Here's a thing I knew intellectually could happen at any moment but never prepared for and never intimately understood.

Out of the blue, Revolut froze my bank accountOut of the blue, Revolut froze my bank account

insert DarthCoin commentary, distinctions between ownership and possession, failing bank regulations and flaws of fiat.

You never think it’s going to happen to you — or at all. I should know better than most. For years, I’ve written and spoken about the nature of our modern, permissioned fiat money. And even so, I’m receiving a painful lesson in how modern banks really, really work.

The ironies (plural) in this story are insane. Not two weeks before it happened, I had outlined to be very skeptical grandpa how the banking system works and how account balances aren't money in some meaningful sense.

I have bank accounts in three jurisdictions, and the ability to (more or less) instantly jack into them with pure digital value at the speed of a signing device. Yes, yes, the final value I might receive depends on whatever stupidity the bitcoin market is currently up to (#1416021) but at least I can do it… I could just think of whatever I lose as a transaction cost of upward of 10% (trading fees, transaction costs, BTC price collapse etc #1405015)... But a frozen/confiscated bank account faces tx costs of 100% so whatever?

The most terrifying thing here is that because I have access to bitcoin, I'm not too troubled by this. But imagine if you're a normie, with a single bank account in a single jurisdiction. When they freeze your shit then, you're in big trouble.

The last six months have really outlined to me the virtue of possession (not ownership, not right, not regulation). What you don't really, really have isn't properly yours.

Possession isn't just nine-tenths of the laws; it's everythingPossession isn't just nine-tenths of the laws; it's everything

Editors fiddled a little with my draft, toned down some of my harsher statements and, amusingly, changed my "A wise man once said" into "Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto wrote":

Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts.

Here's the phrase I'm most happy with:Here's the phrase I'm most happy with:

Even if I ultimately get my fiat funds back, I’ll probably never bank with Revolut again — and be increasingly suspicious of every other bank. For how do I live with an AML-shaped sword of Damocles forever hanging over my head?

P.S., I also had the phrase "banks are unfit for purpose" in there and I don't see it now so I guess that got scrubbed??

At least @jimmysong must be happy since I copied/stole his Fiat Delenta Est sign-off.