So a lot of people seem to have the hope that Trump will pardon the Samourai Wallet developers.
While waiting for the Storm verdict, I took some time to read through the White House Digital Asset Report to see what this administration thinks of financial privacy, and my guys - if you still believe that the Trump WH is in *any* capacity friendly to these undertakings, you are in for a very rude awakening.
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Effectively, the White House urges FinCEN to deem *all* privacy measures in digital assets a “primary money laundering concern” under the PATRIOT Act.
This includes:
-> single use addresses, wallets and accounts
-> swapping between networks & chains
-> mixers, obviously
-> “pooling” or “aggregating” cryptocurrencies from multiple wallets
Many will now say: oh, but there’s so much good language in the report as well, like the protection of self-custody.
That’s true, but the protection of self-custody is contingent on the *lawful exchange* of assets between users.
That’s why the White House additionally urges Congress to *expand the PATRIOT Act* and *amend the BSA to cover “DeFi” services*.
To ensure compliance in “DeFi,” the White House suggests the implementation of digital identities, that would tie all of your transaction history to your name, so that “DeFi” services have the power to approve transactions.
Even when implemented with ZKProofs, as the White House suggests, this would effectively turn a permissionless system into a permissioned one.
I know we live in the age of celebrating all the Bitcoin wins, but sometimes things that glitter are just a massive pile of shit, my dudes.
