Crypto Wants Productive Privacy, Governments Often Say No
Last November, the EU’s plans to ban all privacy coins were leaked to the press.
Under the leaked EU plans, zcash – and other privacy coins and chains like dash and monero – would be outlawed across the EU’s 27 countries. As the EU economy is worth over $16 trillion and contains almost half a billion people, this would be a huge blow to international anonymity. Before the bill becomes law, the European Council and the bloc’s 705-member Parliament must agree upon it.
“There are legitimate needs for anonymity in finance for users at the retail to [the] institutional level. From privacy/personal safety, all the way to protecting competitors from emulating strategic business transactions,” says Alex Pruden, CEO of Aleo. “A flat ban on all anonymity-enhanced crypto protocols would not effectively stop money laundering, as the majority is still done using physical cash or through the traditional financial system.”
The Swiss National Bank has been working towards a protocol that squares the circle.
The CBDC will combine privacy, scalability, anti-counterfeiting measures, and quantum-resistant cryptography and is based on Chaum’s blind signature technology. Chaum has said his method could prevent the government from tracing people’s use spending. And also allow law enforcement to track criminal funds.
This is Project Tourbillon.
Tourbillon resolves this by providing privacy for the payment sender but not for the recipient. Regulatory and compliance checks will continue to apply.
How is that in any way private? Also, see the eCash 2.0 paper for more details.
Project Tourbillon aims to reconcile these trade-offs by combining proven technologies such as blind signatures and mix networks with the latest research on cryptography and CBDC design suggested by researchers David Chaum and Thomas Moser.
Mixers!? One law for me, and one for thee.
The idea that governments, and their bankers, need to find some kind of balance assumes that they are not the very source of imbalance. They demand the control, and anything that appears to weaken it must be just for the sake of appearances. This somewhat reminds me of the PGP laws.
If I have my monero in a personal wallet how will they know or is it just transactions they'll be able to track? Will I still be able to spend it in non eu countries? probably. Their loss then.
We can already see the method of control creep - too hard to ban the tech, so make the gateways to fiat illegal. Hence, for now, can spend your crypto elsewhere... so long as that elsewhere doesn't shrink to zero.
shame. Been stockpiling cash just in case too. What do you recommend and thanx for keeping us updated.
the EU hasn't passed this as law yet, afaik, but worth knowing so you can look at other money pathways. The UK is no longer in the EU, so that will also need looking - tho ur in Eire for now, is that right?
Yes I am resident in the EU here. i am not an EU citizen tho.