Bottom line on the FinCEN rules (as I predicted): If you try to make payments from a regulated exchange they will require additional verification and will report your transactions to the government.

If you use your own wallet... they can't and won't control or report on you.

As I said, this hurts exchanges and hosted wallets because they have to do more compliance work and make users jump through more hoops. It makes their "product" look less functional than a wallet you control... because it is less functional.

This will encourage users to withdraw immediately upon exchanging and often, as any money they let accumulate in a hosted wallet because less liquid and more bureaucratically bound.

Not your keys, not your coins, your barriers to use.

Your keys, your coins, not your red tape.

You will have to prove you own the address you withdraw to. After that you can do whatever the fuck you want with YOUR money.

Or you can leave it on the exchange and have to explain yourself anytime you want to make a payment over $3000 USD

This year it will be $3k. Next year they will lower it even as it's eroded by inflation. Eventually all transaction will need reporting and control...

By regulating the main thing they can regulate, which is regulated institutions - they are inadvertently making those less appealing to use and pushing more and more people to decentralized alternatives and self-custody.

I've been saying this for years. Bitcoin is a poison pill. Regulated institutions can't swallow it. By trying to regulate it, they end up making it less useful for those who use regulated institutions.

I said it again in a video last week: