I have to believe the motivation is much more likely placed with the treasury having the most complete view of everyone’s finances, seeing as basically every dollar earned in the US was done so on the shoulders of tax revenue-directed infrastructure, projects, research, and defense apparatus.
Something like this going mainstream would require us to completely reform the way the country collects revenue and might even affect our access to debt, so (in their eyes) why not just stomp out the promising ones with whatever justification is easiest?
> the treasury having the most complete view of everyone’s finances, seeing as basically every dollar earned in the US
Have you followed a financial-crimes investigation? Nobody knows where jack is.
The American payment system is essentially decentralized [1]. Each bank maintains its own books and records and periodically compares parts of them with others and a summary with the central bank to promote consistency. The IRS and Treasury don't systematically share records. (Bureaucratic imperatives, after all.) That's why when the FBI or the CIA or whomever want financial records they have to quietly subpoena banks. To assemble records they do not have.
> this going mainstream would require us to completely reform the way the country collects revenue and might even affect our access to debt
Wall Street has enthusiastically embraced crypto. It's cheaper to run, permits higher fee loading and is regulatory greenspace, which tends to favor sharks. Nothing about crypto makes taxes or debt impossible. Taxes were collected and debt raised for the millennia when cash and commodity money reigned. Crypto is easier to track than either of those.
[1] Aside: the difference between crypto and traditional rails isn't decentralization. It's eager evaluation. The blockchain is always current everywhere. Bank records are not. The latter is computationally cheaper, but at the cost of more error. Centralized banking would involve everyone having an account at the Fed. It has been suggested [a].
I am skeptical of this because if they just wanted to raise revenue at the expense of privacy there are a lot easier ways to do it. They could make FBAR apply domestically. Or just require banks report checks and wires over 50k. Banning Tornado Cash is a kind of decision made by self styled counterproliferation/illicit finance/terror finance/anti corruption "experts."
Yes but this is really only useful for them after they already discovered a target of investigation. Having this information for everyone would make the initial detection of tax evaders substantially easier.
Something like this going mainstream would require us to completely reform the way the country collects revenue and might even affect our access to debt, so (in their eyes) why not just stomp out the promising ones with whatever justification is easiest?