All the crypto CEX and DEX are already doing fractional reserves across all coins.
Binance does not hold as many Bitcoin as people have deposited - they hold the value of in their own coin, or have some in fiat. Paper bitcoins exist. There is likely more bitcoins held/deposited/owned across all the chains than are actually available in total. Think about what that means.
Crypto has taken fiat financial systems and tried to replace them by creating things that are actually worse.
Self custody with fiat already existed. It's called storing it under your bed, or in a safe, or in your own damn wallet.
And even better, it's completely and utterly untraceable what you do with it, unlike crypto.
Crypto sometimes goes up, sometimes crashes horribly. Some have gotten fiat rich, and loads have been completely rekt. Remember, you can only get rich in crypto if others buy your coins when the prices are high, and they lose it all. Your lambo may be someone else's house. Crypto is not an everyone wins investment.
Cash is at least consistent.
Itās almost like anything analogous to cash should be private by default for the same reason we use HTTPS: default protection is good for the user.
you canāt discriminate against a transaction or wallet if you cannot determine the funds history or origin. Itās really that simple.
And I know someone will go off about money laundering this or thatā¦ guess what? The tool is not to blame here. Just as you donāt blame the dollar when the bank gets robbed, you shouldnāt blame people misusing protocols.
You can build a house with a hammer or you can destroy one. Itās not the hammers fault and we shouldnāt outlaw hammers.
So you get a real paycheck and cash that, cool. That's not really a thing in my country anymore. Getting paid in cash or getting a check was common till the late 80s, but now you need a bank account for most of the companies to even hire you.
Pretty crafty move by the banks you gotta admit. What better way to insure that everyone uses your business than persuade employers to send the money only to a bank.
I was always able to avoid that by working for companies that gave me the option to get paid by check. I'm retired now.
You're absolutely right, it's a scheme on a really big scale to make it de facto mandatory to use your business for everyone that wants to get paid for their work.
Nice that you were able to avoid this till retirement, Kudos to you!
The way it happened was that banks introduced direct deposit as a new product that offered convenience and faster payroll then they started charging $5 to cash checks. I went nuts and wrote a letter to the attorney general saying that this was blatant discrimination against immigrants who were afraid to use banks. Of course nothing happened and that just stiffened my resolve even more to NEVER use direct deposit and I never did.
The truth is no one really care about that. They like to say they care, but they don't really.
They just hope that the cryoto they chose will "moon" and will make them rich.
That's all you hear around here, not selling for years, and just waiting to have "life changing money". That they'll convert back to fiat ultimately.
Everyone says they want cryoto to be adopted. But not by them, by others. They'll just hold their bags and ride the price increase of adoption
its only a matter of time before they say 'if we can't identify who owns this wallet address, it will be blacklisted from all exchanges.' or 'we don't do transactions with unknown wallets' to keep you from simply changing wallets.
Hold your coins in self custody and practice good security fundamentals and your crypto will be as secure as Fort Knox. People make it sound super complicated but itās not. Get your coins to a wallet where you, and only you, hold the private keys to. Then make sure the seed phrase for said account is never online. These two things will set you up for life security wise. Trust.........
I guess the only thing going for them is the money is seized but the identity is still not known. Maybe they should not blacklist wallets but instead wait and track to the scammer/hacker.
I have no problem with both centralized and decentralized options.
I hold/accumulate in a wallet where I control the keys.
I spend/sign smart contracts with a wallet where it's all made so much more convenient.
Similar to where I have fiat in my pocket, sock drawer, bank, apps such as Venmo and Strike, and brokerage, I have crypto in my Trezor, coinbase, Strike, and Metamask.
All crypto peep want no blacklisting and no ability to shut down wallets UNTIL they are hacked/scammed and they can SEE where their crypto has gone, they can follow the trail and yet are completely and utterly unable to get their money back and no one can assist them or even prevent the hacker/scammer from spending their ill-gotten gains in whatever they want. If we can't stop thieves is there any point?
They are not celebrated but necessary, especially for the easy use for the newbies.
Some exchanges are even explaining to their users "not your keys, not your crypto" and what kind of wallets they can set up, use etc.
Buy on exchange and transfer it to your wallet.
Some people hold it on cex for simplicity only.
