4 ms·

The issue with money laundering in the real world isn't the technical difficulty. It's easy as pie to launder cash if you ignore the laws surrounding it. I'd i

The issue with money laundering in the real world isn't the technical difficulty. It's easy as pie to launder cash if you ignore the laws surrounding it. I'd imagine that if Bitcon becomes prevalent, governments would ask you to "voluntarily" declare your "salary" wallet. And then if they spotted any sort of suspicious laundering-like activity happening from that wallet, they would very quickly obtain warrants and show up at your door asking for an explanation.

oleganza 13y ago
Government would still have to set up a center of "approving" unknown money coming from other sources into local economy. These centers, as you can expect, will be massively bribed by everyone who needs to launder their tainted coins. Also, governments will be much more limited in power when they can't print their money at will and do any "deficit spending".
- JSZZHlmumeUE 13y ago
  unknown money coming from other sources into local economy These centers actually exist even today. I personally know places where you can buy dollars using the local currency for something like a 10% discount on the market rate. They are obviously very shady and aren't used by anyone close to being respectable. If you use them and are big enough to matter, expect to be screwed over by law enforcement pretty much the instant they feel like getting you. governments will be much more limited in power when they can't print their money at will I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here. And governments can easily take over the bitcoin network tomorrow if they wanted to, simply because the ability of Intel, IBM, AMD/GF, NVIDIA and the big semiconductor manufacturers to build really efficient mining ASICs vastly outstrips that of everyone else. And companies like Intel have nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping the US government happy if they requests come in from the top. Again the analogy with cash is relevant. There is really very little technically difficult about printing counterfeit cash. I mean there's not even cryptography involved - it's just security by obscurity! The reason people don't do it is because governments clamp down on this activity very hard through law-enforcement mechanisms. Similarly, if the governments thought bitcoin was important enough to regulate, they'd be able to do it in an instant simply they have guns and we don't.
  - badinker 13y ago
    "I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here." This, is where I stopped reading.
    - keeganpoppen 13y ago
      This is where the comma should be in that sentence. (nowhere)
      - eagsalazar2 13y ago
        Very useless pov. Thanks for sharing. Nothing is more irritating in the middle of a good conversation than someone who rebuts by nitpicking grammar.
        icebraining 13y ago
        "This is where I stopped reading ” is never good conversation.
  - oleganza 13y ago
    > I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here. You are confusing ethical argument with an economical one. I was talking economics, not ethics. Governments get a lot of power from ability to print money and censor transactions. Bitcoin removes these sources of power to a high degree regardless of whether it's good or bad. Like, when the internet got huge, moral question of whether people should be exposed to "evil books" or not becomes irrelevant. If one wants to read a book you think is not appropriate, he will do so anyway. Governments printing ASICs to spam the network... That's the most expensive way to attack Bitcoin. If anyone ever gets to it, it simply means that BTC is already established in many places and widely used and very valuable. Governments would love to extract that BTC for their spendings instead of killing it. Like it happened with gold: in theory, gold is superior to printed fiat currency, but it isn't killed, it's confiscated and used as a hard currency among those who can afford keeping it secure: governments and banks, not you and me.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  So is this like in reality or a fantasy?
sliverstorm 13y ago
How would that help? You declare your "salary" wallet, your salary flows from your day job. You run your underworld schemes in another wallet, and ne'r the two do meet.
- wdvh 13y ago
  How do you propose to spend money from your underworld wallet to buy real things - say to buy a car - without revealing your identity to the merchant? And once your identity is out in the open, how do you propose to evade the undisclosed income investigation that will be inevitably follow.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    It depends on how much your underground wallet holds. There was that guy who was successful for many years, laundering dollar bills in person. If you buy a BMW, your identity will be noted and the transaction recorded. If you buy a bagel sandwich, the clerk will forget about you by noon the next day. So if it's small potatoes, you could be fine. If you have a ton of cash to move, you are right- in person becomes a bad option. That's when you go back to the basics- you launder the money, like every big-time criminal in history.
  - raldi 13y ago
    Same way the mafia does it: with a front. "Oh, sure, some guy came in and placed a huge catering order. $10,000 worth of food. Paid in BTC. I never saw him again."
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

oleganza 13y ago

Government would still have to set up a center of "approving" unknown money coming from other sources into local economy. These centers, as you can expect, will be massively bribed by everyone who needs to launder their tainted coins. Also, governments will be much more limited in power when they can't print their money at will and do any "deficit spending".

