Friday, January 12, 2018

Mnuchin Warns Against Bitcoin Becoming the Next ‘Swiss Bank Account’


U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will work with the Group of 20 nations to prevent e-currencies such as bitcoin from becoming the digital equivalent of an anonymous Swiss bank account, reports Bloomberg.

Speaking to the Economic Club of Washington on Friday, he said wants to ensure “bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things.”

Under U.S. law, “if you have a wallet to own bitcoins, that company has the same obligation as a bank to know” you as a customer, Mnuchin said. “We can track those activities. The rest of the world doesn’t have that, so one of the things we will be working very closely with the G-20 is making sure that this doesn’t become the Swiss bank account.”

You have to be seriously delusional if you think the US government is going to allow anonymous e-currency transactions.  And please don't start babbling about  Z Cash and XMR. The ultimate problem is the point of exchange between an e-currency and a retailer. All a government has to do is prohibit a retailer from accepting an e-currency where the buyer is anonymous.

 -RW

3 comments:

  1. Mnuchin's statement is laughable, of course, in a couple of ways. First, as if the US government knows where all the money it spends goes. Second, he wants a monopoly on "bad people [using] currencies to do bad things" (US imperialism, anyone?).

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    1. You may want to look at the big picture as bitcoin is now mostly a speculation for the oligarchy With little transaction value. As soon as it tries to steal real market share from current central banking it will see a hard fall.

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    2. I wasn't commenting on Bitcoin's prospects, rather, ridiculing the ludicrous things those at the state say and do.

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