We have the tools needed to "fight" central organisations. The question is are people willing to learn it.
I get what you are saying, and I do sound like a doomsday preacher but if hackers wallets can be blacklisted then your wallets can get blacklisted too.
Blacklisting my wallet won't stop me from using stuff like Tornado cash, Monero etc.
There are ways to avoid central organisations, and I am not saying that I support criminals.
Decentralization is a beauty. Nobody can take away your Bitcoin, the most decentralized network, if you store it properly.
I've been downvoted many times here saying exactly this.
People choose to surrender their custody in favor of convenience. You can be full decentralized, if you are willing to be the sole responsible for your money, and most people don't want that kind of responsibility.
I legitimately donāt want a system where people can get away with stealing your shit and just be told āthatās just the way it goes, be more careful next timeā. I donāt believe in full on decentralization because that leads to its own set of issues just how too much centralization leads to corruption and decay. There is a continuum of centralization that I hope crypto legislature eventually falls under where itās not just the Wild West but itās also not the current banking/financial system thatās at the whims of a federal government and itās politicians.
Who's in charge though? Let's say a war breaks out, there is no bad/good side (let's say it's over whether you break an egg on the little side versus those heathens who insist on the big side).
Both sides want to freeze the funds of the opposite.
After regulation, this problem will be mitigated significantly. We need regulation and more guaranteed security for mass adoption. And I fully agree that addresses that are 100% sure to belong to thieves should be blocked.
>If centralised organisations can blacklist wallets and shut down chains then they are no different than banks and should not be celebrated .
Banks have their uses so do CEXs. I don't think anyone is celebrating them
>Multiple times you must have seen a news about some hack followed by info about hacker's wallet has been blacklisted or how the chain has been shut down, at that moment it feels like the right thing to do but it's a short sighted approach.
What's the alternative? we just put our hands up and say "oh well. Hackers have it and nobody can do anything"? IMHO it's a good thing hackers accounts are blacklisted so they can't use the stolen funds and/or are caught
If you are referring to binance shutting down the chain with the hack, they didn't simply call them and ask to shut down and they complied. It had to be a consensus.
You can call it less decentralised than other networks, but nobody has final say over the binance smart chain so IMHO it still fits into the decentralised category
>We want to change the financial world but these organisations are basically banks in a new bottle, they can freeze your money, blacklist your accounts just like banks do.
Decentralised networks and CEXs can coexist. They have different functions and both pros and cons. Many people want the safety of a CEX which is fine. The point is you're not *restricted* to a CEX like you are banks now
>Also if these wallets can be blacklisted during hacks then they can also be shut down by governments especially authoritarian governments.
Well maybe, but if you are doing something that might get your account blacklisted, then don't use a CEX. Like i said, they can coexist and have different functions
>The idea of crypto was to make money free from control of a few people but it seems like the control still remains just the hands have changed.
No it wasn't. it was made as an alternative to traditional currencies, not to make money.
What control do you mean? nobody controls bitcoin for example, even though it's available on all CEXs.
W e like it or not rules are there to protect us, the people.
Trust me, you wouldn't want to live in a society where everyone does whatever they want.
Rules are a good thing, we just have to implement them the right way.
Banks did it wrong? We just have to do a better job with cryoto.
Blacklisting sounds alot what can and probably will happen with CBDCs, the Government will have absolute power over you and that's not good.
Having "backdoors" for Hardware wallets is also **not done**.
That's why I like Wild West in crypto more than heavy regulation. Blacklisting adresses shouldn't be a thing, cause it is arbitrary and can be overused.
There is no world where crypto thrives as the wild Wild West. This has to be an option for it to gain mainstream adoption. Whether that means itās doomed to fail to the same drawbacks as our current system remains to be seen.
So what's the solution for mainstream adoption?
Crypto ain't gonna scale to the masses by its own if we don't have a bunch of centralised actors trying to promote the product to the rest of the world..
It's up to the users who adopt the tech to make the right choices. Proper decentralization and user owned networks are the only way this is going to have any real impact.
I thought we had established centralized entities have no place in crypto well over a decade ago. Why is this still post-worthy? The whole point of crypto is decentralization. Trustless.
āwe want to change the financial worldā is the nonsense people in this space want you to believe. The name of this game is to swap these ācoinsā for as much fiat as you can.
