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It’s becoming harder to believe crypto currencies are a good thing when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously. Anybody actually uses crypto

It’s becoming harder to believe crypto currencies are a good thing when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously. Anybody actually uses crypto for legal goods and services? I’m genuinely curious about it, I do want to be proven wrong, that crypto currency can be used for legal things. PS: just to be clear, not asking how crypto works, I’m quite familiar with it.

0xy 5y ago
Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous, and fiat currency is no shining star. HSBC and other major banks launder money for the drug cartels at billion dollar scale. Rather than white collar crime like ransomware, drug cartels actually kill and mutilate people. Nobody has gone to jail at those banks for enabling it, even when they violate laws in the process of facilitating those transactions.
- yccs27 5y ago
  Sorry, is there any real argument here? > Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous A lot of them are certainly hard to trace, and are specifically trying to be. > and fiat currency is no shining star Indeed, but we go to great lengths to make it hard to launder money, > HSBC and other major banks launder money for the drug cartels at billion dollar scale Some people go to great lengths to break the law. But why make it easy and enable even more people to do bad things? > Rather than white collar crime like ransomware, drug cartels actually kill and mutilate people. You think drug cartels won't use crypto? Ransomware gangs are likely just pioneers. If you want to make the case for crypto, argue its benefits (which I can certainly see). Or propose some means to keep its problems in check. But don't just deflect and point to problems elsewhere.
  - Forbo 5y ago
    Anti-money laundering efforts cost society orders of magnitude more overhead than it yields in preventions. https://twitter.com/hyc_symas/status/1432349042592395270 https://twitter.com/hyc_symas/status/1432349042592395270 Drug cartels are the result of draconian drug policy. If it weren't for these policies you wouldn't have people turning up dismembered in barrels of acid.
golergka 5y ago
Answer to this question depends on your view of ethicality of different activities that are considered "crime". If you were a libertarian, then both drug trade and tax evasion, although crimes in a legal sense, would be completely ethical.
rootsudo 5y ago
"It’s becoming harder to believe fiat cash is a good thing when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously." Fixed that for you.
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  I think the problem is the proportion.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    It's really not clear that crypto is disproportionately used for criminal activity, in fact there's evidence it might be less commonly used for criminal activity https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/?sh=73d08a303432 https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-fal...
    - debrice 5y ago
      In proportion, I can’t see 2% of the transactions being done for goods and services (since I can’t think of a place accepting crypto for payment)
      - maybe_pablo 5y ago
        On the contrary, nowadays you can buy several types of gift cards with crypto[0]. [0] https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/usa https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/usa
      - dkersten 5y ago
        Binance, wirex, crypto.com and others offer credit cards backed by cryptocurrency balances. Sure, technically, they sell the crypto for fiat as you use it, but to the user it’s the same as spending the cryptocurrency directly. And there are at least some online businesses that accept crypto, certainly security focused services like Mulvad and ProtonMail but I’ve occasionally seen it for other SaaS products too, although not too often.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
An argument could be made that the ability to move money shouldn't be restricted to the "law abiding". Governments not only have the power to restrict the movement of money but tax records and transaction details let them know 90% of the most important details about everyone. Additionally, sure without crypto there wouldn't wouldn't be these kinds of ransoms but the same attack could be used for terrorism/warfare. These ransoms just provide the incentive to develop solutions. A terrorist attack that had no option to decrypt the data could completely shut down entire countries.
- debrice 5y ago
  I believe this is a whole other debate (that I’m not willing to get into)… Still my question remains, this type of currency seems to be mostly benefiting criminals activities.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? I remember that. Governments do stupid things all the time, and Crypto currencies is a great technology to keep governments honest. Even if most activity remained illegal (It won't) it would STILL be a beneficent technology. This illegal business is done with or without crypto, regardless.
  - 1ibsq 5y ago
    I'd recommend stop using nazi analogies for the most part. Other than that, you need internet for your transactions. Guess who has the power to control the grid? Crypto does not make you independent in absolut terms. There might always be a way to access the internet, but only for those capable - and this won't be the one you're buying food from.
    - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
      >Guess who has the power to control the grid? For now. Top level domain registration has already moved to crypto. Elon is working on Starlink. Wireless data transfer technologies are coming for a peer based internet infrastructure.
vmception 5y ago
