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Peter Van Valkenburgh Profile
Peter Van Valkenburgh

@valkenburgh

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Director of Research @CoinCenter | Board Member @ZcashFoundation | JD @NYULaw | We broke the ruptured structure built of age. I'm "valkenburgh" most places.

Washington, DC
Joined July 2009
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 month
Today, Coin Center filed an amicus brief in Roman Storm's criminal case. The government has wrongly charged the Tornado Cash developers with criminal conspiracy and we are here to help set the record straight and defend First Amendment rights to publish software. Our brief
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
Oh man. Not sure how I missed this. Apparently PETA and Old Bay have been having a billboard battle in Maryland:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
A new SEC proposal has a serious change hidden within its complex language. Bottom line: The proposal violates the First Amendment by requiring a license to speak—even of open source developers. It’s unconstitutional and they should change it. Coin Center is pushing back 👇 1/
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
I know there's a lot going on right now but I don't think the head of the BIS saying "central banks will have absolute control" over your financial transactions with CBDCs has gotten enough attention.
@BTC_Archive
Bitcoin Archive
3 years
Saying the quiet part out loud: Central banks will control how you spend your money. #Bitcoin fixes👇
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
16 days
Tornado, Samourai, and a Warning: In a surprising and concerning shift, the DOJ has targeted non-custodial crypto wallet developers for unlicensed money transmission, which starkly deviates from longstanding U.S. policy. This abrupt move, seen in recent charges against
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
1/ New detailed factual explanation of how Tornado Cash works. Huge thanks to @wadeAlexC and @LewellenMichael for this unbiased description of exactly how the contracts function. It confirms a level of decentralization that was surprising, even to me.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
15 days
America, home of the free. Where you will be accused of crimes for choosing not to design software the way the government wants you to design software:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
Senators Warren and Marshall's proposed bill subjecting software devs & nodes to AML is "a repudiation of liberal values and a move towards the types of surveillance and control prized by authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un"
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
This is the most outrageous thing I've encountered since starting at Coin Center in 2014. Alexey Pertsev deserves to be free or else charged with a crime. In the US they can't hold you for more than 72 hours. This 6 hours or up to 90 days Dutch rule is an affront to human rights.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
7 months
Sensational early reporting on the scale of Hamas crypto fundraising significantly misstated the amounts involved. In this important debunking Chainalysis shows how actual terrorist usage may be 1/2-of-1% of the previously reported numbers.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by blockchain, hyped-up, networking in the street, and nakedly unaware that an oracle database would suffice.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
The study of complexity has revealed that each of us has a far greater impact on the lives of others than we might expect, and far less ability to understand what that impact might be. Can't think of a better reason to be extra kind, stoic, and peaceful as I go through my life.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
If the infrastructure bill is the first time you are learning about Senator Wyden check out this 1996 speech where he argues for a hands off, market-based approach to crypto (which stands for cryptography). He's a national treasure.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
The future is probably cows and Bitcoin.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
1/ Responding to Senator Warren's bill reminded me why I still believe in crypto: electronic cash. A defining characteristic that separates America from illiberal regimes like North Korea, China, and Russia is our reverence for individual autonomy, privacy, and dignity.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Please feel free to hate Bitcoin, but do not let that hatred push you into the arms of totalitarians who want to leverage financial surveillance to eradicate minority ethnicities, cultures, and languages.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
fun fact: the US government can still use tornado cash
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 months
It’s time to have the conversation: Is the Bank Secrecy Act unconstitutional? Beyond the speech and privacy issues, the BSA is a sweeping delegation of law making power. Today we're publishing a new report explaining in detail why that's a problem. 📜Full report is linked in the
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
Today: These guys are talking about Bitcoin in the Senate and this guy is launching his electric sports car to mars. Don't ever complain about the cypherpunk future that you got.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
We are, indeed, falling behind china in banning things.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
What I've learned. Keep this gif playing on your phone under the desk and glance at it to stay zen while testifying about ICOs in front of angry congressmen:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
9 months
Here are our initial thoughts on today's Tornado Cash indictment. The factual allegations of unlicensed money transmission are in conflict with FinCEN's longstanding guidance that an "anonymizing software provider is not a money transmitter."
