Revolut Breach PROVES Banks Are Putting You At Risk!

0:00And if anyone doesn't already understand the problems of KYC, well, this incident proves that the bank has put people at serious risk. When stuff like this happens, I think it's just short-term, news cycle propaganda. It looks like he's bribing voters, right? Like I will pay you all if you vote Republican. The math was something like $1.2 trillion of cash going to Americans if this were to happen. That's an enormous line of right. Like we don't have that money. If the last month or two has given you concern about Bitcoin self-custody, just wait until you hear what a bank can do to you. This week, it's Revolut a popular FinTech platform handing over highly sensitive KYC data voluntarily to a fraudster. Unbelievable. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Bitcoin Banner. I have Katie and our friend Adam here. But before we jump in, hit that like button, subscribe to the channel and stick around to the end for our donkey of the way. And if you're interested in this, click the like button. And stick around to the end for our donkey of the week. Alrighty, Katie. Give me some details.

1:00What in the hell happened with Revolut? So this is a fascinating, but also slightly terrifying. Look at all the problems associated with KYC and data sharing. And if anyone doesn't already understand the problems of KYC, well, this incident proves definitively that the bank has put people at serious risk. So in a nutshell, hackers got hold of all the personal data of nearly 700 wealthy Revolut crypto customers. So the thing is, these hackers didn't need to breach Revolut's systems because they found a back door that allowed them to obtain complete dossiers on these people. So what they did was infiltrate the Italian government system and hijack the email of an official government channel. And then they used that address to pose

2:00as Italian law enforcement and email Revolut with fake European investigation orders. And the most astonishing part of all of this is that Revolut complied with these fake requests over a period of, I think, five months or so, without once checking that they were genuine requests. So they received, like, literally hundreds of these requests. And not once did they stop and say, hey, why are we getting so many of these? And in fact, even worse, they assisted the hackers in filling out the forms correctly. So they only realized something was a misfive months later, which in cyber security terms, that's an eternity. And all of this makes the question, how do they end up targeting these particular individuals? So this is where Bitcoiners should be paying very close attention. So how did they know these wealthy people had Revolut accounts?

3:02They actually didn't. They didn't target these particular individuals. They kind of used a spray and spray approach. So what they did is they targeted crypto transactions on the blockchain, so they knew which transactions belonged to Revolut customers. Apparently, that isn't very difficult to do using chain analysis. And then they looked for the high value transactions that grabbed the transaction ID. And that is what they sent to Revolut. And they asked for all the details of the owner of that transaction. So they're now holding this data to ransom and demanding that Revolut pay them, or they're going to release all of it. So there was two points of failure here. One was with the Italian government's systems, which apparently can be breached relatively easily. And the second one is with the bank that had absolutely no checks in place to ensure that requests for sensitive information

4:04were actually verified. And who has the most to lose in all of this? It's not Revolut, and it's not the Italian government. But it's the people who have been publicly doxed. And now their lives and the lives of their families are potentially at risk from wrench attacks. So the short conclusion is here, I think, avoid KYC in yourself on a platform unless absolutely necessary, because it's only a matter of time before your data could be leaked. Yeah, so many thoughts I have on this. I mean, the inarchic lean just makes this very frustrating. But the fact that there wasn't a known formal process understood by both the bank and the Italian government to ensure verification of some kind that it was a legitimate request, a secure means of processing and fulfilling that request, aside from the fact that I don't think that request should ever, ever exist. This is what people forget, I think, is they see these big institutions in huge security budgets, and they forget

5:05that these are still just people doing their jobs, trying, you know, sometimes trying to do the best they can. Many of them with no real knowledge of cybersecurity or very minimal knowledge, and you just, don't outsource your trust in the area of your wealth. It's crazy. Adam, what's your take on all this? This is obviously an atrocity. It's sad to see when this happens because it's actually really dangerous for anybody that doesn't know KYC, of course, stands for know your customer, and these are a set of laws that prevent people from quote unquote laundering money and stuff like that. I like to call KYC Killeer customer because that's essentially what is happening here, and in some cases, and extreme cases, is people are actually losing their lives because they become targets. What happens when you institute processes like this is you create honeypots, and these honeypots are just giant databases of consumer personal data.

