Opinion: 2021 will be a year of the privacy war

The cryptocurrency community in 2021 will enter an active battle for privacy. This was stated by Hodl Hodl’s CEO Max Kedun during a panel discussion at the ForkLog conference “Bitcoin 2020: New Horizons.”

The speaker predicted a split in the community into two opposing camps:

“Some of the community will fight for the absence of privacy under the pretext of mass adoption, while the other will oppose it.”

The outgoing year 2020 will be remembered for the war between exchanges and regulators, adds Kedun:

“Examples BitMEX and Deribit clearly show that regulators have actively taken up the industry and in 2021 we will see many sad precedents.”

The managing partner of Baseley & Partners, Tatiana-Eliza Vasilyeva, notes the duality in regulator actions. On the one hand, governments want to see central bank digital currencies (CBDCs); on the other hand, they are considering how to build a “regulatory landscape” for the crypto market.

“Obviously, digital currencies are viewed by regulators as real money and the same AML/KYC and licensing rules will apply to them. It is unclear how regulators will align the crypto market and CBDC,” the lawyer said.

European regulators are not focused on AML control; they are more concerned with the legality of the source of capital and transaction identification.

American authorities have gone furthest in regulating the crypto market, continues Tatiana-Eliza Vasilyeva. They benefit from vast resources and a powerful legal framework.

“Projects with a centralized team or a founder who is openly involved in the project’s activities and development are at risk. Usually, it is the founder that regulators punish for financial activity without a license,” Vasilyeva noted.

In this sense, more decentralized projects have more freedom, the expert added.

Earlier trader Tone Vays stated that after hitting $19,600 Bitcoin is headed for $21,000.

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