Bitcoin was designed to be a non-sovereign, borderless, permissionless, censorship-resistant, pseudonymous, decentralized, peer-to-peer, digital form of money - arguably the fairest money we've ever had. How do we keep it as such?
So far Bitcoin managed to survive for 12 years even though it's been dead and buried, dug up, killed, and buried again and then a few more times. Every time Bitcoin got some traction some institution or a country thought of a way to put an end to it. Unsuccessfully. Given its recent rapid growth in popularity, Bitcoin seems to be gearing up for mainstream adoption. This inevitably puts it on a collision course with governments around the globe. They are the next boss in the video game.
FinCEN has recently proposed the “Self Custodied Wallet” rule - an attempt to extend rules which govern how banks report on their customers (Know Your Customer and Anti Money Laundering) would apply to companies that exchange or just even process Bitcoin payments. Bitpay - one of the first bitcoin payment processors has already bent the knee.
Requiring KYC/AML before people can participate in the economy is effectively needing a license to spend your money. This makes money a system of control first.
Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin was designed to resist being turned into a system of control. How do we keep it as such?
Make the providers of KYC services obsolete via deep fakes
Dragan OtasevicFeb 19, 2021
Deep fake live video software could prevent bitcoin from being hijacked by middlemen (KYC service providers, exchanges, payment processors) and return it to the peer-to-peer cash path.
Create pass-through augmented reality software, where the only thing that changes, is the user's face. This can be used in the mandatory video-chat, where the KYC service provider demands to see the person's ID and match it with their face.
Prank create accounts on centralized bitcoin exchanges and payment processors as various famous people from the 18th and 19th centuries. Record videos where the other party in the verification video chat realizes they are talking to a dead president.
Those videos could easily go viral for the amusement factor. They could become a thing, rising in popularity and shining the light on KYC providers becoming obsolete.
Dragan Otasevic Feb 19, 2021