12 posts were split to a new topic: The Subject of Privacy
You might be conflating mass surveillance with mass data collection? The two are different issues. Iâm not aware of any program where mass surveillance is carried out on individuals without a warrant in the UK
Should the privacy discussion be split out into its separate discussion? Itâs interesting to read, but not sure weâre on topic anymore @Graham
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Yep. Iâve watched with interest the topic develop and I was checking in with the other mods this morning on the basis that this thread has long since moved away from TSB and even crypto.
Iâll take a run at the split, creating a (probably huge) thread on Privacy 
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Nearly every sort of scam related to bank transfers results in the funds being exited via crypto at some point.
The most common sort of scams we see at the moment are still safe account scams. A lot start with the âyouâve got a parcel waiting, but thereâs a fee to payâ emails or text messages, which encourage people to share enough details to allow the scammer to convince them that theyâre the bank calling.
As a rough ball park weâre talking into the hundred of thousands, per day. A lot of these we stop, but not all.
I think the thing to remember here is that most of us on this sort of forum are pretty savvy and unlikely to fall for this sort of scam. Until I started working in the industry I had no idea how bad it was.
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Thanks, Dan! 
I donât outright oppose targeted restrictions in place, for the time being at least, against crypto currencies if itâs for the sole purpose of protecting especially vulnerable individuals, but what annoys me is the ignorance (and I donât mean that to sound as harsh as it does) of some customers meaning we all lose that freedom. What if the banks that chose to block crypto due to âscamsâ required their customers to complete a simple in-app or online questionnaire on crypto and APP scams and how to identify them in order to have the block lifted on their individual accounts. This would mean that only well informed users (the âsavvyâ ones, as you put it Dan 
) with the knowledge to recognise a scam would have access to this feature and the associated risks.
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Barclays has joined the party, but only against Binance and citing FCA regulatory compliance as the reason instead of scam-mitigationâŚ
A Barclays spokesperson said: âWith effect from today, Barclays intends to stop credit and debit card payments to Binance.
"This action does not impact on the ability for customers to withdraw funds from Binance.
âThe decision has been taken following the FCA warning to consumers, to help keep our customersâ money safe."
Especially curious since the FCA ban didnât include simply buying and selling crypto through Binance.comâs exchange⌠
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Binance is having troubles everywhere right now. And I fully agree in distancing themselves from places that are avoiding regulation when they have the funds to comply
For instance, crypto firms are now meant to be registering with the FCA; Binance withdrew their application (presumably because they didnât intend to comply and want to draw out to last minute)
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Interesting⌠Iâd love to know more details on this. I thought the idea behind Binance Markets Limited was to create a fully regulated, separate UK entity for use by British customers? That sounded well intentioned and reassuring for UK-customers.
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I donât know, whole world needs to revamp to make it attractive for businesses to expand everywhere. Compliance is too expensive.
VAT MOSS being a prime example, I canât find a single place to file VAT returns for across the entirety of the EU for less than 2000⏠a month
Decided Iâm just going to launch in U.K./Japan and let EU users use for free, maybe lose 10% of revenue from EU to Patreon just to increase cash flow (since they handle VAT remittance)
Edit: in hindsight that rant wasnât necessary, binance have enough money to fund U.K. compliance
Well, this is where I think it gets complicated. Itâs often seen as a challenger to the status quo --by that Iâm talking about the currency element rather than the core technology, but as a technology it very much depends on the system that it is setting out to overthrow. Without big tech, thereâs no crypto. Without ASIC miners, Nvidia, AMD, Intel etc, or software companies like Microsoft, Redhat, Canonical etc, thereâs no crypto. Without Google and Apple allowing custodial wallets onto their app stores, thereâs no safe way to store crypto. Without TSMC there are no chips to run the devices we would rely on to send, receive and store crypto.
Whilst there is some accountability in government --you can (usually) vote politicians out, technology firms apparently answer to nobody and are largely centralised on a small number of providers.
So whilst there are privacy benefits to cryptocurrencies, you canât use it without a device that knows how many times a day you wash your hands or sneeze.
But most of us are using American devices that route nearly everything through a server in the US, where it is collected, as a Mr E Snowden can attest.
Erm, huh?
Very much not true, actually, custodial wallets are the least secure ways of storing cryptoâŚ
TSMC, Nvidia etc arenât trouble points for crypto so I donât understand why youâd bring this up
Big tech doesnât care what their stuff is used for so long as youâre paying
Microsoft, RedHat I donât even know what stake they have in crypto
But really what youâre saying can be applied to anything: if TSMC wasnât making chips then your bank wouldnât have chips for their servers to run on and if RedHat and Canonical wasnât developing software their server backbone wouldnât exist
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Yes, that did make me chuckle a little bit! I use a non-custodial, but nevertheless âhotâ, wallet. Not as safe as cold storage, but a hell of a lot better than a custodial option. Not your keysâŚ.!
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Not your crypto 
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Well yes, without chips then banking as we know it today wouldnât exist and money, whether we are talking about fiat or crypto would become very simple indeed. If the system, largely denominated in US dollars was to fall, then pretty much everything that enables crypto to exist would also fall.
The thrust of so many crypto documentaries Iâve watched is how the fiat money system is doomed, but if the fiat money system fails, crypto is also likely doomed.
If a nation was to fall, chances are it would be subsumed by another, adopting their currency in the process. If all nations were to fall then physical items would likely become currency, be that precious metals, seeds or livestock. Dollars may not exist, but then nor would crypto.
So, rather than being a challenger to the status quo, which was the point I was originally reacting to, crypto relies heavily on the status quo in order to exist.
Sorry, meant non-custodial.
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