reuters.com
www.reuters.com

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Sunday it would not enforce an anti-money laundering law that obliges millions of business entities to disclose the identities of their real beneficial owners.

  • Tony BarkOPEnglish
    7·
    16 hours ago

    How did having cryptocurrency enable you to have financial independence? Besides few places accepting crypto for promotional purposes (remember when you could buy a pizza with bitcoin?), you couldn’t spend cryptocurrency on any of life’s needs that would allow you to establish yourself financially.

    FFS. Go lecture my 18yr old self. I’ve grown up since then. I didn’t say it was the correct or best option. All I said is that I was desperate.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      21·
      8 hours ago

      FFS. Go lecture my 18yr old self. I’ve grown up since then. I didn’t say it was the correct or best option. All I said is that I was desperate.

      My apologies, it sounded like you were still defending that choice as a correct one for an 18 year old. Certainly won’t hold you accountable for your 18 year old self. I did equally (if not worse) stupid stuff in my youth.

      I’m now asking about what lead to that choice, and what the value proposition of that choice looked like to 18-year-old you. As in, if you got into crypto as a replacement for a bank account for …reasons. Did crypto accomplish anything you wanted out of a bank account? Or was it “a bank is a money place and crypto is a money place, therefore crypto is a replacement for a bank”?

      • bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        This is kinda a dumb question, he said

        It was difficult to find a reliable bank and have a debit or credit card.

        So one of his goals is to have some sort of electronic payment method, and a way to receive money electronically.

        You can’t buy stuff online with cash. You could potentially buy a visa gift card with crypto though.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          1·
          6 hours ago

          You can’t buy stuff online with cash. You could potentially buy a visa gift card with crypto though.

          How are you buying the crypto with your cash if you don’t have a bank account though?

          I don’t know how common this is in other countries, but here you can go to just about any grocery store or discount store and buy a Visa gift card with cash. I would argue if you have cash the easiest way to make an online purchase (especially back then) was to buy a Visa gift card at a retail store.

          • bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
            1·
            2 hours ago

            Ok lol let’s second guess the guy’s teenage decision making when he’s already stated it wasn’t optimal

            Like, this “seemed” like the best thing to do. An essay about how this dude was wrong 16 years ago isn’t interesting.

            You have no idea where he lived, or what was going on, it might be in his neighborhood there was a Bitcoin ATM, or check cashing places cashed to BTC or something. He might have had a wet dream about BTC and that solidified his decision. It doesn’t matter.

      • Tony BarkOPEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        It was simple, really. My parents tried starting me off simple with a credit or debit card (they all look the same). However, banks either were disappearing or fees were stretching us too thing. So I barely had a chance to prove myself as being worthy enough to have a bank account when the whole system was falling apart around me.

        You also gotta remember that this was at a time when cryptocurrency was still novel. People may have questioned it, sure, but it was still seen as something that had potential. Back then we didn’t have the hindsight we have now.