FBI warns against unregistered cryptocurrency transfer services

Source: Liu Jiaolian

Overnight, BTC (Bitcoin) fluctuated at 63k, and the United States was quietly tightening its "noose" on Bitcoin at all levels. For example, DTCC (US Securities Central Depository and Clearing Corporation) issued new regulations that from the end of this month, Bitcoin ETFs will not be able to be used as collateral, and their collateral value will be considered 0. It is hard to say whether this is for ETFs or BTC.

Recently, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) issued a public warning on its website (https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240425), warning Americans to resist cryptocurrency transmission services that are not registered as MSBs (money service providers) in accordance with the law (31 U.S.C. § 5330; 31 CFR §§ 1010; 1022) and do not meet anti-money laundering regulations.

The FBI warned that those who insist on using these unregistered cryptocurrency transmission services that do not require KYC (referring to real-name registration) will face possible financial losses after the FBI conducts law enforcement actions against these services.

When this article came out, the US crypto community was quite shocked. Many people have questioned whether the Bitcoin network is a cryptocurrency transmission service that is not legally registered, does not conduct anti-money laundering reviews, and does not require KYC real-name registration? Does this mean that all Americans who use private key mnemonics to self-custody Bitcoin and use the Bitcoin network to transmit Bitcoin will become potential targets of FBI law enforcement investigations?

Boiling frogs in warm water. First, through warnings, Americans are deterred from using private key mnemonics to keep Bitcoin by themselves, and they use Bitcoin custody service providers or ETFs and other products that are registered in accordance with US federal law and are of course regulated, reviewed and controlled by the US government to hold and use Bitcoin in compliance. Then, when the US government needs it, it can take it as it pleases. Just like in 1933, when President Roosevelt issued the 6102 decree, the 10-year prison sentence scared Americans into handing over their gold.

Some American netizens also shouted: If the United States prohibits me from memorizing 12 English words (referring to the private key mnemonics) in my mind, we are obviously seriously violating the US Constitution. I do not think I have any obligation to comply with any provisions that violate the US Constitution.

In the autumn of 1917, when a 24-year-old teacher was listening to Professor Yang Changji's "Principles of Ethics", he left a note on the book: "The church, capitalists, monarchs, and the state are all demons in the world."

Self-custody, self-custody, self-custody (self-custody). Important things should be said three times.

Jiaolian vaguely remembers reading a book many years ago, which said that for decades, people have never really learned to own their own private keys. Jiaolian thinks that perhaps only a cruel enough environment can force humans to learn the necessary survival and adaptation skills?

From this perspective, the American people are actually at the forefront of the world's anti-hegemony struggle. On the front line of cryptography, this arduous struggle began when Phil Zimmermann cleverly used the right to freedom of speech to fight against the US government's criminal review of PGP encryption technology from 1991 to 1995.

Zimmermann, David Chaum, Eric Hughes, Timothy May, John Gilmore, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, ... For decades, cypherpunks have fought on this front. In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented a peer-to-peer electronic currency, Bitcoin, which became a great milestone in decades of hard struggle on this front.

Now, the spark has spread like wildfire. As more and more people awaken, as simple justice gradually awakens the consciousness of struggle, as imperial capital becomes increasingly difficult to continue to reap the world and buy off the middle class inside, and as Bitcoin continues to enhance the ability of individuals to fight against state violence, the factors of the great changes in the new era are gradually in place, waiting for the day when quantitative change leads to qualitative change.

Gradually, and then suddenly...

No matter how the FBI intimidates, the American people will not be intimidated. When the American police rushed into the university campus and arrested a large number of unarmed American professors and students, the inner weakness of the ruling class was completely exposed.

American netizens voted on Twitter, if the US government banned self-custody of Bitcoin and threatened to go to jail, what would you do?

A Buy ETFs

B Risk jail time HODL (firmly hold)

C Profit overseas such as El Salvador

D Others

Most people chose to hold firmly.