Australia Bans Cash Payments Over $10,000 -- AKA: The Reason For Bitcoin
Some people think cryptocurrency is useless.
I don’t know about you, but I get tired of people who say there’s no use case for Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies generally.
I mean, we have one very clear use for the blockchain technology here at Steemit, with the Steem blockchain, which allows us to share and curate content, and also to be paid for our content directly by a protocol rather than a third party or an individual.
This lets us build networks of real value and monetize our content in a creator-to-audience system. If you like someone’s work, you curate it, and they see the rewards of your opinion directly.
This is just one example of how blockchain technology can be used to renovate existing systems.
But the OLDEST use case for bitcoin is in permissionless transactions.
Australia bans payments over $10k to “fight black economy”
In what I consider to be a pretty surprising move for a modern Western country, judges in Australia have decided to ban cash transactions over $10,000:
THE days of cash-for-less discounts are officially coming to an end.
The government has introduced an economy-wide cash payment limit of $10,000 to keep dishonest tradies and businesses from rorting the system by taking cash in hand.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said the Black Economy Standing Taskforce will be beefed up to detect people making sneaky cash transactions through a rigorous identification system and “mobile strike teams”
Cash payments over $10,000 to be banned as government targets $50 billion ‘black economy’
The usual boogiemen are trotted out: the dark market, money launderers, drug dealers, etc.
When it comes to authoritarian states, they simply can not tolerate people transacting with each other freely, without them being involved in every conceivable point of that process.
Want to sell lemonade on the sidewalk like they used to do? No! You need a permit for that.
Want to trade your old juicer for your neighbors old weed-whacker? NO! We need to tax that!
Want to buy something that costs $10,000 (like, say, a retooled classic car)? NO!!! We will not allow it!!!
WikiLeaks
Back in 2011 governments put pressure on the legacy banking systems to block all payments to WikiLeaks because… well… governments don’t like WikiLeaks… so they don’t have a right to exist.
WikiLeaks has published the biggest leaks in journalistic history. This has triggered aggressive retaliation from powerful groups. Since 7th December 2010 an arbitrary and unlawful financial blockade has been imposed by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union. The attack has destroyed 95% of our revenue. The blockade came into force within ten days of the launch of Cablegate as part of a concerted US-based, political attack that included vitriol by senior right wing politicians, including assassination calls against WikiLeaks staff. The blockade is outside of any accountable, public process. It is without democratic oversight or transparency. The US government itself found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to a US financial blockade. But the blockade of WikiLeaks by politicized US finance companies continues regardless.
Here is the financial blockade chronology
- 27 November 2010: United States - US State Department intentionally and wrongfully imply (but do not formally state) illegal conduct by WikiLeaks in a letter to lawyers for Julian Assange, which they then immediately leak to the press
- 29 November 2010: Global - Cablegate publication starts with New York Times, Der Spiegel, El Pais & the Guardian, expanding eventually to over 90 publications in over 50 countries.
- 29 November 2010 and following days: United States - Assassination calls and declarations of war by US senators, pundits and media against WikiLeaks.
- 1 December 2010: United States/Global - Amazon stops hosting WikiLeaks
- 2 December 2010: United States/Global - EveryDNS stops wikileaks.org domain service
- 3 December 2010: United States/Global - Paypal discontinues service
- 4 December 2010: Germany - PayPal blocks Wau Holland Stiftung’s (WHS, the foundation receiving donations for WikiLeaks) access to its account and freezes remaining money for 180 days. The money is released immediately by PayPal after a WHS lawyer intervenes.
- 6 December 2010: Switzerland - Swiss Post Finance freezes Julian Assange Defence Fund account in Switzerland
- 7 December 2010: United States/Global - Visa and MasterCard stop processing payments to WikiLeaks.
Germany - A letter from the FA Kassel (Kassel tax department) to WHS Foundation, which receives donations for WikiLeaks, asked whether donations have been transferred to WikiLeaks. WHS responded promptly, with data detailing transfers to WikiLeaks - 8 December 2010: United States/global - Updated Statement about WikiLeaks from PayPal General Counsel
- 9 December 2010: Global - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemns blockade
- 12 December 2010: Iceland - Icelandic Parliament Considers Revoking Visa/MasterCard Licenses For Wikileaks Ban
- 15 December 2010: Germany - FA Kassel (tax department) announces WHS (the foundation that receives donations for WikiLeaks) charitable status may be revoked (pending investigation).
