₿🛠️ Satoshi's 21 #009: Financial Cancel Culture ❌
Channel: Bitcoin Meetup Munich
Date: 2020-12-22

This time we'll be joined by "that one privacy girl" and journalist Janine Römer. It's almost holiday season and thus perhaps a good point in time to remember and reflect that Bitcoin is less an invention about eCommerce, but rather one about personal autonomy and sovereignty in financial and other affairs.

The focus of the discussion will be financial censorship: how and why people are being "cancelled" from having bank accounts, often without due process or allegations of illegality, and whether Bitcoin may be of help. We will also discuss resisting regulatory capture, the emergence of "blockchain analysis" aka blockchain *surveillance* companies, and much more.

Furthermore, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and even Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) rules seem to be extended more and more to the general tech sector and other sectors as well. Not only does this paint a bleak picture for the future of the right to privacy and free speech; the compliance requirements also increase operating cost, perhaps prohibitively for smaller enterprises to remain competitive.

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https://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Munich/events/273866737/

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Presenters and notable participants this time include:

Janine Römer
- https://twitter.com/J9Roem
- https://enegnei.github.io/This-Month-In-Bitcoin-Privacy/
- https://github.com/Enegnei

Anita Posch
- https://twitter.com/AnitaPosch

Ádám "nopara" Ficsór
- https://twitter.com/nopara73

And others.

This will be a joint session with the Wasabi Research Club.
- https://github.com/zkSNACKs/WasabiResearchClub

Format: Presentation / Discussion / Socratic Seminar

Language: English

Target Audience: Everyone who's interested in the reasons why Bitcoin might be needed in society, in the global landscape of financial regulations, or in political issues around the right to privacy and informational self-determination in general.

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Material and sources before-session:

Janine Römer's background, interviewed by Anita Posch:
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/janine-roemer/

Today we'll focus on this topic area:
https://enegnei.github.io/This-Month-In-Bitcoin-Privacy/October_2020/#october-19th---chainalysis-and-crypto-exposed-persons

"Banks Need to Understand Their Cryptocurrency Exposure Even If They Don’t Take Custody of Cryptocurrency":
https://archive.is/lK8pC

"FinCEN Files: Crypto Industry Condemns 'Global Systemic Failure'":
https://decrypt.co/42539/fincen-files-crypto-industry-condemns-global-systemic-failure

Thread on extra-judicial financial exclusion:
https://twitter.com/J9Roem/status/1291092854174027777

Presentation about "World-Check" at the 34c3: "Financial surveillance - Exposing the global banking watchlist" by Jasmin Klofta and Tom Wills:
https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9070-financial_surveillance

Their documentary "The Database: Collecting the world's financial data | Al Jazeera World"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X18kBie9trk

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Slides:
https://einzelgaengerinmotte.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/financial-cancel-culture.pdf

Also mentioned/shown:

Revision-Controlled Journalism
https://einzelgaengerinmotte.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/revision-controlled_journalism_v2.pdf

"Pornhub Isn't the Problem. That Won't Stop the Politicized Crusade Against It."
https://reason.com/2020/12/16/pornhub-isnt-the-problem-that-wont-stop-the-politicized-crusade-against-it/

Anita Posch Podcast Episode "Nigerian Feminist Coalition: Bitcoin Is Power"
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/nigerian-feminist-coalition/

Patrick McCorry: You don't fully appreciate cryptocurrency until [...]
https://twitter.com/paddypisa/status/1333733835369029633

Naomi "RealSexyCyborg" Wu: "I’d lost all my monthly income because I had no Patreon"
https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5

Jonathan Levin: Blockchain Surveillance
https://youtu.be/qh0EuckN5o4

Steve Ragan: it's not a Data Breach [...]
https://twitter.com/SteveD3/status/1337397225866006528

Bitcoin Privacy: On- and Off-Chain
https://einzelgaengerinmotte.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/slides-final-2.pdf

Ricochet
https://samouraiwallet.com/ricochet

Privacy section in Satoshi's Bitcoin Whitepaper
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Privacy in the Bitcoin Wiki
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy

ComplyFirst: Example Privacy Feature Enhanced Due Diligence Questionnaire
https://s33483.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ComplyFirst-Example-Privacy-Feature-Enhanced-Due-Diligence-Questionnaire.pdf

Giacomo Zucco: The "Know Your Customer" meme is pure monetary ignorance. [...]
https://twitter.com/giacomozucco/status/1208339831337693184

Aaron van Wirdum: "Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy." Cypherpunk Manifesto
https://twitter.com/aaronvanw/status/1331926544093237248