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A public ledger provides greater protection against money laundering and other criminal activities than a paper currency does This is not true, especiall

by 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.
    - badge 8y ago
      Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility so as to discredit their target ShapeShift was setup without any KYC/AML or login, thus it facilitated automation. More obviously, the entire ecosystem is designed for money laundering. As evident the previous post, and any rudimentary search will turn up countless results on services or guides on using native wallet apps for Bitcoin or Monereo to mix and launder wallet addresses.

by badge 8y ago

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.
  - badge 8y ago
    Sealioning (also spelled sea-lioning and sea lioning) is a type of trolling or harassment which consists of pursuing people with persistent requests for evidence or repeated questions, while maintaining a pretense of civility so as to discredit their target ShapeShift was setup without any KYC/AML or login, thus it facilitated automation. More obviously, the entire ecosystem is designed for money laundering. As evident the previous post, and any rudimentary search will turn up countless results on services or guides on using native wallet apps for Bitcoin or Monereo to mix and launder wallet addresses.