First They Came for Samourai with Seth for Privacy & Bitcoin Q+A

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“These are not two hardened criminals who have been just plotting in secret to launder billions of dollars; these are people who’ve built a powerful privacy tool that never took custody, that fit every regulation and legal framework that we had, and now are facing 25 years of jail time and a life that’s ruined because of drastic and tyrannical overreach by the government.”
- Seth for Privacy
Seth for Privacy is a privacy advocate and Head of Strategy and Marketing at Foundation and Bitcoin Q+A is a Bitcoin educator and Head of Customer Experience at Foundation. In this interview, we discuss the recent indictment against the founders of Samourai Wallet.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Then they fight you
00:14:21 Fungibility & Samourai charges
00:26:24 Who’s next? Are any devs safe?
00:36:20 Growth in tyranny
00:44:16 Necessity of privacy in society
00:52:22 Is Monero a target?
00:56:28 Coordinated attack; what we can do
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#Bitcoin #Finance #Economics

[@BitcoinEdge13]

Very knowledgeable guests. Great interview Peter 🎉

[@haraldclark6206]

Thankyou for this overview of the situation!

[@sherwinchan6008]

thanks for having Seth on. Speaks concise and eloquently without any seeming hidden agenda, just states it as it is. His last episode from years ago is actually why I actually looked into and started holding some Monero. I'm still a Bitcoin maxi, but Monero was one of the only other coins I had for a while.

[@Namegoeshere-op9hg]

The message from Uncle Sam is clear: run your own node.

[@thestonemaster81]

He’s right about these two court cases will definitely set a precedent. I have no faith in the judges. I have hope that the jury can see the violation of the government.

[@ericcson3429]

The Samourai twitter account was tweeting stuff like 'We welcome Russian oligarchs'. Sure, the govt doesn't like privacy and mixing services. But Samourai really poked the dog here.

[@TheAdamAdy]

Who cares if they "poked the dog". What matters is if they broke the law.

[@Namegoeshere-op9hg]

Everyone is welcome. That’s the point.

[@moralhazard1]

Exactly, everyone knows you can't say whatever you want in America lol

[@BTC_Reef]

​@@TheAdamAdy If I walk into a public square and scream that I can be hired for murder. Good chance I will be investigated for murder...

[@jshagenow]

While it’s a tough time for Bitcoin users right now - we can pull together and harden our resolve! This shows me the need to onboard the masses is even more important now as the governments of the world are showing us their hand and they are going to continue pushing back on this technology. It makes it so much harder for them if billions of humans are using the technology. LFG!!

[@bitSimple]

they were also so centralised just took 2 arrest and then it was over....thats why decentralisation is sosososo important...and self custody.....and being humble and stealth

[@moralhazard1]

Real heroes go to jail throughout history! We all need to support Samourai and all these developers

[@usercos187]

high respect to you Peter, for looking at the facts and daring to say that bitcoin is not perfect and has some weaknesses. and also explaining what we can do to have a better crypto protocol to preserve our privacy and to transact freely. (and to not end up in jail 😅)

[@Richard-ki4nk]

Most people know this but there is a huge problem with the justice system. Can't use funds from activity related to the charges brought against you. Need sufficient funds to mount an effective defense. How is an average person to get justice against a wealthy entity?

[@frankovercrest2317]

Ty for having these great guys

[@didactica9326]

Fantastic work gentlemen! Ty! Interesting times! As for me, I will continue to stack sats 👊🏽

[@pedrogorilla483]

Funny idea I’ve been working on that someone smarter than me maybe can get it to work: off-chain fund transfers by address ownership. Instead of sending funds from one address to another on-chain, transfer the private keys from the address holding the funds from one person to another. The main challenge is that the person transferring the funds will still have access to it after the transfer and there’s no way the new ownership can be enforced within the same address. Perhaps there can be some multisig or time lock scheme that would make it possible but I’m not sure.

[@michaelcalibri3620]

I'd have Peter represent me in court, he has a knack to ask exactly the questions I want asked.

[@samuelkavuma1438]

Developers working on Bitcoin wallets need to be protected and part of it is through teaching lawmakers and enforcers what digital wallets are. Every day I use money from my physical wallet, Most Bitcoin wallets receive and send. It's just wallets physical or digital.

[@IVIagicful]

Seth, you said that there is nothing in this case that should have a chilling effect with regards to publishing open source code. Can the same be said for the Tornado Cash case?

[@mitchec01]

This must be fought. Total injustice. But it’s also a great advert for MWEB, which provides confidentiality on transactions, and could very easily be added to BTC at the protocol level. And it does so, as Seth mentions, with no service provider or profit motive to go after. And unlike Monero, projects like LTC that have incorporated MWEB are ubiquitous and available on just about every exchange, despite having privacy functions built in. And MWEB would help BTC throughput. Won’t fix it as a MOE, but would help. These privacy improvements are staring us in the face, but dogma often won’t let bitcoiners consider obvious answers, despite clear and repeated precedent for BTC incorporating improvements that were piloted on other networks.

[@IVIagicful]

Is the best steelman of your opponents that you can think of: "dogma won't let consider obvious answers"?