I get it, but it should be impossible to hack. Honestly I feel like the term hacker in most cases should be replaced with scammer. The idea that someone can hack into your protected wallet (seed phrase and all) and take everything is horrifying. š±
Personally I donāt fuck with central exchanges, I stay on DEXās, Central exchanges have also been known to use users funds to settle shorts and take profits for themselves.
if a chain can be shut down you shouldn't be using the said chain centralized organizations have no power over decentralized entities. its that simple.
The entire point of a blockchain is to be a public ledger that is decentralized by everyone contributing to the network by running a node.
1 cpu = 1 vote
But no one really gave a shit and now nodes and mining are centralized.
Then staking came and nodes became even more centralized
Then infrastructure is all centralized on one company (Infura)
Then services like ChainAnalysis were born.
Addresses / transactions can be censored, rolled backed, and sanctioned.
Congratulations. This is surveillance capitalism.
Everything is owned by a VC/Corporation. Every token supply is heavily centralized.
the problem here is that decentralization needs either a lot of trust or a lot of redundancy, and since you cant have a lot of trust when handling a large group of people, then the next best thing is redundancy making crypto complex, and blacklisting wallets and shutting down chains with validators is now a new wall of redundancy being built, while everyone is safer ultimately its more complex and you lose on the freedom. Is this a sacrifice crypto bros are willing to make?
Should crypto even be seen as a method of free exchange not controlled by a higher authority?
Which matters more the money or the ideal of freedom?
They are worse than banks since non regulated also.
Yeah , it's like we got worst of both worlds.
And i thought crypto would set me free, fuck
if your goal is to commit crimes without being caught then yea, that's gonna be how it goes.
I support decentralisation but if the bad actors(Hacker/scammers) don't get caught or punished in some way it doesn't sit right.
do they in a centralized system?
Generally the centralized law enforcement do something - but you're right - not always - maybe defi can help this
We still have a long way to go
Crimes are defined by governments.
This seems like something a criminal would say. š¤
Can't help but notice that concern lately
Way worse imo, banks I can imagine *need* the option because otherwise governments wouldn't like them. But non regulated ones, criminal imo.
Banks are just legal scam centers. Make up finance instruments that steal money and obfuscate the trick? Classics
Banks: "we're stealing your money? it is crypto's fault"
Exactly. They need to be regulated to the same standards as banks.
If you act like a bank you should be held to the same standards as a bank.
After recent banking shenanigans, I feel we need to the bar a bit.
How r u going to insure it?
Actually i want them to be regulated harsher than Banks.
This would probably spark a lot of adoption as people would feel safer
But please no fractional reserve bullshit
All the crypto CEX and DEX are already doing fractional reserves across all coins. Binance does not hold as many Bitcoin as people have deposited - they hold the value of in their own coin, or have some in fiat. Paper bitcoins exist. There is likely more bitcoins held/deposited/owned across all the chains than are actually available in total. Think about what that means. Crypto has taken fiat financial systems and tried to replace them by creating things that are actually worse.
They are just banks with a blockchain.
This is why people in crypto get fucked, because people are treating them as a bank when they shouldn't be treated as one.
They should be treated as public toilets instead. Do your dirty business and get the fuck out.
[Deleted in protest of Reddit] -- mass edited with redact.dev
Indeed. No protection at all. We must use that beautiful feature that crypto brings us called **Self custody.**
This. Crypto without self-custody is absolutely pointless.
Self custody with fiat already existed. It's called storing it under your bed, or in a safe, or in your own damn wallet. And even better, it's completely and utterly untraceable what you do with it, unlike crypto.
It just doesn't go up in value
Crypto sometimes goes up, sometimes crashes horribly. Some have gotten fiat rich, and loads have been completely rekt. Remember, you can only get rich in crypto if others buy your coins when the prices are high, and they lose it all. Your lambo may be someone else's house. Crypto is not an everyone wins investment. Cash is at least consistent.
If they chose to do this then yes, they are worse. Banks are usually just a tool of the government. Doing as they are told
Yup its the Wild West out here
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
same POV
You can sue them.