For the past 5 years or so I pay moderators, community managers, designers, marketers, and many other personnel in crypto. Usually stablecoins. I've also deployed vesting agreements for closer personnel. Software developers have basically always accepted crypto for services over the last decade, or ones that do have been easy to find. I've accepted capital in crypto for non-crypto hedge/PE funds, more and more fund administrators are very well adept in taking in-kind investments for subscriptions of new limited partners. Its more like having cell phone service in an underground subway station. When its not there you debate about it, when its there you just use it. One aspect that may be overlooked which is a high volume use case, is that international wires are being circumvented at unlimited amounts, converted to domestic wire transfers. The unlimited amounts aspect is something that Wise/Revolut/Paypal/Western Union cannot compete with in either capability, company policy, company interpretation of compliance, actual regulatory compliance, speed, or fees. For example, in the payment for services use case, instead of an international wire transfer taking multiple business days and being error prone by user error along with multiple banks and a random compliance officer, the recipient (me, or them) just does a domestic wire transfer if they want fiat currency, after the payment was received in crypto. The bank just has a locally KYC'd person receiving domestic funds from the same person's KYC'd account at the domestic crypto exchange, which has the capability of being a same-day transfers within the local monetary union. Its just a matter of convenience. The international wire system (SWIFT) is not an authority to defer to, if their circumvention makes you feel like something bad is happening. They're just there, and antiquated, and inconvenient. Despite what you may have heard about how amazing the Eurozone's SEPA system is, turns out that not that many people actually send between nations, where the reality is that instant or even same-day SEPA is heavily dependent upon the two banks involved, the two countries, and more. Infinite, unreliable, permutations. With crypto, people receive it all very fast, and they can decide what they want to do with it. Since they can also acquire goods and services and invest with crypto often times they don't want fiat money. Whether they do or don't, they all also have the choice of stable value, or merely a few minutes of exposure to volatile value. This reality amongst people that actually use it has simply trumped all conjecture.
- debrice 5y ago
  I’m curious regarding your employees: how do you deal with taxes and payrolls? Or is more like an “under the table” kinda situation?
olalonde 5y ago
Encrypted chat also allows them to communicate securely. Is it hard to see why encryption is a good thing? Personally, I'd rather give a bit more work to the police than have everyone give up on privacy.
- debrice 5y ago
  I guess a society would have to make financial exchanges a part of your private life but it opens up a whole other can of worms (how do you finance the institutions enabling your business to thrive if you can easily circumvent financial accountability ?)
smokey_circles 5y ago
This argument doesn't make sense to me, so I might make some terrible and unrelated points here. Bare with me please :) Is the argument stating that criminality is on the rise because of cryptocurrency? Or is it stating that criminality has a lower barrier of entry because of cryptocurrency? If it's neither, I'm curious to hear more, because both of those arguments are completely ludicrous. 1. Criminality is one of the oldest surviving professions. You will only unseat criminality with equality. Currency/Value controls don't work, period. See: HSBC and the Mexican Cartels trading avacados. Most criminal enterprises are smarter than legislators (because most legislators are idiots with a hyper focus on a small problem set). 2. I live in a developing nation. One of the most violent nations, in fact. Crypto doesn't even feature. They just move cash around. "We don't use cash" okay, but the "you" here is a tiny fragment of a world population and is a completely meaningless sentiment. Lots of people use cash, that is in fact one of the largest barriers crypto has to overcome: the digital divide. 3. Some silly man in one of the replies here said it's hard to move fiat currency around and not get caught. No sir, it's hard to move US Dollar around in the US and not get caught. Other than that: Happens all the time. Case in point: The shitstains that are the Guptas [0]. See also: Apple, Amazon and other large multinations and the obvious one of HSBC. Despite being caught, multiple times, HSBC still continues to operate. There's also a lot of bias happening here: Nobody is writing stories about legit crypto transactions. Just as they don't write stories about legit fiat transactions. Doesn't generate interest. We only hear about the negatives. "But crypto encourages ransomware" no, ransomware is just the latest incarnation of corporate extortion and it's been happening for decades, looong before crypto came about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family#Financial_transactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family#Financial_transac... --- Post edit: That comment about large multinationals is with regard to moving large sums of money around. That is how tax avoidance works, after all. It can also be moved to a country like mine, where you have all the financial freedom in the world because politicians and banking execs are very cheap here if you're paying in USD
conjectures 5y ago
> when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously. Pseudonymously. Cash in a bag is anonymous and very widely used by criminals. The other big difference is with the public ledger currencies the whole transaction history is visible, including to the authorities. Which is considerably more transparent than the current financial system with shell companies, tax havens etc etc. If you're familiar with this, why reiterate the old canard?
- z33k 5y ago
  Just use Monero or another crypto that also uses a ZKP algo to anonymize who sends what to whom.
  - conjectures 5y ago
    IIRC most of these stories are about bitcoin payments. If they switch to monero, sure that's different. But then we need to conduct the debate on the basis of different cryptos requiring different policy. Rather than saying crypto->criminal.
sildur 5y ago
I make litecoin money transfers from my Spanish account to my Argentinian account. In Argentina the exchange is manipulated by the government, and currency exchange between individuals is illegal. Since cryptocoins are not considered currency, they are in a grey area. If I were to do an international transfer it would be like 2/3 more expensive, not considering even fees.
swiley 5y ago
Hammers are the most common murder weapon, will you ban those? Crypto has its uses, I use it often and expect it will be used much more as the dollar collapses in the near future.
- duckmysick 5y ago
  Are they? Looking at the homicide data from the FBI [1] handguns are by far the most common weapon. 1 - https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
  - ourmandave 5y ago
    I was going to assume the OP lived somewhere with meaningful gun regulations, so hammers. But sadly "the dollar will collapse soon" means well regulated militia member instead.

