Because people who post in any topic like they’re the smartest person in the room, while ridiculing actual knowledgeable people on the topic are always received really well.
Literally all I did was post the news about Binance. Very quickly I was in a battle royale with a half dozen posters. Feel free to scroll up and check the tape.
I realize that you take my skepticism as ridicule. But that’s not my fault. That’s your problem. Hyper-sensitivity to criticism has been called about by a lot more people than me as a common issue with a lot of crypto enthusiasts.
Not always, but often
Binance is a business that requires KYC up front to use. That automatically means that nothing you do on binance is anonymous, as is the case with any business that requires KYC. It’s not some sick gotcha to say omg the transactions you made with a business you gave your identity to can be tied to your identity? How could we have ever seen this coming?
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They are individuals with different opinions, and the only thing we know they have in common is they don’t care what you think
;)
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The whole analogy was that the proper reaction would be to tell the person posting disingenuously to fuck off. It literally has nothing to do with my thoughts or anything about crypto.
These decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. Binance knows who Putin is. They know who Navalny is. They can call his bluff, say no to turning over Navalny supporters’ data and take their chances. Companies do stuff like that all the time.
Thankfully enough people think it’s a shady thing to do that it was a liability for them to release the information. Some of us believe in trying to hold companies to at least some level of morality and not just always let them slide with “it’s just business, what are you going to do?” when they do evil stuff.
There is nothing disingenuous about my posting. I am completely fascinated with the subject of crypto. I am a skeptic. If I see something newsworthy I’m likely to post it here to see what others think. I did the same thing on the Motley Fool boards in 1999. I would have done the same in 2008 if I had any idea what MBSs were.
Some of you seriously need to ask yourselves why you consider negative news about a crypto exchange posted in the crypto thread to be bad faith trolling. Don’t you have a dedicated discord where everyone is aligned with the same goal to make money? Why does this thread have to be a mirror of that?
Fine. BJ set me off. I won’t let that happen again.
When he does that I tend to assume he’s taking the general position of the pro-crypto posters in the thread. Certainly there are more than just BJ who think Binance did nothing wrong. Although who knows what BJ really thinks.
But it’s not like I came into the thread literally saying “lol crypto bros - look at this shit”. I don’t do that. Yet a lot of posters take any post by me that paints any aspect of crypto in a negative light that way, because they know I’m a skeptic. And like I said, that’s on them, and fits with the larger pattern of the crypto world’s hyper-sensitivity to any criticism.
Just look at the assumption by some that any criticism of crypto itt amounts to bad faith trolling. Like this thread should be the exclusive playground of people who are here to make money, and everyone else should get lost.
This specific pyramid scheme has made BJ an obnoxious millionaire, therefore it must be stopped.
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Are you under the misguided belief that Russia said, hey Binance, give us the identities of anyone whose sent cryptocurrency to this Navalny guy? Did you only read the headline and not read the article which detailed what actually happened here?
Government of country that you’re operating and actively seeking to have a good relationship with so you can continue doing business there says we need user data to identify criminal activity, so binance hands over their KYC data. To refuse would have meant no longer doing business in that country. And this was all a year ago, when literally everyone was still doing business with Russia.
I don’t really give a shit about binance though. You can tell me they’re a shitty company run by terrible people, and honestly you’d probably be correct. Almost every business is run by terrible people and most of them are pretty shitty companies.
But handing over customer data to a country that you’re wanting to operate in as a regulated business because they tell you it’s needed to stop criminal activity is standard operating procedure.
I’ll also say that personally I don’t care about anonymity related to crypto transactions and have never made one with the assumption of anonymity. But I can only speak for myself on that one.
And just to show I can bash everyone involved, I didn’t like beetlejuice’s repeated references to Navalny as a terrorist. Even though we are both essentially making the same point, it pretty clearly became trolling beyond the initial use of it.
Take him seriously but not literally.
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suzzer:crypto::churchill:COVID ?
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Nope
Does anyone have details on the timeline? Was Binance already operating officially in Russia at the time the Navalny supporters went through the KYC procedure? Or was Binance an international (/decentralized) exchange that did not have any official Russian license when they submitted their personal info?
This is covered in the link I posted yesterday that I’m pretty sure nobody bothered to read.
- Suggestions that Binance shared any user data, including Alexei Navalny, with Russian FSB controlled agencies and Russian regulators are categorically false.
- Indeed, Alexi Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov himself pointed out the inconsistencies in the Reuters article on this point. According to Coindesk:
Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov, who has been managing the fundraising campaign , told CoinDesk he doesn’t believe Binance actually shared Navalny donors’ data with Fordinmonitoring. "I believe Reuters was wrong. there are also multiple inconsistencies in the article. Coindesk add:
As an example of such inconsistency, Volkov mentioned that in April 2021, Binance did not require verification for all Russian users. The exchange, indeed, made KYC obligatory for Russian users in August 2021 , meaning that before that, they could buy small amount of crypto and donate them to Navalny without giving their personal data to Binance at all.
- Prior to the war, Binance’s engagement in Russia was no different from that of any other international organization - from banks to burger restaurants.
- Like every other blockchain company with users in Russia, prior to the War with Ukraine, Binance was advocating for Russia to develop an effective crypto regulatory framework - an effort we are undertaking in every market we operate in.
- As soon as the war started, we stopped working in Russia. Instead, we implemented sanction requirements. Today, as far as we know, Binance is the ONLY crypto exchange in the world to implement the latest package of sanctions imposed by the European Union aimed at Russian account holders.
- As an example, Binance blocked several accounts linked to relatives of senior Kremlin officials in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including:— Polina Kovaleva, the stepdaughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — Elizaveta Peskova, the daughter of President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov— Kirill Malofeev, the son of Konstantin Malofeev
- We also donated time and $10M+ to the humanitarian effort to help Ukrainians in desperate need, a move recognized and appreciated - in person over Zoom with CZ - by Mykhailo Fedorov Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
- On the specific matter of not sharing data - today, any government or law enforcement agency in the world can request user data from Binance as long as it is accompanied by the proper legal authority. In fact, we have developed a landing page specifically for this purpose which has been in place for over one year which is used by leading law enforcement agencies from around the world. Russia is no different. Fulfilling disclosure obligations to the authorities in each jurisdiction is a large part of becoming a regulated business and Binance fulfills its legal obligations.
- Binance reserves the right to reject law enforcement requests should they not stand up to legal scrutiny; this applies to all jurisdictions including Russia. This is the same as any leading bank, financial institution or multinational company.
- Binance has engaged with the Russian government in the very same way that it engages with other jurisdictions such as in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia-Pacific – these are legal engagements for the purposes of advocating for appropriate digital asset regulations.
- 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.
Also, ff you read the email exchanges that they published on that page it seems very likely that Reuter’s primary (only?) source for the story was a disgruntled competitor who runs a much shadier exchange with close ties to Russia and is still operating in the country.
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