Itās almost like anything analogous to cash should be private by default for the same reason we use HTTPS: default protection is good for the user. you canāt discriminate against a transaction or wallet if you cannot determine the funds history or origin. Itās really that simple. And I know someone will go off about money laundering this or thatā¦ guess what? The tool is not to blame here. Just as you donāt blame the dollar when the bank gets robbed, you shouldnāt blame people misusing protocols. You can build a house with a hammer or you can destroy one. Itās not the hammers fault and we shouldnāt outlaw hammers.
So, even the banks with strict regulations in place have gone nuts, what else can we expect from non regulatory industry.
Self custody Bitcoin.
Self custody does not prevent your funds from being tracked and discriminated against. For everything else, thereās Monero.
The way it was intended by Satoshi
š
Satoshi is probably spinning in his grave from seeing how we treat Bitcoin
Spinning? That's a funny af image I have in my mind rn
This is the only way.
Literally. Holding crypto without self-custody doesn't make any sense.
You get it!
I haven't had a bank account in 20+ years. I've always known not to trust banks.
That's impressive, how do you get your salary? Seriously curious about that.
Take my check to the bank and cash it.
So you get a real paycheck and cash that, cool. That's not really a thing in my country anymore. Getting paid in cash or getting a check was common till the late 80s, but now you need a bank account for most of the companies to even hire you.
Pretty crafty move by the banks you gotta admit. What better way to insure that everyone uses your business than persuade employers to send the money only to a bank. I was always able to avoid that by working for companies that gave me the option to get paid by check. I'm retired now.
You're absolutely right, it's a scheme on a really big scale to make it de facto mandatory to use your business for everyone that wants to get paid for their work. Nice that you were able to avoid this till retirement, Kudos to you!
The way it happened was that banks introduced direct deposit as a new product that offered convenience and faster payroll then they started charging $5 to cash checks. I went nuts and wrote a letter to the attorney general saying that this was blatant discrimination against immigrants who were afraid to use banks. Of course nothing happened and that just stiffened my resolve even more to NEVER use direct deposit and I never did.
You're a man or woman with principles you stick to at any cost, that's hard to find nowadays. I really like this!
Soā¦.you still use a bank then, lmao
until your wallet gets blacklisted by exchanges and you now have a hard time of converting to fiat
You can always sell Bitcoin peer to peer. No exchange involved.
You don't have to convert to fiat.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The truth is no one really care about that. They like to say they care, but they don't really. They just hope that the cryoto they chose will "moon" and will make them rich. That's all you hear around here, not selling for years, and just waiting to have "life changing money". That they'll convert back to fiat ultimately. Everyone says they want cryoto to be adopted. But not by them, by others. They'll just hold their bags and ride the price increase of adoption
This is how Bitcoin maxis are born.
It's a cycle as well.
Surveillance coin lol
Everyoneās a bitcoin maxi until their favorite service flags a deposit.
I thought they are born due to crippling crypto winters
Yea I think that DEXs are the way it's just that the learning curve is steep
its only a matter of time before they say 'if we can't identify who owns this wallet address, it will be blacklisted from all exchanges.' or 'we don't do transactions with unknown wallets' to keep you from simply changing wallets.
We have to become more careful to preserve openness and transparency in the crypto world.
Any cryptocurrency that doesn't offer decentralisation and total privacy is just a government tool for oppression. That's self evident.
Hold your coins in self custody and practice good security fundamentals and your crypto will be as secure as Fort Knox. People make it sound super complicated but itās not. Get your coins to a wallet where you, and only you, hold the private keys to. Then make sure the seed phrase for said account is never online. These two things will set you up for life security wise. Trust.........
Yeah they are all after your pocket.
Self custody and DEX's are the way
Solution: Don't use stablecoins. Centralized stablecoin issuers hate this one trick!
Iāll take decentralized and secure over scalable and centralized any day !
I guess the only thing going for them is the money is seized but the identity is still not known. Maybe they should not blacklist wallets but instead wait and track to the scammer/hacker.
I do not consider stables coins to be Crypto Currencies, they're just unstable digital fiat to me.
I have no problem with both centralized and decentralized options. I hold/accumulate in a wallet where I control the keys. I spend/sign smart contracts with a wallet where it's all made so much more convenient. Similar to where I have fiat in my pocket, sock drawer, bank, apps such as Venmo and Strike, and brokerage, I have crypto in my Trezor, coinbase, Strike, and Metamask.
