David Sacks' press conference unimpressive

The crypto czar's first official appearance and banking senate committee, not an impressive look.

Ok, just finally had some time to listen to the full David Sacks press conference. Some thoughts:

First of all, it's amazing how little politicians can say with so many words. If you cut out the congratulations to them selves and colleagues, the name drops and shout outs. This thing would be 10 minutes long.

Second, it seems this working group had no specific interest in updating the KYC/AML rules, which claim to protect the public from terrorist financing and money laundering. Yet it is the banks that launder all the money, be it JP Morgan or TD Canada trust. It's neither Bitcoin nor crypto that has historically broken the law here. It is the banks. The money gets laundered in dollars.

The tragic thing is, they seem to be entirely unaware of two fundamental shifts that make this regulatory structure both obsolete and counter productive. On the one hand, the digital age has weaponized KYC data, making it the most effective form of modern bank theft. Instead of stealing the money directly from a bank, you hack their database, get user KYC data and then launch a thousand identity fraud attacks.

The result is a parabolic growth in identity fraud in the US, from 14 billion in 2014 to 50 billion in 2020.

At the same time, we all know these terrorist financing and anti-money laundering laws are actually about sanctions, about being able to punish foreign nations that do not align with US foreign policy. That's been the way this KYC system has been used for decades and the inertia of the system fools politicians into thinking it will continue.

But sanctions no longer work as seen with the Russian invasion of Ukraine which so far seems to have been a success for Russia although tricky, despite the sanctions. And China is making massive breakthroughs in AI, despite chips sanctions etc. The world is too complex for sanctions to work and the US is not the power that it once was. The rest of the world has done a lot of catching up.

This is most sharply evidenced by Trump's pivot away from sanctions into tariffs as a means of international leverage and diplomacy.

The 10k cash on a plane rule for example was put in place when 10k could buy you a house.

Perhaps it is time to demolish or at the very least audit the utility, context and intention of these backward laws.

Juan Galt.

The press conference:

https://x.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1886861222295015587