Crypto KYC personalities have always suffered the risk of this kind of violence… its cause unlike with bank accounts or credit cards, once the transfer happens on chain theres no way to revoke it, and theres usually no means of getting insurance reimbursement. FAFO as they say, if you fuck around being a prominent KYC in crypto then your opsec better be grade AAA and still better always be on the lookout for shady people around you.
Absolutely.
I think as stakeholders, although a thankless job given how devs are treating us, it is in our common interest that nothing bad happens to them.
The most reliable way forward would be to have anon devs. Technically current devs could discretely go dark and come back under a pseudonym, and that would already be an improvement. Progressively devs that never wanted to join given the KYC requirement (many dev are rightfully scared after the Tornado Cash mess), may want to join us given the opportunity to work without disclosing their legal identity.
There’s one fat thing in the way of that though: currently payments from the dev fund are only delivered to KYC’d people. That’s really why everybody is KYC’d in here. @aquietinvestor do you see this as a problem as well and if yes, do you see how this could be addressed over time?
With the ZCG program now administered by FPF, grantees are eligible to receive funding of up to $50,000 without completing KYC. ZecHub also manages a small, ZCG-funded bounty program for various education and community initiatives that does not require KYC. We need more programs like this and more non-US entities.
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Thanks a lot for your answer @aquietinvestor
I would like to follow this trend closely to see if our efforts slowly increase the share of spending going towards non-KYC’d people. Is this data available somewhere?
I like the idea of developers and leaders being anonymous, this could create a mythical air, just like it was with Satoshi. Different nicknames and so that the general public, when they see them at an event, see people masked like Slipknot.
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I thought about it better, I think the idea of wearing a mask would make a mockery of zcash. But I like the idea of anonymity for developers and leaders.
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Single T-address only in Zashi is going to get someone wrench attacked. Even if they shield it afterwards. If people are withdrawing from exchanges and receiving from others to the same T-address they are just asking to become a target.
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Nice! Thanks to CNBC, maybe some people on this forum will get to understand why it’s not always so easy to restore passphrases when funds are locked on a hardware device.
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We keep hearing about it happening in France. But it happens more around the world than reported in mainstream media. Most of these incidents don’t reach the public domain.
But where there is a threat, there is a business opportunity…
https://www.perimeter-lab.com/
PUBLIC SERVICE NOTE: Be careful when following links to websites, as you should always assume they are a honeypot to collect your IP address, etc. Ideally use Tor via Brave, etc; or a fairly well-vetted VPN (for example Brave VPN) when connecting to these forums.
How much for their clients list? The Ledger hack was a bit too verbose, theirs would be more refined so we don’t waste time with cheap targets… 
@outgoing.doze while I still feel the same, I think you have a perfectly valid point. I also wanted to apologize for my rudeness above in some of my comments. I will work on improving my communication.
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With shielded Zcash you don’t need to play these kind of games.
If ledger was hacked (and I imagine them to be quite tech savvy), what will happen when your tax office starts getting all your CEX’s transactions with DAC8, CARF and travel rule among others, creating the ultimate centralized honeypot ready to be plundered either by hackers or by public servants selling your data to the highest bidders.
The problem with public blockchains is that your data is there forever, and forever is a long time…
Ditch the centralized exchanges already or suffer the consequences.
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It’s important to help more people understand this. When e.g. @frankbraun shows up wearing a mask and glasses, or @artkor presents only with digitized voice and no video…
They are both demonstrating how we can become safer AND incrementally increasing that safety.
It is virtuous and laudable to do the right thing and shield your wealth.
If you have transparent zcash, please shield it to better protect us all.
If you hold BTC please SWAP via DEX with an app like @paullinator 's https://edge.app/ to shielded ZEC.
When you shield your wealth you increase the cost of coercion. This is a pro-social act that makes life better for everyone.
When you take up your shield, you protect us all.
Contrariwise when we compromise on privacy we put everyone in danger:
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With all due respect to @frankbraun, I think what he is doing is only achieving the opposite effect of what he intends.
@artkor , as far as I can tell, is threading a very fine line. Digitized voice has to be done in a very careful way not to be reversible. But I appreciate the effort and how this may motivate other people to take their own privacy seriously. That person shows it’s possible to be a relevant ecosystem member while maintaining a high level of privacy.
All this to say that it’s like the recommendation of @vaspholdings above. If you do things that are telling that you are an important actor in crypto, you better do those things perfect, otherwise it’ll achieve the opposite effect.
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Also akin to Swiss numbered bank accounts when they were really anonymous back then.
Nazi delegations showing up in Switzerland with list of names to inquire about their potential holdings there, and bank clerks not providing them anything, not because they were overly brave, but simply because they didn’t have any informations at their disposal.
That’s why today “compliant” privacy solutions are really laughable (or pathetic if you really think about it).
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They certainly are frustrating, but they also get people talking and thinking about privacy so that’s definitely a win. As people dig more, they will understand where the real privacy really lies
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With all due respect @outgoing.doze, I don’t think you know what my intention is.
I made the decision to give talks only with a mask on going back to 2012 or so at a Bitcoin conference in London, one of the very first ones.
We did it as a stance against CCTV surveillance everywhere in London.
Back then I also decided, partially because the tech for obfuscation wasn’t really there yet, to use my real voice. Which I also used on hours of my old podcast.
Frank is also obviously a pseudonym.
When getting into Zcash I was faced with the question: Should I give the talk in Prague with a mask on or should I reveal my face publicly from this point going forward?
I also consulted with a friend on this who used both his legal name and his face publicly in talks about crypto currencies, which he now regrets.
This is coming from a standpoint of “privacy is the lack of information leakage”. All the previously mentioned information already being out there. I’m also fully aware a motivated state level actor would be able to identify me.
But still I made the decision that it will be better to not put my face on public video to make such attacks for the average attacker, which regrettably are becoming more common, harder. I chose to reveal no new information.
This is not implying any value judgement on how anybody else handles his own situation. I understand from reading the forum that you chose to be fully pseudonymous.
If I were in your position, also given your publicly known holdings, I would chose exactly the same thing that I’m chosing for my current position: Not reveal any additional information.
In general I think it’s great that Zcash allows people to chose how much they want to reveal of themselves publicly, even for positions like the ZCG committee.
It’s also a fact that a lot of people’s repuation is tied to a certain name. May it be a known legal identity or a well known pseudonym and avatar. That usually means they want to leverage that reputation when going into Zcash, which already reveals a certain amount of information about them.
In general, for security reasons, I see no reason why a Zcash user on the forum should reveal their legal name. Publicly stating that one holds crypto is always a security risk and there is generally no need to tie it to legal names, unless it’s for people who want to leverage their already existing reputation. And of course people like Naval or Balaji. It’s not publicly known how much Zcash they hold, but given what’s known about them and their position on it it’s pretty clear their Zcash position is significantly larger than 0.
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