Metmask seems to be succumbing to regulatory pressure
And I think this is a much broader movement regarding the "web 3" space. In other words, we are now seeing which projects/companies are actually keeping true to the web3 values that were laid out since the beginning of the crypto era. With the bear market of 2022 and even before we have seen, however, that many of those values have been undermined. Decentralization has often been accredited to a project, but was then gradually or abruptly abandoned in favor for centralization. We have seen this with Ethereum with the shift to PoS where now the majoriy of the nodes are being run by compliant exchanges. We have also seen it with Steem where the network was hacked and the majority of the witnesses fell under centralized control. Then there are other projects that never claimed to be decentralized like the BNB chain, but people seem to be relying on it as if it were decentralized.
We have also seen that many users do not care much about web3 values. The BNB chain was such a success because it provided a relatively cheap was of transacting with a blockchain, the fact that it was in centralized control of Binance did not matter much. There are also many projects claiming to be decentralized, but came into existence with a large premine which excludes the possibility of the community having any significant say in the direction of the project.
Privacy is another one of these web3 values that does not seem to mean very much to most. Many have gotten used to the idea of not having any privacy in their day to day lives. Companies and governments constantly steal our data and sell it to the highest bidder or it stays in large data banks for "counter terrorism prevention measures". Most also do not really understand that privacy is a fundamental right that we should fight for and nobody that wants privacy is per se a criminal. We have to realize that seizing the privacy rights of a society at large often under the pretext of "money laundering" or "terrorism" is a strategy being applied to remove these rights as a whole.
What is happening now is that centralized exchanges and many of the largest (d)apps are succumbing or pressured into giving up these original web3 values. We have to constantly reevaluate which projects are still aligned with the web3 idea and change (d)apps accordingly. We will have to stop using CEXs and rely of DEXs in the future if we do not want to share our data with governments. Fortunately, there is a lot of development to innovate this space. There are also still quite a few good projects that are fighting for freedom and autonomy as a whole. Hive is a great example, but Koinos is also striving for that. We can use trustwallet instead of Metamask and use the Thorchain and other Defi marketplaces to trade...
Conclusion
It was clear from the beginning that this fight was coming. In fact, I would argue that the whole of human history has been the ultimate struggle between freedom and control. If you are on the former side, reevaluate in which projects you are invested and support the ones that share this vision of autonomy as well as financial and personal freedom.
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MetaMask is not taxing your crypto transactions.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/metamask-withholding-crypto-taxes-rumor
ConsenSys collects sales tax on certain products/services where they are required to do so by law, and that's not a violation of Web3 principles. Every company that sells taxable products and services collects sales taxes, even if those products and services are paid for with crypto. It's the law. They must collect sales taxes on those transactions by law, and they'd be fools to violate that law as it comes with hefty penalties.
Okay thanks for clarifying that!
Oh no! This is serious. The web3 principles are being abandoned for what? I think this will be the moments of great reveal in which we will know true web3 platforms from those that are just web3 idealism.
What?!?! That's crazy and I wouldn't believe it if I wouldn't see it.
I am not against paying taxes but we have the right to freedom and privacy in the web3 era!!!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 57/67) Liquid rewards.
Great post, thanks for the insight. 👍
Even in a news since yesterday it is happening like this so it is going very wrong it should not be done like this because people have too much faith in it it will end them.