BuyMeACoffee silently dropped support for many countries (2024)

We have normalized the treatment of the financial and payments systems as things that exist primarily to perform law enforcement surveillance functions. It's the same dynamic that leads to debanking of small accounts - payments firms exist on thin margins and the potential fines for inadvertently servicing a bad actor are stratospheric, so it's entirely logical to play it safe by refusing to service anyone whose profile looks even the slightest bit risky.

The alternate is crypto. That will service anyone for ANY reason.

This is a major reason (maybe the major reason) crypto keeps going up. Many people want money to avoid government oversight - for reasons both benign (e.g. avoiding having money confiscated arbitrarily) and nefarious (everything from tax avoidance to funding crime and war).

Not long ago we lived in a world where currency from anywhere other than the nation you were in (or maybe somewhere close by) was impractical to use on a daily basis. Things have changed now and the government's use of money as a tool to keep control of citizens is loosening. For better and worse.

What percent of Bitcoin transactions are money laundering or other crime related? It must be astonishing.

FT Alphaville has a good article about it: "How much does cryptocrime pay?": https://www.ft.com/content/f40b7ac7-bb50-4712-aa7f-5219c2b18... (free sign-up)

To quote:

    2025 Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report ... The authors have so far tracked over $40bn of crypto transfers to illicit addresses made in 2024, though they reckon the final total will be north of $51bn.

Ouch.