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We must protect privacy, even in the face of cryptocurrency crime. As governments crack down on one of the most notorious tools for criminal money laundering in the cryptocurrency world, I’m worried about the ramifications.
Some who know me as a cryptocurrency critic may find these opinions surprising coming from me.
But if you are surprised, I have failed. And I think I have, because I think some of you will be.
@molly0xfff (removing the CW since we're not at all on that topic)
right, i know not all forms of what could be considered "mining" would be easy to draw a red line around legally. but the crypto market is (in reality, despite its claims) centralized enough (bc of how economies of scale work for anything) that if you outlawed those big mining operations it would have massive downstream effects that would devalue the space for criminals and speculators.
@jplebreton sure. but i see “outlawing big mining operations” as a very different beast from “outlawing crypto”
@molly0xfff encrypted messaging is a bottom up social need that the most vulnerable people in society need most, whereas crypto trading is a top down - vulnerable at the top - attempt to create an unregulated parallel economy. it is hard to trust most politicians but i can clearly imagine people who understand these dynamics being able to legislate effectively against cryptocurrency while safeguarding democracy-essential technologies. i don't think we are stuck going to the fence for bitcoin.
@jplebreton to be clear, i’m not arguing that cryptocurrency should not be regulated, or that financial regulations shouldn’t be enforced wrt crypto. but i am concerned that attempts to crack down on crypto may end up with overly broad legislation that hurts vulnerable people. and i’m also concerned that the current state of financial regulation (broadly, not just wrt crypto) is too far on the side of surveillance.
@molly0xfff agreed that overly broad legislation is a constant threat. but also what's really happening here is a clash of values: free market capitalists want to reengineer the global economy to be a totally unregulated snakepit, and are happy to use the rhetoric of civil liberties as a shield. there is a very clearly defined position that is neither that nor classic authoritarian statism (also a threat, certainly) that centers ordinary people... which tbc your advocacy has been great for.
@molly0xfff If they were serious they would outlaw cryptocurrency altogether. Most of the people using it use it in centralized exchanges so outlawing it would make it too much of a hassle for most people to use.
But no, they just want to expand surveillance.
@MisuseCase i don’t think there is a way to truly outlaw cryptocurrency without pretty horrifying implications for other software
@molly0xfff You mean for actually useful, non-scammy cryptography and such? I know blockchains are used for non-repudiation.
But I don’t think you need to outlaw blockchains to outlaw cryptocurrency. It’s the use case, not the underlying technology, that’s an issue.
@molly0xfff @MisuseCase I think you could outlaw crypto to currency exchanges. The crypto can continue. The ability to convert to $s means ransomware becomes much more difficult.
@dpp @molly0xfff This might be the way to go, since removing centralized exchanges will make crypto use too much of a hill to climb for most people.
Persecuting code is extremely worrying and yes, in many ways reminds me the cryptography wars. That have a resurgence now, btw.
Going against the actual criminals seems now, for some courts, less important than sending a message to the community at large: thou shalt not create tools potentially undermining censorship and control. Criminal activities are just an excuse, in many ways.
Thumbs up and thanks again for your work. It matters.
@bitzero I’m glad to hear that. It’s not that I think I’ve been inconsistent — I think I just sometimes assume everyone is familiar with my earlier writing and have that baseline understanding of where I’m coming from. It’s probably unfair to expect as those pieces pass two years old.
@molly0xfff for me, you have seemed a bit over the top in attitude while reporting much factual information that I appreciate.
You're far from alone in seeming blanket anti 'crypto', whatever each person takes that to mean. The latter being part of the problem.
I'm interested to see what are your concerns, and to have less blanket, more detail on what you see as good or bad.
I've watched this unfold for over a decade and I do get it, but I'm not for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
@happyborg I go into it in the piece, but: I don’t think there’s much good, frankly, even though I respect many of the goals. But I strongly believe that people should have the right to do things I don’t like. The focus needs to be on the fraud/scams/lack of consumer protection, not on cracking down on the technology or ramping up financial surveillance even further. Meanwhile we need to work on improving the sorry state of financial privacy.
@molly0xfff 
there are also less well known projects that are different but get lumped in as "crypto" or "web3" and are shunned because people don't care to look once they hear of a token for instance.
I get it regularly from people in tech, but as the project I've been helping for a decade gets out into the public I expect to get it there too.
