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Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what y

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

Scoundreller 5y ago
What about drugs? Cheaper, less middlemen, higher quality, safer delivery. What’s not to like?
- joosters 5y ago
  Fewer middlemen? Now to buy from your dealer, you have to go via a marketplace, after converting your real money on an exchange. That's at least two other intermediaries...
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Your dealer… may just be buying online (and stepping on it). Depends on what they’re supplying. Something locally grown, ok, but overseas labs synthetics can involve a lot of middlemen.
rvz 5y ago
Easy. Criminals, extremists and fraudsters use Signal for E2EE communications and MobileCoin (an untraceable, privacy cryptocurrency) to fund it all. [0] It is what criminals and terrorists are using to make their activities impossible to trace. Got to thank MobileCoin for enabling that. [0] https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360057625692-In-app-Payments https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360057625692-In...
- nileshtrivedi 5y ago
  MobileCoin whitepaper didn't make any claims about untraceability, AFAIK.
  - rvz 5y ago
    What does 'No one except for the sender and receiver can see the details of the transaction.' with an encrypted blockchain tell you about MobileCoin's traceability?
notabotyet 5y ago
I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.
- dymk 5y ago
  It’s more that you found a legitimate use for Agent Orange.
  - 542458 5y ago
    Fun fact (and not to detract from your allegory), agent orange was widely used by Ontario Hydro from the fifties to late seventies to clear trees from around power lines. The people handling it weren’t really well-informed of what exactly it was or how dangerous it was, so there have been a number of lawsuits. I have an uncle who recalls being jokingly hosed down with the stuff on a hot day by a guy working a sprayer in the back of a truck. Whoops. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1048075 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1048075
    - Lascaille 5y ago
      Agent Orange isn't toxic (colloquially speaking) if it's manufactured properly and free of dioxins.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  And fiat money can be used to deal drugs. I mean I don't defend crypto, the way things are going is that they'll be just as regulated and centralized as digital fiat is, and a lot of it is people getting rich, or hoping to - I mean I'm one of those people, still waiting for my handful of dogecoin to go up 10.000% so I can retire. But I also have a regular job, regular savings, and regular stonks because savings account interest is a joke.
  - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
    The exchanges can be regulated, but good luck trying to regulate a global peer to peer network!
dcolkitt 5y ago
Keep in mind that "financial crimes" can mean very different things to very different regimes. In Nazi Germany, it was a "financial crime" for Jews to take any wealth with them when they emigrated.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it enables “good” crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive governments) is at odds with the hard facts that cryptocurrency is used for “bad” crimes far more often. Many orders of magnitude more often, in fact. I just can’t buy into these arguments that we should be overlooking these rampant frauds and crimes (like the multi-billion fraud in this article and many more like it) because it might hypothetically enable some oppressed people somewhere in the world to escape some government oppression. In these hypothetical scenarios, are we supposed to believe that the oppressive governments would just look the other way and let people transfer their wealth into crypto exchanges before fleeing? That would defeat the purpose of the government restrictions, so obviously not. Or are we supposed to believe that they moved all of their wealth into crypto and took it out of exchanges and into private wallets before the oppression? The crypto maximalists would love that because it would drive up crypto prices, but it’s not practical in a world where most people have their weath in assets like houses, cars, and diversified investments.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Actually yes assume those things happen and move the oppressive government further down the line to see a pro-crypto absurdity: Are we supposed to believe that crypto is magically cleaned when the oppressive government seizes it and uses it or resells it? for all purposes right now, thats true and no transaction flagging software is advanced enough to consider that yet. Woah woah that crypto came out of a mixer at some point in time!!! Thats used for “bad” crimes orders of magnitude more than “good crimes”, I think…. Oh nevermind, this passed through one of the seoveriegn washer addresses later, all good!”
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    > This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it enables “good” crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive governments) is at odds with the hard facts that cryptocurrency is used for “bad” crimes far more often. The Fifth Amendment is invoked far more often by actual criminals to hide their crimes than people avoiding government oppression. Doesn’t mean the Fifth should be abolished.
blueprint 5y ago
This is bullshit. People deserve a way to send money without middlemen and unfortunately that requires a means of attempting censorship resistance or at least consensus within a nearly arbitrarily adversarial network.
- malermeister 5y ago
  > People deserve a way to send money without middlemen Why? Please don't just make unfounded assertions.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    The free movement of capital is a long-established right in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Capital
    - malermeister 5y ago
      If you read what you linked, you'll find that this only applies for Euros within the Eurozone, with exceptions for capital controls in place.
    - lottin 5y ago
      That's the European single market. Single market means freedom of movement of goods and services, capital and labour. In other words, it's not just capital. And it applies to a small set of countries which all agree to having a number of common rules and regulations. And it's not without intermediaries.
  - neither_color 5y ago
    What's "deserved" is subjective, but I'll bite. People from countries that are fiscally irresponsible and have tight capital controls "deserve" access to an asset that, while volatile, gives them a better hedge than hyperinflation and can't effectively be blocked by their dysfunctional government. See Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and citizens of any country that has a black market exchange rate for dollars/euros(Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey). You could make the case that this is something for international organizations like the UN/IMF to solve, but, they don't on any timescale that's meaningful to the person whose weekly paycheck buys less bread every week. They already have access to the same information and websites we do(with a VPN), accessing a globally distributed and decentralized ledger is as fundamental as their right to access twitter/facebook. Americans and Europeans have very limited experience with hyperinflation and volatile currencies, plus we have robust banking/fin-tech sectors so of course we're more prone to scoff at the problems cryptos will solve.
dsco 5y ago
It could provide as a store and transpiration means of value in times of crisis. For instance some of the Ukrainian banks are now shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your wealth. Same thing applies for Russian citizens who have nothing to do with the war but will soon have their assets frozen. Did you consider all use cases before posting, or just glee at yet another anti crypto post on HN and thought “yay! I get to post something negative about crypto again today”?
- tomgp 5y ago
  didn’t bitcoin price take a nose dive when russia invaded? the opposite behaviour than what you’d want from a store of value
  - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
    Yeah, went from $35,000 each to $39,000... it's about a 8% increase or "nose dive" as you call it.
    - mgkimsal 5y ago
      And... 18 hrs prior to being at $35000 it was at.... wait for it... hang on... can you guess... ? $39000.
      - NeutronStar 5y ago
      - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
        We did it! War = good for crypto?
- scoopertrooper 5y ago
  You realise, if the banks go, so does the internet, right? https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497409488403505153 https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497409488403505153
deutschewelle 5y ago
What exactly is the valuable problem you are thinking in your head and how is it better solved by cryptocurrency and blockchain that can't already be done with existing methods, technologies and contractual agreements backed by various international treaties and dialectic tests for loopholes through thousands and thousands of years trading between countries, provinces, cities and entities?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jayd16 5y ago
  Read past the first sentence. Comment is tongue in cheek.

