Snowden On The Importance Of Privacy And How It Underpins Every Other Right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDydB3z-6Y0

This is a very powerful speech.

Mass surveillance has never helped prevent any act of terrorism or solve any crime. It's all about social control.

This is particularly relevant now when rumor has it that the US Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin has plans to rush out regulations that pertain to non-custodial wallets and DeFi.

Coincenter.org wrote a detailed article about how DeFi is impacting the work of the intergovernmental group Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

You can check it out here:

https://www.coincenter.org/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-unhosted-wallets/

Here's what I consider the money quote:

This conclusion is strongly supported by available evidence demonstrating that transactions involving a VASP/MSB on either side of a transaction, particularly those that involve fiat on and off-ramps, constitute a dominant and growing share of the global market by volume. As VASPs/MSBs, these intermediaries are required to comply with the recordkeeping and reporting requirements imposed by the BSA and jurisdictions that adopt the FATF recommendations. Moreover, even if—as policymakers fear and crypto-enthusiasts hope—DEXs and DeFi protocols begin to displace financial intermediaries, these developments are unlikely to affect fiat on and off ramps, which face significant technological and regulatory barriers to decentralization (specifically the need for some trusted intermediary to establish a banking relationship). All of this suggests that FATF’s focus on non-compliant VASPs and systemic vulnerabilities arising from jurisdictions with weak or non-existent illicit finance compliance requirements remains the most effective way of combating illicit financial activity involving personal crypto transactions.

Because of the volatility of cryptocurrency, there is no reason for regulators to over-regulate the space because the vast majority of commerce will be done using fiat. The fiat on-ramps and off-ramps are what should be focused on. If you come into possession of a substantial amount of money in crypto, you are probably going to want to convert it into fiat at some point. Exchanges are precisely where the monitoring can be done.

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