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The other side of this coin is all the companies and infrastructure that has popped up, which intentionally or not enables the laundering of ill-gotten cryptocu

by jmyeet 2y ago

The other side of this coin is all the companies and infrastructure that has popped up, which intentionally or not enables the laundering of ill-gotten cryptocurrency [1]. I have a hard time feeling sympathy here because I consider cryptocurrency to be fundamentally silly. Reversible transactions of fiat currency transactions is a feature not a bug. I feel like securing something like this is practically impossible. There's always the risk of a bad actor who introduces malware for a small fee. [1]: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2024-crypto-money-laundering/ https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2024-crypto-money-launderin...

tremarley 2y ago
Reversible transactions is a feature for fiat money Reversible transactions would generally be a bug regarding cash & hard assets of which cryptocurrency is trying to imitate.
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  Crypto has reversible transactions when both parties agree to use that functionality in advance (well, the reasonably programmable ones do, anyway) It's not a bug if both parties give consent, which sounds like a wonderful way to transact, to me!
  - toss1 2y ago
    But, when you REALLY want reversibility is when the transaction is done without your consent — when stuff is stolen and you want it back. Thieves will not tend to consent to reversible transactions.
    - staplers 2y ago
      On the contrary, thieves often use chargebacks to steal from small businesses.
      - toss1 2y ago
        Sure, but they don't want transactions YOU/WE can reverse... We all want: "Reversing for me, but not for thee"
- victorbjorklund 2y ago
  1.5 billion in cash would not disappear this easy. You would need trucks to even transport it.
  - FabHK 2y ago
    Indeed. If you sell a suitcase of cocaine, you need to launder two suitcases of cash.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  it can still be still hard to reverse fiat even if easier than crypto. try disputing a wire. this is why you should always use a credit card, preferably Amex, for purchases-tons of buyer protection.
idiotsecant 2y ago
Is cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility)
- jmyeet 2y ago
  Keeping $1.5 billion in cash is silly.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  Crypto is like having a $1.5 billion bill.
- tempay 2y ago
  It’s also impossible to steal from afar and transactions of $100/$1000000/$1000000000 each look very different.
- acdha 2y ago
  Orders of magnitude matter, and you have to look at the overall system. You can’t move $1.5B in cash without a fleet of trucks and a lot of time, and serious banking has lots of safeguards around it to prevent thefts by requiring more people to cooperate on an insider theft. Cryptocurrency was designed as a political statement rather than a serious banking system so you effectively have the same level of precaution for both large and small amounts, akin to a bank keeping a billion dollars in the teller’s tray.
- dan_linder 2y ago
  > Is cash silly? No, of course not. Adjusting your comment for the situation: > Is $100.00 in cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility) No, not silly if that's what I am comfortable to keep on me (wallet, mattress, etc) and I'm mugged/robbed most people will recover. (Especially if you're also able to afford the inherent risk of crypto.) > Is $1,500,000,000.00 in cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility) YES! And probably a challenge for most humans even if you're able to get that cash in the limited US $100,000.00 bill [1] - that's 15,000 green slips of paper. (I'm making a bold assumption that this link [2] is reasonably actually for the physical scale, though this apparently only shows 13,000 not the 15,000 needed.) They effectively treated the $1.5B like a pile of cash in a fence with a few (easily pickable apparently) locks keeping it shut. That SHOULD have been in a 100% offline, air gapped system with multiple levels of 2+ person approvals to access. But this failure implies to me that even THEY didn't really consider the crypto assets they were holding as something with a real value either. 1- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-thousand-dollar_bill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-th... 2- https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/GHNABiJh6A https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/GHNABiJh6A
yokem55 2y ago
Reversibility is a trade-off. It's great if you are on the sending end of a transaction. It can be a nightmare on the receiving end. Irreversibility is the other way around. And both approaches have different costs and assumptions.
- acdha 2y ago
  I think it’s less about reversibility itself and more the larger system within which it works. Banking works because the companies agree to follow rules so there’s a social context where if I make a mistake you will help fix it because the odds are fair that you will make a mistake at some point, too. In contrast, cryptocurrency is a political movement so the ideological “trust less” purity test matters more than whether the system is actually used. There is no technical reason why a system couldn’t have something like a settlement period to allow fraud reversal.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    A settlement period wouldn't even run against the ideology, only the convenience factor (and implementation complexity, and perhaps transaction fees). More generally, I think a number of the issues with crypto are rooted in things happening immediately.
    - acdha 2y ago
      The ideology I was referring to was more of the trust-less design and “be your own bank” philosophy: many of these problems become easier if you have a third party who can do things like reverse transactions, but then you’re not getting rid of banks and are acknowledging that governments have power over the system. They do anyway, but there’s been a lot of desire to say otherwise.
      - fc417fc802 2y ago
        An algorithmically enforced settlement period where the final result of the entire transaction is visible on the chain but reversible by either party doesn't seem like it would run against that ideology.

