are blocking purchases to suppress the price, or you believe the futures market is helping suppress the price, it is possible that the price can be manipulated.
References
- https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/2018/04/05/rbi-bans-regulated-entities-from-dealing-with-virtual-currencies
- https://steemkr.com/ico/@dana-edwards/north-korea-could-be-secretly-mining-cryptocurrency-on-your-computer
- https://www.coindesk.com/bank-of-montreal-expands-crypto-purchase-ban/
- https://www.coindesk.com/bank-of-america-cryptocurrency-risk-factor-annual-report-10-k/
- https://cointelegraph.com/news/facebook-google-and-twitter-ban-ads-but-do-their-founders-really-dislike-crypto
The ban will keep on coming.
it is about the believers, users.
We believe then crypto will thrive.
If crypto is a religion then it's limited in it's growth based on how many people you can convert to your religion. I see this as problematic because some people have a religion already.
You mention China, Rusia, US, India ... conspicuously absent from your worldwide survey is ... Europe. Not to forget also Mexico, Brazil, Singapour, maybe Philippines, Indonesia, etc. The point is to remind everybody that this is a "whack-a-mole" game and the more numerous those that ban and crack down on crypto, the biggest the potential gain of those that do NOT ban !
Currently political decision-makers in Europe have awaken to the ever-widening technological gap with the US and are seeking to catch-up. Blockchain and crypto is seen as one possible area where that could happen.
For more information see this post.
The issue isn't really about the country as much as it is about the fact that developers of the leading cryptos ignore global sentiment when making design decisions. Not every one of the possible 7 billion users of crypto is going to be an anarchist, or hate the banks, or be anti government, or be hoping for or waiting for the fall of their national fiat, and if these attitudes are required in order for people to use crypto then crypto will only be fashionable in limited circles.
This limitation on the growth potential of crypto comes with the territory, is predictable, and it makes it easy to ban crypto. I mean think about it? Does the average person on the earth care about what we see the average crypto enthusiast caring about? The data if we look at global sentiment data would reveal the average person has a totally different mind set.
That being said crypto is still useful but if the idea is to have the highest price, mainstream adoption, maximum growth potential, then there will have to be cryptos which appeal toward the typical person. Bitcoin? Most people don't want to be their own bank. A lot of people in a lot of countries like their banks and their governments. A lot of people actually are nationalists and support the idea of paying taxes and serving their country.
Bitcoin simply does not appeal to this group of people. This group of people on the other hand gains power in a possible trade war scenario where economic nationalism may overtake global markets. In other words Bitcoin is a fundamentally globalist concept, post nationalist concept, trying to evolve within an increasingly nationalist world.
I see this problem and I do not see it being solved politically. There is demand for cryptos but the demand comes from people who in my opinion would use it for practical purposes such as micropayments, or to invest in ICOs, or for lifestyle gains (like being a Digital Nomad). But the problems arise when you ask the question how do you get the sort of people who would agree with a crypto ban, or agree with Trump for instance, to somehow find Bitcoin interesting or crypto interesting?
The only way I see to do it is to build tools and platforms which offer greater utility than anything else out there. It has to offer this utility to everyone and be adaptable so that the platform can evolve with the ever changing public sentiment. This is actually possible and we can see this with the Tezos model. The Bitcoin model doesn't allow for this because Bitcoin pretty much ignores global sentiment when deciding on it's design priorities in favor of a more technocratic approach with hard forks and bickering developer cliques. DPOS offers an approach but the DPOS approach basically be gamed like any other political election which means instead of just "Russian interference" in the political election, under DPOS you will have interference from all interested parties, backed by possibly any and all governments, private companies, etc. DPOS is flawed in it's design unless the witnesses remain completely anonymous and there is a true meritocracy for how the tokens are earned.
Steemit offers at least part of a solution by allowing people to earn their weight. The problem is we see the same political gamesmanship that we see in every other political system. As millions of people get involved with Steem the politics will become more brutal. If Steem remains transparent then those who are used to exploiting transparency for political purposes will rise to the top.
Wonderful answer, could have been a full post in its own right ! I totally agree with you and this makes me even more enthusiastic about Steemit which is, to the best of my knowledge, the most successful blockchain-based system that offers something of value to the "regular Joe" who couldn't care less about crypto-anarchy.
You notice very well that bitcoin (and crypto in general) is a post nationalist concept ! That observation is key ! Who then, among the powerful, are natural allies of everything post-national, everything that combats the current ill-smelling nationalist winds ? I'll give it in three ... ;-)
Your answer is a pearl, I absolutely love it !
Coming to DPOS - I see DPOS redemption if it evolves into something very close (hopefully a bit better) to what we have now as government system in the developed world. If for instance there is some kind of per-platform "mission statement" and then the "whales" write manifestos of "how" they plan to advance the platform toward its stated mission and then the users vote (continuously, not once every X years) to inform the whales of their actual performance, as perceived by the crowd.
