4 ms·

I hate on crypto any chance I get, but crypto has damn near a monopoly in facilitating black and/or grey market electronic transactions. It is very in demand,

I hate on crypto any chance I get, but crypto has damn near a monopoly in facilitating black and/or grey market electronic transactions. It is very in demand, for instance, in helping dictators evade sanctions, or helping criminals extort or trade illegally.

DANmode 2y ago
I suppose you could count Venezuelans going hungry as "criminals". But I wouldn't.
- demondemidi 2y ago
  Oh god this gets trotted out every time someone points out the evil that crypto facilitates. Give it a rest. It pales in comparison and there are many other solutions that your argument conveniently ignores.
  - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
    The vast majority of bitcoin use is legal. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29396/w29396.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29396/w293... > For example, illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume. Sure there's the odd dumb criminal who doesn't understand the prosecutorial implications of an immutable public ledger. But it pales in comparison, according to the actual data.
    - evilfred 2y ago
      wash trading is rampant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-12/wash-trading-is-rampant-on-decentralized-crypto-exchanges https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-12/wash-trad...
    - unusualmonkey 2y ago
      I love how you quote that, but not other lines like: "We first document that 90% of transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain is not tied to economically meaningful activities". How much of the actually meaningful use is legal? E.g. buying good and services, not evading laws, regulations, sales taxes etc.
      - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
        Moving the goalposts. GP was only talking about illegal activity. But since you brought it up - Global GDP is $101T. Global yearly forex volume is $2738T. So by this logic you should conclude that 96% of transaction volume in the traditional financial system is also not tied to economically meaningful activities. You're going to be disappointed if you want to believe society as a whole is any less financialized than bitcoin. What do you think would be an acceptable percentage of speculation? https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics/ https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
        unusualmonkey 2y ago
        I think it's absurd to say that only say 3% of crypto transactions are criminal, if the majority of other transactions are meaningless. Surely what we actually care about is how many useful, legal, meaningful transactions there are. For example if for every 1 legal transaction there is 3 illegal transactions and 96 speculative or maintenance transactions... it starts looking like this is predominantly for criminal uses even though only 3% of transactions are criminal.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      Yes, because most of the transfers happening are speculative investment trades, arbitrage, etc. People moving money around, without paying for anything. That source says, when it comes to the demand in terms of spending crypto for goods or services: > 46% of transactions are due to illegal transactions
      - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
        The 46% is a quote from an obsoleted paper, and it then goes on to explain why their methodology was flawed.
        kube-system 2y ago
        It’s a difference of opinion between the authors. If Bob transfers $10 back and forth between both of his bank accounts 99 times and then buys $10 worth of crack, would you say that 1% of Bobs money was used for illegal purposes or 100% of it was used for illegal purposes? Depends on what specifically you're trying to measure. There are two things here that are simultaneously true: 1. A small percent of BTC transactions are for illicit purposes. 2. A large percentage of the goods and services purchased with BTC are illicit.
  - DANmode 2y ago
    Which solution(s) competed with Bitcoin for those Venezuelans? Why didn't you name one?
- kube-system 2y ago
  BTC doesn't have a $1.3T market cap because of the utility it has in buying beans in Venezuela. Of course, people there may use it for that purpose, but that demand is a negligible part of the overall demand for cryptocurrencies.
- evilfred 2y ago
  oh sure, crypto is an entirely benevolent effort to feed the starving around the world
- csomar 2y ago
  In the Western world, a "criminal" is any person not conforming to the government mandated system of work and transactions.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being "technically correct, the best kind of correct" or trying to actually specify the definition. Actual definition: In the Western world, a "criminal" is any person tried and convicted of breaking the law. Your definition is, however, correct for how it sometimes works and how "they" would like it to work. (where your use of the word "mandate" means "whichever direction the wind is currently blowing").
shakow 2y ago
> in helping dictators evade sanctions Let's be realistic here, most of dictators evading sanctions do it (i) with good ol' bags of $/€/CHF/£, (ii) gold/platinum/diamonds/..., (iii) whatever ad-hoc currency satisfies the two parties (promises, shares, goods, ...); in short everything but traceable-in-the-open digital currencies where most of the in/egress feature mandatory KYC. If you believe e.g. that the US/EU firms still doing business in Russia are doing it in ETH/BTC, I have a port in Serbia to sell you.
- kube-system 2y ago
  That's why I specified 'electronic'. Moving physical items around the globe is obviously within the ability of an independent state, but it has logistical overhead. ETH/BTC is comparatively cheap to move.
  - shakow 2y ago
    But dictators don't want electronic things – especially the one whose very design imply them being fully traceable such as ETH/BTC. If you are in the circles where having to move $10M illegally is a common occurrence, paying a guy $10k to take a train between Russia and China with a bag of cash and bribe the border guards another $10k is much better than trying to weasel your way through the KYC process of Coinbase.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      No dictator is using Coinbase. Often they get their digital currencies directly, through other illicit activities. e.g. theft, scams, malware, etc.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Part of the reason that the US Government has been trying for the last few years to squash it is because it's threatening the US Dollar's hegemony in, cough, international trade. If you're buying illegal black market shit, you're darn well gonna do it using the Red, White, and Blue's Green! This is also proof of cryptocurrency's use-case as a method of value transfer (ie. currency). Crime and porn are the traditional testing grounds for new disruptive technologies. I remember this thing called the Internet...
- soco 2y ago
  Are you trying to say the initial internet was created and tested for crime and porn? This is major news to me...
seventyone 2y ago
You're making this up. Doing illegal transactions on a public ledger where the off ramps are all KYC makes it easier for them to trace criminal activity than the traditional international banking systems.

