The difference between my comment and yours, as well as my comment and the initial post, is that I acknowledge the complexity. You look only at the bad - you don't seem to understand the reason that KYC exists or the value that it provides (and yes, despite the negatives, there is value to KYC rules).
Let's not even get started on the fact that banks have worked with criminal organizations to help them circumvent KYC/AML laws so the people that are money laundering have the know-how on how to not get caught in the net.
The cost of having KYC/AML laws is having a few institutions decide who can sell and what they can sell. The government gave them that power so it's their prerogative to use or abuse it to help themselves. Crypto is simply providing an alternative for people that have been unjustly stopped from processing payments.
> Crypto is simply providing an alternative for people that have been unjustly stopped from processing payments.
It's also a useful tool for terrorists. This is a point of fact.
To be clear, I'm not saying we should get rid of it, just that this is the overly simplistic argument for doing so without considering the positive. Crypto isn't some outright evil, and neither is KYC. Both are parts of complex solutions to complex problems.
Decentralized, each user takes on more risk, but the benefit is that no one party is deciding who can do business and who can't. That burden is left on the buyer to decide if the seller is legit and the smart contract can be the source of truth.
The difference is that people who support decentralized systems are not trying to get rid of centralized systems altogether. They understand their necessity, but also realize decentralized systems can add some needed competition. That will improve centralized systems in the future as well.
No.
Financial institutions are bound by their agreements with the card associations, of whom you may have heard; one of their logos is on every card in your wallet. They, as private entities, have the prerogative under current US law to decide who may and may not use the payment rails they own, and this was the original genesis of rules disfavoring porn and other such relatively 'sketchy' businesses - not for moral reasons, or not overtly so, but for the high rate of expensive and complicated chargebacks those businesses generate. The associations can and do deny payment access to businesses or even institutions which generate too many chargebacks, and are thus forced to implement the associations' desires regardless of their own inclinations.
That's been true since long before the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 gave rise to KYC/AML regulations in their modern form. If you want to argue against one or the other, you help yourself by ensuring you don't conflate them.
Meanwhile, if the description I gave of Visa and Mastercard sounds a lot like how Ma Bell could've been fairly described before a then much spryer Uncle Sam caught up to them, this is not by accident.
Before you say payments rails are not a public utility, understand that’s a part of the problem. If they were a public utility, the people would have rights. In the old days, the government would nationalize the payment rails like they did the railroads and private roads. Sadly, that won’t happen in today’s age. I’d be happy with the government having their own payment rails anyone can use. The government can go after people actually doing illegal things instead of blanket banning (and then approving) and handing that power to a 3rd party. Since that won’t happen, crypto will have to do.
