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0 sats \ 12 replies \ @SwapMarket 29 Apr \ on: Russia announced will ban the circulation of Bitcoin in September 1st, 2024 bitcoin
This will pave the way for CBDC and punish those who left the country. Most ordinary Russians don't care: they have no savings to shield from the inflation. Only those who emigrated will be screwed. There will be fewer and fewer channels to move money in and out. Out - to fund emigrants from Russian income (mostly renting out old flats), in - to help relatives who stayed. Raiffeisen Bank is now pretty much the only one left who allows EUR transfers (from 25k a pop with 1000 EUR fee!), and EU is actively pushing it to leave Moscow.
A lot of normies turned to crypto recently, and they already learning how shady it can be. Some USDT they get for rubles in Moscow cannot be changed back into EUR because it is tainted. Centralized wallets outright block such funds with no legal recourse. With the total ban this will become worse. I was hoping for Venezuela style Lighting adoption, but with no legal ways to spend or exchange BTC it will be problematic. Trying to sell crypto p2p bears a risk of bank account freeze or raise interest from taxmen. Only p2p for cash...
Some USDT they get for rubles in Moscow cannot be changed back into EUR because it is tainted.
USDT in Liquid Network solves this, due to confidential transactions. People just need to use that instead of Tron.
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We are talking with assumption they can't ban use of these tools. Problem we are talking about solving is to fight chainanalysis and / or asset freezing from Tether side.
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They can't ban Liquid but the exchangers can refuse to exchange Liquid USDT for EUR in the same way as they refuse tainted USDT on TRON without actually blocking the funds in the smart contract.
Furthermore, confidential transactions don't hide the input and output addresses. So an exchanger would see this: (10000 RUB changed for USDT) -> ??? -> (this guy wants 100 EUR from me) and connect the dots easily.
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OTC P2P markets is another thing that needs to develop more here.
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Knowledge of Russian population on how to use VPN and Tor is above average compared to the rest of the world, due to censorship happening for years. Same as in China.
Totally aware. Although, it does not shield sender and receiver addresses, only the amounts. Chain analysis can still trace tainted coins. However, using exchanges like Boltz to swap between blockchains can help that. Until, of course, regulation comes to such exchanges too. Yes, life forces people reassess what freedom is.
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only the amounts
Both amount and asset being transferred is hidden.
Simplified version of coinjoin (as equal amounts in outputs isn't needed anymore) could be built on top of that. With JoinMarket style market taker / market maker model.
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I don't argue assets or amounts are hidden, but one can trace the chain of addresses. Just like in bitcoin, they are pseudonymous, not anonymous. If something comes to me from an address in a blacklist I will see that:
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