6:06Names, addresses, sometimes faces, faces, pictures, facial recognition, biometric data, balances, so anybody that gets ahold of this data can know anything they wanna know about certain individuals in some cases. And it's crazy in some of these recent cases, we've seen some celebrities, and stuff like that, but high profile individuals can get targeted pretty easily from things like this. How do we prevent stuff like this? Well, I mean, like you said, Michael, be nice if this didn't exist in the first place. I think that that would be the ideal scenario is where we just all come together as a community, as a people, and just say, hey, these things are bad, let's get rid of them. I don't think that's happening. I don't have that much faith in humanity, and in the governments of the world that we could actually pass laws to get rid of these requirements.

7:07But I think that there is another alternative solution that is already working, and that is building products and services in a way that doesn't create these honey pots. I'll actually be speaking on a panel next week at the Bitcoin Summit, Midwest Bitcoin Summit, and I'll be on with Seed Siner and Bronta, and we're gonna just be talking about building products in a way that doesn't collect this consumer data, which is really possible right now, at least in the United States, and in many other areas of the world, it is completely legal to build a lot of some of these same services in a way that does not require money services, businesses, licenses, and compliance with QIC and AML laws, because you're not interfacing directly with the Fiat Systems, the Central Banking Empire. And so we'll be talking a little bit about that, but in the near term, I don't see this getting any better.

8:08I think this is going to continue to escalate. It is kind of crazy that this is really the first case, we've seen somebody come out and admit that they just voluntarily handed the data over to somebody, but in my opinion, it's not really any different, whether you're giving this to a hacker or a government, I think those are equally as dangerous in my opinion. In fact, I don't really see much difference between a hacker and a government to begin with. So just my opinion. Yeah, that's a fair point. We've seen bribes being received in, I think in France, actually, and they're giving up the data from the government to two attackers and perpetrators of these crimes. One thing that I would say is, and if Tony were here, I know he would talk about this, if you can earn in Bitcoin, try to earn in Bitcoin. If that's a possibility for you, if you can ask your employer, if you have a business, and you would accept Bitcoin, that's a great way to get a hold of non-Kawaii seed Bitcoin. I will just also add too. I remember when I started my journey to Bitcoin, I was like, oh, here to be, I need to figure out how to buy this. It felt very overwhelming early on.

9:09Like, how do I purchase and acquire non-Kawaii seed Bitcoin? The Bitcoin way can actually help. If you click the link below, schedule some time with our team. We can talk to you who not only help you self-custody, and obviously make sure that your wallet is private and secure, but also how do you actually accumulate Bitcoin in such a way? There are ways it is clunkyer, Adam. I think he raised a great point. The tools need to continue to be built out, but I think that's just a matter of time. We're still very, very early on this journey. Alrighty guys, speaking of France and speaking of Kylia customer. So, Bull Bitcoin, we've talked about them a couple of times on banter. So they have been sort of fighting the courts in the courts in France, and one of their second challenge that they recently had was to immediately suspend the implementation of DAC 8. Why don't you, Kylia, tell us a little bit about DAC 8. What is this challenge they're doing and what has been the response from the French courts? So, Bull Bitcoin, which I think you already said, Michael is a French-based non-Custodial Bitcoin exchange.

10:15They have taken the, so they have gone to the French courts to challenge the DAC 8 regulations. So the DAC 8 regulations is some of the most concerning data collecting and sharing legislation that's ever been implemented in the EU. So, DAC 8 requires all crypto asset service providers or casps who are registered in the EU to automatically share all the data of their customers with the tax authority in the country in which they're registered. And then that data is automatically shared in turn with any other country that the customer is a tax resident in. And I believe this also includes countries outside the EU. So, Bull Bitcoin have actually, or back in August,

11:17they filed a request for an emergency suspension of the regulations in a French court, citing the extreme risk that it brings to crypto holders. Unfortunately, as they just announced, it was rejected on the grounds that it was not considered an emergency, however, this does not mean that the court has rejected the arguments against the legality of DAC 8 because that particular challenge, which is separate, is still ongoing. You know, and I think if you understand the problem that has just occurred with Revolut, then you can see how truly horrendous DAC 8 could potentially be because you have not just one, but multiple points of failure because data sharing is, you know, it's multi-point. You know, there's gonna be multiple sets of this data shared around and all it takes

12:20is one breach at any one entity that holds a copy of this data and potentially millions of records could be leaked. And we know it's not a matter of if, but it's a matter of when it happens. And we've already seen that the Italian government for one can't keep a highly sensitive data systems secure. Katie, I think you raised a very important point here and that is basically when the data moves around, you have more points of failure, more opportunities for something to go wrong. I remember we talked a while, it's been a while, maybe a year on banter that I think it was coin-based, had, I'll get the details wrong, but I think they had like a call center in India or something come to find out that those people had access to all of this customer data because they were supporting customers, they could see their funds, they knew information about them, their email contact, all sorts of information that you really don't want anyone to have, but in order to be sort of a bank, so to speak, that's what they had to do.