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

Scoundreller 5y ago

What about drugs? Cheaper, less middlemen, higher quality, safer delivery. What’s not to like?

joosters 5y ago
Fewer middlemen? Now to buy from your dealer, you have to go via a marketplace, after converting your real money on an exchange. That's at least two other intermediaries...
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Your dealer… may just be buying online (and stepping on it). Depends on what they’re supplying. Something locally grown, ok, but overseas labs synthetics can involve a lot of middlemen.

rvz 5y ago

Easy. Criminals, extremists and fraudsters use Signal for E2EE communications and MobileCoin (an untraceable, privacy cryptocurrency) to fund it all. [0] It is what criminals and terrorists are using to make their activities impossible to trace. Got to thank MobileCoin for enabling that. [0] https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360057625692-In-app-Payments https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360057625692-In...

nileshtrivedi 5y ago
MobileCoin whitepaper didn't make any claims about untraceability, AFAIK.
- rvz 5y ago
  What does 'No one except for the sender and receiver can see the details of the transaction.' with an encrypted blockchain tell you about MobileCoin's traceability?

notabotyet 5y ago

I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.

dymk 5y ago
It’s more that you found a legitimate use for Agent Orange.
- 542458 5y ago
  Fun fact (and not to detract from your allegory), agent orange was widely used by Ontario Hydro from the fifties to late seventies to clear trees from around power lines. The people handling it weren’t really well-informed of what exactly it was or how dangerous it was, so there have been a number of lawsuits. I have an uncle who recalls being jokingly hosed down with the stuff on a hot day by a guy working a sprayer in the back of a truck. Whoops. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1048075 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.1048075
  - Lascaille 5y ago
    Agent Orange isn't toxic (colloquially speaking) if it's manufactured properly and free of dioxins.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
And fiat money can be used to deal drugs. I mean I don't defend crypto, the way things are going is that they'll be just as regulated and centralized as digital fiat is, and a lot of it is people getting rich, or hoping to - I mean I'm one of those people, still waiting for my handful of dogecoin to go up 10.000% so I can retire. But I also have a regular job, regular savings, and regular stonks because savings account interest is a joke.
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  The exchanges can be regulated, but good luck trying to regulate a global peer to peer network!

