Awesome article man I like too that the tone seemed pretty distinct for this piece. Not that that there’s anything wrong with tone in any other article. Maybe just in my head but really seemed flow too a neat bonus and was really insightful and for the the same reasons I unfortunately cannot fiscally contribute to any Substack (big source of shame you guys produce so much value but I need to eat regardless of what Trudeau would have me think , I haven’t any money to spare to try any amount of crypto out so was pretty sobering to see it in actual action. I learned a lot. Thank you. I hope you keep at it swiftly get the growth figures needed because I’d like to continue to have the luxury of reading your pieces and will be very happy to miss out on some / when/ you get that paywall clout should you choose to use it :3
Yeah it's shit. If you want to pull your money out of bitcoin or even put it into it you more or less are stuck with Binance/Coinbase & their proxies (e.g. Swyftx in Oz is a binance proxie) and you will lose %s galore in the process. Or you go onto a peer exchange and pay 2-4% per transaction (probably because crypto is so volatile and the transactions take a while to process).
This was very interesting and resonates with my own experience. I thought to myself that I'd like to be able to donate and support people I admire without banks being able necessarily to identify that.
Like you, I tried different avenues and came up against this nonsense of 'video yourself holding your passport' or whatever. I wondered about videoing myself in a realistic mask, maybe, but the whole thing was very offputting.
I set up an account and asked a friend to transfer a small amount to check it worked, but it doesn't seem straightforward. It's annoying when I want to support people, either here or overseas. I got rid of PayPal and I avoid Patreon. I'd prefer to have no online financial presence, ideally. I'm concerned that soon paying bills like council tax etc will be linked to digital IDs, Experian etc etc. The Govt Gateway is already like that, and online banking requires more and more checks. I fear that soon transactions that are legally imperative, like taxes, will *only* be able to be transacted via online IDs.
Buying and selling will be dependent on a 'mark'. Hmm.
And historically - and now - forcing higher taxes on 'others' is a way of grinding them into poverty and submission. I'm thinking of jizyah tax forced on dhimmis (non-Muslims in Muslim countries), for example. So I anticipate that, for a while at least, yes you don't *need* to use their CBDC-based digital ID, you have a 'choice', but it will cost you punitive amounts extra, just like paying electricity by card costs more than by direct debit. The poor, and those outside the system, always get punished by having to pay more.
Catherine Austin Fitts says use cash and I do. I take out cash in chunks and then use that, keeping receipts so I can check my expenditure. When I'm in organised mode, I keep a proper monthly ledger to track my annual income and outgoings. But cash only works face-to-face.
I can't think of an alternative system that doesn't disclose geographical location, at least to some extent. Some sort of offline distributed ledger involving ordinary people moving cash through a geographical network, like a samizdat postal service? A kind of local exchange trading economy (LETS system) but linked in a national network so currency can travel long-distance. We need an ethical genius to develop a robust offline system - it would be CME / EMP resilient too! (Coronal mass ejection / electromagnetic pulse).
Anyway, all that said, I agree with you, Underdog, at present it certainly looks like Bitcoin isn't our dream answer and we do need an alternative so we can buy / sell / donate / receive using cash long-distance.
I think perfect anonymity with purchases isn't achievable. What I prefer is 'plausible deniability', so sure, they might be able to suggest I paid with cash, but there's no way for them to know where the cash goes, or which note specifically was mine without some serious amount of legwork. It destroys the A-to-B associative network.
Cards have a different type of plausible deniability - so someone else can use the card. So you could disguise yourself, use your own card, and withdraw cash. Without tracking you everywhere you go, they cannot associate the disguise to yourself.
"Some sort of offline distributed ledger involving ordinary people moving cash through a geographical network, like a samizdat postal service?"
Untraceable payments sort of exist. Wire transfer services. You know, the kind the cliche "Nigerian Prince" uses when asking for his 'lottery gold fee'. Currency exchanges operate on a sort of ledger system as well. Problem isn't viability of design - it is avoiding being regulated into oblivion by government. Any successful design of any sort will get regulated.
