Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) policies have little if anything to do with keeping people safe, stopping crime, or ensuring economic stability. Logical argument, history, and current events show this is the case. What these regulations are about is much more insidious: controlling every aspect of your financial life so governments don’t miss out on one single penny.

The Infantile World of Banks

“[Bitcoin] is a highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible money laundering activity”

-European Central Bank President, Christine Lagarde

Funny business. Let’s talk about funny business, Christine.

I recently received a phone call from my local bank. A paycheck had been on the way via wire transfer from a business I contracted with, and I’d been eagerly awaiting getting my hands on that fiat paper to pay some bills. When I realized it was the bank on the line, however, I knew things were about to get unnecessarily complicated.

“We have a wire transfer coming in for Graham Smith. Are you expecting some sort of payment?”

“Yes, that’s a paycheck for a month of work. Yes, that is the company name. That’s right.”

For a brief, hopeful moment I imagined this might be the end of it. They’d confirmed my identity on the phone, and I had confirmed the company name. Surely they wouldn’t hold my money further. I should have known better, having dealt with the tedious, privacy-invasive nature of state-licensed banks before.

Long story short, I waited three days for money I needed three weeks ago, had to supply sensitive, private documents, provide the bank with a copy of my work contract, fill out forms swearing I am not a money-laundering terrorist, and lose three hours of my personal time during a work day.

Further, I had to detail to a bank manager who I am and what I do. Though the guy was kind enough and apologetic, I don’t know him from anyone. Why should I trust complete strangers with my money and private information?

Long story short, fuck banks. I realized once again just how valuable decentralized, virtually uncensorable money is. Low fees, no middle man, and no guilty-until-proven-innocent invasive, criminal tedium.

Statistically, Crypto Is Not Mostly Used for Crime

The latest data from blockchain analytics group Chainalysis shows that so-called “illicit” Bitcoin transactions declined in 2020.

“In 2019, illicit activity represented 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume or roughly $21.4 billion worth of transfers,” the report states. “In 2020, the illicit share of all cryptocurrency activity fell to just 0.34%, or $10.0 billion in transaction volume.”

These declining “illicit” transactions (many of which were likely just voluntary, non-violent exchange) are a tiny drop in the bucket of all crypto transactions. They’re a microscopic drop in the bucket when we consider crime financed globally by fiat money like the USD. As former U.S. Department of the Treasury officer Jennifer Fowler noted in 2017:

Although virtual currencies are used for illicit transactions, the volume is small compared to the volume of illicit activity through traditional financial services.

Money laundering is estimated to be done to the tune of about US$2 trillion per year. Compared with the US$10 billion that Chainalysis assigns to all illicit transactions — not just money laundering — the real winner is clear. The dirty, coke-laced, bloodstained, oil-greedy USD is the lead launderer. If the state is truly against money laundering (which, if there is no victim is no crime anyway), then why don’t they focus on their own problematic currency?

It should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of crimes are financed by traditional, government-approved fiat systems and infrastructure. There’s simply no contest.

Governments: The World Record Holders in Trafficking, Laundering, and Murder

Peons like you and I must prove we are not criminals to states and their banks, the worlds’ largest criminal cartels. We must strain and struggle and beg and plead to get a literal global crime syndicate to allow us to cash a simple paycheck to feed our families.

Literal global crimes syndicate? What are you talking about?

Just think about it. These people saying they want to protect you from terrorism and financial crimes are 100%, totally fine with dropping bombs on cities and villages full of non-violent men, women, children, and infants. And joking about it. It’s just “collateral damage.”

They are 100%, totally fine with mere slaps on the wrist for mega banks when they are caught laundering money connected to convicted child sex offenders. As MSN reported just this week regarding Deutsche Bank:

“New York’s Department of Financial Services fined Deutsche Bank $150 million last July in part due to its dealings with convicted sex offender and financier Jeffery Epstein. The DFS said that Deutsche Bank processed payments that should have been flagged through its compliance systems, including payments to people who were publicly alleged to have been connected to Epstein.”

They are 100%, totally fine with allowing deadly drug pushers and traffickers to be lobbyists, running guns and cocaine in Nicaragua (here’s looking at you, Ronny Reagan) while local lives are destroyed, and storing kiddie porn on their computers in Department of Defense offices funded by taxpayers.

Click the links. Go ahead.

None of this is to mention the crimes of taxation, inflation, and immoral licensing rackets cheerleaded and institutionalized by these very same, literal criminals.

These people who preach at you about the necessity of negative interest rates, and who threaten you with prison and death if you attempt to make a competing currency are the scum of the earth. Why would they not attempt to hide behind an image of morality, control, and having your best interest at heart?

You know what was in my best interest? Getting my goddamn paycheck. This is why crypto matters, and why AML/KYC laws are obviously not designed for protection of the non-violent, but for control of the tax cattle.

Of course, order is needed. And rules. And this order and these rules can only work and can only be legitimate if they are based 100% on individual self-ownership. Until then, it’s just a bunch of low-lifes with titles telling us how we can and cannot manage our money and wealth, that we work hard for with our own bodies to create.

I don’t know about you, but I am no fan of slavery. It must be abolished immediately.