When the reality is that Autonomi will be one of the best things to happen at a time when nothing is secure or private, and constantly getting worse.
@molly0xfff Do you follow @sarahjamielewis and Lyn Alden (she's on Nostr these days). They might change your mind on «I don’t think there’s much good».
@aerique @sarahjamielewis the former, yes. she's brilliant.
For what it's worth, I believe my opinion is very much aligned with the one shared by Molly.
I'm disappointed with how crypto evolved over the last decade.
There were a lot of promising projects but they were mostly strangled by communities full of people whose only concern was short term gains.
This led to some really bad decisions that ultimately harmed wider adoption.
Especially when combined with the other 99% of projects that were just outright scams.
I'm very much of the opinion that we need technical infrastructure that permits censorship resistant (and by extension private) payments.
But how we get there from where we are is a little less clear to me than it was a few years ago.
I wish there had been more effort spent on building up smaller, more integrated economies rather that courting exchanges / investment / ICO / etc.
The main thing that did come out of the last decade was cryptography research.
A ridiculous amount of money was invested in new cryptography, and we got some really cool new primitives and protocols - and a lot of understanding about how to practically deploy those kinds of things (and how not to deploy them).
My one hope is that as we all start piecing together all that work we might be able to learn from the past and build up something a little better.
What do you think about recent and accelerating work happening in ZKPs and FHE? It has been an explosively innovative space as of late, driven in large part for the succinctness and to lesser extent anti collusion properties that web3 networks are willing to pay a *lot* of money to work towards.
@sarahjamielewis @molly0xfff I wish I had both of your ways with words.
edit: Sarah, and to imagine I follow you for the occasional positive cryptocurrency / 'web3' news :-D
@molly0xfff hmm no, that’s not a surprising take to me.
I’m sure I haven’t followed you as long as many others but you’re always good at nuance in your newsletters and interviews I’ve seen.
@molly0xfff I think the analogy of a hammer is apt. It is not illegal for me to build, buy, or use a hammer. It is illegal for me to use it in a criminal act, like murder or even using it with the intent to build a device meant to cause harm. I think the same should apply to crypto or any tech.
And for those people who argue that "you can't prove intent", I'd just like to point out criminal courts have been in the business of proving intent in these sort of matters since time immemorial.
@zalasur I think perhaps in this case, a better analogy would be that Dutch courts have found Pertsev guilty for selling hammers.
@molly0xfff In certain contexts that's also a crime in the general sense. A financial transaction isn't an impenetrable shield to protect oneself from criminal liability, nor should it be.
@zalasur no. but selling hammers also shouldn’t be broadly criminalized.
@molly0xfff I am not at all surprised. You have not failed. Your reporting is always on-point, factual, and a welcome antidote to the unquestioning boosterism of the crypto house organs.
@molly0xfff I'm shocked. Shocked!
(not actually shocked)
https://youtu.be/vxnpY0owPkA?si=yCzYrlzBDG9rnoG0&t=23
@molly0xfff I admire your thoughtfulness and how much you respect your audience.
@molly0xfff Reading just the content in this screenshot, as opposed to your entire post, I think there's still room for nuance in one's ability to dislike cryptocurrency but strongly support privacy (and rally against breaches thereof, regardless of the context).
@molly0xfff I think the bigger problem is that the cryptocurrency industry as a whole does not seem to feel that they should be bound by the same regs as any financial industry. As a result, it lacks even the culture required for effective self-regulation.
I'm not sure that I see a future where regulators are willing to take a step back anytime soon. If anything, the consequences of the actions of those in the industry during this time will be seen by regulators as evidence of a need to act.
@UncivilServant agreed. i also worry that that action will be heavyhanded, and end up with collateral effects
@molly0xfff I greatly appreciate your nuanced take here. I have often found myself thinking, “just ban this” after seeing so much suffering. But it is indeed not that simple.
Privacy is a human right.
@molly0xfff good piece, happy to see you are clear in what you dont like (scummy crypto) and what you do like: financial privacy, as what crypto should be. That said, what do you think of Monero XMR?
@molly0xfff I'm reading this with interest. By the logic used there, gun designers and builders, should be held responsible for all the crimes committed with them? What about cars?
@molly0xfff You mentioned ecash in your article. Are you aware of @Taler?