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Tons of crime flows through completely auditable sources: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks htt

Tons of crime flows through completely auditable sources: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-fil... Right now, what's happening is a few mega power brokers are traceable, unaccountable, and untouchable by the people. Pretending that crypto somehow creates or enables crime when its sitting right under our noses (as our governments refuse to do anything about it), is frankly ridiculous.

arcticbull 6y ago
- Bitcoin is auditable. - Traditional sources actually at least try and stop it from happening.
- ethanwillis 6y ago
  Traditional sources only try to stop it from happening if the scale is small enough. Basically traditional sources just incentivize organized crime that's less accountable to the justice system until they piss off the wrong people. Look at Deutsche bank.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Isn't it better to at least try and stop it instead of throwing in the towel? Can we agree that if something is bad, someone trying to stop it is better than not trying to stop it at all?
- lawn 6y ago
  Banks are complicit and profit immensely from helping criminals launder huge amounts of money. They helped Mexican drug gangs launder $378 billions for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico... And they just get slapped with a small fee, then continue with the same behavior.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Again, that's an argument for improving the existing system not throwing it out and letting anyone launder any amount of money they want to isnt it? - We agree money laundering is bad. - We agree that the existing system is attempting to solve the problem, but isn't always effective. - You're saying: throw it all out and let anyone launder anything they want. - I'm saying that's strictly worse. Let's shore up the existing system and try and take it on.
    - lawn 6y ago
      My point was that the existing system (the banks) aren't trying to solve the problem so it's almost completely ineffective. And the argument is that there comes a point when the drawbacks of trying to stop it becomes larger than the benefits we gain, and we should therefore do something else that gives us more benefits. You might argue that we're not there yet, which is fine, but others will argue that it's time to try something else.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        > You might argue that we're not there yet, which is fine, but others will argue that it's time to try something else. But can we agree that trying "nothing" isn't better?
        lawn 6y ago
        I might not be explaining myself clearly. By doing "nothing", we gain other things such as financial privacy for everyone and making digital payments available for everyone. These are not insignificant things and if they're more valuable than the inefficient anti-laundering attempts then doing "nothing" would indeed be better. Also we wouldn't truly be doing "nothing", we would only give up one traceability component and we can still chase crime in other ways, like requiring documents of where you got the money to buy this mansion.

arcticbull 6y ago

- Bitcoin is auditable. - Traditional sources actually at least try and stop it from happening.

ethanwillis 6y ago
Traditional sources only try to stop it from happening if the scale is small enough. Basically traditional sources just incentivize organized crime that's less accountable to the justice system until they piss off the wrong people. Look at Deutsche bank.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Isn't it better to at least try and stop it instead of throwing in the towel? Can we agree that if something is bad, someone trying to stop it is better than not trying to stop it at all?
lawn 6y ago
Banks are complicit and profit immensely from helping criminals launder huge amounts of money. They helped Mexican drug gangs launder $378 billions for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico... And they just get slapped with a small fee, then continue with the same behavior.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Again, that's an argument for improving the existing system not throwing it out and letting anyone launder any amount of money they want to isnt it? - We agree money laundering is bad. - We agree that the existing system is attempting to solve the problem, but isn't always effective. - You're saying: throw it all out and let anyone launder anything they want. - I'm saying that's strictly worse. Let's shore up the existing system and try and take it on.
  - lawn 6y ago
    My point was that the existing system (the banks) aren't trying to solve the problem so it's almost completely ineffective. And the argument is that there comes a point when the drawbacks of trying to stop it becomes larger than the benefits we gain, and we should therefore do something else that gives us more benefits. You might argue that we're not there yet, which is fine, but others will argue that it's time to try something else.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      > You might argue that we're not there yet, which is fine, but others will argue that it's time to try something else. But can we agree that trying "nothing" isn't better?
      - lawn 6y ago
        I might not be explaining myself clearly. By doing "nothing", we gain other things such as financial privacy for everyone and making digital payments available for everyone. These are not insignificant things and if they're more valuable than the inefficient anti-laundering attempts then doing "nothing" would indeed be better. Also we wouldn't truly be doing "nothing", we would only give up one traceability component and we can still chase crime in other ways, like requiring documents of where you got the money to buy this mansion.