13:21And they were selling that data as well. The further your data moves outside of your home, the more likely is you're gonna run into people like that, who can be bought. And I think that's what we're seeing here. So big shout out to Francis to the Bulbicoin team for fighting this and doing what they can. Adam, what is your assessment of Bulbicoin? Volkady, you alluded to a pretty good point and it goes back to what I was talking about earlier with honeypots, the government is the greatest honeypot of all. So when the governments are collecting this data or they're restricting things or they have legislation that requires all of these laws to comply with, they're collecting all this data in one place. And yes, their systems are probably pretty robust. But in the age of all of these AI attacks that we're seeing, it's really trivial and just like was said, just a matter of time, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when these attacks are able to penetrate and to get some of your data to. So, I would recommend participating

14:26in any of the systems that don't require you to do this. There are ways to do so. Bicoin actually happens to be one of the easiest ways to operate outside of this system. And so I think that that is the silver lining here is yes, there are a lot of governments that are trying to regulate this stuff and tie it all down and lock it down. But Bicoin is always going to be able to give people away to escape. Now, governments can make Bicoin illegal. They can make participating in Bicoin activities without complying with this type of regulation illegal. With that said though, again, our reiterate is very easy to participate in Bicoin anonymously and privately outside of this system. So yes, they can try to stop you, but a lot of people are going to slip through the cracks and with Bicoin being the easiest way to do so. In my opinion, this is only going to force more people into Bicoin and into privacy tools. This is ultimately a good thing,

15:27especially when you consider the fact that you have jurisdictional arbitrage. People can leave. So we have the game theory playing in to benefit a Bicoin. So like I said, I see this is a silver lining. Any regulation for Bicoin or anything else is ultimately I think a good thing for Bicoin in a long run, just simply because Bicoin is the path of least resistance. Absolutely. And I'll point again to the link below. If you want to learn to use Bicoin more privately, take self custody to it the right way, or is Adam alluded to, if you want to just leave wherever you are because of the way that you're being treated, we've got a great plan B residency program as well. Click that link below. It's good to have some time with our team. And be sure if you haven't already smashed the like button. Be sure you're subscribed to the channel. We would appreciate that. Alrighty, guys, from the Kobe EC letter, President Trump, says that his $5,000 dividend for all US adults, quote, will happen when I say something I mean it. I don't know that I agree with that last comment. I would be curious, Adam, do you think the $5,000 dividend

16:30payment is going to happen? If you're asking me if I think the $5,000 check is gonna land in my bank account, no, I mean, probably not. I don't, that's just my guess right now. I could be wrong. Do you think some variation of this is going to happen? Well, I think this is specific with how you work with that. Yeah, well, so I think that there's, it's kind of a loaded promise, if you will, because if I remember correctly, this is based on the presumption that Republicans win the elections. Right? If you vote for the, if you vote the Republicans in, you get the $5,000. I don't, first of all, I don't think that's gonna happen. And it just goes back to, you know, what I would say, with conservatives like we have today who needs liberals, I think that the current administration has done nothing, but been a great campaign for administration, administrative change. That's just my opinion.

17:31I think there have been a lot of missed promises and just, I think manipulation on a political level, at least that I've been paying attention to, that I personally don't agree with. And I could totally empathize and see with people, see why people would be like, well, this isn't working, so I'm gonna vote for the other team, right? And thinking that's the solution. I don't personally think that's the solution. I'm not advocating for that. But my point is, I think that, I don't think that the Republicans are going to win the elections for the midterms simply because I think it's been a train wreck. Now, I think it would have been just as big of a train wreck with Democrats in office, but we've had, you know, oversized representation with Republicans, of course, over the last few years. And so a lot of attention is being put on the Republicans. I think it's all just, you know, it's all a silly game. I think that it's really just two birds

18:33or two wings of the same bird. Republicans and Democrats, I think they're really, you know, playing for the same teams, the same people. And I, yeah, so I'll just leave it at that. I had, I mean, I completely agree with you. I think that with, with the interesting thing here's where he got a lot of criticism and understandably so was he's, it looks like he's bribing voters, right? Like I will pay you all if you vote Republican. And I saw Matteo Pellegrini of Club Orange tweet out. He said, acceptable ways of bribing voters, welfare programs, subsidies, handouts, like all these things, unacceptable way, unacceptable ways of bribing voters, $5,000 check right to your bank account. And he makes a good point. They've been, they've been bribing voters since forever. And that's basically what most campaign promises are. So this one doesn't offend me anymore. It's maybe extra silly because we're talking, I think I, the math was something like $1.2 trillion of cash going to Americans if this were to happen. That's like, that's an enormous line.

