The first time I've heard of this SWISE thing was when I asked someone what the point was of holding 27 ETH and just barely miss the 32 ETH minimum which then enables you to stake it, and he then told me he was already staking about half of that on StakeWise. I mean, just why? If you just scramble another 5 ETH your rewards are higher and your risk much lower. "Nah, too complicated" he told me. Ah yes, creature comforts is indeed also a thing. You see, nowadays you can also "stake" your crypto very easily on Binance with very low minimum holding requirements. Very convenient right? Just ask crypto holders from Iran, Venezuela or Russia how much easier entrusting these centralized third parties have made things for them.

But you know something, Binance, Coinbase, Kucoin etc. aren't painting themselves as being decentralized. They have to KYC and even have a record of shamelessly blocking people with borderline racist explanations:

But this StakeWise actually labels themselves "non custodial" and "decentralized" and displays DEXes on their site as they proudly proclaim they are "integrated with all sort of DeFi apps".

At first I thought "great, finally an alternative to holding a ton of ETH or untrustworthy CEXes.....so what's the catch?". Seriously, I actually asked that before staking a single sat with them, and after just 10 minutes of research, well, you be the judge:

This was actually a new one to me. I've heard OpenSea state they had to abide by US sanctions because they were based in the US and would otherwise suffer the consequences, but a so called "decentralized" staking platform that abides by US, English and EU sanctions is truly astounding. Do you think they have this up on their site solely as a precaution so that EU or US government officials won't crack down on them? How long you think before they 'a la' OpenSea block wallets, IPs or even staked funds from Cubans, Russians, Iranians, Venezuelans or in StakeWise's case due to unilateral English sanctions even block the Lebanese? And remember OpenSea was a "decentralized" app as well.

But wait, it actually gets worse. StakeWise's founder actually had the audacity to ask about "diversity" regarding Ethereum and it's 32 ETH minium requirement to stake directly with them.

Here are Ethereum.org it's terms and restrictions, compare this to the 💩show of StakeWise and what they.....you know what, you be the judge again:

In closing I'd like to say do whatever you yourself feel is right, if you like StakeWise or see potential in their SWISE coin and think their terms can not affect you in any way then by all means go for it, but as always I have to stress don't think it can't happen to you just because your country is not on the list (yet). If they are willing and capable to block millions of people with no excuse, they are willing and capable to block you as well, just give them time, sooner or later it'll creep closer to you. Maybe it was that truckers protest you once send some crypto to, maybe it was your relative's money laundering that now also made you a suspect, or maybe your spouse is of X origin and you are now considered a liability. These are not just some examples I pulled from a hat, these things have already been happening in our world for decades. And I don't care how many of these examples I have to write about, when they are going in against the fundamentals of Bitcoin, then g*****amit, I will be there to expose them for what they are. I'm sorry Tsumak but this is not what crytpo and most certainly not what Bitcoin is about. Bitcoin's own whitepaper clearly states it is about "allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party" and I dare anyone who disagrees to show me where in the whitepaper it says "unless that party is on a Western sanction list".