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Such risks as "being able to devalue one's currency" ? A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than

by yasp 8y ago

Such risks as "being able to devalue one's currency" ? A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than a paper currency does.

21 8y ago
They are using the US dollar. They can't devalue it.
- yasp 8y ago
  Ostensibly if you adopt a digital currency you are no longer using the US dollar.
  - dragandj 8y ago
    How are you going to trade with other countries? Are oil exporters going to accept your tropical-coin in exchange for gasoline? I doubt...
    - UncleEntity 8y ago
      They could trade their currency for dollars like every other country which doesn't use dollars locally?
      - buckminster 8y ago
        Poor countries get dollars by selling stuff. They can sell their local currency to visitors but no-one else wants it.
badge 8y ago
A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than a paper currency does This is not true, especially when it comes to larger amounts. For example, laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies was easily achieved though services such as ShapeShift which up until recently had no KYC/AML paper trail. If someone wants to launder millions of dollars in physical cash, they would need a business acting as a "front" which could be scrutinized to an audit. The Bitcoin network allows anyone to move millions of dollars across the world without any in-person meetings, and without the approval of any financial institutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/bitcoin-russian-hacking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/bitcoin-russia... The Russians also created Bitcoins themselves through the process known as mining, the indictment said. This detail is particularly interesting, because if we assume state sponsored spies with a technical understanding of how the internet and the Bitcoin protocol works, that this sort of transaction could be untraceable to the source and so it would be safe to assume their operation was discovered though other forensics outside of blockchain records.
- DennisP 8y ago
  The point of laundering money with a front business is to make it look like it has a legitimate source (e.g. carwash customers). Using Shapeshift just obscured the source of your funds, which is a completely different thing and doesn't help you convince a bank to keep your account open.
- npongratz 8y ago
  > ... laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies was easily achieved though services such as ShapeShift ... I'd like to request a source on that. It was my understanding that ShapeShift limited trade sizes, so moving large amounts was difficult, impractical, slow, and exposed to a lot of market value risk.
  - badge 8y ago
    Any basic search within the Bitcoin community and you'll find many many guides and services for Bitcoin money laundering: https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptocoinMixing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptocoinMixing/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=436467.0;all https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=436467.0;all https://darknetmarkets.org/a-simple-guide-to-safely-and-effectively-mixing-bitcoins/ https://darknetmarkets.org/a-simple-guide-to-safely-and-effe... https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2699/is-there-any-ether-mixer-tumbler-available https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2699/is-there-a... Vitalik Buterin himself has attempted a money laundering feature into the Ethereum Virtual Machine codebase: https://github.com/ethereum/serpent/blob/develop/examples/ecc/ringsig.se https://github.com/ethereum/serpent/blob/develop/examples/ec... Another famous way to launder money as described in this post from a moderator on BitcoinTalk dated August 22, 2013, 02:32:31 AM [ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0 ] , is to give Bitcoin to a mining pool in return for renting their hashpower, in return for freshly minted coins: https://www.nicehash.com/buy https://www.nicehash.com/buy
    - npongratz 8y ago
      Please forgive me if I'm being dense, but I was asking for a source to the claim that ShapeShift (in particular, since you singled them out above) could "easily" be used to launder "millions of dollars." After reading through these links, I'm still not convinced. Only one link you listed mentions ShapeShift, which to some credit, suggests a theoretical, many-step, multi-blockchain process for using ShapeShift in such a way. My understanding still hasn't changed that "moving large amounts [with ShapeShift before AML/KYC] was difficult, impractical, slow, and exposed to a lot of market value risk," but I'm interested in evidence to the contrary.

by yasp 8y ago

Such risks as "being able to devalue one's currency" ? A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than a paper currency does.

21 8y ago

They are using the US dollar. They can't devalue it.

yasp 8y ago
Ostensibly if you adopt a digital currency you are no longer using the US dollar.
- dragandj 8y ago
  How are you going to trade with other countries? Are oil exporters going to accept your tropical-coin in exchange for gasoline? I doubt...
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    They could trade their currency for dollars like every other country which doesn't use dollars locally?
    - buckminster 8y ago
      Poor countries get dollars by selling stuff. They can sell their local currency to visitors but no-one else wants it.

badge 8y ago

A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than a paper currency does This is not true, especially when it comes to larger amounts. For example, laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies was easily achieved though services such as ShapeShift which up until recently had no KYC/AML paper trail. If someone wants to launder millions of dollars in physical cash, they would need a business acting as a "front" which could be scrutinized to an audit. The Bitcoin network allows anyone to move millions of dollars across the world without any in-person meetings, and without the approval of any financial institutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/bitcoin-russian-hacking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/bitcoin-russia... The Russians also created Bitcoins themselves through the process known as mining, the indictment said. This detail is particularly interesting, because if we assume state sponsored spies with a technical understanding of how the internet and the Bitcoin protocol works, that this sort of transaction could be untraceable to the source and so it would be safe to assume their operation was discovered though other forensics outside of blockchain records.

DennisP 8y ago
The point of laundering money with a front business is to make it look like it has a legitimate source (e.g. carwash customers). Using Shapeshift just obscured the source of your funds, which is a completely different thing and doesn't help you convince a bank to keep your account open.
npongratz 8y ago
> ... laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies was easily achieved though services such as ShapeShift ... I'd like to request a source on that. It was my understanding that ShapeShift limited trade sizes, so moving large amounts was difficult, impractical, slow, and exposed to a lot of market value risk.
- badge 8y ago
  Any basic search within the Bitcoin community and you'll find many many guides and services for Bitcoin money laundering: https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptocoinMixing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptocoinMixing/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=436467.0;all https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=436467.0;all https://darknetmarkets.org/a-simple-guide-to-safely-and-effectively-mixing-bitcoins/ https://darknetmarkets.org/a-simple-guide-to-safely-and-effe... https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2699/is-there-any-ether-mixer-tumbler-available https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2699/is-there-a... Vitalik Buterin himself has attempted a money laundering feature into the Ethereum Virtual Machine codebase: https://github.com/ethereum/serpent/blob/develop/examples/ecc/ringsig.se https://github.com/ethereum/serpent/blob/develop/examples/ec... Another famous way to launder money as described in this post from a moderator on BitcoinTalk dated August 22, 2013, 02:32:31 AM [ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0 ] , is to give Bitcoin to a mining pool in return for renting their hashpower, in return for freshly minted coins: https://www.nicehash.com/buy https://www.nicehash.com/buy
  - npongratz 8y ago
    Please forgive me if I'm being dense, but I was asking for a source to the claim that ShapeShift (in particular, since you singled them out above) could "easily" be used to launder "millions of dollars." After reading through these links, I'm still not convinced. Only one link you listed mentions ShapeShift, which to some credit, suggests a theoretical, many-step, multi-blockchain process for using ShapeShift in such a way. My understanding still hasn't changed that "moving large amounts [with ShapeShift before AML/KYC] was difficult, impractical, slow, and exposed to a lot of market value risk," but I'm interested in evidence to the contrary.