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Bull Bitcoin sues France over DAC8 surveillance that exposes users to kidnapping

Thursday, July 16, 2026 · from 2 podcasts
  • Bull Bitcoin's legal challenge argues DAC8 surveillance creates kidnapping directories.
  • 70% of Binance users moved to self-custody to escape MiCA licensing fences.
  • The French state leaked 19 million accounts in a breach last year.

Privacy is a prerequisite for physical survival. Bull Bitcoin filed a landmark challenge before France's supreme administrative court to annul the DAC8 directive, arguing that forcing exchanges to report granular user data creates a massive surveillance database the state cannot secure.

David Bennett highlights the grim reality of wrench attacks where criminals target crypto holders. France ranks as the second-most dangerous epicenter globally for such physical violence. Organized crime syndicates use poor data reporting laws to identify wealthy targets who are simply trying to pay their taxes.

Recent history proves the databases aren't secure. The French national agency for secure credentials suffered a breach in early 2026, exposing up to 19 million accounts.

“When the state mandates the collection of data it cannot protect, it effectively draws a map for kidnappers.”

- David Bennett, Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

Bull Bitcoin CEO Francis Pouliot claims DAC8 transforms the concept of 'Know Your Customer' into 'Kill Your Customer,' exposing holders and their families. Pouliot leans on a 2022 European court ruling that struck down earlier surveillance rules for overreach.

Meanwhile, new MiCA regulations are already backfiring. When Binance restricted EU users to comply with the new licensing regime, 70% of those users moved their funds to self-custody rather than joining a licensed competitor.

“The regulator built a fence, and the majority of the herd simply jumped over it.”

- Ungovernable Misfits

The litigation is a direct pushback against the compliance era, grounding legal arguments in the tangible risk of physical harm.

Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

Apps Against the Machine | THE BITCOIN BRIEF 84Jul 16

  • The EU failed to kill its interim chat control scanning rule; 314 votes opposed it, but it needed 361 for an absolute majority, so voluntary scanning remains until April 2028.
Also from this episode: (13)

Coding (3)

  • Foundation Devices released Envoy 2.3.0 with a redesigned Sendflow, manual transaction rescan, address explorer, message signing, and a new transfer feature between accounts.
  • Foundation Devices released KeyOS 1.3 beta for Passport Prime, adding external Bitcoin seed import, BIP85 password generation, bulk import of 2FA codes from Google Authenticator, and a universal QR scanner.
  • Foundation's app showcase features proof-of-concept apps like offline Cake Wallet, Nostr event signer, password manager, Liana signer, Spark signer, Frost multisig coordinator, social recovery, PubKey keychain, and secure notes.

Privacy (1)

  • Max highlights the danger of users storing crypto buy/sell data in closed-source portfolio apps, noting they leak sensitive information like holdings and cost basis.

Protocol (7)

  • Radar Labs launched Radar Chat, a fork of Signal that integrates Bitcoin Lightning payments directly into chats and allows users to migrate existing Signal accounts.
  • Francis Pouliot's Bull Bitcoin sued the French finance ministry over DAC8/CARF, arguing the decree overreaches and violates EU charter privacy rights.
  • Senator Ron Wyden demanded the Clarity Act keep its developer shield (Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act) intact, as law enforcement pushes to narrow it.
  • BIP-110 signaling remains under 1%, making a clean network activation unlikely before block 961632 in early August.
  • Bull Bitcoin's mobile wallet added coin control and coin freezing features typically reserved for desktop wallets.
  • SeedSigner released version 0.87 with BBQR PSBT coding, a feature NVK publicly opposed, but included due to contributions from 20 different developers.
  • Wasabi Wallet's Ashikaru 1.1 release added Whirlpool stats via Tor, tx0 broadcast overlay warnings, Dojo Electrum server discovery, configurable am I exposed privacy checks, and card-based UTXO views.

Custody (1)

  • Binance data showed 70% of EU user assets withdrawn after MiCA enforcement moved into self custody, not to compliant licensed exchanges.

AI & Tech (1)

  • A Fountain boost noted building a Nostr client Chrome extension using Qwen 3.6B after prompt engineering with a cloud model.

MiCA Drop | Bitcoin NewsJul 9

  • Similar large-scale breaches occurred in the US: Equifax in 2017 affected 147 million Americans, and the National Public Data breach in 2024 affected over 200 million.
  • The EU is preparing to revise MiCA in 2027 to cover foreign stablecoin issuers, driven by fear of US dollar-pegged stablecoins after Trump's GENIUS Act.
Also from this episode: (11)

Protocol (10)

  • Bull Bitcoin filed a legal challenge in France to annul the DAC8 directive, arguing it creates a massive surveillance grid that institutions cannot secure, putting crypto users at risk of kidnapping.
  • France has the second-highest rate of physical attacks on crypto users after the United States, according to GART. High-profile industry figures like Binance France CEO David Princ and Ledger co-founder David Ballant have been targeted.
  • Jamison Law at Casa maintains a wrench attack database on GitHub showing an accelerating trend of these violent incidents. Bull Bitcoin argues DAC8's data consolidation will worsen this problem.
  • Bull Bitcoin claims DAC8 will incentivize users to move off-grid via peer-to-peer exchanges, home mining, or offshore alternatives, making tax collection harder. Francis Pouliot argues DAC8 turns ‘know your customer’ into ‘kill your customer.’
  • Major French government data breaches illustrate the security risk. France's ANTS breach in April 2026 exposed up to 19 million accounts, and the national bank account registry hack exposed 1.2 million accounts.
  • Fidelity Digital Assets analyst Zach Wainwright notes that measuring a US house price in Bitcoin shows a 90% decline since 2020, revealing dollar debasement rather than real appreciation.
  • The host argues Bitcoin's value is most clearly reflected when compared to a stable asset like arable land, as both have fixed, unexpandable supplies.
  • Total stablecoin supply grew by over 50% in 2025, reaching about $317 billion by April according to the Federal Reserve. EU officials worry about dollar tokens flooding Europe.
  • Sony Bank received conditional OCC approval to establish a US national trust bank subsidiary capitalized at $40 million, aiming to issue a dollar stablecoin for games and anime payments.
  • Kraken's parent company won $22 million in arbitration against auditor Mazars USA, which abandoned a nearly finished audit during Operation Choke Point 2.0, causing reputational damage.

AI & Tech (1)

  • A crypto user lost $1 million to an Ethereum phishing token approval scam. Scam Sniffer reports phishing losses totaled $723 million across 248 incidents in 2025 alone.