DANmode 2y ago

I suppose you could count Venezuelans going hungry as "criminals". But I wouldn't.

demondemidi 2y ago
Oh god this gets trotted out every time someone points out the evil that crypto facilitates. Give it a rest. It pales in comparison and there are many other solutions that your argument conveniently ignores.
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago
  The vast majority of bitcoin use is legal. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29396/w29396.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29396/w293... > For example, illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume. Sure there's the odd dumb criminal who doesn't understand the prosecutorial implications of an immutable public ledger. But it pales in comparison, according to the actual data.
  - evilfred 2y ago
    wash trading is rampant https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-12/wash-trading-is-rampant-on-decentralized-crypto-exchanges https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-12/wash-trad...
  - unusualmonkey 2y ago
    I love how you quote that, but not other lines like: "We first document that 90% of transaction volume on the Bitcoin blockchain is not tied to economically meaningful activities". How much of the actually meaningful use is legal? E.g. buying good and services, not evading laws, regulations, sales taxes etc.
    - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
      Moving the goalposts. GP was only talking about illegal activity. But since you brought it up - Global GDP is $101T. Global yearly forex volume is $2738T. So by this logic you should conclude that 96% of transaction volume in the traditional financial system is also not tied to economically meaningful activities. You're going to be disappointed if you want to believe society as a whole is any less financialized than bitcoin. What do you think would be an acceptable percentage of speculation? https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics/ https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD
      - unusualmonkey 2y ago
        I think it's absurd to say that only say 3% of crypto transactions are criminal, if the majority of other transactions are meaningless. Surely what we actually care about is how many useful, legal, meaningful transactions there are. For example if for every 1 legal transaction there is 3 illegal transactions and 96 speculative or maintenance transactions... it starts looking like this is predominantly for criminal uses even though only 3% of transactions are criminal.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Yes, because most of the transfers happening are speculative investment trades, arbitrage, etc. People moving money around, without paying for anything. That source says, when it comes to the demand in terms of spending crypto for goods or services: > 46% of transactions are due to illegal transactions
    - fallingsquirrel 2y ago
      The 46% is a quote from an obsoleted paper, and it then goes on to explain why their methodology was flawed.
      - kube-system 2y ago
        It’s a difference of opinion between the authors. If Bob transfers $10 back and forth between both of his bank accounts 99 times and then buys $10 worth of crack, would you say that 1% of Bobs money was used for illegal purposes or 100% of it was used for illegal purposes? Depends on what specifically you're trying to measure. There are two things here that are simultaneously true: 1. A small percent of BTC transactions are for illicit purposes. 2. A large percentage of the goods and services purchased with BTC are illicit.
- DANmode 2y ago
  Which solution(s) competed with Bitcoin for those Venezuelans? Why didn't you name one?
kube-system 2y ago
BTC doesn't have a $1.3T market cap because of the utility it has in buying beans in Venezuela. Of course, people there may use it for that purpose, but that demand is a negligible part of the overall demand for cryptocurrencies.
evilfred 2y ago
oh sure, crypto is an entirely benevolent effort to feed the starving around the world
csomar 2y ago
In the Western world, a "criminal" is any person not conforming to the government mandated system of work and transactions.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  I'm not sure if you're being "technically correct, the best kind of correct" or trying to actually specify the definition. Actual definition: In the Western world, a "criminal" is any person tried and convicted of breaking the law. Your definition is, however, correct for how it sometimes works and how "they" would like it to work. (where your use of the word "mandate" means "whichever direction the wind is currently blowing").

shakow 2y ago

> in helping dictators evade sanctions Let's be realistic here, most of dictators evading sanctions do it (i) with good ol' bags of $/€/CHF/£, (ii) gold/platinum/diamonds/..., (iii) whatever ad-hoc currency satisfies the two parties (promises, shares, goods, ...); in short everything but traceable-in-the-open digital currencies where most of the in/egress feature mandatory KYC. If you believe e.g. that the US/EU firms still doing business in Russia are doing it in ETH/BTC, I have a port in Serbia to sell you.

kube-system 2y ago
That's why I specified 'electronic'. Moving physical items around the globe is obviously within the ability of an independent state, but it has logistical overhead. ETH/BTC is comparatively cheap to move.
- shakow 2y ago
  But dictators don't want electronic things – especially the one whose very design imply them being fully traceable such as ETH/BTC. If you are in the circles where having to move $10M illegally is a common occurrence, paying a guy $10k to take a train between Russia and China with a bag of cash and bribe the border guards another $10k is much better than trying to weasel your way through the KYC process of Coinbase.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    No dictator is using Coinbase. Often they get their digital currencies directly, through other illicit activities. e.g. theft, scams, malware, etc.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago

Part of the reason that the US Government has been trying for the last few years to squash it is because it's threatening the US Dollar's hegemony in, cough, international trade. If you're buying illegal black market shit, you're darn well gonna do it using the Red, White, and Blue's Green! This is also proof of cryptocurrency's use-case as a method of value transfer (ie. currency). Crime and porn are the traditional testing grounds for new disruptive technologies. I remember this thing called the Internet...

soco 2y ago
Are you trying to say the initial internet was created and tested for crime and porn? This is major news to me...

seventyone 2y ago

You're making this up. Doing illegal transactions on a public ledger where the off ramps are all KYC makes it easier for them to trace criminal activity than the traditional international banking systems.