# Binance delisted Monero Source: https://twitter.com/jonwu_/status/1755214699828781131 Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Binance-delisted-Monero?index=0x65cdd7c3e397d537c2cc90f664884c98fac90e6c6ee8b17b95690652762776058944ae04 Submitted by macbudkowski.eth on 2024-02-15 UTC, 5 upvotes, 3 comments ## Summary Binance has delisted Monero, and the author argues that crypto is already moving toward centralized financial surveillance without any government coercion. The article cites all non-KYC onramps being shut down, privacy tools being made illegal, and developers going to prison as evidence. It also argues that existing stablecoins function much like CBDCs because they are centralized, censorable, transparent, and permissioned through KYC'd onramps and centralized exchanges. The author says privacy protocols are shutting down citing a lack of product-market fit, and warns that if blockchains reach mass adoption without privacy, sovereigns will have total surveillance over financial transactions. ## Article Binance just delisted Monero. The consensus among crypto folks is CBDC's are bad because they're tools for state-controlled financial surveillance. But the steady march toward centralized surveillance is already happening in crypto--no coercion necessary. - All non-KYC'd onramps are being shut down - Privacy tools are being made illegal - Developers are going to prison Existing stablecoins might as well be CBDC's: - centralized - censorable - transparent - permissioned (via KYC'd onramps and centralized exchanges) In retrospect, the thesis "Blockchains won't achieve mass adoption without privacy" is comically, hilariously wrong. Instead, the opposite is happening--privacy protocols are shutting down claiming lack of product-market fit. Who can blame them? There are powerful incentives working toward a convergent game: - fork the most widely used, most battle-tested execution environments like the EVM (which can't support privacy natively) - pay users to onboard And users want to play this game! It's a fun game! And isn't our job to do what users want? Yet if blockchains achieve mass adoption without privacy, sovereigns will have total surveillance over all financial transactions without having to lift a finger to force CBDC adoption. Crypto is sleepwalking into becoming one of the most brilliant surveillance tools ever invented. ## Comments **misha**: “Yet if blockchains achieve mass adoption without privacy, sovereigns will have total surveillance over all financial transactions without having to lift a finger to force CBDC adoption. Crypto is sleepwalking into becoming one of the most brilliant surveillance tools ever invented.” - jonwu.eth This has been a long time coming. Just look at what our frens in China are building. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/digital-yuan-china-bitcoin-libra Two years ago one of my close friends was totally into crypto because he thought it was all about privacy and freedom from government money. When I showed him what you can do with a tool like Etherscan he was shocked. There are still many misconceptions about this. But yes, it’s similar to nuclear tech that can be used to produce energy, but also to create an atom bomb. One of the reasons why I’m long term engaged with crypto is hoping to contribute to positive outcomes for a technology that is surely here to stay. We have to stay with the trouble and work from what we can salvage. Luckily there are many hopeful developments especially reinterpreting crypto values, new thinking about what protocols can do and building new kinds of online communities outside of the dark forest. It’s for example very interesting what Metalabel https://www.metalabel.com/ is developing. Watch this Summer of Protocols Town Hall with founder Yancey Strickler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsO8DwV0eaQ Discussion here: https://forum.summerofprotocols.com/t/yancey-strickler-when-the-means-justify-the-ends-2-14/109 In the end it’s all about the ideas and proper implementation. **tim**: I agree with you, Misha; I'm also here to stay with the trouble! In any case, I thought this submission wasn't ideally titled as I had initially thought it was just an outdated announcement stating the obvious: that Binance delisted Monero. But actually, it's the author blackpilling us on crypto as a privacy nightmare. I wanna say something here, though: We can also see direct messaging apps and social media as privacy nightmares. We can even see the internet and the WWW as a privacy nightmare. But they are, on the other hand, also privacy miracles. When I was young, there was one phone in my parent's house that everyone could talk through. And so it was quite common for someone in my family to pick up the incoming call and then giving me the phone, sometimes fully overhearing the entirety of the conversation. Although in a different sense, that was also a privacy nightmare. Today, our phones, while we can easily be spied on, are also small privacy miracles because they allow us to keep an insane abundance of personal preferences to ourselves while being in public and embedded into our normal lives. This isn't necessarily a defense for Binance delisting Monero, but I'm trying to be hopeful that not everything will turn out as it may seem at first glance! **casedup.eth**: Binance scared of the SEC.