Topic: Bitcoin is a hot target for criminals and money launderers. - page 4. (Read 5058 times)

You don't even have to send 50 coins.
All you have to do is share a private key. 

Lol, are you serious? well, you can use monero 

That's why cash is also "a hot target for criminals and money launderers", though not without drawbacks as mentioned above (checking serial numbers, using special chemicals and so on to distinguish between notes).

I believe you mean cash, not simply fiat.  But anyway, cash can be traced by the serial numbers on the notes.  Although I don't know how much that's actually done.

In any case, it's not just about what you can and can't do, but how easy it is to do it.  If I want to send $10k to someone on the other side of the world to fund a terrorist operation, it's a heck of a lot easier to buy a few bitcoins and send those than it is to physically transport that much cash.  And just because we can trace bitcoins, that doesn't mean that it's easy to do, or that someone really watches for "suspicious" transactions.  If a $30k wire transfer is initiated, someone will probably pay attention to it.  If someone sends 50 bitcoins, no one will pay attention or care.

You can't legally pay in cash when dealing in large amounts.

I'm a criminal myself. what can i do?

And since cash is often used for illegal purposes, government are exerting themselves to restrict cash operations. In many countries (including the USA) you can't pay in cash for, say, home or buy other expensive goods with cash. Thus the flow of large amounts of money can be easily traced.

your point that bitcoin is used in fraudulent transaction is really only true for online transactions. Cash is still preferred for in person crimes. Also cash is often used for very illegal purposes but people still use cash without question.

I don't even know what the best way to respond is.

**Fiat** money is the most anonymous you can get, Bitcoin is a semi-anonymous (Aka pseudo anonymous) system that allows for lots of transparency when it comes to watching transactions.

Bitcoin can be traced, kind of, but it is much harder to trace cash.

Terrorists can use Bitcoin, but guess what? We can watch where it goes.

Criminals can try to launder, but people are still watching...

Greedy people will jump onto Bitcoin, because stuff like that happens with everything. Bitcoin isn't made to support greed. If anything Fiat money is.

Please learn before you make stupid posts.

They're not talking about stealing bitcoins from people's wallets.  They're talking about how it's a lot easier to launder money or pay for illegal goods and services using bitcoin because it's harder to trace than something like a wire transfer or credit card payment.

it makes a criminals job easier to get away with the stolen money but makes it much harder to get it in the first place because they cannot simply pickup a bunch of cash they need to somehow crack the password to the private keys the contain the bitcoin.

This is indeed a big problem that's hindering adoption.  According to a recent Coindesk article (http://www.coindesk.com/real-reason-banks-dont-like-bitcoin/), the risk of involvement in criminal activities is a major factor that's keeping banks away from bitcoin and bitcoin businesses.  The potential for making criminal activities easier will also affect how governments end up regulating it.

Yes, but not all scammers are born equal. So fiat allows to easily spot down the low-grade scammers by the high-grade ones. On the other hand, Bitcoin doesn't tell between them, that is why it is loved by the former and hated by the latter.

Some would say it is a good thing. Like it allows people to buy LSD which would be otherwise inaccessible to them.
Other might say the governments have far too much power and want the people to have their liberties and free market back.

Btw, buying stuff with cash is much more safe and hence the governments are pushing for digital world only, bitcoin is easily traced so I think they like it as well.

There are many ways people can protect themselves...though still even today people fall for simple social engineering or "click for for $1,000,000" which turn out to be viruses.
75% of the crimes made by Bitcoin can be prevented simply by using 2auth on their online wallet, or by not using an online wallet at all.

Can't you people tell that the OP is a paid opinion maker  There are many of them on this forum. They have to keep repeating the same messages so that it gets hammered into subconscious.
There are also many new forum visitors and the old threads the opinion makers created about terrorism, money laundering, etc. are too buried. So these characters just make new threads to remind the
newbies that bitcoins are dangerous.

My point is that bitcoin's structure and nature is affecting its adoption and use by the general public. I agree with you that the payment system offered by bitcoin is more secure than any other payment processors out there, but the mere fact that it's also used for shady transactions and any other fraudulent works make it unappealing for those who might use it. Fiat can also be used for this kind of transactions, but using it is very easy to trace.

Another uninformed post...

Bitcoin is not anonymous; it is pseudonymous. It offers more transparency than fiat does. Can you tell me how many criminal hands have touched that dollar in your wallet? Bitcoin can tell you how many times a coin in any address has moved. Is your problem related to the fact that you don't know who the owners of the past addresses are? The last time I checked, I don't know who that store cashier who gave me my change was. Should I spend the next 2 years locating that person to find out if that person is a criminal? Fiat is the most anonymous form of currency. Why do you think illegal drug and gun sales are cash-only transactions?

Bitcoin also offers greater protection to the merchant than any other digital payment processor can. Chargebacks are impossible, which means that theft and fraud are irrelevant in a legitimate merchant-based transaction. How could a merchant be victimized by a customer if the merchant always gets paid first? If the merchant is allowing the customer to pay later, then that's an issue with the merchant's business practices and not with Bitcoin. If you were a cashier in a store, would you let a customer that you've never seen before pay for goods with an IOU and a maybe-not-fake ID?

How many times has all of this been discussed before? 10 million? 20? 50? Maybe more than Bitcoin's entropy set for addresses?

Yes, very good point and something to worry really.
If we want that Bitcoin become mainstream and globally accepted by the merchants, we have to find solution for this issue.
I think in the future we will have to accept some kind of limited control over Bitcoin users and give up concept of 100 % anonymity, if we want that bitcoin really become globally accepted, the same (for example) as some digital exchangers already did (STP, payza etc.)

Convert fiat-bitcoin and bitcoin-fiat is hard and noisy on exchanges.

And with blockchain, one identified address linked to some of the bandits can be enough to compromise all operation.


Plus 10B is way too low to the big crime guys around the world, and the small ones are too dumb to know and use bitcoins.