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The Economist has an excellent and heartbreaking podcast about this scam industry that they estimate at $500bn annually, but it's available to subscribers only
by FabHK 2y ago
The Economist has an excellent and heartbreaking podcast about this scam industry that they estimate at $500bn annually, but it's available to subscribers only I believe.
Crypto use cases:
1. Financing North Korea's nuclear missile program
2. Harrowing scams
- walterbell 2y agoIs it this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUg-cLVhv-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUg-cLVhv-4
- FabHK 2y agoYes: https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc https://www.economist.com/audio/podcasts/scam-inc
- immibis 2y ago3 is "doing anything the government doesn't like", which includes, for example, buying drugs, or funding protests against mass murder.
- mvdtnz 2y agoYes, it's true that crime is a third major category of use cases.
- int0x29 2y agoIt's much better at scamming and funding weapons programs than protest or disobedience because crypto transactions are non reversable but tend to leave a lot of tracks behind. If persons involved are anywhere that they can be arrested or intimidated they will be.
- Spivak 2y agoI swear, have y'all bought drugs? You don't need crypto to do it, dealers take Venmo. Hell, the lady I get very much not legal shrooms from has a Shopify site. I get a receipt in my email, a tracking number, and she asks to rate her shop 5 stars. Saying that this is a use-case for crypto implies a level of drug enforcement that simply doesn't exist.
- DecentShoes 2y agoDark web vendors do not take any form of payment other than cryptocurrency.
- maleldil 2y agoYou don't need dark web vendors. Normal web has plenty.
- Acrobatic_Road 2y agoJust send me a package. I want nothing to do with IRL drug-dealers.
- tartoran 2y agoThe alternative is not necessarily better: scammers.
- Acrobatic_Road 2y agoI'd rather get scammed than stabbed.
- Spivak 2y agoWell yeah, vegetarians only accept food without meat. You've already limited yourself to a subset of dealers who are privacy and tech nerds, of course they only take crypto. You can use crypto to buy drugs on the "dark web" but like all crypto things it's not a system for the masses. I had to explain E2EE one of my friends who thought Snapchat was better than iMessage for buying drugs because it "deletes" the message. There's no universe she's gonna figure out crypto.
- nicoburns 2y agoI think the "dark web" is where many of the dealers get the drugs from. A "wholesale" market where your local dealer is the "retailer" if you like.
- rurp 2y agoA permanent immutable ledger can be a pretty big negative when commiting crimes within your own country, such as purchasing drugs.
- reaperman 2y agoXMR helps immensely with that.
- jnsaff2 2y agoNumber Go Up book also has couple of chapters on those and how they are tied into the whole crypto business[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Go_Up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_Go_Up
- suraci 2y ago> Financing North Korea's nuclear missile program ...hail hydra
- AlexeyBelov 2y agoLook, this is the nth time you reply like this. Most of your comments are not productive. You've been on HN long enough to know better, so step up.
- cjrp 2y agoAnother recommendation for a related podcast, an episode of "The Rest is Classified" [0] talking about North Korea's attempt to steal $1B from the central bank of Bangladesh. [0] https://podfollow.com/1780384916/episode/f35cdceabf691d505ebd3e951610f8c3e8c64609/view https://podfollow.com/1780384916/episode/f35cdceabf691d505eb...