Vizsla

periodic reminder that KYC/AML is worse than useless. it doesn't stop money laundering, it helps it thrive by manufacturing Compliance through paperwork. the "wild west" of crypto is actually more hostile to sanctioned entities because it's neutral ht @theragetech

This sort of post is why I started the newsletter. @krogoff is actually a solid economist on areas where he has personal knowledge, but he also may be the single worst situated person in the entire world to understand the value of Bitcoin. Why do I say this? He's in America. He's at Harvard. He's rich. He's part of a politically favored class. He lives in the country with the reserve currency, and has easy access to that and banks. Our country has rule of law and things work (mostly - at least compared to many others). Why would he need USD stablecoins or Bitcoin, on a day to day basis? The reality is he doesn't. The marginal value of these things to Ken Rogoff is, essentially, zero. But where he talks about the "grey market" or "sensible crypto regulation" is where things go off the rails. Which grey market does he mean? International wire transfers, where you can wait 5 days, turn out to have paid multiple percentage points after FX, and then have your wire rejected half the time (just ask @malekanoms)? Maybe he means the grey market where women in Afghanistan are supposed to put their money in the bank so the Taliban can confiscate it because they aren't supposed to have independent accounts and that is seen as a good thing to happen, as our Harvard economist appears to be implying? Maybe he meant leaving the citizens of Venezuela locked in with the government inflating away the value of their currency on a minute by minute basis and impoverishing the whole country, and that providing them a way out is, of course, facilitating a grey market and not good regulatory policy? This is the sort of incredibly privileged Western viewpoint on crypto that is just so very tiresome. There's nothing smart about this. There's nothing useful about this. It's a statement of "I got mine so we're locking the door behind us, fuck the poors" when presented in such arrogant fashion. And yet people can't understand why the anti-crypto army was so repulsive to voters, especially minorities (hint: who did banks used to abuse in comically racist fashion?) and immigrants.

@RyanSAdams I am an Ethereum core dev via the Socratic method.

Tomorrow, 12 jurors will decide whether writing open source code is a crime. This case is about Roman's future and it is also about whether developers can be held criminally liable for immutable smart contracts they can't control. The precedent here is terrifying. If Roman is convicted for writing immutable code then every developer contributing to privacy tech, MEV protection, any DeFi protocol, or even blockchain protocols could face prosecution. We already won against OFAC -- the Fifth Circuit appeals court ruled these contracts aren't sanctionable property. Now we need the jury to understand that you can't control what you can't change. This is the most important case in crypto. Not just for tornado cash, but because it decides whether America remains a place where we can build permissionless, privacy-preserving technology. Code is speech. Privacy is a right. Tomorrow, we find out if the SDNY jury agrees. Free @rstormsf !!!

📢 PSA for my @GnosisDAO delegators. I voted AGAINST the current iteration of the proposal of @GnosisGuild to steward DAO governance. While I believe the intentions to be good the proposal is not well defined and way too expensive to give $76k/month for 3.5 people for 2 years

Headquarters is now part of @GnosisDAO family ! 🦉