There's a Bigger Scam Than Anything in Crypto, It's Called KYC/AML

Stepping back, in 1970, the U.S. passed the Bank Secrecy Act, which weaponized banking and financial institutions, turning them into an unofficial secret police.

The direct cost of this compliance to the financial companies is now in the billions every year.

Privacy issues aside, these requirements have ended up excluding an ever-increasing number of groups from the financial system.

Immigrants, poor people and anyone without "Appropriate" government-issued ID is left out of the formal financial sector.

Entire countries have fallen victim to prejudice and a lazy risk aversion on the part of the banks.

An entire country, Somalia, began to starve because U.K. banks decided it was not worth the bother to bank remittance services.

The U.K. banks' excuse: payments to Somalia were "High-risk," a euphemism for not worth the compliance cost of dealing with people with poor documentation.

How many services died because they could not get banking? How many startups withered because they were forced to spend precious capital on lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers?

How many fintech alternatives could not begin to operate because they could not get licensing? How many alternatives to banking would the poor, the young, all of us, have if financial companies were not forced to be an unofficial arm of law enforcement?

Is it worth the more inconvenient, more expensive service we are all subjected to? Is it worth the exclusion of poor or marginalized people? Is it worth the entrenchment of the banking system?