0xy 5y ago

Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous, and fiat currency is no shining star. HSBC and other major banks launder money for the drug cartels at billion dollar scale. Rather than white collar crime like ransomware, drug cartels actually kill and mutilate people. Nobody has gone to jail at those banks for enabling it, even when they violate laws in the process of facilitating those transactions.

yccs27 5y ago
Sorry, is there any real argument here? > Cryptocurrencies are not anonymous A lot of them are certainly hard to trace, and are specifically trying to be. > and fiat currency is no shining star Indeed, but we go to great lengths to make it hard to launder money, > HSBC and other major banks launder money for the drug cartels at billion dollar scale Some people go to great lengths to break the law. But why make it easy and enable even more people to do bad things? > Rather than white collar crime like ransomware, drug cartels actually kill and mutilate people. You think drug cartels won't use crypto? Ransomware gangs are likely just pioneers. If you want to make the case for crypto, argue its benefits (which I can certainly see). Or propose some means to keep its problems in check. But don't just deflect and point to problems elsewhere.
- Forbo 5y ago
  Anti-money laundering efforts cost society orders of magnitude more overhead than it yields in preventions. https://twitter.com/hyc_symas/status/1432349042592395270 https://twitter.com/hyc_symas/status/1432349042592395270 Drug cartels are the result of draconian drug policy. If it weren't for these policies you wouldn't have people turning up dismembered in barrels of acid.

golergka 5y ago

Answer to this question depends on your view of ethicality of different activities that are considered "crime". If you were a libertarian, then both drug trade and tax evasion, although crimes in a legal sense, would be completely ethical.

rootsudo 5y ago

"It’s becoming harder to believe fiat cash is a good thing when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously." Fixed that for you.