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
7 years
$ETH
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
If the SEC news today has you confused or frustrated. I highly recommend you read our comment letter from last April (yes, same rulemaking). It summarizes the rule change wrt crypto and outlines why it would likely be unconstitutional.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
1/ OFAC today repealed the Tornado Cash designation that Coin Center is challenging in court and then replaced it with a new one. Nothing they've announced changes our strategy in this lawsuit.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
8 years
Cryptocurrency described with only the 1,000 most used words. #upgoerfive
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
@ese_ce_ my cat
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 years
Good thing it was in front of the Senate!
@panamaXBT
panamax
5 years
My favorite answer to: WHAT IS BITCOIN? By @valkenburgh .
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
"The law deserves respect, but technological progress should not be bound by the limits of the regulator’s lawyerly imagination." SEC Commissioner Peirce gave an incredible speech about tokens and regulation. Read it all:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
When someone says they regret not banning Bitcoin back when it was small they're revealing a willingness to run roughshod over people's rights, but only when those people are a marginal minority.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
15 days
FYI the 10 years of clear guidance from FinCEN that says that money transmission in crypto requires control over the funds is irrelevant because pans transfer heat and usb cables transfer bits without controlling heat and bits.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Coin Center wrote an open letter to the W3C: decentralized identity standards shouldn't be waylaid by erroneous and unrelated environmental concerns.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Fedwire has two back up facilities. One in New Jersey and one in Richmond. 💵 Bitcoin has (checks notes) 10,195 backup facilities in over 100 countries across the world. 🚀
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 months
You need to see this. This is NOT a crypto problem. Every institution crypto or trad is about to face massive ID fraud because of AI. Crypto is, in fact, the only solution, b/c physical ids and pictures of them is now a garbage fire of fake (actually has been for a long time but
@josephfcox
Joseph Cox
3 months
New: inside the underground site where "neural networks" churn out fake IDs - I tested, made two IDs in minutes - used one to successfully bypass the identity verification check on a cryptocurrency exchange - massive implications for crime, cybersecurity
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
📃📃📃 Read our newly published deeper analysis of the Tornado Cash OFAC action: I'm particularly proud of our procedural due process analysis. This may be even stronger than the First Amendment claims.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
Live footage of crypto markets.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 months
Really impressive victory for Bitcoin policy and the rule of law generally.
@BitcoinPierre
Pierre Rochard
3 months
BREAKING: the Biden Administration is cancelling the fake #Bitcoin mining "emergency" declaration and destroying the data that it illegally collected. The government is going to restart the process the legal way: with public notice and comment. The government is also paying
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Your constitutional privacy rights are under threat. Say it with me: 👏 no 👏 third-party 👏 doctrine 👏 in 👏 two-party 👏 transactions 👏 #getawarrant
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Quick! Amend the securities laws! We must outlaw "doing it for the lulz."
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 years
If you buy a cow and didn't know it was pregnant and the cow was pregnant and the baby was a mutant swamp monster cow baby and the IRS found out.... income event.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Send tweet.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
I may not agree with your shitcoin, sir, but i will defend to the death your right to shit it.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
So it looks like Speaker Pelosi’s recent draft COVID-19 stimulus bill includes a digital dollar section.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
I kinda want a pinterest board of regulators and lawmakers holding invisible boxes when talking about technology.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
I don't know who needs to hear this but if the big regulatory battles are being fought about a different cryptocurrency, it's not because your preferred crypto is more decentralized, it's because governments aren't worried about the things it does and how it does them.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
This whole Cicada thing would be way more interesting if instead of millions of one ounce bugs we got a single million-ounce bug every 17 years.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
16 days
It's one thing to do "regulation by enforcement," as we've arguably seen from the SEC. It's even worse to see the DOJ engage in regulation by criminal prosecution. That's exactly what is happening with the unlicensed money transmission charges against Tornado Cash and Samourai
@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
16 days
Read our full analysis on the Samourai Wallet indictment and related actions here:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
I can feel it. Anti-seed-oil movement is about to go mainstream. Gonna be weird.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
🚨 We're still digesting the potential constitutional ramifications. Either way, big development in real limitations on your legitimate privacy rights. Read the post.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Surely the problem is meat.
@anahnohmis
Medlow Stranraer
2 years
@DaveEDanna Meanwhile...
