cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421
The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:
- €3k limit on anonymous payments
- €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).
From the jailed¹ article:
An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.
It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!
In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.
The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.
¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.
update
The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.
#warOnCash
Bitcoin transactions are public. Anyone can view your transaction history if they know your wallet address. It’s not a good option for privacy.
Also, it’s not true that it hasn’t seen downtime. It has happened at least once in its early days due to a bug. Also, there has been many times where it taken more than an hour between blocks. This is more to its probabilistic nature.
Anyone can view your transaction history if they know your wallet address
Not true with lightning. Lighting transactions are known only to the sender, recipient, and any intermediary routing nodes, not the entire world. Even on main chain, You can make as many addresses as you want and achieve significant privacy/anonymity using techniques like coinjoin.
Also, it’s not true that it hasn’t seen downtime. It has happened at least once in its early days due to a bug.
Maybe in the first year or two of operation, but it’s been more stable than my bank, my internet connection, or the credit card processors, all of whom have had major outages since then. Which is 10+ years.
Also, there has been many times where it taken more than an hour between blocks. This is more to its probabilistic nature.
Two hours but 99% of the time the next block comes in 10 minutes. Still faster and cheaper than a bank wire or other common payment scenarios. Lightning wouldn’t be effected by this. This happens less often as the network grows and stability of hashpower increases. If you need speed, you use lightning, not main chain.