Is your position is no financial institution should have been doing business in Russia pre-invasion? If they said no to a legal request, Russia shuts them down. Any bank, brokerage, or other financial institution operating in Russia would similarly have turned over customer data (or any government where they do business).
It’s also doubtful Binance knew why Russia wanted the info as I doubt Russia did more than just give them a list of relevant accounts.
This obviously doesn’t make Binance the good guys, but I don’t see how this is a crypto is bad story - just that Russia is evil and all companies that were doing business in Russia were willing to turn a blind eye to that for profit.
Did Binance give their customers the impression that they just are like any other bank or that their customers are anonymous?
If it’s the former I see no problem, if it’s the latter than they violated their customers trust.
" * Binance has not entered into any form of agreement with the Russian government that differs from any other jurisdiction – these obligations are ordinary and any traditional bank for example would be subject to the same requirements.
And, to be clear. Binance has not sought to actively assist the Russian state in its attempts to investigate Alexi Navalny; indeed the prosecution case concerning Navalny noted that no donations that were the subject of investigation related to digital currencies. To say so is materially inaccurate."
"To this end, we will be writing a formal complaint to Reuters under their own editorial code as stated:
Reflecting reality in that it can be tempting for journalists to “hype” or sensationalize material, skewing the reality of the situation or misleading the reader or viewer into assumptions and impressions that are wrong and potentially harmful and;
Freedom of bias in that Reuters must always strive to be scrupulously fair and balanced. Allegations should not be portrayed as fact; charges should not be conveyed as a sign of guilt. We have a duty of fairness to give the subjects of such stories the opportunity to put their side.
Therefore, we have published our email exchange with the authors of that article below to let the community decide."
They disclose that they will turn over to comply with their legal obligations.
“ Protection of Binance and others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law or with our regulatory obligations;”
I’m going to try to take a crack at what suzzer should be saying if he were to take an honest attempt at engaging.
The problem isn’t that crypto can’t be safe. The problem is that it takes effort and people can only bear so much of a cognitive load. In an ideal world, people would be able to do things like change the oil in their cars or cook all their meals or do a great host of other tasks. But people aren’t built that way.
We live in a complicated world where a libertarian DIY ethos just doesn’t make sense. Maybe it was possible in a era where we could aspire to be yeoman farmers, but it doesn’t make sense in a technological age where we need IT specialists to make things work, where we need mechanics to make our transportation work, where we need farmers to grow our food for us. Done wrong, crypto just becomes another vehicle for capitalists to exploit people.
A world were crypto frees us from regulation and middle men doesn’t make sense. We need better regulations. We need better middle men with different incentives. Is crypto the right vehicle to change that? Maybe.
Having looked into this, I see pathway where crypto becomes useful if we concentrate on the aspects of it that involve security and transparency and completely give up on the aspects that might confer anonymity or pseudonymity. I can see a use for crypto to store and transfer value if implemented in a way where government (and even motivated individuals) can’t directly stop activity but can easily track you down if you use it for illicit purposes.
If I wanted to promote the use of crypto, I would figure out a way to use a CBDC to implement postal banking.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked Louis - is your position that pre-war no financial institution should have been doing business in Russia, since everyone of them would comply with these type of requests for customer information? Or do you think that specifically Binance was doing something worse than everyone else operating in Russia and had a higher obligation to their customers?
since everyone of them would comply with these throw of requests for customer information
Clearly there’s some room for saying no, since Binance is saying they didn’t comply.
Apple fought the FBI tooth and nail to keep from unlocking phones for them. And that’s in Apple’s home country. There is no such thing as auto-comply to any abusive request from a government you do business in. The deal for doing business in the country was never that Binance would have to turn over all transaction records to Russia.
I have been nothing but honest in every single argument. I don’t enjoy battling everyone at once. I only do it when I’m a) very worked up (beetlejuice’s superpower), and b) very confident that the truth is on my side. As far as I’m concerned the replies I’ve made to every crypto bro argument itt basically write themselves.
My position is that nobody should have been doing business in Russia starting with the annexation of Crimea at the latest although I am aware that this is an unrealistic expectation.
I didn’t say anything about crypto and only got involved in the conversation because it’s asinine to equate Navalny with terrorism.
It’s basically about trust. The crypto bros itt seem pretty sure that every Binance customer should have known that all their data would be sold to any government entity who asks for it, and lol at any idiot for thinking otherwise.
Based on Binance’s strident response, and just common sense, I doubt the general public was working under the same assumption. It seems pretty damned important to Binance to try to win back that trust, whether they’re lying or telling the truth.
Unlocking phones is different - Apples logic was that it wasn’t a legal request since they weren’t being asked to turn over data in their control but write new code to hack their iPhones (which a company had never been asked to do before). Apple will 100% turn over any customer data the government requests.
Binance could have fought - but do you really think a Russian court is going to find it to not be a legal request? And if they fought you think Russia would just let them keep doing business there? There options were to comply (at most maybe negotiate a narrower resolutions) or shit down their Russia operations.
You have no idea if those were really their options. Binance is literally saying they turned the Russians down. Clearly if there was only a binary choice of comply or pull out of the country entirely, they wouldn’t be arguing that they denied the request.