Awesome article man I like too that the tone seemed pretty distinct for this piece. Not that that there’s anything wrong with tone in any other article. Maybe just in my head but really seemed flow too a neat bonus and was really insightful and for the the same reasons I unfortunately cannot fiscally contribute to any Substack (big source of shame you guys produce so much value but I need to eat regardless of what Trudeau would have me think , I haven’t any money to spare to try any amount of crypto out so was pretty sobering to see it in actual action. I learned a lot. Thank you. I hope you keep at it swiftly get the growth figures needed because I’d like to continue to have the luxury of reading your pieces and will be very happy to miss out on some / when/ you get that paywall clout should you choose to use it :3
That's fine! We all need to eat of course, feel free to share the article around if that helps.
And I also appreciate the feedback on the flow and quality, as it helps me to refine the article writing style!
Yeah it's shit. If you want to pull your money out of bitcoin or even put it into it you more or less are stuck with Binance/Coinbase & their proxies (e.g. Swyftx in Oz is a binance proxie) and you will lose %s galore in the process. Or you go onto a peer exchange and pay 2-4% per transaction (probably because crypto is so volatile and the transactions take a while to process).
https://coingeek.com/russia-plans-for-national-digital-asset-exchange-lies-in-the-hands-of-2-key-agencies/
This was very interesting and resonates with my own experience. I thought to myself that I'd like to be able to donate and support people I admire without banks being able necessarily to identify that.
Like you, I tried different avenues and came up against this nonsense of 'video yourself holding your passport' or whatever. I wondered about videoing myself in a realistic mask, maybe, but the whole thing was very offputting.
I set up an account and asked a friend to transfer a small amount to check it worked, but it doesn't seem straightforward. It's annoying when I want to support people, either here or overseas. I got rid of PayPal and I avoid Patreon. I'd prefer to have no online financial presence, ideally. I'm concerned that soon paying bills like council tax etc will be linked to digital IDs, Experian etc etc. The Govt Gateway is already like that, and online banking requires more and more checks. I fear that soon transactions that are legally imperative, like taxes, will *only* be able to be transacted via online IDs.
Buying and selling will be dependent on a 'mark'. Hmm.
And historically - and now - forcing higher taxes on 'others' is a way of grinding them into poverty and submission. I'm thinking of jizyah tax forced on dhimmis (non-Muslims in Muslim countries), for example. So I anticipate that, for a while at least, yes you don't *need* to use their CBDC-based digital ID, you have a 'choice', but it will cost you punitive amounts extra, just like paying electricity by card costs more than by direct debit. The poor, and those outside the system, always get punished by having to pay more.
Catherine Austin Fitts says use cash and I do. I take out cash in chunks and then use that, keeping receipts so I can check my expenditure. When I'm in organised mode, I keep a proper monthly ledger to track my annual income and outgoings. But cash only works face-to-face.
I can't think of an alternative system that doesn't disclose geographical location, at least to some extent. Some sort of offline distributed ledger involving ordinary people moving cash through a geographical network, like a samizdat postal service? A kind of local exchange trading economy (LETS system) but linked in a national network so currency can travel long-distance. We need an ethical genius to develop a robust offline system - it would be CME / EMP resilient too! (Coronal mass ejection / electromagnetic pulse).
Anyway, all that said, I agree with you, Underdog, at present it certainly looks like Bitcoin isn't our dream answer and we do need an alternative so we can buy / sell / donate / receive using cash long-distance.
I think perfect anonymity with purchases isn't achievable. What I prefer is 'plausible deniability', so sure, they might be able to suggest I paid with cash, but there's no way for them to know where the cash goes, or which note specifically was mine without some serious amount of legwork. It destroys the A-to-B associative network.
Cards have a different type of plausible deniability - so someone else can use the card. So you could disguise yourself, use your own card, and withdraw cash. Without tracking you everywhere you go, they cannot associate the disguise to yourself.
"Some sort of offline distributed ledger involving ordinary people moving cash through a geographical network, like a samizdat postal service?"
Untraceable payments sort of exist. Wire transfer services. You know, the kind the cliche "Nigerian Prince" uses when asking for his 'lottery gold fee'. Currency exchanges operate on a sort of ledger system as well. Problem isn't viability of design - it is avoiding being regulated into oblivion by government. Any successful design of any sort will get regulated.