19:34I don't like, like we don't, we don't have that money. So I'll be curious to see what happens. I agree with you though, this $5,000 is not hitting my bank account. If it does though, smash by and send down KFC Bitcoin. Katie, what do you think about this? I think it's funny that he calls it a dividend because a dividend indicates that it's coming from income. And he says, and I quote, it's coming from trillions of dollars of economic development, investment, and pure success. I mean, it just, I think it just wreaks of blatant vote buying and it's pretty laughable considering that the federal government debt is currently at record high levels. So how would it be funded? I guess it would come from the same place as all the pandemic stimulus money came from. And of course, this would result. Let's just say it happened. I don't think it's going to happen, but let's just say it did. All of this would result in is more inflation, more dollars chasing

20:38the same number of goods and services. And it would probably be great for the crypto markets, probably great for Bitcoin and the stock markets, but we know Trump has made promises like this before and they have never materialized. Yeah, great for Bitcoin, bad for your grocery bill. Alrighty, guys, up next we have the KBAC letters. Well, the Fed made a very clear statement today. So they hiked interest rates by 0.25%. And the interesting thing about this was it was 12 to zero vote unanimous decision. Trump has obviously wanted us to cut interest rates for quite some time and they've been fighting. I tend to assume all of these deals are made sort of in the background, like, you know, behind closed doors, it's Trump wasn't caught off guard by this. They know what they're doing or they think they know what they're doing. Adam, I'll let you take this one first. Re-surprise by the decision. Do you think that this is what we need to do to fight inflation or is there something else at play here? I think it is naive to believe that minor rate hikes are going to fix the economy.

21:40I think we're far beyond being able to repair, you know, the monetary policy with some minor rate hikes. I think that we're going to continue to see monetary expansion. That is going to continue to go higher and higher. And yeah, so I mean, was I surprised? No, not just because I feel like, you know, they've been tempering our expectations for a while. And with the news cycles, we see the, you know, the CPI reports and the jobs reports and everything like that. And those are all curated in order to sell, you know, the message, right? We need to get buy-in from the public. And I think that's really what Fed policy is more than anything. It's just it's reactionary to the rest of the economy. I don't think that it's really driving anything. So when you see things like the federal rate increase, I think it's just really a reaction from, you know, the rates in the rest of the economy,

22:43the free economy, the economy that actually matters, that can actually change things. So yeah, I don't necessarily believe or buy into the fact that the Fed can really control the economy. I think it is the other way around. I think you're probably right about that. Katie, from an outsider's perspective, I'd love to hear what you think when you see this news. Yeah. So we saw Trump making public demands for the Fed to cut interest rates, but it became increasingly clear that they had no intention to do that. So I don't think that this rate hike came as much as a surprise. I haven't really looked closely at what happened in the markets, but I didn't maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't see a big reaction from the markets. And it's interesting that the Fed voted unanimously and they cited inflation driven by the current war in the Middle East and especially the rising energy prices. And then, as Adam mentioned, the strong jobs data, strong spending data,

23:48and they're saying they're persistently high inflation across services. And the Fed are saying, as they always do, that want to bring the CPI back down to the 2% target. I don't know when it was last at 2%. And of course, after the meeting, Trump came out and said that he stands by Kevin Warsh and the Fed's decision. But of course, he's not the decision maker here, but we all know he changes, has changed faster than he changes, has underwear. So this rate hike stands in contrast to what we were just talking about, which was Trump's promises of free money for everyone, which would not only serve to force the Fed to raise interest rates further in an attempt to combat all the inflation that would bring. I mean, the Fed is damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. So at this point in time, you know, simply trying to drive inflation down to that target, it's going to cause pain. There's a lot of highly

24:49indebted households that are putting more of their income towards, you know, servicing debt. And of course, it also serves to narrow that margin between the long-term bond yields and the short-term notes. And it makes it more expensive for the Treasury to do stuff like that recent buyback of long-term debt, which was funded by issuing more short-term debt. So this is all just tinkering around the edges because ultimately the US federal debt is more or less out of control. And it's just a question of how long they can continue to keep things orderly. I think that is exactly right. The beautiful thing from my vantage point is that we talk about this stuff because it's in the news. People are thinking about it. It affects your ability to borrow if that's what you want to do. And I just don't even carry more. I have my Bitcoin and Gold storage and I've just completely separated myself from all of this best I can. So already guys are donkey of the week. You ready for this? We have congratulations to Canada. It's like being asked to board the Titanic after and hit the iceberg. So this is just in from

