4 ms·

The reality on the ground speaks for itself.

rvz 4y ago
The reality being that it is much harder to cash out funds from crypto into fiat without leaving a single trace. Hardly benefits criminals, scammers, etc.
- root_axis 4y ago
  If you want to make purchases on the darknet cryptocurrency is your only option.
  - rvz 4y ago
    My point is, even if they use it, it is close to impossible to send, convert and cash out the crypto into fiat without leaving a single trace once it hits the exchange. This is not 2009.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]" Other sources, more devoted to "this is good for crypto, actually" say the percentage is tiny-tiny, apparently by counting every transfer between any two addresses, including several that might all be related to a single real-life transaction. They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year. 0. https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/ https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/ 1. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-introduction/ https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...
  - rvz 4y ago
    > "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]" Yet in the same source: > The main problem for drug dealers using crypto is to turn their income into cash. This move remains complicated and insecure. Most cryptocurrency exchanges have instruments to define whether a transaction is coming from a suspicious source like the darknet. The rise of Monero use in the online drug market will hinder such tracking. However, for the reasons listed above, crypto is unlikely to completely replace regular cash in drug sales in the foreseeable future. This doesn't refute my point of this activity being traceable as soon as it hits the exchange. Even if the cryptocurrency is a privacy coin, many exchanges have delisted such coins, making it extremely difficult and quite terrible for criminals and scammers to cash out into fiat without them leaving a trace and the authorities subsequently identifying and catching them afterwards. > They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year. $14 billion in illicit transaction volume out of $15.6 trillion in overall transaction volume at the time of the report is tiny, but is still a problem, but with most of the transactions being traceable for the authorities / exchanges to catch the criminals and scammers. I mean, compared with the trillions of illicit funds freely moving around by the banks, it seems criminals and fraudsters still benefitted more from that whilst the banks would rather pay the fines than solving the problem. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-fil... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-suspicious-activity-reports-buzzfeed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-sus...

rvz 4y ago

The reality being that it is much harder to cash out funds from crypto into fiat without leaving a single trace. Hardly benefits criminals, scammers, etc.

root_axis 4y ago
If you want to make purchases on the darknet cryptocurrency is your only option.
- rvz 4y ago
  My point is, even if they use it, it is close to impossible to send, convert and cash out the crypto into fiat without leaving a single trace once it hits the exchange. This is not 2009.
pwinnski 4y ago
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]" Other sources, more devoted to "this is good for crypto, actually" say the percentage is tiny-tiny, apparently by counting every transfer between any two addresses, including several that might all be related to a single real-life transaction. They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year. 0. https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/ https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/ 1. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-introduction/ https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...
- rvz 4y ago
  > "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]" Yet in the same source: > The main problem for drug dealers using crypto is to turn their income into cash. This move remains complicated and insecure. Most cryptocurrency exchanges have instruments to define whether a transaction is coming from a suspicious source like the darknet. The rise of Monero use in the online drug market will hinder such tracking. However, for the reasons listed above, crypto is unlikely to completely replace regular cash in drug sales in the foreseeable future. This doesn't refute my point of this activity being traceable as soon as it hits the exchange. Even if the cryptocurrency is a privacy coin, many exchanges have delisted such coins, making it extremely difficult and quite terrible for criminals and scammers to cash out into fiat without them leaving a trace and the authorities subsequently identifying and catching them afterwards. > They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year. $14 billion in illicit transaction volume out of $15.6 trillion in overall transaction volume at the time of the report is tiny, but is still a problem, but with most of the transactions being traceable for the authorities / exchanges to catch the criminals and scammers. I mean, compared with the trillions of illicit funds freely moving around by the banks, it seems criminals and fraudsters still benefitted more from that whilst the banks would rather pay the fines than solving the problem. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-fil... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-suspicious-activity-reports-buzzfeed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-sus...