Canto IX: The Invisible War
Nations implement legislation against non-traceable coins; the regulatory war continues.
In the European Union, Regulation 2023/1113, adopted in 2023 and applicable from 30 December 2024, established information requirements for transfers involving crypto-asset service providers. Its scope does not mean making all personal transactions public. Identity information and blockchain observability are different layers of this debate.
The FATF publishes international standards that jurisdictions implement through their own processes. Its recommendations do not themselves constitute a worldwide Monero ban. Exchanges and authorities took different measures over time; the story must distinguish guidance, local law and commercial decisions.
Service providers can collect customer information outside the blockchain; on-chain privacy does not make all identification impossible. The dispute concerns compliance, risk assessment and rights. Erebus represents privacy’s defense within that debate, not a universal legal conclusion.
Centralized exchanges suffer pressure. Some yield. Others resist, operating from more tolerant jurisdictions. Haveno, a decentralized exchange specifically built for Monero, represents the technical response: if exchanges with physical headquarters can be pressured, build exchanges without headquarters.
And the war does not end. Each new regulation is met with technical innovation. Each new restriction is met with new pathways around the restriction. Mathematics does not legislate, and Erebus does not negotiate.
Privacy is winning, not because it has weapons, but because it is rooted in mathematics itself.