[@BantuBitcoin]

I always imagined Seth for Privacy looked like Henry from Techlore, or as the same person..

[@cutefacejay6703]

Very scary stuff.

[@SerWest.21]

Regulated entities can get in trouble for failing to comply with KYC/compliance rules, even if it is proven that no illicit funds were involved in transactions being scrutinized. However, with money laundering, you do need to have the element of illicit funds.

[@davidhidvegi4417]

Peter, the word on your hat means 'sin' in hungarian. Is it deliberate or accidental?

[@christianblack5260]

If they are going to court because of ‘money laundering’ or ‘money transmitter licensing’, this assumes that Bitcoin is money. If the courts admit that Bitcoin is ‘money’ then there should be no capital gains on it. If they want to continue to tax capital gains on bitcoin then it has to be classed as property, not money surely?

[@usercos187]

they could say it is 'property laundering and financing of propertism' 😶😂

[@LookingGlass91]

Where do we donate?

[@lhzsdgsfbvv]

Some scarce and rare (21M) but without function... Can have no value.

[@CorwinYoutube]

You clearly have not done your homework.

[@0tristan560]

That is the function.

[@MystiqWisdom]

The function is to be incorruptible money.

[@usercos187]

​@@MystiqWisdom if accounts histories are public, transactions are.traceable, mining / validation is more and more done by big companies, i am not sure how you think it won't be corrupted or restricted....

[@lastnamefirstname2390]

This is a great ad for Monero.

[@Godsservant778]

Except monero has its own issues and is simply a worse alternative. Watch Bitcoin University’s breakdowns of the coin

[@SerWest.21]

The government will argue this: The charge of "conspiracy" to commit money laundering is being used because users were laundering money through SW and the SW coordinators were knowingly facilitating/helping the users do that. A comparison would be a person physically robs a bank. The people that knowingly assisted that person, maybe by providing security details, a ride, looking out, a distraction, etc. may be considered to have "conspired" with the person that did the actual robbery.

[@James-um8pq]

These NGO's get a directive and then use the law to make laws by the back door to bypass parliament, the individual can't challenge those NGO's (Quango's) as he cost is prohibitive, the only way to beat them is remove their control of the money!

[@abrahamnorthhampton3327]

The hubris was strong with the Samourai devs, and that's going to lead a lot of people to the wrong conclusion: they had it coming. The only good that can come from this is that a jury finds in their favor and we get some relief from this constant government overreach. But, here in the US, it's increasingly obvious that any prosecutor can find a jury to impose any verdict they want to impose.

[@user-rg7sg6kp1p]

If Einstein said "Soviets are welcome to use my theory of relativity to build an atom bomb" he would also be arrested.

[@didactica9326]

Bad analogy. Cryptography is not a weapon- if it is looked at as such then it’s a weapon for sovereignty against tyranny & oppression

[@ottoohno1431]

How is this even remotely close to an apples to apples comparison?

[@James-um8pq]

It's there train set and they don't want you playing with it, only riding on it, paying for that privilege

[@jeweljewel9070]

Who are the lawmakers we can work on? As the little guy, how can we help individually… I mean we know how hard it can be to talk about bitcoin to Orange Pill people…. It would helpful to know if there is a Bitcoin activist group that we can support and find out which actual actions we can make to attack this thing head on. As the freakin’ USA goes, so goes the world (unpopular thought with many, but it happens as long as the US is the envied “police guard” of the world. Can’t last forever, but these are facts right now. What can we do? (I’m American living internationally, btw). Want actual things I can do to prevent the loss of our private, freedom money… who do we have to work on?

[@TruthBeToldAlways100]

Scariest episode ever!

[@gunnarrogan3893]

First comment!! Looking forward to this

[@electricswine1]

Could it be "they" want a conviction to say to the no coiners " Aha we told you this thing is for drug dealers and terrorist!"

[@Tiredsoverytired]

I would have thought a conviction here opens the door for more twisted logic and an attack on self custody. They have conceded the store of wealth (if it's done within the system ETF) but they are damn sure it will not become a medium of exchange. Can they stop it before dollar collapse? Who knows.

[@SuperKap0w]

1st

[@alphapappa]

Chillout, this is good news. Money laundering charge does not effect bitcoin. If non kyc value transmission tools get banned, goodbye alts, hello btc nodes. This bounce will be epic.

[@usercos187]

fortunately the USofA is not the center of the world !

[@LexusYachtClub]

On the ship of privacy in society having sailed - with starbucks, your bank, and the rest of the world having that transaction on bitcoin - its almost a good thing that the rest of the world is included in that information. Bitcoin forces the privacy conversation to be all or nothing, which should help in a courtroom and among general society. If bitcoin is used such that the government can track everything, everyone else would be able too. Society may feel differently about that, as opposed to the "bank and starbucks" example being okay.

[@Savage21pain]

Is this What Monero Did??? I was actually just starting to think about how this channel is putting out better and better content yet is now talking about Monero. Disappointing.

[@whome1319]

Honestly try to look at the world logically without your ideology blinding you this badly

[@Nick_Rizzi]

Go live in North Korea bro and try using bitcoin instead of monero... I won't be at your funeral