#Bitcoin was created by people and is used by people.

We live in the real world, not imaginary reality. Consequences are real, last weeks proved this many times.

Developers are now on the verge of prosecution due to negative language of regulators.

We can and should change it. If you have other opinions, it is fine. We will anyway defend those who work and develop our financial freedom tools.

Join us in 1h to discuss the current regulatory attacks on self-hosted wallets as #privacy payment and fundraising instruments with use of #bitcoin and what we can do together to protect our #freedomtech and financial freedoms.

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1LyxBnAZgVnxN

Why on the earth we should allow to ban self-custody or use of self-hosted wallets? We don’t unite and defend our rights?

It doesn’t mean you should allow for this.

One more proof: the banking system is the best tool for money laundering or evade sanctions by those in power in dictatorial countries. Dictators don't need #Bitcoin  wallets or mixers, they prefer banks, and better for them if it is western banks.

For some reason, the current AML/CFT rules do not work to prevent such cases. Will #Raiffeisen Bank be held accountable by #SDNY, #ECB and #FATF?

BTW, Raiffeisen Bank has no problem de-risking such organisation as Open Dialogue Foundation, but prefers to work with Putin's regime.

🧡 my favorite color of #freedom ☺️

Thank you, nostr:npub1dnzzyhmewrzkh862z7z2shwmhh5htx0rvkagepj2fkgst9ptwg3qj4x52h for helping us raise awareness.

We should join all possible efforts to protect privacy and financial freedom tools 🧡 nostr:note15vq3lm93whwnwc7lafym4fe0dy6xdl769lgw34kjh2vxhtq0c0fqp3rht8

I guess my 15 years experience of releasing hundreds of political prisoners around the world, as well as defending hundreds of thousands of politically persecuted people in many countries, as well as ability to resist to at least three state attacks, also thanks to #bitcoin, and hold accountable authoritarian regimes could give me some leverage to say that I know what Im fighting for and what Im saying. I don’t know your background, but happy to learn.

You free to think so, but time and action are the best PoW.

Politicians reflect the demands or reflect inaction of the society. I educate both sides: activists, media, academia and politicians, who are also part of the public sphere. You want to focus just on one side - fine. Then just ask to be plebs vocal about their needs of privacy and use them, support developers and those who defend their rights, not just complain and observe how someone is going to be crushed by the system.

You have a right to think that Im naive. I don’t have a goal to stop you judging.

But the reality is if you just complain in your zone of comfort and don’t move, don’t use privileges and mechanisms you have in your hands given your place of birth by default right now to stop this overreach by the authorities and don’t defend your rights, #freedomtech is going to be criminalized.

Because to enjoy your rights „by default” there were centuries ago people motivated enough to defend freedom not only for themselves, but for the future generations like you.

Until we defend it as a human rights mechanism and campaign publicly for privacy it would be extremely hard. Especially with upcoming AML regulation, adopted yesterday and coming into the force in 2027.

And this is exactly what we need to do. More people speaking up about privacy payment tools and why they are important for everyone - faster we defend our financial freedoms.

It is not enough just oversimplifying and complaining, do your part - educate people around you about the need to protect privacy payment tools. Explain and convince them to speak up in defense of privacy for their goods. This will make changes.

Since US law enforcement agencies have been able to identify a money laundering offence involving this particular wallet, then they are well equipped to detect such crimes, and there is no need to criminalise mixers or #bitcoin wallets as a technology and its developers in general.

This is exactly what we talk about in our meetings with regulators: we understand that US law enforcement has all the tools to track #Bitcoin  transactions on the blockchain. That is why real criminals, and even more so oligarchs, use completely different schemes to launder dirty money.

Besides, Western intelligence services are diligently training dictatorial regimes how to recognise both traditional banking and crypto-assets transactions, so the oligarchs have this knowledge from the intelligence services under their control in non-democratic countries. They don't want and don’t need to use such tools.

And to be precise, I definitely think it's very harmful to promote or ask oligarchs, criminals to use your privacy payment tools. It gives more opportunities to weaponise this kind of rhetoric by any kind of government.

Our 15 years of human rights practice shows that real oligarchs prefer other tools for laundering dirty money. For example, the daughter of dictator Nursultan #Nazarbayev, Dariga #Nazarbayeva - #UK law enforcement authorities failed in their attempts to hold her accountable for money laundering. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/08/uk-agency-loses-case-against-ex-kazakh-president-family-aliyev-nazarbayev

Kazakhstani regime used political lobbyists, expensive Western law firms, and the Kazakhstani state apparatus to succeed in laundering her dirty money.

This scheme works for the oligarchs, people who have stolen billions from the budget of a country where their family members have been in power for decades, politically persecuting any dissent, torturing and killing.

They do not need mixers, they have perfectly mastered money laundering schemes through investments in expensive real estate and consultations with former higher officials, top Western law firms.

Mixers and self-hosted wallets, on the other hand, are used by activists who are financially excluded by authoritarian regimes and do not have the privilege to use banking services in general due to political repression.

Moreover, the knowledge of US intelligence agencies is used to financially exclude regime critics and their family members both domestically and transnationally. This is exactly what #Turkey, #Kazakhstan and other regimes do all the time, sharing knowledge gained from Western partners with #Russia, #Iran, #China to repress dissenters abroad.

