Iran, apparently, intends to legalize crypto.
India intends to ban it.
Iran needs a way to get money and resources in and out of the country, because it is under sanctions.
India has had a huge war on cash, ostensibly to crack down on corruption. (Well, partially that, but partially to give corporations a cut of every transaction.)
It’s fairly clear who is doing what, why.
Also, anyone who cracks down against cash is anti-freedom. This includes our otherwise decent Nordic brothers. Crypto isn’t actually a freedom technology, by the very nature of the ledger (tracking every transaction). It’s more naturally a totalitarian technology, we just haven’t caught up to the fact (just as drones are a weapon of the weak).
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Eric Anderson
Iran will regret it.
Anecdotally: I recently finished the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. A fairly prophetic read, in my opinion, on the future power clash between corporations and sovereign countries. If you’ve read the books, you know what I’m talking about. The rise of the transnationals is upon us.
Corporations WILL suck up and dominate crypto if a country is stupid enough to legalize it. Just look at Zuck seeing the writing on the wall and pushing the Overton window. As soon as you stop needing a sovereign nation’s currency, you cease needing the sovereign nation.
I’ll take my chances with the government abusing it’s power over a corporation any damn day.
I don’t think there’s much due process when a corporation decides to change it’s currency policies, and I think we’ve all seen enough corporate bait & switch in our lives to be able to effectively predict the outcome of corporations having any control whatsoever over our currency.
Screw crypto.
Hugh
Cash is the real crypto. Do not accept any substitutes.
Dan Lynch
Sanctions encourage corruption, because they encourage black markets, money laundering, etc..
StewartM
Meanwhile, for the little people, Trump wants no privacy or freedom for you:
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/27/trump-officials-weigh-encryption-crackdown-1385306
Or, as the telegraph uk has it:
And while this will likely weaken secure data storage and communications – by introducing backdoors that hackers and spies, as well as the cops and FBI, can potentially leverage to snoop on folks – it will be a price worth paying. And, after all, what do you really need that encryption for? Your email and selfies?
“We are not talking about protecting the nation’s nuclear launch codes,” Barr told the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University.
“Nor are we necessarily talking about the customized encryption used by large business enterprises to protect their operations. We are talking about consumer products and services such as messaging, smart phones, email, and voice and data applications.
“There have been enough dogmatic pronouncements that lawful access simply cannot be done. It can be, and it must be.”
If you’re not the military nor in big business, you’ll just have to suck it up, and use that backdoored encryption system for your personal communication and commercial dealings, Barr argued. Otherwise, he claimed, criminals, who are able to chat privately outside the grasp of the law, would have a free hand at the expense of society. And again, over what? Encrypted sexts and selfies? Get real, nerds.
Cryptography expert Matt Blaze likened Barr’s line – that citizens’ personal and business information isn’t worth protecting with top-notch encryption – to “flat Earth bizarre” thinking. “I don’t even know where to begin,” the professor added.
Joan
I definitely support cash, and only have my phone on me, turned off, in case of emergencies. If there were more payphones about, I wouldn’t carry a phone at all. I’d like to think that someone would loan me there phone if I were ever in a bad situation, but it’s hard to know when people are willing to default to kindness rather than choose to not get involved.
Even my small, local credit union doesn’t have an offline option for banking. It’s hard to disconnect sufficiently. At least all my credit union knows is that I withdraw cash from an ATM.
Joan
Sorry, made a there/they’re/their error.
atcooper
This is an excellent sign that the ruling class is afraid of everyone else. As they should be.
450.org
Off topic, I know, but I presaged this. Media outlets are framing it as a suicide attempt. Sure. Yeah. Right. Whatever. Someone botched it. My guess? The psychopath Tartaglione screwed it up like the big, dumb lummox he is.
Epstein’s bail request is being appealed, so he wouldn’t check out, like check out for real, just yet if he was so inclined. This was a hit gone bad. Next time it won’t be botched.
Epstein Found Lying In Fetal Position With Neck Injuries In His NYC Jail Cell
NRG
Only person I ever knew who once worked for the No Such Agency is religious about using only cash.