25:49Brick's News. Canada is officially invited to join the European Union as its first ever associate member. Let's watch Ursula, our dear friend, announced this with Mark Carney in attendance. Short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible. And dear Mark, I said we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. So I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the European Union. Thank you. Incredible. So now to be fair, to be fair, I would not want to hop aboard this Titanic that is

26:52clearly sinking. At the same time, it's not like Canada is actually staying afloat at the moment. Katie, I'll let you take this one first. First of all, I want to hear your opinions. Do you think that Canada will join the European Union in some capacity? And why the hell do you think they're doing this? They just need their oil or something? What's going on? Seeing Wondelaan, you know, making that announcement to the EU Parliament, inviting, you know, Canada to join as an associate member and then seeing Mark Carney, you know, looking like my dog when I pass him on the head and tell him he's a good boy, it's quite funny. It did make me wonder exactly what is in it for the EU and why they're trying to align themselves with the US's closest neighbour. But when I thought about it some more, I can see that the EU can potentially benefit from Canada's resources like LNG, they've got uranium, they've got critical minerals,

27:57they've obviously got crude oil. And in my view, that's probably what's driving this new found partnership. The EU has lost Russian energy supplies and is unwilling to depend completely on the US. So, you know, this would make sense. As for what's in it for Canada, that part I'm not quite so clear on, you know, because like that tweet that you show said, it's like being invited on board to the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. You know, will they have EU Parliament telling them what to do? Will they be required to ban air conditioning? Will they have to attach caps, the caps to their bottles and fill out 100 pages of documentation every time they post something? You know, will they be able to receive Europe's illegal immigrants? The possibilities are many. And Mark Carney is maybe he's onto a winning formula here. I don't know. So, no, I don't know if this, by the looks of things, Mark Carney's keen, but I'm not sure how the provinces are going to

28:59feel about this. Yeah, I don't see this happening. I feel like this is a big circus. It's a distraction. That's a very big move. And I don't think even Canadians who put up with a lot over the last decade, I don't think that they would probably take too kindly to migrate into bed with the European Union. That's just my initial reaction though. I don't know enough about you. But you have politics to have a firm opinion on this. But Adam, what do you think? Yeah, Michael, you said it's a circus. It's a distraction. I'd add it is K-fabe. It is high school drama. It's silly. And the reason why I know it's silly is because you see a lot of stuff in the news about, you know, at least from, you know, the government level that Canada just doesn't like the United States, right? Canada or the US is just this, you know, this terrible country and they want nothing to do with us now.

30:00Which is exactly why up to 90% of Canadians live within 150 miles of our border, right? Now don't be wrong. Say what you want about the United States foreign policy. But as, you know, as a country and the benefits and, you know, the opportunities of the United States, it's completely unparalleled to the rest of the world. And so I think this is this is silly in this. It's shooting themselves in the foot. The United States has the strongest economy in the world. You know, we've got some of the greatest freedoms in the world. And I think that, you know, a lot of people recognize that. So when stuff like this happens, I think it's just short-term news cycle propaganda. I don't know if there's any meat to it or not. And if there is, it's really just a detriment to their own country. I mean, I think that the best thing Canada could do would be to strengthen the relationship with the United States. So yeah, that's just my opinion. I think you're probably onto it, Adam. For everyone who's listening, we appreciate you being here.

31:02I think the big takeaway for me on stories like this is it just doesn't matter. Just take your wealth into self-custody, do it yourself. You can opt out of the system. And whatever these politicians want to do as part of their circus show, they can do. And you can remain largely unaffected and unimpacted. So click the link below if you want to learn how we can help you take self-custody. If you want to get a plan B, if you want to get out of Canada before they move toward the European Union, you might not be a bad idea. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. We have a fantastic newsletter that goes out every Sunday. You're going to want to Katie. Actually, you're one of our writers for that newsletter. Some fantastic one that the team does. And you're going to want to get in on that signal. Adam, thank you for being here. I know it's kind of last minute for you. Why don't you tell people where they can find you, follow you, and so forth. Thank you. Sure. Yeah. So I'm Adam Simeca. And it's just Adam Simeca on X. Feel free to follow me over there if you want. Perfect. Thank you both so much for being here. Great chatting as always. We'll be back again next time. Thank you guys. Cheers.