markus_zhang 5y ago
I think the problem is the proportion.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  It's really not clear that crypto is disproportionately used for criminal activity, in fact there's evidence it might be less commonly used for criminal activity https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/?sh=73d08a303432 https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-fal...
  - debrice 5y ago
    In proportion, I can’t see 2% of the transactions being done for goods and services (since I can’t think of a place accepting crypto for payment)
    - maybe_pablo 5y ago
      On the contrary, nowadays you can buy several types of gift cards with crypto[0]. [0] https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/usa https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/usa
    - dkersten 5y ago
      Binance, wirex, crypto.com and others offer credit cards backed by cryptocurrency balances. Sure, technically, they sell the crypto for fiat as you use it, but to the user it’s the same as spending the cryptocurrency directly. And there are at least some online businesses that accept crypto, certainly security focused services like Mulvad and ProtonMail but I’ve occasionally seen it for other SaaS products too, although not too often.

KingMachiavelli 5y ago

An argument could be made that the ability to move money shouldn't be restricted to the "law abiding". Governments not only have the power to restrict the movement of money but tax records and transaction details let them know 90% of the most important details about everyone. Additionally, sure without crypto there wouldn't wouldn't be these kinds of ransoms but the same attack could be used for terrorism/warfare. These ransoms just provide the incentive to develop solutions. A terrorist attack that had no option to decrypt the data could completely shut down entire countries.

debrice 5y ago
I believe this is a whole other debate (that I’m not willing to get into)… Still my question remains, this type of currency seems to be mostly benefiting criminals activities.
WhisperingShiba 5y ago
Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? I remember that. Governments do stupid things all the time, and Crypto currencies is a great technology to keep governments honest. Even if most activity remained illegal (It won't) it would STILL be a beneficent technology. This illegal business is done with or without crypto, regardless.
- 1ibsq 5y ago
  I'd recommend stop using nazi analogies for the most part. Other than that, you need internet for your transactions. Guess who has the power to control the grid? Crypto does not make you independent in absolut terms. There might always be a way to access the internet, but only for those capable - and this won't be the one you're buying food from.
  - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
    >Guess who has the power to control the grid? For now. Top level domain registration has already moved to crypto. Elon is working on Starlink. Wireless data transfer technologies are coming for a peer based internet infrastructure.

vmception 5y ago

For the past 5 years or so I pay moderators, community managers, designers, marketers, and many other personnel in crypto. Usually stablecoins. I've also deployed vesting agreements for closer personnel. Software developers have basically always accepted crypto for services over the last decade, or ones that do have been easy to find. I've accepted capital in crypto for non-crypto hedge/PE funds, more and more fund administrators are very well adept in taking in-kind investments for subscriptions of new limited partners. Its more like having cell phone service in an underground subway station. When its not there you debate about it, when its there you just use it. One aspect that may be overlooked which is a high volume use case, is that international wires are being circumvented at unlimited amounts, converted to domestic wire transfers. The unlimited amounts aspect is something that Wise/Revolut/Paypal/Western Union cannot compete with in either capability, company policy, company interpretation of compliance, actual regulatory compliance, speed, or fees. For example, in the payment for services use case, instead of an international wire transfer taking multiple business days and being error prone by user error along with multiple banks and a random compliance officer, the recipient (me, or them) just does a domestic wire transfer if they want fiat currency, after the payment was received in crypto. The bank just has a locally KYC'd person receiving domestic funds from the same person's KYC'd account at the domestic crypto exchange, which has the capability of being a same-day transfers within the local monetary union. Its just a matter of convenience. The international wire system (SWIFT) is not an authority to defer to, if their circumvention makes you feel like something bad is happening. They're just there, and antiquated, and inconvenient. Despite what you may have heard about how amazing the Eurozone's SEPA system is, turns out that not that many people actually send between nations, where the reality is that instant or even same-day SEPA is heavily dependent upon the two banks involved, the two countries, and more. Infinite, unreliable, permutations. With crypto, people receive it all very fast, and they can decide what they want to do with it. Since they can also acquire goods and services and invest with crypto often times they don't want fiat money. Whether they do or don't, they all also have the choice of stable value, or merely a few minutes of exposure to volatile value. This reality amongst people that actually use it has simply trumped all conjecture.