In less than 5 minutes Kazakhstan blocks fundraising via bank account or @stripe for families of political prisoners, so bitcoin p2p transactions and mixers are currently the only instrument to protect human rights in such authoritarian countries. Regimes can trace such transactions, but they can't stop them and so far it has helped save lives.

Therefore, an effective fight against money laundering would begin not with the criminalisation of privacy payment tools and their developers, but with ending the impunity of authoritarian regimes and their oligarchs in using legal schemes to circumvent sanctions through the banking systems of third countries.

The European Parliament today adopted by a majority vote an AML Regulation that:

🔻 on the one hand - contains important provisions to combat crime,

🔻 on the other hand - results in a significant reduction in financial freedoms, increased risks of abuse of AML regulation by dictatorial regimes, and attacks on self-hosted wallets, crowdfunding and privacy instruments, as well as a lack of protection against financial exclusion and unwarranted de-risking.

Informally, we have heard from MPs and some regulators that the main reason for the weakening of the EP's position in defence of privacy and financial inclusion remedies has been the strong demand for security protections during public consultations before Trilogue process. Both media, academics, banking and crypto-asset industry representatives - all of them are 'happy' about the upcoming #AMLR, as you can see in influencer publications.

❗️To change the situation, it is crucial:

🔻 to have a serious public debate on the importance of privacy of payment instruments, protection of crowdfunding, financial inclusion during and immediately after the European Parliament elections.

🔻 your activism will determine how much politicians elected to the #EU institutions understand the social importance of #bitcoin  for the protection of financial freedoms, how AML/CFT laws are actually abused for political persecution of critics, and how banking systems of authoritarian countries are used for large-scale laundering of dirty money, circumventing sanctions and undermining the democratic order in the EU.

🔻 we need to build a strong community in defence of privacy and financial freedoms in the EU, as US bitcoin community did and continue to defend their #freedomtech.

🔻let's unite to achieve this goal before this draconian law goes into power in 2027.

It's not enough to just complain on social media or pack your bags. We need our voice to be heard and defend our rights so that every MP, academic, journalist from your region in the EU understands why privacy and the financial freedoms that bitcoin gives you are important to you and them, so that this topic becomes an agenda in the public space.

It's called defending your civil and human rights freedoms.

Ready? RT, and write + under the post to join campaign.

Always. It calls protection of human rights, you should expect to be persecuted if you are effective in defending human rights. Unless you build strong enough coalition to resist and make substantial changes. We can and should do it 🧡

That is why public discussion is so important, as well as important education of policymakers, public opinion of G7 countries about the abuses of AML/CFT laws and real money laundering.

Real criminals, and even more so oligarchs, use completely different schemes to launder dirty money. For example, the daughter of dictator Nursultan #Nazarbayev, Dariga #Nazarbayeva - #UK law enforcement tried to prosecute her for money laundering. But Kazakhstani authorities used lobbyists, expensive Western law firms, and the Kazakhstani state apparatus to succeed in laundering her dirty money.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/08/uk-agency-loses-case-against-ex-kazakh-president-family-aliyev-nazarbayev

This is a scheme for the real work of the oligarchs, people who have stolen billions from the budget of a country where their family members have been in power for decades, politically persecuting any dissent, torturing and killing.

They do not need mixers, they have perfectly mastered money laundering schemes through investments in expensive real estate and consultations with former higher officials, top law firms.

Besides, Western intelligence services are diligently training dictatorial regimes how to recognise both traditional bankin and crypto-assets transactions, so the oligarchs have this knowledge from the intelligence services under their control in non-democratic countries. They will not use such tools.

Mixers and #bitcoin self-hosted wallets, on the other hand, are used by activists who are financially excluded by authoritarian regimes and do not have the privilege to use banking services in general due to political repression.

Moreover, the knowledge of US intelligence agencies is used to financially exclude regime critics and their family members both domestically and transnationally. This is exactly what Turkey, Kazakhstan and other regimes do all the time, sharing knowledge gained from Western partners with Russia, Iran, China to repress dissenters abroad. In less than 5 minutes Kazakhstan blocks fundraising via bank account or #Stripe for families of political prisoners, so bitcoin p2p transactions and mixers are currently the only instrument to protect human rights in such authoritarian countries. Regimes can trace such transactions, but they can't stop them and so far it has helped save lives.

Therefore, we will continue to defend mixers and self-hosted wallets, and draw the attention of the U.S. and other G7 countries to how in reality the banking systems of third countries like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey are used to circumvent Russian sanctions to the extent of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars and remain unpunished due to abuse of power domestically and abuse AML/CFT laws transnationally.

Amazing news!

Show me one thing where power was given, but not taken. Not everyone pretends. Last year European Parliament voted in defense of self-hosted wallets, recognizing crypto assets as a payment and crowdfunding instruments. This year trilogue procedure with involvement of the EU Commission and EU Council ➕ silence of the EU citizens in defense of privacy instruments made EP’s position weak. So we have this very dangerous proposal of AML regulation.

If you don’t defend your rights, if you are tired to defend your rights, you will lose them. Satoshi #Nakomoto understood very well: his freedom tool is about defending rights, defending decentralized power. But as everything, it is also need to have people, ready to develop, speak up in defense themselves and their freedom tools.

As we were said, EU citizens care about security, but no one cares about privacy.

We know a lot of MEPs who can/ready stand on defense of human rights and privacy values, but citizens of the EU should show that they care about it.

Everything can be used by bad actors, what we urge policymakers in G7 countries: don’t label #freedomtech as high-risk or tool for criminals in laws.