I built cross-border compliance Management info system dashboards at a Swiss private bank. The much more widespread reality is: entire nationalities and residencies get quietly moved to "do not serve" lists because the regulatory cost of serving them exceeds revenue. No public process, no appeal, no notice, you just can't open an account:financial exclusion most people never see.
replyThat's also very interesting phenomenon. Instead of censoring after the bank accounts have been granted, one could also "censor" or rather exclude a person or group of people or an organisation by not granting a bank account in the first place. Quite shrewd, and extremely unnoticeable. I mean, whole nationalities are excluded based on quite absurd reasons. But I guess fear led to this in many ways.
replyHave you read or connected with Rainey Reitman, who just published the book Transaction Denied?
replyHey, I haven't and that sounds very interesting to read in my case especially. I'll give it a look! Thanks mate.
replythis is interesting.
replymy hunch is that we're moving towards more surveillance, censorship and deplatforming in the future, and CBDCs are a major tool for that.
I like Bitcoin, despite its problems (price volatility and quantum vulnerability) but I think censorship-resistant stablecoins would be a better solution for people looking to protect themselves from Big Brother.
Shockingly bitcoin gained a lot more power for me when prominent government officials started using it to start operating outside the checks and balances of the banking system.
replyI saw Hong Kong launched stablecoin. How would it be less volatile than bitcoin?
replyStablecoins are typically pegged to something, like USD or EUR, so their exchange rate vis-a-vis that currency is stable
replyDon't they sneeze peoples' Bitcoin just the same?
replyWith Feds showing up with your door with guns and handcuffs, you'll have to hand over your private keys, and that's how they freeze BTC accounts. It's not particularly immune to the same threats.
Store your Bitcoin private key in a password manager. Would you really give out your keyvault master password to them?
replyIt doesn't matter how it's stored if they have guns and handcuffs or any other form of $5 wrench (xkcd.com/538).
replyYeah, that's the classic xkcd-reality. It will be a rather difficult to enforce that _en masse_. However, should that happen, then the money is the least of one's worries. In any case, financial censorship in that case would be the least of one's worries, if it comes down to such threats and physical violence.
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