The recent crypto crash seems to have accelerated the “intent” of the governments to crack down on #crytpo / #digitalasset providers.
It started with the Asian economies like China last year, with rather extreme steps of making crypto currencies illegal tender in the country.
Japan accepted digital assets and #web3 ecosystem with positivity. Europe announced MiCA, crypto comprehensive regulations few weeks ago. USA is working on bills to strengthen their grip on the digital asset providers through Commodities Futures Trading Commission(CFTC). Other economies will most likely follow.
Tornado cash protocol, a crypto currency mixer, was sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
This raises an interesting and important question, can #ethereum and other #blockchain networks and protocols be censored and how far would these networks go to comply with the regulations.
The answer may be much more complicated that it seems, but as anything else on a decentralized system, a consensus would be needed. But it seems like the majority of reactions are to comply with censorship but there are still who may not.
Complicated situations if you ask me, on one hand censorship kind of defeats the purpose of a decentralized financial network, but on the other hand not considering it means that the community is not doing enough to prevent frauds and money laundering.
Interestingly many #crypto industry veterans believe this might be good for the market, possibly weed out the “greed” from “intent” to make a difference in the journey towards democratization of finance.
I believe this is a major pivot in the journey of decentralized unregulated currencies, decentralized finance and extended #web3 ecosystem, and it will change things for better.