"I haven't read the main article you're disagreeing with..."
The links are in the second stanza, or (as I write this) the most recent two articles in @dan's blog (click on @dan).
There are now many blockchains in the world, having many different properties. Although a blockchain per-se is a "public ledger" that is open to observations, some are intentionally designed as part of systems that have built-in privacy mechanisms. And of course you can publish encrypted information inside blocks on the chain.
As far as I understand him (which is certainly far from completely) Dan is promoting the idea that we should reveal everything about our activity and our finances in the design of our systems. He has what appears to me to be a very naive notion that if both government and citizen are completely transparent, we'll all get along fine...
"It's already a little uncomfortable how we need to submit legal documentation to exchanges (though I know it's for security purposes or w/e)"
You are absolutely right to be uncomfortable about this. Despite what you've been told, it is not for "security purposes," it is so the Powers That Shouldn't Be can track your every move, rob you, and control you for their own evil self-serving purposes. The whole "security" thing is merely their pretext.
Thanks for explaining. For some reason, as I was reading it, my brain was translating it to going to the beach. Normally, people can wear full gear clothes when they go there (normal banking). If they want to swim, they change into swim wear (crypto). No privacy got translated as going full-on naked swimming. I think, I'd like to keep some privacy lol.
I think the government would have.. er.. a field day not having to exert extra effort in stalking everyone else. And still, even if it's not the government, I'm not much of a fan of making it easier for people to stalk other people x.x
Imagine if all those information gathered got leaked :/ Scary stuff but what can we do? There are barriers that have yet to be broken down.