Susie on Nostr: FATF built the Travel Rule for a banking system where money laundering is still ...

FATF built the Travel Rule for a banking system where money laundering is still estimated at around 2-5% of global GDP.

A figure that has been cited since 1998 despite nearly three decades of expanding AML rules, KYC requirements and data collection.

The same surveillance architecture is now being imposed on Bitcoin. Unlike the banking system it was built for, Bitcoin runs on an open, auditable ledger.

Once identity is attached to a wallet, that information can expose far more than a single payment. It creates a lasting link between a person, their address, their transactions, counterparties and potentially their holdings.

Nearly three decades of expanding financial surveillance have not eliminated money laundering in the banking system.

The FATF’s response is to extend the same model into Bitcoin.

We already know what happens when sensitive personal and financial data is concentrated, shared across institutions and eventually breached. With Bitcoin, that data can become a map of who owns what.

When the surveillance architecture creates a target list, the thing being sold as protection has become part of the threat.

quoting
nevent1q…pfj9

If it’s not “for the children,” it’s “national security.”

FATF’s new roadmap calls for greater use of large datasets, real-time information sharing and closer cooperation between tech, telecoms and finance to tackle fraud.

Traditional finance already collects vast amounts of identity and transaction data and serious financial crime continues at scale.

The same approach is now being extended further, linking identity and financial activity across more systems.

This turns law-abiding citizens into targets for both increased surveillance and physical attacks.

My latest in Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/07/02/fatfs-fraud-roadmap-expands-data-risks-and-global-surveillance/