It's the first morning of 2018 and I've found myself a new outdoor blogging spot in the early Aussie morning sun. I'll share a picture of my new spot later in this post. The light feels warm on my skin and I'm in the best of moods...
...except...
I find myself with renewed vigour, ready to fire missiles at the enemies of us all, banks. I'll admit, I saw a healthy red this morning as I lay in bed and scrolled through twitter, Zerohedge, steemit and various other sites.
One article that caught my eye on the Sydney Morning Herald is the catalyst for this post. It's found here and has been picked up by Zerohedge here and is entitled as follows.
smh.com.au
Australian Banks Reportedly Freeze Accounts Of Bitcoin Users
From the original article:
Bitcoin investors are claiming Australia's banks are freezing their accounts and transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges, with a viral tweet slamming the big four and an exchange platform putting a restriction on Australian deposits.
Apparently the big four Australian banks, National Australia Bank, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corporation have been called out for "freezing customer accounts and transfers to four different bitcoin exchanges - CoinJar, CoinSpot, CoinBase and BTC Markets".
My first reaction was instant rage. I felt personally touched this. The article references one of the banks that I use to send funds into my exchange and my exchange is one of the ones also mentioned in the article. I then am ripe for the freezing.
buzzfeed.com
What's more infuriating than the imposition itself is the hubris and hypocrisy of the reaction by the banks and the nomenclature of the original article. How's this following example for instance?
Bitcoin, a currency once known for its use by criminals trading online through a ‘Silk Road’ for drugs and weapons, has become a popular investment option.
Fear porn at all? Where's the evidence behind this? Am I to instead hold US Dollars that have never once been used to fund criminal activity? Who gets to define what criminal activity is? I presume it's criminal to not hold funds in a banking institution where it can be subjected to bail in legislation and degraded by the pernicious and insidious impacts of inflation.
What's more, I'm fairly sure that these so called criminals who deal in drug and weapon trading also drink water. Let's ban the consumption of water too because that will bring the terrorists to their knees. As you can hopefully see, the whole situation is asinine to say the least. Highly objectionable in reality.
santabarbarastrength.com
Will I need to change the account that I get paid into in case that account is frozen and I can't access my earnings? I shouldn't have to do that. I'm not a criminal so why should I have to manouver myself around such financial restrictions? It's my money (that's already had tax criminally stolen from it) and I'll do with it what I please thank you very much.
From Zerohedge:
While not every bank had explicit policies governing their relationship with cryptocurrencies, according to the Morning Herald, Commonwealth Bank’s June 2017 terms and conditions for CommBiz accounts specifically excludes this activity, saying it can refuse to process an international money transfer or an international cash management transaction “because the destination account previously has been connected to a fraud or an attempted fraudulent transaction or is an account used to facilitate payments to Bitcoins or similar virtual currency payment services”.
May I see evidence of this "connection"? What court determined this? What due process was involved in determining this and why is the user not involved in the decision?
A Commonwealth Bank spokesman said it was receptive to innovation in alternative currencies and payment systems “however, we do not currently use or recommend any existing virtual currencies as we do not believe they have yet met a minimum standard of regulation, reliability, and reputation compared to other currencies that we offer to our customers".
Translation: The banks haven't yet organized the structure that allows them to fully profit from the new space and are being obstructionist until they have the policies in place that allow them to be the biggest beneficiaries of the crypto evolution.
Banks were remaining tight-lipped on whether bitcoin activity was causing specific accounts to be closed or frozen, though its understood none had company-wide policies banning cryptocurrency investment activity.
So being a major hindrance in one of the only processes that have allowed hard working people to generate any sort of returns in this Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) world of ours is an ad hoc policy currently is it? Isn't that a relief. The thing is that the fiat gateways are something that we are all still victim to. It's not possible to provide an employer here with a LTC address to be paid salary deposits. We are forced to use the system and hence are slaves to these actions whether they be unofficial policies or otherwise.
Perhaps we should take this as a warning and add some urgency to our efforts of getting fiat into exchanges. I'm not totally comfortable with holding large amounts on exchange but at least they don't have hundreds of years of history of screwing over humanity.
What's more, I got to thinking about other alternatives to holding funds in banks. This kind of nefarious behaviour will only worsen from here and, the thing is, all you need is to be labelled and you're subjected to whatever draconian policy is in effect at the time. "Terrorist" is one such label. Associate that with "Bitcoin" and you're suddenly having your finances taken out of your hands, no doubt "for your own safety".
What alternatives are there? Well I've already mentioned using the exchange as an account. The risks associated with this need to be weighed up by the individual, but I'd probably recommend spreading it over a number of exchanges to mitigate some risk; assuming you want to endure the KYC invasions required to open accounts with these operators. That's another thing, being so strict with the KYC requirements should mean that freezing of accounts seemingly indiscriminately shouldn't be necessary.
...but surely this is an isolated incident related to a single disgruntled Twitter user, right?
I'm glad you asked!
A recent statement from cryptocurrency exchange CoinSpot said it was putting a “temporary restriction on all forms of AUD deposits” that would remain in place until at least the first week of 2018 as a result of issues with Australian banks.
It doesn't seem to be a minor isolated incident if one of the exchanges themselves are restricting all forms of AUD deposits due to issue with Australian banks. Nooooo, this seems more systemic to me.
Coinspot went on to say:
“We assure you we are just as unhappy with the situation as you, but unfortunately Australian banks have been so far unwilling to work with the digital currency industry which leads to frequent account closures and strict limits on accounts whilst they remain operational, in effect debanking our industry"
Just wow.
Banks
It's been a little while since I've lost my composure with the banks and that is arguably not a good thing. I'm happy to be spreading the word about their utterly deplorable conduct again and hopefully adding publicity to these issues.
I'm finding more and more that I'm having to position myself and consider the banks themselves as a fundamental risk to my financial dealings, and I'm just and average Joe who makes a wage. My mental bandwidth should be more focused on producing value in the economy, not avoiding hindrance and theft.
A Solution?
Unfortunately we wont be rid of the banks today and we wont see the perps behind bars, possibly at all. One thing that comes to mind however is investing more of my personal funds in the
initiative that I'm involved in. This is not a plug, it's a genuine discussion of what I am considering doing with my funds. allows for USD marking and provides great returns to boot. That aside however, it's a non-bank cash storage facility and that is rapidly becoming a priority for me.
If you're interested, have a scan through the
I am also a big fan of precious metals and have a decent allocation in that space. This instrument doesn't address this issue however. It's not liquid enough in terms of paying bills etc to act as a bank-replacement, although the goldmoney style solutions may be a hybrid solution.
For excess funds however, those that you aren't going to need immediately, I'd definitely recommend getting into metal. I'm a regular buyer. Even if you do see a need for funds down the track, metals could be a "wealth storage instrument" for a period of months or whatever is appropriate for you.
Summary
I find this latest intrusion by the banking sector egregious and thoroughly recommend that people look at alternatives to store funds. I believe this is an ongoing global trend to restrict personal financial liberty and in doing so, produce even more profit for the banks.
As I promised, here's a shot of my new blogging spot. It's lovely, but I've been so worked up by writing up this post that I think I'll leave the computer now and make myself a nice calming Earl Grey!
Peace.
