Comment by backscratches
10 days ago
Anonymity/untraceability was not the primary reason for using BTC towards black/grey markets. Bitcoin can be used pseudo anonymously , and the fact is you simply cannot send money to your grey market counterparty via any method but cash without it being flagged/canceled, and if you can't send cash (which has its own problems), bitcoin is the only option.
Online drug markets existed before BTC, and today there is a problem with "mules" being used (people who have legitimate bank accounts that are used to transfer money for groups that engage in illegal activities)
Sending money to a "grey market counterparty" has had workarounds for some time, and continues to have workarounds.
People were fooled into thinking crypto offered anonymity, and were surprised when they realised every single one of their transactions was sitting in the public chain available for anyone to read.
Digital wallets provide LEA's with clear evidence of transactions with a given party when that party's anonymity is unmasked, and it's there in perpetuity.
Had Epstein being using BTC to do business, every single one of his clients would be known.
Your last line is incorrect (by your own earlier descrdption of BTC):
> had Epstein used BTC every single one of his clients would be known
Had Epstein used BTC And we discovered his BTC address(es) we would know what BTC addresses he sent BTC to. Simply by knowing his BTC address(es) alone we would not know anything about who he sent BTC to except the addresses he sent to. And if we know only one of Epstein's addresses and only one of the people associated with one of the recipient addresses, this would not necessarily give us any information about any of the other parties involved. With opsec BTC retains the quality of pseudoanonymity (a technical term). Epstein, who is known for laundering money, likely could have converted cash to BTC without connecting his identity to the addresses many times over.
I would be very surprised to learn that pre-BTC online black markets had equivalent volume as modern cryptocurrency markets.