Trezor under fire for ditching cypherpunk ideals to accommodate Swiss FINMA AML requirements

Popular open source hardware wallet, Trezor¹ by SatoshiLabs², has come under fire³’⁴ for ditching cypherpunk ideals in order to accommodate the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority’s (FINMA⁵) anti-money laundering requirements by integrating Address Ownership Proof Protocol (AOPP⁶):

In certain cases you may need to prove ownership of an address.⁷

AOPP was developed by crypto startup 21 Analytics⁸:

AOPP is a simple and automated solution for providing proof of ownership of an external wallet’s address.

The crypto community, including Monero’s Sethforprivacy⁹ have voiced their concerns over this move:

Wallet devs complying happily with this (like @Trezor) only ease the pathway to regulatory capture and incentivize further regulatory overreach.

[..] This is quite literally one of the worst outcomes imaginable for the cryptocurrency space [..] Refuse to use any wallets that choose to support or defend this unprecedented invasion of privacy and regulatory capture of the cryptocurrency space.

Trezor is not the only wallet with AOPP support. Here is the full list (to date):

• BitBox
• Trezor
• Blue Wallet
• Sparrow Wallet
• Edge
• MtPelerin
• Relai
• Aktionariat

Samourai Wallet¹⁰ seems to be the only project that has absolutely no plans to comply with the rules:

[..] we will NOT be facilitating this communication in any way using any API. Samourai will not be a pipeline to mass surveillance.³

This might be a good time for the Monero community to consider alternatives, such as the Monerujo SideKick¹¹ project that is still looking for funding:

Monerujo Sidekick is an Android app which is a functional replacement for dedicated Monero hardware wallets.¹²

I will keep you updated as the story unfolds.

Update: Trezor backtracks, promises to remove AOPP support in February¹³. Other wallets (BlueWallet, Sparrow) plan to do the same.