We all need to be very aware that what nostr:npub1sn0wdenkukak0d9dfczzeacvhkrgz92ak56egt7vdgzn8pv2wfqqhrjdv9 is describing here is not some distant dystopian future. It's our dystopian reality.

In May, Elliptic, together with researchers from MIT and IBM, developed a dataset to identify "the shape of money laundering" on the blockchain.

This dataset attempts to predict money laundering activity that has "not yet been labeled" by distinguishing between what the dataset defines as "anomalous signatures" and Bitcoin transfers between "licit services".

Falling out of these clusters deemed normal by intelligence financed corporations already leaves you penalized. Avoid KYC services? Flagged. Can't tie your transactions to a bank account? Flagged. Frequent user of coinjoins? Flagged.

You are already being debanked because a computer program has decided that you are a money launderer – not because you did something illegal, but because your transactions are deemed abnormal – and you have no legal recourse as suspicious activity reports swear financial institutions to absolute secrecy.

It's the full on criminalization of privacy in finance. The future is here, and it's Orwellian.

https://m.primal.net/JgAW.mp4

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So true. Vivre LA revolution but not in an Olympique trans drag way

What a fright that was !

Off the list no wedding 💒 invitation

#GFY then you can’t come to my wedding 💒

100% Aware.

we do not snowden to describe -we need much more sheeple able to understand it n take action

I am afraid that most people dont WANT to understand and they have a right to behave that way. This topic is quite old.

"The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it"

Ayn Rand

They can identify the shape of deez nuts.

Where's your Monero address.

You are doing incredibly important work!

Digging deeper than most.

I'd like to honour your work.

Hey friend, I know things seem scary right now but…

Things are going to get way worse

What are the implications to living a regular life then?

This was mega interesting..

We thought the future wouldn’t come.🫥

AI is the most dangerous thing man has ever invented...

We haven't invented AI yet, don't fall for the marketing... These are LLMs

Is that statement meant to make the use of LLMs (and the evolution of AI) somehow acceptable and "safe"?

AI is THE MOST DANGEROUS THING man has ever invented...

No, but if you get defensive just for me giving you context... It's obvious I shouldn't waste my time having this conversation.

Not being defensive, just being truthful...

Folks who are comfortable with AI really don't realize the threat it poses...

It's really the same thing as "I have nothing to hide"....

Unfortunately, sticking your head in the sand hoping the problem goes away rarely works....

L1 is in plaintext, so of course they did. L2 and ecash, not so much.

Tech consumer apps for people who value privacy and don’t want the deep state to have a back door to all their data.

Venice.ai > OpenAI (ChatGPT)

@Proton Mail > Gmail

Proton Drive > Google Drive

Proton Calendar > Google Calendar

NOSTR > Social media

Bitcoin > USD (and all other fintech apps)

Am I missing anything? #asknostr

Privacy and bitcoin? 😂

The bitcoin network is literally transparent, even Snowden on this very same text is warning you about government analysis of the transactions on bitcoin because of that.

The only private crypto currency used in the real world is Monero.

What browser are you using?

Brave. Pretty sure it’s not the best option from a security perspective. I’m just trying to not use any Google products at this point. Not letting perfect be the enemy of progress.

Fair play… I’m currently using Librewolf or Mullvad but having some issues with integration. The browser is the portal to our entire digital lives.

Congrats on giving up g00gle!

Doesn’t this incentivize people to NOT use the legacy financial system? If so, then isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that the goal?

Debanking is 😊

Just like you are not using centralized services for your social media. Don’t use centralized services for your Bitcoin. Then you’ll never be chain analyzed. Pay with Bitcoin. Or use P2P exchanges. Make P2P exchanges the standard

Monero fixed that.

It ain't no coincidence that most western governments are trying to squash it as hard as possible.

We need easier on/off ramps between bitcoin and monero. Bitcoin wins as store of value, but monero is great for payment privacy.

I was so excited for what Samourai were developing in Beta (alpha?) with their Monero Swaps. I hadn’t yet tried it sadly.

I used to think Monero was a great idea. But honestly, I'm not so sure anymore. nostr:npub1s33sw6y2p8kpz2t8avz5feu2n6yvfr6swykrnm2frletd7spnt5qew252p has a great video talking about this issue. I think he's brought some good points to the discussion. https://youtu.be/1LTT7wwyUAQ

Matthew the type of guy to say the market is always right when it comes to Bitcoin, but tell you why it's wrong when it comes to Monero on the only truly free and permissionless markets on the planet

Matthew the type of guy to say "Bitcoin already won the money race" and how network effects and first mover advantages are supreme, but have no explanation for the Monero-shaped darknet elephant in the room

Matthew the type of guy to extol Bitcoins decentralized ledger, but then almost always refers to it's price charts and volume on centralized ledgers

Matthew the type of guy that talks about anonymity sets and hiding in large crowds, but then uses a transparent, deterministic, and weakly pseudonymous blockchain

Matthew the type of guy that likes to bring up robust global circular economies, but never spends and is obsessed with hodling

Matthew the type of guy that talks about hot potato money, but doesn't mention Monero is delisted from almost every major exchange Bitcoin is on yet STILL holding it's own *despite* that MASSIVE disadvantage

Yep.

