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The latter point isn't necessarily as crazy as it sounds. I remember there was something about money laundering through Second Life currency. In the end, does i
by IgorPartola 9y ago
The latter point isn't necessarily as crazy as it sounds. I remember there was something about money laundering through Second Life currency. In the end, does it really matter how you do it, if it works?
Your first point is a little funny, until you remember all those people who also kept saying that BTC isn't the only thing and replacing fiat currency isn't the only goal. I don't see a problem with it, other than being somewhat wasteful.
- colechristensen 9y agoTide laundry detergent is a popular black market currency http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/ http://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/
- nwatson 9y agoPrisoners use >> cans of mackerel << as currency: https://www.wired.com/2011/01/st_prisoncurrencies/ https://www.wired.com/2011/01/st_prisoncurrencies/ .
- ryanlol 9y ago>I remember there was something about money laundering through Second Life currency. I don't think this was ever actually a thing, some people just speculated about the possibility.
- mustacheemperor 9y agoBoth WOW Gold and Second Life "linden dollars" were and are major black market currency tools online. A cursory google search would prove your statement quite false but here's some sources anyway: https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2014/03/26/bitcoins-not-tax-fairy-dust-second-life-still-a-tax-haven/#2e35de606615 https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2014/03/26/bitcoin... http://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-online http://www.wired.co.uk/article/money-laundering-online
- ryanlol 9y agoNeither of those articles contains anything even hinting towards my statement being false. Their contents are merely speculation. I've got a decent amount of experience with this, and I'm certain there's never been any large scale money laundering activity using Linden dollars. The idea is simply ridiculous, the economy isn't large enough to support it.
- mustacheemperor 9y agoSorry, was the arxiv paper[0] linked in the Wired article not sufficient? I'm not regional expert on this subject myself so if you've got contrary information I'd be interested in reading it. It's my assumption Wow's economy is much larger than SL's, and I'd also assume that in aggregate these different digital economies are more than large enough to hide transactions. That's speculation on my own part, though, and if you have any actual evidence other than claiming "decent experience" I'm interested. I'm not sure what the definition of "large scale money laundering" is in this situation. [0][https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1310/1310.2368.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1310/1310.2368.pdf
- ryanlol 9y agoDid you actually look at the paper? The primary sources are videogame cheating forums like Ownedcore, not really where I'd go for money laundering advice. The posts seem to be mostly related to laundering stolen ingame money, not funds acquired elsewhere. There's also one entirely speculative post (again from a videogame cheating forum) proposing a completely unrealistic, and ridiculously expensive approach to money laundering by buying and reselling videogame money. The paper seems to have been written by mostly clueless people with little understanding of these communities or money laundering.
- mustacheemperor 9y agoYou've sufficiently attacked the source, but I'll reiterate that I'm not looking to pick a fight here, I'm asking for actual evidence or even a supportive argument for what you're saying. I've heard for many years that money laundering is common with online currencies, but as I've said I'm not an expert. If you're that much less clueless and have more understanding please share it. There's a lot of discussion in crypto threads that assumes the opposite of what you're saying so it'd be nice to have the tools to disprove incorrect assumptions. Bitcoin mixing is also pretty expensive but people still do it, and prior to bitcoin or bitcoin mixing existing presumably people were using a more expensive alternative.
- lgierth 9y agoAre whoppers a scarce resource?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- IgorPartola 9y agoDo they have to be?
- pjmorris 9y agoScarcer than US dollars.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y agoThe Heinlein prediction of Crazy Years and "barter-only hamburgers" is a bit later to come around than originally projected, but the curve does not seem totally wrong ...