Comment on Itch.io is delisting NSFW games due to pressure from payment processors
hisao@ani.social 2 days agoNo, they don’t know who that wallet belongs to and even though they may hypothesize its yours they don’t have any way to prove it. Moreover, anyone, including sellers can use unlimited amount of wallets and register them at rate 1000x faster than even the advanced CIA group would be able to tie even a single address to a particular person/company. So if Steam operated in crypto, it would take days/weeks of some of the most advanced feds in the world to try to prove that you bought something from Steam using your crypto. And they might even fail at that if you or Steam’s wallet are handled carefully, and they wouldn’t even know what exactly you bought.
ipitco@lemmybefree.net 2 days ago
Following crypto trails is easy when there’s only one destination…
You’re putting too much trust in the system. If there’s a doubt you will be asked to clear it, they won’t do it for you
hisao@ani.social 2 days ago
Also, do you realize that even if all exchanges are taken down, this doesn’t in any way harm crypto in general or any of your independent wallets? I mean, you should only look at exchanges as places to input and forex trade crypto, but you should always output it to your external wallets in the end for long-term storage. If some day some exchange suddenly asks any of its users to explain why it did send money to a certain address, that would be the death of this exchange. You don’t need to explain, it is not bank, there are no taxes to pay (you already paid all the taxes before you converted your money to crypto), there are no laws that could make this demand legal. Move to the next exchange.
ipitco@lemmybefree.net 2 days ago
If exchanges close, websites stop accepting them, and you can’t withdraw to fiat
Regulation can easily kill most of the cryptocurrency market
Trading on non CEX is a massive pain as well
Storing for long time on cold wallets makes you vulnerable to volatility, which isn’t good for high amounts. It’s essentially investing on a high risk asset.
hisao@ani.social 2 days ago
You can still trade with people directly on forums/chats, like before exchanges existed.
Why?
Even in the worst case scenario there is a possibility of anonymous crypto-only exchanges on darknets.
Agree, long-term storage on external wallet isn’t a good suggestion.
hisao@ani.social 2 days ago
Who is gonna ask? It is not your bank account, there are no rules where you send your crypto and you don’t have to explain to anyone. And there are no ways to enforce any of this. Also, a lot of crypto payment services and exchanges automatically generate unique intermediate wallets for every transaction. There is a technique to wallet management called “Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HD Wallet)” which seems to be golden standard nowadays, not only it makes it hard to compute your total balance, it also makes it easier to achieve “public address changes with every transaction”. So this is what most exchanges use for those intermediate addresses I assume.
ipitco@lemmybefree.net 2 days ago
The exchange, the website… It happens frequently
AML and KYC procedures are a thing in crypto, just make a few searches
hisao@ani.social 2 days ago
Ofc KYC is everywhere. But that is only relevant to inputting fiat to crypto. Are there precedents of exchange asking its user about the address where he sent his crypto? Even then, what exactly happens if you answer them with whatever, like you donated to some guy, or it was a present? Regular money laws don’t apply to crypto -> crypto transfers, they are not subject to whatever taxes for presents, charity, etc, and even if they were, that wouldn’t be for the sending side.