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Even with a public ledger, it's harder to trace than, for example, forcing someone to wire the cash via the traditional banking system. With banking systems, e

Even with a public ledger, it's harder to trace than, for example, forcing someone to wire the cash via the traditional banking system. With banking systems, each bank account has a unique address (private, but they'll cooperate with the government and police easily, and are experienced doing so), and that address is associated with a real person... and it operates slowly, which means the police can easily catch up to transactions. A transaction that crosses country boundaries has more scrutiny and takes longer, giving the police even more time and information. Crypto has public unique addresses (public keys), but there's no requirement any of them have names associated with them, and most don't. It operates more quickly than large bank wires, and easily crosses international borders. I'm not a fan of crypto, but even with public ledgers, it's less traceable and more anonymous than normal banks of most (all?) countries.

arghwhat 1y ago
The lack of borders makes it more traceable as you don't run your head against a different jurisdiction bring unwilling to provide data. There's a lot of creative criminals though, and a lot of questionable creative crypto solutions that cater far too well to them.
SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago
One key component being alluded to here is that banks are legally required to know who you are (KYC). And there are consequences if they don’t. That alone makes a huge difference in everything having to do with the traditional banking system.
- geoffmunn 1y ago
  That's only a post-9/11 requirement, so it's not really part of the 'traditional' banking system.
  - Kbelicius 1y ago
    Following your logic there never will be and there never was a traditional banking system because rules and regulation around banking keep getting changed.
eru 1y ago
> Even with a public ledger, it's harder to trace than, for example, forcing someone to wire the cash via the traditional banking system. Not really. From the comfort of my home, I as a member of the general public can trace any, say, bitcoin transaction I feel like, and work on de-anonymising it. And not only today's transactions, but all bitcoin transactions ever. To trace bank transfers, you need to be part of established law enforcement and have something like a warrant. (Or whatever the legal requirements are in your country.) The transfer might go via multiple countries with different rules and perhaps less enthusiastic authorities. And the data might get lost.

arghwhat 1y ago

The lack of borders makes it more traceable as you don't run your head against a different jurisdiction bring unwilling to provide data. There's a lot of creative criminals though, and a lot of questionable creative crypto solutions that cater far too well to them.

SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago

One key component being alluded to here is that banks are legally required to know who you are (KYC). And there are consequences if they don’t. That alone makes a huge difference in everything having to do with the traditional banking system.

geoffmunn 1y ago
That's only a post-9/11 requirement, so it's not really part of the 'traditional' banking system.
- Kbelicius 1y ago
  Following your logic there never will be and there never was a traditional banking system because rules and regulation around banking keep getting changed.

eru 1y ago

> Even with a public ledger, it's harder to trace than, for example, forcing someone to wire the cash via the traditional banking system. Not really. From the comfort of my home, I as a member of the general public can trace any, say, bitcoin transaction I feel like, and work on de-anonymising it. And not only today's transactions, but all bitcoin transactions ever. To trace bank transfers, you need to be part of established law enforcement and have something like a warrant. (Or whatever the legal requirements are in your country.) The transfer might go via multiple countries with different rules and perhaps less enthusiastic authorities. And the data might get lost.