Honestly, I'm still struggling with Bitcoin soft fork proposals. I believe we will end up with full introspection: there are too many things people want to build which require it.

But most current proposals are workarounds for current limitations, which will become vestigial when/if we actually fix things. They may be simply unused, or worse, not quite useful. And it's hard to know: if we had restored script and introspection, we could see what people build and then go "ah, this opcode would make this more efficient!", but without that we are guessing.

good morning

Good morning! It's January 3rd, which means its not your keys, not your coins day.

Unfortunately, this year the EU has decided to make withdrawing from exchanges a hell of a lot harder by extending FATF's Travel Rule to digital assets.

The FATF Travel Rule is not just a remarkable shitshow for your financial privacy and security – it's also a law to which authorities appear to have no data on its effectiveness to prevent financial crime.

What this means for you: If you want to withdraw funds exceeding €1.000, you'll need to prove that you own the address you are intending to withdraw to to your custodian.

It also means that exchanges are required to forward your personal information, including things like your name and address, to any custodian you are transacting with, and that an exchange may collect information on whom you are sending funds to and whom you are receiving funds from.

The Travel Rule does not just make withdrawing from exchanges harder, as custodians will need to employ third party software, employ a signing protocol like AOPP, or have you conduct a micro transaction to the custodian before making your transfer.

It also poses an incredible risk to your financial privacy and security, as your KYC info will not just be stored with a custodian you trust, but with any custodian you transact with – increasing the risks of hacks and identity theft.

In its current form, the Travel Rule has been mandatory in tradfi in the EU since 2012 – But nobody seems to know whether it actually works to prevent money laundering or not.

That's why I filed a FOIA request with German authorities last month, requesting data on all money laundering convictions in Germany since 2008.

Interestingly, the Ministry of the Interior responsible for national security and overseeing Germany's law enforcement, responded that it had no such information - instead asking me to file FOIA Requests with the German Ministry of Finance, the German Customs Authority, as well as with every public prosecutors office...

...which means that the updated Travel Rule is the extension of a law to whichs effectiveness law enforcement appears to have no data.

(FOIA Response in picture translated with ChatGPT)

Full Story:

The world of trademarks is rough. These guys messed with Matrix chat.

Achievement unlocked: deposited to and withdrew from a MuSig2 between Bitcoin Core and a Ledger Nano X.

Really good news: in Norway, the right to pay cash has been enshrined in law, as of Oct 1st. Retail will no longer be able to refuse cash for payments up to $2000.

Meanwhile, in other EU countries you're _prohibited_ from accepting that much cash!