I was thinking about the legal aspect of trading anonymously the other day.
Obliviously the government cannot trace your earnings from trading. (if you don't convert it to FIAT)
But what about the companies that receive earnings from selling stock?
Surely they must convert it to FIAT. Would that be illegal?
Possibly. But when you donate to non-profits do you have to give your identity to donate or can you send a bag of cash? if the answer is no, why would there be a different expectation if its a business? Money laundering? We need a lawyer to explain that difference.
Okay so money laundering is the actual problem and not anonymous trading, not Bitcoin, not a decentralized exchange. Money laundering is the problem along with terrorist finance. How do we isolate that problem and work with regulators to come up with regulations and technological solutions which everyone can live with?
The current set of regulation obviously the community cannot live with. That is why Bitfunder and btct are shutting down. If it were just a matter of KYC then Bitfunder would have no reason to shut down. Bitfunder could just verify the current shareholders and let them continue trading. None of this had to happen except for the fact that the current laws in place have a lot of other stuff added to it which go beyond solving the problem of terrorist financing and money laundering.
A lot of the laws exist because traditional banking institutions involve trusting people and so there needs to be a lot more regulation of the industry. Bitcoin doesn't have as many people who have to be trusted so there is just too much regulation which serves no good purpose for Bitcoin users.