₿🛠️ Satoshi's 21 #009: Financial Cancel Culture ❌

This time we'll be joined by "that one privacy girl" and journalist Janine Römer. It's almost holiday season and thus perhaps a good point in time to remember and reflect that Bitcoin is less an invention about eCommerce, but rather one about personal autonomy and sovereignty in financial and other affairs.

The focus of the discussion will be financial censorship: how and why people are being "cancelled" from having bank accounts, often without due process or allegations of illegality, and whether Bitcoin may be of help. We will also discuss resisting regulatory capture, the emergence of "blockchain analysis" aka blockchain surveillance companies, and much more.

Furthermore, Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and even Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) rules seem to be extended more and more to the general tech sector and other sectors as well. Not only does this paint a bleak picture for the future of the right to privacy and free speech; the compliance requirements also increase operating cost, perhaps prohibitively for smaller enterprises to remain competitive.

Presenters and notable participants this time include:

Janine Römer

• https://twitter.com/J9Roem
• https://enegnei.github.io/This-Month-In-Bitcoin-Privacy/
• https://github.com/Enegnei

Anita Posch

• https://twitter.com/AnitaPosch

Ádám "nopara" Ficsór

• https://twitter.com/nopara73

And others.

This will be a joint session with the Wasabi Research Club.

• https://github.com/zkSNACKs/WasabiResearchClub

Material: See comment section below

Format: Presentation / Discussion / Socratic Seminar

Language: English

Target Audience: Everyone who's interested in the reasons why Bitcoin might be needed in society, in the global landscape of financial regulations, or in political issues around the right to privacy and informational self-determination in general.

Streaming/Recording: Yes

Location: Online, as a YouTube stream and, for those who want to take part more interactively, via the video conferencing tool Jitsi Meet, which is Free and Open Source Software, respects and preserves your privacy, doesn't collect any unnecessary data, doesn't require any login/registration, and runs simply in your web browser. Test it here: https://meet.jit.si/

Timetable:

(19:00 Announcement of the link to the video call, resp. the name of the server and room, and the link to the YouTube stream in the comment section below. This should also trigger a reminder mail.)

20:00 Rolling start, chime in, say hello, introduce yourself off-the-record if you want to, organizational stuff
20:15 Livestream starts, optional on-the-record introductions, start of the seminar
22:00 (roughly) Wrap-up time, Livestream ends, optional break-out sessions

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This is our new in-depth, no-nonsense seminar series Satoshi's 21, which will take place every 21st of a month in various different locations (hackspace, co-working space, conference room, or similar), or online if circumstances so require.

We'll have one or more selected topics concerning Bitcoin's technology, security, ongoing development, economics, monetary theory, or its societal and political impact. Some preparation work might be required from participants in order to make the most out of the seminar.

Satoshi's 21 stands for:

• Every 21st of a month so that weekdays rotate, and to enable opportunities for joint sessions online with various other international meetup groups
• 21 participants is the targeted and ideal working group size, but we could be more, we could be fewer
• And of course: honoring Bitcoin's monetary supply of 21 hundred trillion sats!

Logo Design Satoshi's 21 by https://twitter.com/BitkoYinowsky

Contact us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitcoinmuc
Or join our Telegram group: https://t.me/joinchat/CYllaksSLloRHorac85fIQ