It's not anonymous, but pseudononymous. It's a public ledger, for everyone to copy and analyze. It's a public ledger that's mathematically proven to not have mistakes in it.
Exchanges are highly regulated. KYC is rediculously tight.
Sure, Bitcoin allows one to flee/fly to some criminals' paradise with their entire wealth stored in their brain (or on a napkin). And as long as they keep the money in crypto or black, it's unstoppable, really.
But it's a terrible medium to turn black money into white money. One of the worst of all options, really. And that's what laundering is.
Now, it's used for laundering. But that's more because its a great and easy store of value in itself. Not because a public, tracable ledger without any anonymity other than pseudonimity is a great system for laundering, because it's the exact opposite of that.
And certainly, if you mix in monero, defi, otc-trades and -there they are- "corrupt bankers", crypto as a whole can turn black money into white, circumvent blockades, fund terrorism and whatnot. But hardly easier or simpler than paper-money, gold, and corrupt bankers already can.
> But it's a terrible medium to turn black money into white money.
Isn't that what NFTs are for?
Create a stupid image, sell it on Open Sea as an NFT, bam, you've cleaned the money. Just claim it on your taxes similar to selling art and you're in the clear.
How does "creating an image and selling it" clean black money? It's not as if creating it comes with great costs that could be funded with black money, right?
Isn't the scheme that you then buy it from yourself, or via a proxy, somehow?
Nobody wants US greenbacks. You can't even use them to stay warm for long.
What people want is the value it represents in a way they can manage that value.
I don't want fictional numbers in some asset fund that say I own zero point not not not 1 percent of some company in stocks either. Or even numbers that say I have money on an account. I don't want gold in my sock-drawer, either. It's the value this represents (and the trust that this value will give me real stuff that I actually need, like a pizza, in future).
Bitcoin, to many, over the years, has acquired this too. There's real and obvious proof that people trust that Bitcoin has value. Not all people. But enough.
It is unstoppable, permissionless and pseudomic. All but the last is indeed this criminals dream.
But cash isn't pseudonomic, it's actually anonymous. It's even (practically) untracable. Cash is also unstoppable and permissionless. So it's far more a criminal's dream.
Cash, however, isn't easy to transfer, especially larger values. It gets harder even if that transfer is internationally. Bitcoin solves that.
Bitcoin's upside of being very easy to transfer, sometimes outweigh its downside of being hard to launder, being tracable.
But let's stop the myth that it's so much better than all existing systems to move criminal assets around, because it's not. It's complementary, not a holy grail. It really has a lot of weaknesses, especially to criminals' needs.
What is making you think criminals are scared of pseudonyms, or that pseudonyms don’t provide all the real and practical benefits of anonymity most of the time? It’s not a myth that a lot of crime involves BTC right now, it’s a fact, regardless of the theoretical underpinnings or hypothetical weaknesses.
Cash comes with serial numbers, and occasionally gets traced. It’s about as effective as tracing pseudonyms, most of the time.
It is not.
It's not anonymous, but pseudononymous. It's a public ledger, for everyone to copy and analyze. It's a public ledger that's mathematically proven to not have mistakes in it.
Exchanges are highly regulated. KYC is rediculously tight.
Sure, Bitcoin allows one to flee/fly to some criminals' paradise with their entire wealth stored in their brain (or on a napkin). And as long as they keep the money in crypto or black, it's unstoppable, really.
But it's a terrible medium to turn black money into white money. One of the worst of all options, really. And that's what laundering is.
Now, it's used for laundering. But that's more because its a great and easy store of value in itself. Not because a public, tracable ledger without any anonymity other than pseudonimity is a great system for laundering, because it's the exact opposite of that.
And certainly, if you mix in monero, defi, otc-trades and -there they are- "corrupt bankers", crypto as a whole can turn black money into white, circumvent blockades, fund terrorism and whatnot. But hardly easier or simpler than paper-money, gold, and corrupt bankers already can.
> But it's a terrible medium to turn black money into white money.
Isn't that what NFTs are for?
Create a stupid image, sell it on Open Sea as an NFT, bam, you've cleaned the money. Just claim it on your taxes similar to selling art and you're in the clear.
How does "creating an image and selling it" clean black money? It's not as if creating it comes with great costs that could be funded with black money, right?
Isn't the scheme that you then buy it from yourself, or via a proxy, somehow?
1 reply →
So why is basically all ransomware paid in Bitcoin?
That's not laundering. That's getting paid.
If you want to transfer money in a way that's unblockable, unceasable, and pseudonomic, Bitcoin is a good system.
If you want to then convert that into dollars, it's not.
Ransomware is paid in Bitcoin despite it being terrible to launder.
Nobody wants some silly digital "coin". Everyone wants US greenbacks.
Nobody wants US greenbacks. You can't even use them to stay warm for long.
What people want is the value it represents in a way they can manage that value.
I don't want fictional numbers in some asset fund that say I own zero point not not not 1 percent of some company in stocks either. Or even numbers that say I have money on an account. I don't want gold in my sock-drawer, either. It's the value this represents (and the trust that this value will give me real stuff that I actually need, like a pizza, in future).
Bitcoin, to many, over the years, has acquired this too. There's real and obvious proof that people trust that Bitcoin has value. Not all people. But enough.
3 replies →
It's great for transferring ransoms. Basically a criminal's dream coming true.
It is unstoppable, permissionless and pseudomic. All but the last is indeed this criminals dream.
But cash isn't pseudonomic, it's actually anonymous. It's even (practically) untracable. Cash is also unstoppable and permissionless. So it's far more a criminal's dream. Cash, however, isn't easy to transfer, especially larger values. It gets harder even if that transfer is internationally. Bitcoin solves that.
Bitcoin's upside of being very easy to transfer, sometimes outweigh its downside of being hard to launder, being tracable. But let's stop the myth that it's so much better than all existing systems to move criminal assets around, because it's not. It's complementary, not a holy grail. It really has a lot of weaknesses, especially to criminals' needs.
What is making you think criminals are scared of pseudonyms, or that pseudonyms don’t provide all the real and practical benefits of anonymity most of the time? It’s not a myth that a lot of crime involves BTC right now, it’s a fact, regardless of the theoretical underpinnings or hypothetical weaknesses.
Cash comes with serial numbers, and occasionally gets traced. It’s about as effective as tracing pseudonyms, most of the time.
1 reply →
It isn't, banks are way better and cash is still king:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/10/investing/td-bank-settlement-...
https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/global-bank...
https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
https://www.coinbase.com/blog/fact-check-crypto-is-increasin...
Even from SWIFT: "Identified cases of laundering through cryptocurrencies remain relatively small compared to the volumes of cash laundered through traditional methods" https://www.swift.com/sites/default/files/files/swift_bae_re...
What you're saying is simply unsubstantiated.