Peter Van Valkneburgh

@levendowski.net hi, this is Peter (and yes for real not a bot, feel free to post challenge questions about NYU law). Could we DM about something?

Reading this headline as a crypto policy wonk was an emotional journey www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Effective altruism is actually a great cautionary tale about what happen when a consequentialist/utilitarian ideology abandons virtue ethics.

To create that separation we need a competitive market for identification, a competitive market for financial services, technologies that allow for selective disclosure to FIs of risks carried by certain credential holders (VCs ZKPs MPC), and maybe limits on performing both ID and Banking activities

Indeed, in a free society, we should actively seek to deprive financial institutions of any knowledge of our politics, race, sexual preferences, religion, speech activities, etc.

This sounds glib but I'm serious. A financial institution has a good business reason to know certain specific risks a customer presents (creditworthiness, illicit activities). That does not mean they have a good business reason to know anything else about them.

what we need is separation of banking from identity

Sounds about right. I miss civil libertarian bipartisanship.

They should talk to folks in crypto...

None of them were at all reusable. An entirely unsustainable model for just about anything aside from nation-states militarizing space. Falcon changed that and starship will do the same for super heavy payloads.

For those keeping score at home on the unintended consequences of KYC... today the hacked Instagram account of a multi-platinum rapper posted the passport and face of a major crypto founder because he refused to pay the hackers 40 Bitcoin.

Things are only going to get weirder and worse.

Found two of these "stink horns" in the garden this morning. Fungus I didn't even know existed. Delightful. Blooms quickly, smells dead, attracts flies. Sign of healthy soil.

apple. car.

Fart coin is never trending on blue sky. Sad.

Two Israeli Embassy Staffers were “shot and killed as they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum” last night - PoPville 3rd and F Street, NW MPD reported 9:18pm Wed. night: "Alert: Shooting investigation in the area of 3rd and F Street NW. Avoid the area. Details to come." NBC News reported: "Two staff members of Israe...

Two Israeli Embassy Staffers were “shot and killed as they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum” last night www.popville.com/2025/05/two-...

But these cases about remittance providers are perfect. Hopefully it's the beginning of a wave that severely limits the amount of warrantless financial surveillance the government can get away with in America.

I had selfishly hoped that the last straw might come because of an overzealous expansion of surveillance obligations for crypto software developers which would be able to fight in court. That's why we published our report on Electronic Cash and the Constitution.

The $200 CTR threshold on the southern border might be the final straw for the BSA's constitutionality (the 1970s cases that found it constitutional had deciding votes from justices who warned that more aggressive surveillance would go too far).
ij.org/press-releas...

CC @neerajka.bsky.social

The crypto shaped hole in the US Constitution. This is my philosophical take on why crypto (despite all the garbage coins and gambling) matters fundamentally to freedom, privacy, and inclusivity.

If people started using crypto to avoid this tax and lawmakers tried to close the loophole with unconstitutional restrictions on speech and software publication we'd happily fight it out in the courts.

This x post made me want to spend more time here.