by jmyeet 2y ago

tremarley 2y ago

Reversible transactions is a feature for fiat money Reversible transactions would generally be a bug regarding cash & hard assets of which cryptocurrency is trying to imitate.

idiotsecant 2y ago
Crypto has reversible transactions when both parties agree to use that functionality in advance (well, the reasonably programmable ones do, anyway) It's not a bug if both parties give consent, which sounds like a wonderful way to transact, to me!
- toss1 2y ago
  But, when you REALLY want reversibility is when the transaction is done without your consent — when stuff is stolen and you want it back. Thieves will not tend to consent to reversible transactions.
  - staplers 2y ago
    On the contrary, thieves often use chargebacks to steal from small businesses.
    - toss1 2y ago
      Sure, but they don't want transactions YOU/WE can reverse... We all want: "Reversing for me, but not for thee"
victorbjorklund 2y ago
1.5 billion in cash would not disappear this easy. You would need trucks to even transport it.
- FabHK 2y ago
  Indeed. If you sell a suitcase of cocaine, you need to launder two suitcases of cash.
paulpauper 2y ago
it can still be still hard to reverse fiat even if easier than crypto. try disputing a wire. this is why you should always use a credit card, preferably Amex, for purchases-tons of buyer protection.

idiotsecant 2y ago

Is cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility)

jmyeet 2y ago
Keeping $1.5 billion in cash is silly.
UltraSane 2y ago
Crypto is like having a $1.5 billion bill.
tempay 2y ago
It’s also impossible to steal from afar and transactions of $100/$1000000/$1000000000 each look very different.
acdha 2y ago
Orders of magnitude matter, and you have to look at the overall system. You can’t move $1.5B in cash without a fleet of trucks and a lot of time, and serious banking has lots of safeguards around it to prevent thefts by requiring more people to cooperate on an insider theft. Cryptocurrency was designed as a political statement rather than a serious banking system so you effectively have the same level of precaution for both large and small amounts, akin to a bank keeping a billion dollars in the teller’s tray.
dan_linder 2y ago
> Is cash silly? No, of course not. Adjusting your comment for the situation: > Is $100.00 in cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility) No, not silly if that's what I am comfortable to keep on me (wallet, mattress, etc) and I'm mugged/robbed most people will recover. (Especially if you're also able to afford the inherent risk of crypto.) > Is $1,500,000,000.00 in cash silly? It has the same property (non-reversibility) YES! And probably a challenge for most humans even if you're able to get that cash in the limited US $100,000.00 bill [1] - that's 15,000 green slips of paper. (I'm making a bold assumption that this link [2] is reasonably actually for the physical scale, though this apparently only shows 13,000 not the 15,000 needed.) They effectively treated the $1.5B like a pile of cash in a fence with a few (easily pickable apparently) locks keeping it shut. That SHOULD have been in a 100% offline, air gapped system with multiple levels of 2+ person approvals to access. But this failure implies to me that even THEY didn't really consider the crypto assets they were holding as something with a real value either. 1- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-thousand-dollar_bill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_one-hundred-th... 2- https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/GHNABiJh6A https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/GHNABiJh6A

yokem55 2y ago

Reversibility is a trade-off. It's great if you are on the sending end of a transaction. It can be a nightmare on the receiving end. Irreversibility is the other way around. And both approaches have different costs and assumptions.

acdha 2y ago
I think it’s less about reversibility itself and more the larger system within which it works. Banking works because the companies agree to follow rules so there’s a social context where if I make a mistake you will help fix it because the odds are fair that you will make a mistake at some point, too. In contrast, cryptocurrency is a political movement so the ideological “trust less” purity test matters more than whether the system is actually used. There is no technical reason why a system couldn’t have something like a settlement period to allow fraud reversal.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  A settlement period wouldn't even run against the ideology, only the convenience factor (and implementation complexity, and perhaps transaction fees). More generally, I think a number of the issues with crypto are rooted in things happening immediately.
  - acdha 2y ago
    The ideology I was referring to was more of the trust-less design and “be your own bank” philosophy: many of these problems become easier if you have a third party who can do things like reverse transactions, but then you’re not getting rid of banks and are acknowledging that governments have power over the system. They do anyway, but there’s been a lot of desire to say otherwise.
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      An algorithmically enforced settlement period where the final result of the entire transaction is visible on the chain but reversible by either party doesn't seem like it would run against that ideology.