debrice 5y ago
I’m curious regarding your employees: how do you deal with taxes and payrolls? Or is more like an “under the table” kinda situation?

olalonde 5y ago

Encrypted chat also allows them to communicate securely. Is it hard to see why encryption is a good thing? Personally, I'd rather give a bit more work to the police than have everyone give up on privacy.

debrice 5y ago
I guess a society would have to make financial exchanges a part of your private life but it opens up a whole other can of worms (how do you finance the institutions enabling your business to thrive if you can easily circumvent financial accountability ?)

smokey_circles 5y ago

This argument doesn't make sense to me, so I might make some terrible and unrelated points here. Bare with me please :) Is the argument stating that criminality is on the rise because of cryptocurrency? Or is it stating that criminality has a lower barrier of entry because of cryptocurrency? If it's neither, I'm curious to hear more, because both of those arguments are completely ludicrous. 1. Criminality is one of the oldest surviving professions. You will only unseat criminality with equality. Currency/Value controls don't work, period. See: HSBC and the Mexican Cartels trading avacados. Most criminal enterprises are smarter than legislators (because most legislators are idiots with a hyper focus on a small problem set). 2. I live in a developing nation. One of the most violent nations, in fact. Crypto doesn't even feature. They just move cash around. "We don't use cash" okay, but the "you" here is a tiny fragment of a world population and is a completely meaningless sentiment. Lots of people use cash, that is in fact one of the largest barriers crypto has to overcome: the digital divide. 3. Some silly man in one of the replies here said it's hard to move fiat currency around and not get caught. No sir, it's hard to move US Dollar around in the US and not get caught. Other than that: Happens all the time. Case in point: The shitstains that are the Guptas [0]. See also: Apple, Amazon and other large multinations and the obvious one of HSBC. Despite being caught, multiple times, HSBC still continues to operate. There's also a lot of bias happening here: Nobody is writing stories about legit crypto transactions. Just as they don't write stories about legit fiat transactions. Doesn't generate interest. We only hear about the negatives. "But crypto encourages ransomware" no, ransomware is just the latest incarnation of corporate extortion and it's been happening for decades, looong before crypto came about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family#Financial_transactions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gupta_family#Financial_transac... --- Post edit: That comment about large multinationals is with regard to moving large sums of money around. That is how tax avoidance works, after all. It can also be moved to a country like mine, where you have all the financial freedom in the world because politicians and banking execs are very cheap here if you're paying in USD

conjectures 5y ago

> when you see how it allows criminal to move money anonymously. Pseudonymously. Cash in a bag is anonymous and very widely used by criminals. The other big difference is with the public ledger currencies the whole transaction history is visible, including to the authorities. Which is considerably more transparent than the current financial system with shell companies, tax havens etc etc. If you're familiar with this, why reiterate the old canard?

z33k 5y ago
Just use Monero or another crypto that also uses a ZKP algo to anonymize who sends what to whom.
- conjectures 5y ago
  IIRC most of these stories are about bitcoin payments. If they switch to monero, sure that's different. But then we need to conduct the debate on the basis of different cryptos requiring different policy. Rather than saying crypto->criminal.

sildur 5y ago

I make litecoin money transfers from my Spanish account to my Argentinian account. In Argentina the exchange is manipulated by the government, and currency exchange between individuals is illegal. Since cryptocoins are not considered currency, they are in a grey area. If I were to do an international transfer it would be like 2/3 more expensive, not considering even fees.

swiley 5y ago

Hammers are the most common murder weapon, will you ban those? Crypto has its uses, I use it often and expect it will be used much more as the dollar collapses in the near future.

duckmysick 5y ago
Are they? Looking at the homicide data from the FBI [1] handguns are by far the most common weapon. 1 - https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- ourmandave 5y ago
  I was going to assume the OP lived somewhere with meaningful gun regulations, so hammers. But sadly "the dollar will collapse soon" means well regulated militia member instead.