dcolkitt 5y ago

Keep in mind that "financial crimes" can mean very different things to very different regimes. In Nazi Germany, it was a "financial crime" for Jews to take any wealth with them when they emigrated.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it enables “good” crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive governments) is at odds with the hard facts that cryptocurrency is used for “bad” crimes far more often. Many orders of magnitude more often, in fact. I just can’t buy into these arguments that we should be overlooking these rampant frauds and crimes (like the multi-billion fraud in this article and many more like it) because it might hypothetically enable some oppressed people somewhere in the world to escape some government oppression. In these hypothetical scenarios, are we supposed to believe that the oppressive governments would just look the other way and let people transfer their wealth into crypto exchanges before fleeing? That would defeat the purpose of the government restrictions, so obviously not. Or are we supposed to believe that they moved all of their wealth into crypto and took it out of exchanges and into private wallets before the oppression? The crypto maximalists would love that because it would drive up crypto prices, but it’s not practical in a world where most people have their weath in assets like houses, cars, and diversified investments.
- vmception 5y ago
  Actually yes assume those things happen and move the oppressive government further down the line to see a pro-crypto absurdity: Are we supposed to believe that crypto is magically cleaned when the oppressive government seizes it and uses it or resells it? for all purposes right now, thats true and no transaction flagging software is advanced enough to consider that yet. Woah woah that crypto came out of a mixer at some point in time!!! Thats used for “bad” crimes orders of magnitude more than “good crimes”, I think…. Oh nevermind, this passed through one of the seoveriegn washer addresses later, all good!”
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  > This idea that cryptocurrency is good because it enables “good” crimes (avoiding unjust oppressive governments) is at odds with the hard facts that cryptocurrency is used for “bad” crimes far more often. The Fifth Amendment is invoked far more often by actual criminals to hide their crimes than people avoiding government oppression. Doesn’t mean the Fifth should be abolished.

blueprint 5y ago

This is bullshit. People deserve a way to send money without middlemen and unfortunately that requires a means of attempting censorship resistance or at least consensus within a nearly arbitrarily adversarial network.

malermeister 5y ago
> People deserve a way to send money without middlemen Why? Please don't just make unfounded assertions.
- teddyh 5y ago
  The free movement of capital is a long-established right in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Capital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Single_Market#Capital
  - malermeister 5y ago
    If you read what you linked, you'll find that this only applies for Euros within the Eurozone, with exceptions for capital controls in place.
  - lottin 5y ago
    That's the European single market. Single market means freedom of movement of goods and services, capital and labour. In other words, it's not just capital. And it applies to a small set of countries which all agree to having a number of common rules and regulations. And it's not without intermediaries.
- neither_color 5y ago
  What's "deserved" is subjective, but I'll bite. People from countries that are fiscally irresponsible and have tight capital controls "deserve" access to an asset that, while volatile, gives them a better hedge than hyperinflation and can't effectively be blocked by their dysfunctional government. See Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and citizens of any country that has a black market exchange rate for dollars/euros(Argentina, Lebanon, Turkey). You could make the case that this is something for international organizations like the UN/IMF to solve, but, they don't on any timescale that's meaningful to the person whose weekly paycheck buys less bread every week. They already have access to the same information and websites we do(with a VPN), accessing a globally distributed and decentralized ledger is as fundamental as their right to access twitter/facebook. Americans and Europeans have very limited experience with hyperinflation and volatile currencies, plus we have robust banking/fin-tech sectors so of course we're more prone to scoff at the problems cryptos will solve.

dsco 5y ago

It could provide as a store and transpiration means of value in times of crisis. For instance some of the Ukrainian banks are now shutdown. If you had crypto you could access your wealth. Same thing applies for Russian citizens who have nothing to do with the war but will soon have their assets frozen. Did you consider all use cases before posting, or just glee at yet another anti crypto post on HN and thought “yay! I get to post something negative about crypto again today”?

tomgp 5y ago
didn’t bitcoin price take a nose dive when russia invaded? the opposite behaviour than what you’d want from a store of value
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  Yeah, went from $35,000 each to $39,000... it's about a 8% increase or "nose dive" as you call it.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    And... 18 hrs prior to being at $35000 it was at.... wait for it... hang on... can you guess... ? $39000.
    - NeutronStar 5y ago
    - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
      We did it! War = good for crypto?
scoopertrooper 5y ago
You realise, if the banks go, so does the internet, right? https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497409488403505153 https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497409488403505153

deutschewelle 5y ago

What exactly is the valuable problem you are thinking in your head and how is it better solved by cryptocurrency and blockchain that can't already be done with existing methods, technologies and contractual agreements backed by various international treaties and dialectic tests for loopholes through thousands and thousands of years trading between countries, provinces, cities and entities?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jayd16 5y ago
Read past the first sentence. Comment is tongue in cheek.