JSZZHlmumeUE 13y ago
unknown money coming from other sources into local economy These centers actually exist even today. I personally know places where you can buy dollars using the local currency for something like a 10% discount on the market rate. They are obviously very shady and aren't used by anyone close to being respectable. If you use them and are big enough to matter, expect to be screwed over by law enforcement pretty much the instant they feel like getting you. governments will be much more limited in power when they can't print their money at will I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here. And governments can easily take over the bitcoin network tomorrow if they wanted to, simply because the ability of Intel, IBM, AMD/GF, NVIDIA and the big semiconductor manufacturers to build really efficient mining ASICs vastly outstrips that of everyone else. And companies like Intel have nothing to lose and everything to gain by keeping the US government happy if they requests come in from the top. Again the analogy with cash is relevant. There is really very little technically difficult about printing counterfeit cash. I mean there's not even cryptography involved - it's just security by obscurity! The reason people don't do it is because governments clamp down on this activity very hard through law-enforcement mechanisms. Similarly, if the governments thought bitcoin was important enough to regulate, they'd be able to do it in an instant simply they have guns and we don't.
- badinker 13y ago
  "I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here." This, is where I stopped reading.
  - keeganpoppen 13y ago
    This is where the comma should be in that sentence. (nowhere)
    - eagsalazar2 13y ago
      Very useless pov. Thanks for sharing. Nothing is more irritating in the middle of a good conversation than someone who rebuts by nitpicking grammar.
      - icebraining 13y ago
        "This is where I stopped reading ” is never good conversation.
- oleganza 13y ago
  > I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here. You are confusing ethical argument with an economical one. I was talking economics, not ethics. Governments get a lot of power from ability to print money and censor transactions. Bitcoin removes these sources of power to a high degree regardless of whether it's good or bad. Like, when the internet got huge, moral question of whether people should be exposed to "evil books" or not becomes irrelevant. If one wants to read a book you think is not appropriate, he will do so anyway. Governments printing ASICs to spam the network... That's the most expensive way to attack Bitcoin. If anyone ever gets to it, it simply means that BTC is already established in many places and widely used and very valuable. Governments would love to extract that BTC for their spendings instead of killing it. Like it happened with gold: in theory, gold is superior to printed fiat currency, but it isn't killed, it's confiscated and used as a hard currency among those who can afford keeping it secure: governments and banks, not you and me.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
So is this like in reality or a fantasy?

sliverstorm 13y ago

How would that help? You declare your "salary" wallet, your salary flows from your day job. You run your underworld schemes in another wallet, and ne'r the two do meet.

wdvh 13y ago
How do you propose to spend money from your underworld wallet to buy real things - say to buy a car - without revealing your identity to the merchant? And once your identity is out in the open, how do you propose to evade the undisclosed income investigation that will be inevitably follow.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  It depends on how much your underground wallet holds. There was that guy who was successful for many years, laundering dollar bills in person. If you buy a BMW, your identity will be noted and the transaction recorded. If you buy a bagel sandwich, the clerk will forget about you by noon the next day. So if it's small potatoes, you could be fine. If you have a ton of cash to move, you are right- in person becomes a bad option. That's when you go back to the basics- you launder the money, like every big-time criminal in history.
- raldi 13y ago
  Same way the mafia does it: with a front. "Oh, sure, some guy came in and placed a huge catering order. $10,000 worth of food. Paid in BTC. I never saw him again."

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]