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Topic: Bitcoin and Crime and why Bitcoin WILL succeed (Read 1457 times)

full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
There is a lot of talk about why the THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS shouldn't implicate Bitcoin as its given Bitcoin a bad name and people's first impression is well... drugs and bad.  

I think the quote that pushed it over the edge for many is: "THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS isn’t shy about naming Silk Road’s active ingredient: The cryptographic digital currency known as Bitcoin. “We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs because of Bitcoin,” he writes."

There is one fantastic side benefit that go's unnoticed. The fact that drug lords have to compete on quality and a positive reputation as they can't use brute force and violence to monopolise a street corner or a territory.

DPR should have said: “We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs, by usurping violence and disarming drug cartels because of Bitcoin"


I would agree with you, if SR's sibling site didn't sell guns.

Note that it was taken down but DPR said he wants to bring it back if it's profitable.
hero member
Activity: 882
Merit: 501
Ching-Chang;Ding-Dong
USD Cash Enabled Crime on a daily basis. I've heard that in some places like Colombia large drug dealers use it and nothing else.

Someone go arrest obama for supporting the drug trade please.
full member
Activity: 1050
Merit: 110
the type of cyber crime bitcoin is different from robbery, conventional crime and in many cases is hardly unethical, drug dealing or scamming/hacking banks and big companies.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
Firing it up
No one is too greedy, it is. However the system is monitored by everyone so this may be fair, and successful
newbie
Activity: 50
Merit: 0
Thats marketing  Wink
legendary
Activity: 1372
Merit: 1000
There is a lot of talk about why the THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS shouldn't implicate Bitcoin as its given Bitcoin a bad name and people's first impression is well... drugs and bad.  

I think the quote that pushed it over the edge for many is: "THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS isn’t shy about naming Silk Road’s active ingredient: The cryptographic digital currency known as Bitcoin. “We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs because of Bitcoin,” he writes."

There is one fantastic side benefit that go's unnoticed. The fact that drug lords have to compete on quality and a positive reputation as they can't use brute force and violence to monopolise a street corner or a territory.

DPR should have said: “We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs, by usurping violence and disarming drug cartels because of Bitcoin"
legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3079
The governments should actually be so happy with bitcoin that they can recieve all there illegal funds with minimal trace.

Here's the minor flaw: the most upper echelons of government can conduct their criminal activity through the incumbent financial system no problem. And I say minor, as you've still uncovered a useful point. The lower down the food-chain of government cronies that you descend, the less their access is to the various mechanisms that allow the big fish to abuse the regular system. It massively empowers low-level government criminals, the type that will never make it to the high ranks and know so. So it's a fight between two different criminal enablers: one that's exclusive, based on status and social circles, the other that's fully egalitarian as long as you have the technical ability to use it. I know which one is a more powerful force from that description.
newbie
Activity: 50
Merit: 0
Im very happy with wordpress who is accepting bitcoin for the bloggers in countries where their lives could be put in danger for their topics of conversation.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1013
The ability of Bitcoin to enable crime is good, because every day more of what regular people want to do is being made illegal.

Everybody is a criminal, but not everybody realizes they are.
newbie
Activity: 50
Merit: 0
Bitcoin is going to succeed simply because criminals use it.

Lets talk about fraud and hackers.
Fraud and hackers have to deal with each other online and send payments anonymously. What they first started using was Western Union which has high transfer fees and requires you to give a name which is not to bad as you can use drops etc to pick up the money on your behalf. But what if one crook wants to buy a single credit card from another its not viable to go and send western union for a couple of us dollars. So what did these internet criminals use instead. Liberty reserve..

Liberty Reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital currency service that billed itself as the "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor ... serving millions all around a world". The site had over one million users when it was shut down by the United States government. Prosecutors argued that due to lax security, alleged criminal activity largely went undetected, which ultimately led to them seizing the service
In May 2013, Liberty Reserve was shut down by United States federal prosecutors under the Patriot Act after an investigation by authorities across 17 countries. The United States charged founder Arthur Budovsky and six others with money laundering and operating an unlicensed financial transaction company. Liberty Reserve is alleged to have been used to launder more than $6 billion in criminal proceeds during its history.

We know that around the time of Liberty Reserve getting shut down the price of bitcoin raised. Why?? All the internet criminals lost a lot of money in lr and decided to find a alternative. The preferred method of payment for internet criminals presently is Bitcoin and also Perfect Money.
Internet criminals are used to using exchangers etc for purchasing there illegal digital goods.

Liberty reserve itself widely used by internet criminals started having merchants accepting it, High end goods aswell as low end like hosting and domain names. These same retailers im sure will easily switch to bitcoin. So bitcoin already has a prebuilt market. The fact that it is decentralised will give more trust in the security of funds stored in it. And they can go to jail for 8 years come out and there funds will be safe all they would need is to a computer to access them.

People going through divorce can hide all there funds in bit coin, people wanting to dodge tax can hide there funds in bit coin. Ministers and politicians who want to accept bribes... Bitcoin.

Lets face it, alot of money is in crime and if they want to use bit coin i really dont mind who cares about the press? even if bit coin is made illegal i will still use it. It will drive the price of bit coin up and everyone here will be richer. This world is full of corruption the rich get richer the poor get poorer. The governments should actually be so happy with bitcoin that they can recieve all there illegal funds with minimal trace.

Bitcoin is for everyone and that is the beauty of it. Criminals can store there money in bitcoin and the courts and banks will not be able to do anything about it.

This post of course will upset some people. But this actually is the truth.
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