New California law limits cash to crypto at ATM machines at $1000 per day per person and also the fees that can be imposed by the machines.

The industry says this will hurt the business, hinting that they’re profiting from the lack of KYC policies

I don’t see any legitimate use from those machines. Who would have a legit need to exchange $15k from cash to crypto at 33% fees???

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    11 months ago

    I think there’s utility for digital cash. Fungible cash online.

    I personally use Monero which is fungible, private, online digital cash. Just yesterday I donated to doctors without borders, I pay for my VPN, I pay for my email hosting, I donate to signal, I donate to graphene OS, I donate to the briar project, I donate to the Tor foundation, I fund software development bounties, I paid for dropout.tv… all using monero.

    Why? For the same reasons I use cash. I want to have a transaction, I want to be done with it, and I don’t want to have an ongoing relationship. I don’t want third parties to be involved. If I put $5 in the local temples donation bin, or if I donate $5 in crypto, that’s nobody’s business but me and the Buddhists.

    • megopie@beehaw.org
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      11 months ago

      But you could do that with just about any digital payment system. Crypto doesn’t have anything to do with that. Hell, if you want it to be anonymous use a pre paid gift card you buy with cash.

      That’s actually anonymous rather than pseudonymous.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
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        11 months ago

        Monero is fully anonymous, not just pseudonymous.

        Cash-redeemable prepaid cards you buy for cash, are not available everywhere, or may require you to go through the equivalent of a KYC, and/or may have a monthly fee, and/or abusive transaction fees, and/or ridiculous monthly recharge/spending limits… on top of getting recorded on camera while buying them.

        At least where I live, I’ve found no anonymous prepaid cash cards, but if I get my credit card and buy some Monero in my name, then send it to another account, nobody can link it back to me ever again.

        • megopie@beehaw.org
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          11 months ago

          If it is a block chain, that records transactions to specific wallets, then those wallets can be linked to an individual.

          • jet@hackertalks.com
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            11 months ago

            Monero works hard to make sure that wallet contents and transactions are private.

            https://www.getmonero.org/get-started/what-is-monero/

            The sender, receiver, and amount of every single transaction are hidden through the use of three important technologies: Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures, and RingCT.

            Because every transaction is private, Monero cannot be traced. This makes it a true, fungible currency. Merchants and individuals accepting Monero do not need to worry about blacklisted or tainted coins.

            • megopie@beehaw.org
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              11 months ago

              Can the block chain of the system be viewed by anyone? Is the wallet ID listed on the blocks?

              It doesn’t matter how many fancy protocols are thrown up. If the history of the block chain is viewable and verifiable, then the history of transactions can be tracked to a wallet. Thus it is not truly anonymous.

              • jet@hackertalks.com
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                11 months ago

                Yes, no.

                The IRS currently has a $600,000 Bounty for anyone who can deanonymize monero transactions.

                That money is yours, just show us the way.

                The wiki explains it better than I ever could, even have animations wiki

                The transaction outputs, or notes, of users sending Monero are obfuscated through ring signatures, which groups a sender’s outputs with other decoy outputs.[12] Encryption of transaction amounts began in 2017 with the implementation of ring confidential transactions (RingCTs).[6][13] Developers also implemented a zero-knowledge proof method, “Bulletproofs”, which guarantee a transaction occurred without revealing its value.[14]

                • megopie@beehaw.org
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                  11 months ago

                  You did not answer my question, is the history of transaction on a block chain? Are the transactions listed to wallets?

                  Yes or no?

                  • jet@hackertalks.com
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                    11 months ago

                    Yes to your first question no to your second.

                    The ledger is open in public and verifiable.

                    The wallet IDs involved in transactions are not including the transaction amounts. I’ll reference you to the wiki.

                    I’m not a mathematician, I’m not a cryptographer, so I cannot defend the mathematics with you. I referenced the bounty to indicate that the problem has not been solved. I referenced the Wikipedia for more details. If you want to ask them specific questions about the protocol, you can join the matrix conversation, or even the Reddit community is pretty active.

    • 🤘🐺🤘@monero.town
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      11 months ago

      Great description!

      Some people live in countries where some of those things are illegal. Another example of this is banned books. I can pay for entry into a private torrent tracker through a VPN to access books banned in my country.

      If you need 0 connections between the cash in your bank account and what you buy online then you need something like Monero.