Janet Yellen says Crypto's only being used for Illicit Financing? Has she heard of the Dollar?
Facts don't matter, just the narrative
The facts have never mattered less than they have in 2020, and now bleeding over into 2021 it appears to be more of the same.
In a statement today, one Janet Yellen the likely incoming Treasury Secretary, put a tidbit in there about bitcoin and crypto.
In summation, she said she wants to beef up KYC requirements surrounding their use since "they are used at least in a transaction sense mainly for illicit financing".
Here's the quote:
“Cryptocurrencies are a particular concern. I think many are used at least in a transaction sense mainly for illicit financing and I think we really need to examine ways in which we can curtail their use and make sure that anti-money laundering doesn’t occur through those channels."
I literally only have one question for her, has she heard of the US dollar?
This whole narrative that bitcoin and crypto are only used by terrorists and criminals and drug dealers has been debunked long ago.
Like seriously!
Here's the most recent data on it:
(Source: https://twitter.com/cryptounfolded/status/1351594019206402049/photo/1)
In 2019, criminal activity represented 2.1% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume, which was roughly $21.4 billion worth of transactions.
In 2020, criminal activity fell to just 0.34% of all cryptocurrency transaction volume, which was roughly $10.0 billion worth of transactions.
Are you listening Janet Yellen and regulators?
Let me make this very clear, as of right now, the current percentage of bitcoin transactions involved in some sort of illegal activity accounts for roughly .34% of all transactions.
I'd have to check the numbers but that is probably lower than the dollar at this point, and certainly lower in total dollar terms. If we tried to do one of those charts for dollars, it wouldn't fit on the screen.
But per usual, the facts don't matter, the narrative does.
Bitcoin and altcoins have been weak ever since those statements were made this morning, right as they were looking like they were about to soar.
Time will tell if this ends up chilling the crypto market for a prolonged period of time, but it was remarks like this back in the early summer of 2019 that chilled the crypto market.
Hopefully this isn't the beginning of more of that.
At least she walked back this comment somewhat and mentioned that it has real use cases as well.
I didn't like the fact that she just renewed the comment period for the crypto self custody wallet rule.
When I read Janet Yellen's statement, it just annoyed me. And it reminded me that old beliefs die hard. But maybe I'm missing the bigger picture, when governments can't control something...they don't like it...nuff' said.
It seems like there is getting to be more and more control and less and less freedom.
I agree. Monetary and fiscal policy are going to play larger and larger roles in the future. We have got ourselves in a hell of a mess with debt and easing, that’s probably part of the reason Bitcoin was created.
We're going to have to deleverage smoothly over the next decade or two. And I think the Federal Reserve and Treasury know that. To Yellen’s credit, a smooth and predictable deleveraging needs control at the top to improve its effectiveness, and crypto currencies kind of muddy the water.
But cryptocurrencies also send a statement, “Get your shit together Governments, or people will find a better way.”
Yep, very good point. People have options now. It is looking like we are going to have a battle on our hands either way as deleveraging will be very difficult to stick to, and unpopular.
Just more banking globalists trying to eliminate the competition. When I talk to people about crypto that know nothing about crypto they think exactly what Janet Yellen is saying but without any evidence other than "I heard."
It is frightening to hear this but thankfully USA doesn't control the world, unfortunately they do influence a great deal of it.
We need a couple other countries to embrace it so that that the US if forced to go along as well. So far, that's not happening.