A lot can be said about this topic, especially when considering multiple perspectives, but I’ve just not had the time to write anything up on it. In short, however, all of the crypto exchanges that are really worth mentioning already reject US traders, so I am not so sure that much would change. Most do not require KYC and use basic IP detection as a deterrence, unless you want to work with fiat, so workarounds still exist - for now. In order for things to change, these sweeping security laws would have to apply to all traders, not just US-based traders, which /is/ a possibility, considering the intent of these measures. So, any exchanges that sought to dodge compliance in this area would need to be operating out of a jurisdiction that afforded them that choice.
This leads me to the underlying question…what about trading via brokers? I know that Hugo’s Way makes their crypto trades (supposedly) through Bitfinex, for example, which does not allow US traders. In such a case, I do not see their exchange requiring KYC documents from all traders that make trades through the broker’s API. So, would the broker start requiring KYC from all traders that wished to trade crypto? Probably not. But I can only guess on that.
I just read an article that CoinBase was looking at incorporating margin-based trading, in an effort to compete with BitMex. CoinBase operates inside of the US, so it will be interesting to see what comes from this. I will not get my hopes up, as I suspect that the offerings will be horrible, but that’s just me.
We are fortunate to have choices outside of cryptocurrency, that afford us more options and flexibility. Things could be better, admittedly, but there has never been a better time to get into trading.
For me, if push came to shove, then I have few reservations about moving overseas, should my trading volume grow to a point that made such a decision justifiable. I might even consider dual citizenship or renouncing US citizenship if I was doing really, really well.
Objectively speaking, if we look at the bigger picture, the idea of having oversight and control for the sake of security makes sense on the surface. After all, I doubt anyone here would argue against that reasoning. However, things are never that simple. Everything always circles back to sacrificing freedom for security, and if history has taught us anything, we all know how this plays out.
So, while we do not and should not have a problem with stopping criminals, we absolutely should not ignore what this could eventually mean for non-criminals.