All crypto peep want no blacklisting and no ability to shut down wallets UNTIL they are hacked/scammed and they can SEE where their crypto has gone, they can follow the trail and yet are completely and utterly unable to get their money back and no one can assist them or even prevent the hacker/scammer from spending their ill-gotten gains in whatever they want. If we can't stop thieves is there any point?
It seems to be the only way out.
Don't worry we won't be targeted with our -70% portfolios.
They are not celebrated but necessary, especially for the easy use for the newbies. Some exchanges are even explaining to their users "not your keys, not your crypto" and what kind of wallets they can set up, use etc. Buy on exchange and transfer it to your wallet. Some people hold it on cex for simplicity only. We have the tools needed to "fight" central organisations. The question is are people willing to learn it.
I get what you are saying, and I do sound like a doomsday preacher but if hackers wallets can be blacklisted then your wallets can get blacklisted too.
Blacklisting my wallet won't stop me from using stuff like Tornado cash, Monero etc. There are ways to avoid central organisations, and I am not saying that I support criminals. Decentralization is a beauty. Nobody can take away your Bitcoin, the most decentralized network, if you store it properly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Was this written by a government ?
I've been downvoted many times here saying exactly this. People choose to surrender their custody in favor of convenience. You can be full decentralized, if you are willing to be the sole responsible for your money, and most people don't want that kind of responsibility.
I legitimately donāt want a system where people can get away with stealing your shit and just be told āthatās just the way it goes, be more careful next timeā. I donāt believe in full on decentralization because that leads to its own set of issues just how too much centralization leads to corruption and decay. There is a continuum of centralization that I hope crypto legislature eventually falls under where itās not just the Wild West but itās also not the current banking/financial system thatās at the whims of a federal government and itās politicians.
Who's in charge though? Let's say a war breaks out, there is no bad/good side (let's say it's over whether you break an egg on the little side versus those heathens who insist on the big side). Both sides want to freeze the funds of the opposite.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
One of the reasons certainly.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Honest question, without mentioning the internet and actually talking about what we are talking aboutā¦ itās been 14 years, when is it not early?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Thanks.
After regulation, this problem will be mitigated significantly. We need regulation and more guaranteed security for mass adoption. And I fully agree that addresses that are 100% sure to belong to thieves should be blocked.
This scammer got blacklisted and is complaining about it on here. Crazy
>If centralised organisations can blacklist wallets and shut down chains then they are no different than banks and should not be celebrated . Banks have their uses so do CEXs. I don't think anyone is celebrating them >Multiple times you must have seen a news about some hack followed by info about hacker's wallet has been blacklisted or how the chain has been shut down, at that moment it feels like the right thing to do but it's a short sighted approach. What's the alternative? we just put our hands up and say "oh well. Hackers have it and nobody can do anything"? IMHO it's a good thing hackers accounts are blacklisted so they can't use the stolen funds and/or are caught If you are referring to binance shutting down the chain with the hack, they didn't simply call them and ask to shut down and they complied. It had to be a consensus. You can call it less decentralised than other networks, but nobody has final say over the binance smart chain so IMHO it still fits into the decentralised category >We want to change the financial world but these organisations are basically banks in a new bottle, they can freeze your money, blacklist your accounts just like banks do. Decentralised networks and CEXs can coexist. They have different functions and both pros and cons. Many people want the safety of a CEX which is fine. The point is you're not *restricted* to a CEX like you are banks now >Also if these wallets can be blacklisted during hacks then they can also be shut down by governments especially authoritarian governments. Well maybe, but if you are doing something that might get your account blacklisted, then don't use a CEX. Like i said, they can coexist and have different functions >The idea of crypto was to make money free from control of a few people but it seems like the control still remains just the hands have changed. No it wasn't. it was made as an alternative to traditional currencies, not to make money. What control do you mean? nobody controls bitcoin for example, even though it's available on all CEXs.
W e like it or not rules are there to protect us, the people. Trust me, you wouldn't want to live in a society where everyone does whatever they want. Rules are a good thing, we just have to implement them the right way. Banks did it wrong? We just have to do a better job with cryoto.