- 16 December 2010: Global - Amnesty International examines Human Rights at stake when blocking WikiLeaks payments
- 18 December 2010: United States/global - Bank of America discontinues any services intended for WikiLeaks
- 20 December 2010: United States - Apple removes WikiLeaks application for iPhones
- 21 December 2010: United States/Global - Western Union adds WikiLeaks to ’Interdiction List’
Global: UN and OAS Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression issue a Joint Statement Condemning the Blockade against WikiLeaks - 26 December 2010: United States: New York Times Editorial Condemns Blockade
- 30 December 2010: Denmark/Global - Denmark-based contractor for VISA Europe and MasterCard, Teller AS, reports that WikiLeaks has not violated any VISA regulations, Icelandic or Danish laws.
- 1 January 2011: Germany – WHS Foundation, which receives donations for WikiLeaks moves its office from Kassel to Hamburg
- 13 January 2011: United States - US Treasury finds no grounds to blacklist WikiLeaks
- 17 January 2011: UK - WikiLeaks Press conference with Rudolf Elmer
- 19 January 2011: Switzerland - Elmer is handed suspended sentence. He is the arrested without charge in connection with WikiLeaks press conference.
- 9 February 2011: United States/Global - Bank of America, who hired data intelligence firms HBGary, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies, is revealed to have commisioned a proposal of a systematic attack against WikiLeaks. The proposal is leaked.
- 24 February/1 March 2011: United States – Ethics complaint filed at the DC Bar against law firm Hunton&Williams and members of Congress call for probe into illegal conduct by the firm (hired by Bank of America to sabotage WikiLeaks and target WikiLeaks’ supporters)
- 14 February 2011: Germany: FA Hamburg-Nord (tax department) drops Kassel investigation into WHS Foundation’s (which receives donations for WikiLeaks) charitable status, but initiates a new investigation on different grounds.
- 9 June 2011: EU - WikiLeaks & Datacell announce prospective EU Commission Complaint against VISA and Mastercard
- 7 - 8 July 2011: Iceland/Global - DataCell: Credit card donation to WikiLeaks is accepted again but VISA closes payments hours after
- 14 July 2011: EU - WikiLeaks & Datacell file a Complaint to the European Commission for infringement of the EU Anti Trust Laws
- 25 July 2011: Switzerland - Rudolf Elmer is released after 187 days in detention. He had not been charged.
- 24 October 2011: Global - WikiLeaks suspends publication to invest all resources in fighting the blockade.
Germany - Decision on revoking WHS (the foundation that receives donations for WikiLeaks) status is still pending; WHS has been prevented from opening new bank accounts in Switzerland and Germany for the past 9 months.
How did WikiLeaks respond to this?
[twitter image]
As far as I know this was the first time a major organization resorted to accepting Bitcoin because they had been blocked by every other payment network.
WikiLeaks adopted Bitcoin as a major pillar of their fundraising system because it was censorship resistant, pseudonymous, and peer-to-peer.
They did it because Bitcoin was MORE SECURE and MORE RELIABLE than other networks and payment systems. People come to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency when they have no other option because that’s one of the main reasons Bitcoin was created.
What do you think?
Bitcoin proves itself time and time again, as governments crack down on journalism like WikiLeaks down to just normal transactions between regular people as Australia is doing, as the go-to last resort payment system of choice.
Cryptos take a little more power away from the totalitarians and authoritarians and gives it back to the individuals.
Tell me what you think about this creeping authoritarianism and how we can fight it.
Images from https://pixabay.com
It seems to me that the Governments will now have a lot of motivation to get their pants on and look for a way to also regulate the crypto currencies.
Let's see how that turns out!
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Great post, Resteemed! Cashless society is bad news.
Of course the btc transfer I did today took 6 hours to complete. So there’s that issue.
Fuckers! What else can I say? When the Western Empire falls then all the cards in their make believe world will crumble to dust.
This ban will spread amongst the "Coalition Of The Willing"just as the Smoking ban did.
Great article, thank you.