Mass Adoption: How Bitcoin Can Be Saved From KYC Propaganda

Crypto is doing great these days, but there's a big, nasty thorn in the side of adoption: crippling regulations in the form of KYC and AML policies, and an anti-privacy propaganda spreading like a virus in mainstream culture. So what can we do?

Propaganda Is Predicated on Fear

Propaganda is often intended not to convince, but to humiliate. In this way, obedience and blind acceptance of absurdities and gross injustice can be achieved readily. As an individual rejects what they know to be the truth they must sheepishly accept the lie, their interest shifting now to shouting down anyone else who may speak the truth and expose their own cowardice. Have a look at this fantastic quote from Theodore Dalrymple:

“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.

What follows are three random, ridiculous things propaganda has gotten people to blindly believe (or to say that they believe) in modern times. Of course, these are just a tiny tip of the virtually endless deep sea iceberg:

• Iraq had a hand in orchestrating 9/11, which is why the US invaded the country in 2003. (The truth: there was no hijacker from Iraq on either plane. Most were from Saudi Arabia. But because it was all about a 'war on terror', the media and politicians were able to get Americans propagandized enough to support a war in Iraq, by leveraging emotions surrounding an unrelated 9/11. To question intent was to be deemed 'unpatriotic' and uncaring.)

• The US government's 1933 confiscation of gold – effectively at gunpoint – was done in the best interest of the people. (The truth: the value of the dollar was gutted almost 41% by this move, the gold standard abandoned, and though the previously state-ruined domestic economy may have been artificially, temporarily buoyed by the cheap credit Executive Order 6102 created by way of its violent theft, people's best interest was obviously keeping their damn gold if they wanted to! Still, to avoid being fined, caged or killed by the state, and also to avoid having others think they were greedy or selfish, ostensibly, the masses largely complied.)

• Unprecedented, deadly pandemic viruses don't spread when it's a Joe Biden celebration or rally. (The truth: viral pandemics don't give a shit. But hey, everyone else is doing it! So preach at and shame those anti-maskers, but enjoy your celebration.)

Fear is powerful. Fear of violence, fear of loss of life, fear of social ostracism. Fear of the opinion of the mob.

KYC Is the Same Propaganda; Economic Action Is the Antidote

When it comes to crypto, the new '9/11 truther' and the new 'anti-vaxxer' is the individual who wishes to do as Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned, and cut out the middle man completely. That is to say, the individual who values financial sovereignty in their life. The attitude that such a desire is suspicious must be shut down immediately, lest it gain a foothold. The way to shut down such anti-freedom propaganda is not censorship of the propaganda, but massive action directly opposed to it.

What we will soon see I'm afraid – and indeed already are seeing – is individuals in the crypto space wishing to hold onto their human dignity in finance being viewed as old-fashioned, paranoid, or as dealing in illicit trades. People questioning Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies are already being singled out by politicians and regulators, and many who ignore such policies are being arrested. Just look at the recent arrest of New Hampshire-based libertarian Ian Freeman, the man who first told Roger Ver about bitcoin. As C. Edward Kelso reports for coinivore:

It appears Freeman has been under federal investigation for half a decade. The indictment insists Freeman and the five others since 2016 “operated a business that enabled customers to exchange over ten million dollars in fiat currency for virtual currency, charging a fee for their service” through “websites, as well as operating virtual currency ATM machines in New Hampshire.”

Even those users, startups and other businesses wishing to comply with regulations are being shut down because they simply don't have the resources to satisfy the unreasonable demands of the state.

It is of course a bullshit take that bitcoin privacy equates to criminal use, because almost all crimes of the world statistically are predicated on US dollars. Also it is bullshit because privacy is not just 'hiding something bad.' Are you 'hiding something bad' when you go to the bathroom? When you don't want to tell a stranger how much money you make in a year? Of course not. Privacy is obviously essential to human health, wealth, and well-being. Regardless of any of that, non-violent people making money is not a crime. Full stop. To hell with whatever some criminal state agency may say about it.

The easiest way to fight this anti-privacy propaganda is to take action. But looking at folks like Freeman, Ross Ulbricht, Ed and Elaine Brown, Larken Rose, Sherry Jackson and others, it's clear to see that taking direct permissionless economic action often carries a heavy, heavy price. Nobody wants to end up in jail. Or dead. The state absolutely hates when you compete with their trash money racket. Almost more than anything else. So what do we do?

Mass Adoption, The Hail Mary Last Pass

As the world devolves into an authoritarian shithole where you must be penetrated by needles against your will just to travel, scan personal, sensitive documents just to trade crypto on an exchange, and where goverments – like the US did in 1933 – can effectively shut down certain markets they don't like (see Turkey's recent laws against conducting commerce in bitcoin) things indeed start to seem pretty bleak.

But as the natural law goes, the darker it gets, the brighter the light shines, too. And that light is starting to glow very intensely right now. Regardless of people's personal opinions on matters like vaccines, 9/11, or KYC/AML, if bitcoin cash has the greatest utility as money, it can be massively adopted. The more people adopt and use it – whether it be through a KYC gateway or otherwise – and get a palpable feel for economic freedom, the greater the chance small acts of permissionless exchange will proliferate, regardless of philosophy or worldview. Especially if it's simple, lightning fast, and the fees are so extremely low as to almost be negligible.

"I don't need to go through an exchange. I'll just trade directly with my neighbor who also uses BCH."

"I'm not going to pay my shitty government that is mismanaging all of our funds my whole paycheck. I'll conceal a bit of it with this new tech."

At that point – the point of massive adoption where people just realize en masse they can keep and use their own money as they please – one possibly wouldn't need to be like a Ross Ulbricht, Larken Rose, Sherry Peel Jackson, or Ed and Elaine Brown martyr to the state. Convincing the whole world to become voluntaryist is a tall order (though it shouldn't be!), but convincing them to use easy and convenient money is not. If a critical mass of folks were using permissionless money as such, there would be no way for the violent state to enforce the old draconian paradigm. It would be choked to death, starved of its extorted sustenance, and go out with a whimper.

It may be a long shot...or not...I'm not quite sure. Maybe many more will have to be jailed, and die, or starve, before this evil abates. God forbid.

All I know is, I am excited about the fight for non-violent, permissionless money. It's helping me live more freely right now, and I think that's all that matters, propaganda be damned.