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
15 days
That wallet in your pocket? it's a money transmitter. How do I know? Because the DOJ says that if you can only put money into it and take money out of it, then you don't actually have control over it, the wallet developer does.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Everyone knows that the US pioneered the internet because in 1994 Congress voted to make the x.25 packet switching network illegal, detained the developers of the xanadu project, and thereby cemented TCP/IP as the global standard.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 months
Some morning spiciness excerpted from our broker comment letter to the IRS: We can only speculate why the Treasury Department is brazenly going beyond the statutory authority granted them by Congress and seeking to impose recordkeeping and reporting requirements on persons who
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Technology got us into this mass surveillance mess (credit cards, electronic banking); hopefully technology can get us out (cryptocurrency, zk proofs).
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
Our take on the Treasury DeFi Assessment: "To summarize, our constitutional rights to speech and privacy are not a gap in the money laundering laws. They are the supreme law of the land." Read the whole thing:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 months
By not providing for a fully anonymous bearer instrument currency that works online our government is failing to uphold a basic liberty assumption that was shared by our founding fathers: that every American can pay and get paid without anyone else involved.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 months
Building a company from scratch to successfully code the first version of a zk-powered privacy-respecting electronic cash by bodging together academic papers and the bitcoin core client. Releasing it open source. Organizing some of the largest and most consequential multi-party
@zooko
zooko🛡🦓🦓🦓 ⓩ
5 months
News: I’m stepping down from the role of CEO of the Electric Coin Co, but I’ll never leave Zcash. A brief personal reflection:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 months
@SenWarren @USGAO Two claims in this post are misleading or false. 1. False claim: the post says that crypto does not already follow the same anti-money laundering rules as "everyone else." For at least 11 years now, the exact same AML rules have applied to intermediated crypto activities as to
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
I'm getting that old feeling where I'm headed to school and still haven't done the homework for the day. Except the homework is base layer privacy for cryptocurrencies and the school is all the laws that will crush anything with censorship resistance but no privacy.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
It bothers me that when Senator Warren discussed her bill in the hearing today she kept saying, "shouldn't we apply the same rules to crypto as banks?" (A) we already do, crypto institutions in a position of trust have been required to register as MSBs since at least 2013. (B) 1/
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
Commissioner @HesterPeirce is asking the hard questions in the SEC Open Meeting about the "exchange" redefinition. She is simply reading comment letters from the last comment period and asking if any given factual hypotheticals fit the "communications protocol" definition. 1/3
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
1/ New Crypto Bill in Senate: read this thread or our post for the full download on what it does and what risks it poses to software developers and individual crypto users.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
15 days
Palley on the rule of law and practice as a lawyer in this country: How are you supposed to advise clients if nothing has the permanence of law? Not only is the regulator's website saying something different than the DOJ, it's been saying the same different thing for over 10
@stephendpalley
Palley
16 days
Just think about how you’d feel as a client if your lawyer explained that the regulatory guidance on a federal government agency website isn’t dispositive and you might still go to prison if you follow it but that you can’t ask the prosecutors for guidance in the alternative.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
that feeling when even the gold bugs need to liquidate to buy n95 masks at 3000% mark up
@markets
Bloomberg Markets
4 years
Gold tanks
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
Boeing board room as 18-year-old start up becomes first private company to launch humans into space.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
This timeline is becoming unstable
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
The cypherpunk ideal is not about anonymity, it's about free speech and free software. Anonymity is not an end, it's a tool to protect freedom when challenged by illiberal regimes. Full talk:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 years
It shouldn't be like this.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
26 days
The inclusion of "unhosted wallet provider" in today's draft broker form indicates that the IRS is not heeding our warnings from last fall (when the broker NPRM was open for comment). Continuing down this road will lead to tax policies that are contradictory to the statute passed
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@gordonlawltd
Gordon Law Group | Crypto Tax Lawyer
26 days
This is HUGE: The IRS just released the first draft of Form 1099-DA, the first tax form designed specifically for crypto. Stay tuned for updates!