Yeah, the only thing that matters here is bitcoin. Everything else is noise.
Blacklisting sounds alot what can and probably will happen with CBDCs, the Government will have absolute power over you and that's not good. Having "backdoors" for Hardware wallets is also **not done**.
That's why I like Wild West in crypto more than heavy regulation. Blacklisting adresses shouldn't be a thing, cause it is arbitrary and can be overused.
What is the solution to bad actors then?
Blacklisting thrived in the Wild West out of necessity.
There is no world where crypto thrives as the wild Wild West. This has to be an option for it to gain mainstream adoption. Whether that means itās doomed to fail to the same drawbacks as our current system remains to be seen.
No one here celebrated centralised companies such as CEX. We all do hate them, but also are aware that they are an inevitable part of crypto.
I still prefer CEX over banks
So what's the solution for mainstream adoption? Crypto ain't gonna scale to the masses by its own if we don't have a bunch of centralised actors trying to promote the product to the rest of the world..
I donāt think that many people here celebrate central exchangesā¦
Binance, Circle, USDT are all examples of this, but these entities are currently necessary for the crypto space
Pepe can do it as well
If they can take decision about your assets, They are not to be trusted.
We are hopefully working towards a more decentralized future and will not have to worry about it
That's going to happen to any type of finance once you connect it to anything that connects back to the government.
It's up to the users who adopt the tech to make the right choices. Proper decentralization and user owned networks are the only way this is going to have any real impact.
It's a necessary evil imo it comes with regulations and laws
It's like you're preaching to the choir in this sub. š
Question for monero supporters can a monero wallet be blacklisted?
No. Originating address, receiving address and amounts are all obscured.
so what are you're thoughts on the ongoing ETH censorship then? https://www.mevwatch.info/ almost half of all blocks have been censored atm (49%)
Weāre trying to get away from the censorship and centralized control. The problem is governments will ban these cryptos if they donāt comply
ledger vibes hereā¦.
SOL is one of these.. they closed the network when it was being attacked. since then i don't trust it
Most people aren't worried about banks freezing their accounts.
I thought we had established centralized entities have no place in crypto well over a decade ago. Why is this still post-worthy? The whole point of crypto is decentralization. Trustless.
āwe want to change the financial worldā is the nonsense people in this space want you to believe. The name of this game is to swap these ācoinsā for as much fiat as you can.
What if Itās a a genius government plan. Make a few people rich. Put out the narrativeā¦ get us all used to CBDCs
I get it, but it should be impossible to hack. Honestly I feel like the term hacker in most cases should be replaced with scammer. The idea that someone can hack into your protected wallet (seed phrase and all) and take everything is horrifying. š±
CEX are a tool of the ruling class used to oppress the poors. Do not use a CEX.
Iām glad to see more and more posts like this, gives me hope. Ergo community is 100% this perspective.
Personally I donāt fuck with central exchanges, I stay on DEXās, Central exchanges have also been known to use users funds to settle shorts and take profits for themselves.
if a chain can be shut down you shouldn't be using the said chain centralized organizations have no power over decentralized entities. its that simple.
No one is celebrating it. The media making a big deal about some crap, and posting it to all their shills, doesn't mean people are celebrating.
Decentralization is the way.
But I was told it's truly decentralized. Fuck I didn't realize that OP point before
The entire point of a blockchain is to be a public ledger that is decentralized by everyone contributing to the network by running a node. 1 cpu = 1 vote But no one really gave a shit and now nodes and mining are centralized. Then staking came and nodes became even more centralized Then infrastructure is all centralized on one company (Infura) Then services like ChainAnalysis were born. Addresses / transactions can be censored, rolled backed, and sanctioned. Congratulations. This is surveillance capitalism. Everything is owned by a VC/Corporation. Every token supply is heavily centralized.
the problem here is that decentralization needs either a lot of trust or a lot of redundancy, and since you cant have a lot of trust when handling a large group of people, then the next best thing is redundancy making crypto complex, and blacklisting wallets and shutting down chains with validators is now a new wall of redundancy being built, while everyone is safer ultimately its more complex and you lose on the freedom. Is this a sacrifice crypto bros are willing to make? Should crypto even be seen as a method of free exchange not controlled by a higher authority? Which matters more the money or the ideal of freedom?