I would suggest that the major and biggest problem developers, philosophers, and creative people have to focus on solving in the crypto community is effective governance. This governance cannot be a one sized fits all. It should not be ideologically restricted. It should in my opinion allow the stakeholders to own the concept of crypto and who are the stakeholders?
The actual stakeholders are the people of earth born and not yet born. For this reason the platform must be maximally adaptable. It has to be designed in such a way so that as sentiment changes over time the platform can evolve with it. Bitcoin in my opinion cannot adapt and is extremely rigid in it's ideological base to the point where it might be trapped in a technological tomb. I would hope the next gen platforms do not make the same mistakes else crypto will continue to be banned merely because a few powerful people somewhere disagree with the ideology of the core developers.
The only way to make something immune to being banned is to make it so adaptable that it becomes whatever everyone will like at the time. So yes, I'm perhaps one of the earliest to suggest a data driven sentiment based approach to feature selection. We can have a vision, but the vision we have may be too early for the majority of the world to grasp.
It would seem I was typing quite similar ideas while you are typing this :-)
This is misinterpretation of the rbi order. Rbi has asked banks to stop the purchase of crypto usind credit and debit cards, which is not new. It is an old order. The same order does not restricts the customers to buy using saving account netbanking
Yeah and the same thing is happening in the United States, Canada, around the world. What do you think the practical and obvious result is if you cannot buy crypto with a credit or debit card?
Sure some people will go use Localbitcoins. Some will go on Steem. But if someone cannot sell the crypto for fiat it's just not going to be able to interact with the traditional economy. That is a de facto ban.
It's suppressing buying demand by making it artificially harder to acquire crypto. If the central banks all around the world mirror what was done in India then it only gets worse.
Yeah my bank (Bank of Cyprus) used to allow euro deposits from kraken, now they return the transactions cos it's a "bitcoin-related company". This started a couple months back, previously they accepted the money just fine (euro is euro, right?) It's an internal bank policy or something. They can't even give me a proper excuse.
I guess it's Malta then...
Whether they ban it or not. The truth remains that cryptocurrencies have come to stay, it's just a matter of time they will realise the mistake they are making.
China that earlier banned trade on cryptocurrencies have recently lifted the ban probably because they have seen the potential in cryptocurrency.
Well negotiating and complying with regulatory authority won't be a bad idea as long as the conditions remain favourable
Nice update @dana-edwards
No it's not just a matter of time. The rejection of the product means the product is unpalatable. If this were food and developers were chefs and their entire class of foods just got banned this means the recipes just don't taste good enough to promote the restaurant.
What is the solution? To be honest there is no way around it, the compliance approach is a necessary ingredient in any long term solution.
There are so many poor people in India and now they just ban Cryptocurrency there? Sounds like a terror regime to me.
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It is what it is. Certain powerful people may in fact view all who interact with crypto on any level as the "enemy" or "bad guys" or "criminals". Some people take a dramatic black and white view of the world where you either see things their way or you're with the criminals. So just by using a cryptocurrency innocently on Steemit there could be some bank executive who read some article which made the biased case that cryptocurrency only exists to fund criminal activity.
It's a matter of information being distorted, fake news, irresponsible memes, which influence important power brokers who can determine whether or not an entire industry must be banned.
Seems like people cannot even draw a logical conclusion today.
I wonder how fucking rotten their brain looks like.
"Omg news said Crypto is evil, ban this crap!"
I doubt they are this stupid.
Cryptocurrency enables freedom and the government is all about controlling the people. It seems they do this because they are afraid to lose control.
As one country "bans it" the other one embraces it. Japan is a prime example of a country that has fully embraced and regulated Crypto/ICOs in a very positive way. Europe is also leading the way. Wyoming State in US and New Hampshire are two examples of States in the US passing extremely Crypto friendly laws. Its to no surprise a communist country like China ban it. They banned everything - Google, What's app, now Crypto. It does not matter longterm, within 2020 Crypto takes over just like how Internet explosion did in the late 90's. No one can stop it spreading, only slow it down a bit.
Yesterday was a heavy discount day for Indians. There was so much panic selling in all exchanges in the Indian crypto scene. Bitcoin went as low as $5k equivalent. EOS went down to $4, xrp went down to 25 cents equivalent to indian currency(INR).
Zebpay one of India's biggest exchange is sending caution emails to all customers, stating they understand the risk
A revolution to make india at the forefront of the blockchain has picked up momentum among all crypto investors and a petition is created on change.org for the same. You can find the petition here It will be great if some of you could sign the petition too. I'll post more update on this matter if I notice any more unusual govt interference in the Indian crypto market.
I am not an Indian citizen so my signature holds no weight in India. I own no property in India, no stocks, and have not yet been to India. If the circumstances were different then I might sign.