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
"based on my understanding of the present state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions." - Director Hinman, SEC Division of Corp Fin.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
i like people who tweet from their phone but still don't capitalize the first letter (and actually go and delete the auto-cap) because they want to look like they don't give a shit
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Seeing articles talking about "outrage amongst crypto advocates" That's bullshit. There should be outrage amongst anyone who believes in the rule of law and basic human dignity. There should just be outrage, full stop.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Today Coin Center filed a comment explaining why the First Amendment arguments against the rule are strong and why the Supreme Court is poised to rule against the SEC should it finalize this new rule as drafted. 2/
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 years
The emergence of anonymous electronic cash & decentralized exchange software could spur new financial surveillance policy. Here's my new comprehensive paper on why licensing software developers or deputizing them to spy on users would be unconstitutional.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
mint the stone
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
Giancarlo says: no blockchain without bitcoin. AND that had blockchain's ability to reveal and check counterparty risk existed in 2008 we may have had more and better policy choices available to respond to the crisis.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
10 months
In a revenue ruling released yesterday, the IRS doubled down on classifying block rewards as income when received (rather than taxing them when they are sold). This is brazenly arbitrary policy from the IRS and also bad law. 1/
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
7 years
Every common data point currently used to establish identity hacked for almost half the US population. Need for viable blockchain ID rises.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
I've got another one for @WTF_1971 (What the fuck happened in 1971 ) Trends in US obesity. 🤔
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
I like it, but those hipster glasses annoy me.
@Bitcoin
Bitcoin
4 years
Bitcoin explained in two minutes
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 years
New IRS guidance is like "owing income tax when someone buries a gold bar on your property and doesn't tell you about it." Our full analysis:
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
Antipathy towards strong encryption, cryptocurrencies, and censorship resistance is equivalent to antipathy towards individual rights and self-sovereignty online. At a basic level it is unamerican.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
1 year
"A broad power to ban and disrupt information technologies should not be wielded without appropriate oversight & opportunity for review. The RESTRICT Act not only fails to ensure these rule of law protections, in many cases it attempts to subvert them."
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Breaking from Fincen: looks like 15 day comment extension for CTR requirement and 45 days more for proposed counterparty recordation rules. Will need to review and we haven't beat this yet, but I'm very proud of the pressure our community has applied.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
The "CBDC's would prevent ransomware" arguments are dangerously confused for several reasons. One I haven't seen mentioned, however, is that the central server for a CBDC would be the perfect target for ransomware.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Senator Warren's bill asks for unconstitutional sanctions on Americans who are helping to undermine the Russian war machine. If it passes Putin wins another battle against democracy and self-determination.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
13 days
Chilling effects. The DOJ's aggressive, ungrounded, and unconstitutional interpretation of money transmission laws is bad for Americans and freedom and good for the Russian government and authoritarianism.
@AnyaChekhovich
Anna Chekhovich
13 days
At the @ACF_int we relied on Wasabi when protecting our donors from Russian government’s surveillance and risks of imprisonment. That was not taken into consideration by the US authorities when they began attacking privacy tools
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
If you were of a hyper-advanced civilization--effectively no aging or illness, no scarcity or conflict--would you sign up for an ~80 year game: you are born w/o your earlier memories, live an uncertain life, in a fictional past universe, and then die, awake, and remember it all?
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
4 years
Sugar is our generation's tobacco.
@BlancheKolaczek
Babooshka
4 years
@valkenburgh @KyleLSaunders @WTF_1971 Sugar. (National Geographic, early 1970s)
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
5 months
Good morning to xenophobes who mistake their disdain for foreign peoples as national security, mistake energy for pollution, mistake capital flight from an authoritarian regime as money laundering, and mistake Bitcoin's promise to undermine tyrannical governments and build energy
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Suddenly everyone is pro-small-arms for citizen militias and pro-oil diversification. Amazing what a real tyrant does for perspective.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
6 years
1/ Today's John Deere tractors simply don't work and can't be fixed without access to proprietary software maintained by the company. Their value, including their resale value, is highly dependent on the continued efforts of the manufacturer to keep that software up to date.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
Yes, yesterday's SEC NPRM (34-94062) is going to be a problem for crypto space, software devs in particular. Main issue we'll address in comments is first amendment problems inherent in regulating providers of "communications protocol systems." 1/
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
2 years
ZK-based privacy tools are truly not mixers. You can only ever remove the assets you deposited (not someone else's). No commingling of assets required. No mixing. A law abiding American with eth in tornado contract isn't touching anyone else's eth, North Korea included.
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@valkenburgh
Peter Van Valkenburgh
3 years
Good news! "Science" has replaced heart healthy naturally occurring stearic acid in beef with unstable, highly processed, instantly rancid polyunsaturated fats from seeds!
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