True, he is that type of guy.

I'm 100% in Bitcoin and agree with the network effect thing, but am becoming concerned at Bitcoins lack of privacy. Monero was issuing 50 coin blocks every 2 minutes up until the beginning of last cycle, that probably explains the price crash better than lack of use. Bitcoin and crypto in general is in a price discovery phase. When it comes to adoption and spending, privacy is a 10x improvement. I anticipate Bitcoin will adopt sufficient privacy, but I'm starting to doubt.

SeraiDEX should help with this. But right now there is Unstoppable Swap, Bisq, Haveno, and Trocador

And robosats

Liquidity and UX are very poor unfortunately. They are like the Mastodons of P2P before Nostr existed.

Yes true in general, but particularly for UnstoppableSwap and Haveno (very new). There is a new CCS proposal to make the UX a lot better for UnstoppableSwap. Also excited to see what Serai brings.

Don't know much about it but n3xB looks interesting

https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/merge_requests/477

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=w2cbNgpOgEY

I am not sure how Monero fixed bridging the global economy, which the majority still sell product and services only for fiat, into anything.

Not to mention those who held onto Monero instead of Bitcoin, has diminished in purchasing power relative terms.

Both can exist at the same time. People are free to choose. But P2P solution is currently sorely inadequate nevertheless

If would put your money on BNB on the last 6 years it would outperform bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency is NOT about casino-style speculation. If you want to speculate with coins then learn Forex since speculation is a thing for virtual coins.

The word "crypto" means "hidden" in latin.

You never got privacy with that bitcoin.

Snowden just told you the same thing.

McAfee said the same.

It was from the start a coin designed to make easier tracking of drug transactions. There is a reason why it isn't used any longer on the underground.

You don't even find it suspicious that governments are promoting bitcoin while at the same time shutting down monero which keeps on surviving at a good price.

You're in this field just for the casino aspect of the coins and that's OK, just avoid mixing that with privacy and freedom.

Monero has its utilities, mostly as a stop gap for privacy transactions. But it has little chance to become the world’s store of value, medium of exchange, adefacto of account. To do so it requires a market cap and liquidity large enough such that there’s small enough volatility to be half of all of the world’s transactions. Its simply not happening.

Monero is the short time preference version of Bitcoin where it cannot wait for price stability and privacies properties to emerge. These properties are slow to emerge on Bitcoin because of the need to be a ‘sly and roundtable way to introduce something they can’t stop’. In fact, Monero is effectively slowed, if not already stopped, because its simply not sly enough. Monero is the idealistic but impossible perfect that is in the way of the practical and already working good that is Bitcoin.

Medium of exchange and privacy properties will continue to improve on Bitcoin, at a rate that will not overly alarm, and effectively penetrate the authoritarians. Only Bitcoin has a chance to truly separate money from the state and become the one defacto money for humanity.

Monero is already separated from any state or government machine. It is the crypto currency used today on the streets to buy stuff.

You didn't bought bitcoin 10 years, why would you buy monero now.

Just don't complain that nobody told you about this earlier.

Monero is not only separated from the state. It’s separated from the entire economy at large. It is not separating The Money from the state tho. Monero is not The Money and never will. Bitcoin can be.

Monero already is free market money.

Your opinion is misinformed.

Monero is already today the money used underground, by those same people who used bitcoin in the early days.

You will have privacy, and you will be happy.

The problem is also the other side of the transaction. Which he talked about too.

My friend is one of the best hackers in the world and he does not share his PGP key. I asked him why she he said he does not trust that people who communicate with him can protect their endpoints. Having a false sense of privacy then makes things worse.

I don't agree, but I can see what he's talking about. You can be doxxed by the people you transact with.

Absolutely. But you can also always find a different counterparty if its a decentralized P2P platform.

of course, I am promoting nostr:npub1mftv2j67vayavkks8rqev3u8jjhefe86tf80msstfxvpunk9vmps6prkl3 heavily and there are other good platforms as well. But that does not remove the problem completely. Say you sold something illegal and dangerous, like unpasteurized milk. The counterparty of the sale was selling heroin. The cops caught him and they want to trace the coins. He does not know your name, but tells them where you met. You wore a mask, right? unfortunately the CCTV recording leads them to your car which you entered after the trade.

It's overblown story, but I'm saying this - don't be fooled that if you don't show your ID, you have privacy. Real privacy is extremely hard. Were you carrying a phone in your pocket? Did you take Uber? Bought a coffee around a corner and paid with card?

Right now this is hard and you have to be a target, but this is getting automated and soon it will be all automatic.

Until all transactions in the world are conducted natively with Bitcoin, decentralized P2P is the best we’ve got. Native Bitcoin adoption will require price stability, and we are easily a decade away from widespread Bitcoin adoption at the mom and pop merchant level.

Platforms like Vexl is good. But they are like Blue Skys and Mastodon before Nostr. We need an open protocol for decentralized exchange. Not a lot of inter-incompatible little silos of centralized P2P solutions.

In particular, Vexl’s starting screen asking for my phone number tho, is not a good sign whatsoever…

The phone number is your web of trust. Vexl doesn’t know your phone number nor does anyone else. Everything happens client side.

taint all transactions ✌️

Not far from the future

À. Zcash.

Would be great if snowden would first stop supporting genocide because he decided to become famous. Everything else from his is noise

when's he supporting genocide?

what is his solution?

never has any

works for the same organization as the wikileaks guy

Look differentiate between clear and dirty bitcoin is not viable in the economic sense because the commoner people will accept both and use in the daily live to the point of some guys buy dirt bitcoin with clear one for a small price to exchange with the people

Ya I dunno man... This is for the gilded cage and it is real to a certain extent. But how would this be implemented in a world where people only use Bitcoin? "Here, use our software to prevent people we deem criminals from buying things at your establishment." Are bitcoiners really going to fall for that?

Regardless, I used to listen to Snowden's speeches a lot and I've read his book. After a period of time I found that he's very paranoid and I suspect that paranoia was foolishly and unknowingly engineered by his own hand due to some kind of inner personal demons. That is not to say he was wrong about leaking and what he leaked. That is also not to say he doesn't have a high threat risk situation and that's not to say his advocacy for privacy is entirely wrong.

My point being is that I think he has some tunnel vision and perhaps some issues. He used to praise Monero's privacy first design a lot in the past and due to his privacy tunnel vision he hadn't thought through Bitcoin and the Lightning network's privacy tradeoffs and implications. I haven't kept up with how he views Bitcoin and Monero today, which is certainly a fault in my point and my suspicions.

But if his mind hasn't changed much, then I doubt he would have any peace of mind if he was pardoned. He would still be living in fear. I respect what Snowden has done and he should be pardoned. He's right that the US government does indeed spy on its citizens. But above all I think he needs some help, he deserves to no longer live in fear.

It gets to a point where you have to start asking yourself who it really serves to demonise surveillance, tax (military spending) in the West

Ya there's a neverending pushback of centralized and decentralized forces. Like, camera surveillance for a grocery store is fine and it makes sense. Though I draw lines regarding surveillance from a purely tech perspective. I know I draw some lines about what's ok for me to do in regards to decentralized tech but that's more a personal "don't" than "the tech needs to be limited."

In regards to taxes in the west, man I would love it if we were on a Bitcoin standard. Then maybe we could become educated about issues that the government could help with and we could vote with our tax money effectively. If someone doesn't agree they don't have to pay the tax. Taxes could actually function and work properly according to what the people deem reasonable. As long as the people can be reasonable. Which might also be a tall task in and of itself. At least this could be a systematic nudge towards something better.

My point is I wouldn’t like to run the experiment of voluntary tax, find out that that number donated is basically zero, and then get invaded and slaughtered by an invading army since you don’t have an army anymore

There is so much naivety on this platform. Lots of critique and few proposed solutions.

Hm, that's sounds highly probable and lots of people already don't pay taxes. You make a good point. With voluntary tax you could have a weak military. So the alternative is enforced mandatory tax. But could that be a slippery slope towards fiat currency and tax via inflation? I think you've thought about it this more than me, so I'm curious and open to listen.

What about a hard fork in bitcoin that sets say 1% of all mined bitcoin and puts it in a pot, to be allocated in a way that is consensus approved in the hard fork (at a minimum; enforcement of transactions and remediation/ disincentives for bad actors). Not foolproof but satoshi wanted to go from 15-30% government spending to 0% which is kind of so beyond what we have evolved to cope with and also means there is no centralised force to combat other centralised forces (eg current governments) other than what people give voluntarily.

A hard fork is usually a very huge step. So we'll need to really think very carefully about something like this. Why do we need a hard fork in this case? How would this benefit people in differing regions with different governments? As for what Satoshi would have wanted, I haven't looked for any quotes regarding this particular issue. But does it necessarily matter what Satoshi would have wanted? He made the way, gave it away, and then went away.

Actually maybe ETFs are sufficient

Perhaps. Though, to be honest I'm completely clueless to how ETF's and taxes function together.

I have to assume that everything Snowden says serves Russia. Otherwise, Siberia for him.

Yeah

I wonder what actual money launderers will do

The money lenders are going to fight to the death. 🤬

Thanks 😊 both of you

Kindly

the Beast.

⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

w/All thingz Being na=*/* sowing shitty seedz too early portendz a shit harvest* T Y, f them o_0

I immediately got blocked by Bitvavo exchange-bought bitcoin after experimenting with Wasabi coinjoin.

keep fighting 💪

In the end, it still takes a human being to enforce the machine's fiat decree... The superstructure protecting the slavers MUST fall!