Bitcoin Forum

Lately I have seen another news of some kidnappers demanding ransom in bitcoin. Then the family seems to be really bought $1.7M worth of BTC (about 5.5k BTC as my estimate). This would be one of the reason for the recent price increase ($1.7M is a lot of money!). However medias keep spreading false information on bitcoin, like stating 'bitcoin is using widely in criminals' etc.

So how do you think? Does the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

It is still bad for me, because it imprints a negative impression on the minds of people who read this kind of news about bitcoin. You can say that it has a good effect price-wise but overall, it' creates uncertainty on the side of the masses on whether or not they would use bitcoin.

5.5K BTC is quite a large amount, but not enough to move the market this much. And that's considering they really bought 5.5K BTC. The current price advance looks more like a rally rather than 1 entity buying coins just to be able to pay the ransom. At the end it will only be negative as the coins most likely will get mixed first and then dumped.

the market rised by 1B practically(33%) 1.7M is nothing in comaprison, a tiny drop in the ocean

if who want thos ebitcoin don't dump the next day, then it could be good in a bad way to ahve those situation

I just made this post in another thread so that I don't repeat myself. There is really nothing we can do about criminals using it!!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1229002.msg12818949#msg12818949

About 5.5k bitcoins making an impact, as others have said, this is nothing. This is one serious buy or sell and can't do nothing to the Bitcoin market.

Also, that is assuming that they are buying the coins on an exchange.

You can expect that at least part of this number of coins would be traded off exchange. First to maintain a stable but price, second because you don't want to send 2 million USD to a dubious exchange..

I think that most of the negativity comes due to the fact that bitcoin is in the news so often so more and more people are starting to hear about it. So anything 'bitcoin' is newsworthy at this stage even more so if it involves a crime of some kind.

There are thousands of other crimes being committed daily where fiat is involved but these are not as 'newsworthy' so not really covered in the media unless there is one or other angle to the story.

So best we can hope for is that bitcoin becomes so prevalent that it's seen as just 'another currency' but I doubt whether that will happen anytime soon.

I think that criminals are bad for bitcoins. In this case they can help to the incrising prices, but could be that in just one day they sold all to convert to its local money. The bad publicity that this have its important for new users that want to join to bitcoin payment system.

I think that they help bring more trade volume to the market. If they commit crimes and get caught then that is their own fault.

obiusly the kid could have died this its terror crime and terrible for the btc world like the money work money any kind should be used for good porpouses like work and get paid nthing more and to eat too.

The image of bitcoin that has been caused by these criminals are not good at all and its not the first time that has happened... by the time im posting this , some of the members of my family think using bitcoin is illegal and I could get in trouble due to a movie they watched before which was some highschool guys selling illegal drugs at school and using bitcoin as payment so the harm is already there since people judge the entire use by seeing a single case online

I do think bitcoin IS widely used by criminals. Media is not spreading completely false information. The point is USD is also widely used by criminals and people are used to it. Media believes "bitcoin" is more news worthy.

No, I don't like it. There is no advantage when bitcoin is being associated with crimes. When Bitcoin is portrayed as criminal money, real users like us have to explain to people that this isn't the case. It isn't easy too. While explaining to them, I have to consciously avoid bitcoin's role in gambling, scams and prostitution too.

I believe we simply need to wait for more commonly legit way of spending bitcoin before this stereotype can disappear.

Well i don't know why people accuse bitcoin.
And don't accuse the thief or kidnapper which is trying to leave negative to bitcoin.
What must we say when this man asks in dollars, should dollar consider as a bad thing?

In general, they do more harm to Bitcoin. People would link Bitcoin to criminal activities. It would hinder the adoption rate as most would think it is illegal as it is easily used for criminal activites. On the other side, bad publicity is still publicity. It still allows the mass public to know the existence of Bitcoin and some may research on it.

I don't see how this could be positive in any way, especially in what concerns mainstream media and how they display Bitcoin. Virtual currencies are being shown to be powered by criminals, for criminals, just because someone buys drugs with those instead of fiat ::)

Never seen this kind of propaganda about fiat currencies, especially on media that's controlled by governments.

That being said, looks like pretty much anything on the news about Bitcoin isn't that good... :D

I am for any sort of activity as long as it helps bring up the price. It is so easy to launder money with bitcoins so of course there will be criminals.

Nope it's the other way round. The problem is the media has been spinning all the information they want it to so that they can sell the news. Fact is all the negative revelations are actually hurting bitcoin reputation is some way or another. Not that we can control it but if only there is something that can be done to change it.

I suggest it's as a advantage, it's good for me as long as the price increase ;D

Yes, I think they bring a lot of attention to Bitcoin and put it in the news. It's free advertising where's the harm in that?

if it wasnt for the likes of silkroad, world media would never have really started to report/investigate bitcoin.
so although the criminal use of bitcoin is bad for bitcoins reputation, it has helped give alot of free advertising and got discussions happening in the real world, sparking peoples need to look into things they dont fully understand.

but now i think that good news, such as bloomberg and RT saying about bitcoin being an investment option has prompted alot of investors to get in on it. rather then the silk road stuff

Nothing any of us lot can do about it. What someone can do is keep plugging away until the criminal element is drowned out by the normal folks using it. I'm not so sure criminals have thought it through very much. They may have all those lovely coins but selling them for local currency is likely to be their undoing.

Personally I don't think such events are good for Bitcoin. It is already associated with criminals too much. That's why some people who hate criminals avoid using BTC.

Every publicity is good publicity. Remember that in the early days of the internet, all we had was a bunch of people telling us how it was evil, the idea of people communicating worldwide and without any censorship. Everything that threatens privacy is seen as "evil" but eventually the mainstream catches up.

like this?
this happened in my country Indonesia and its headline news right now
the suspect (suspected bombers) demanded 100 bitcoin from management of Mall Alam Sutera unfortunately they just give him 0.25 Bitcoin, he was arrested by the police on wednesday evening (oct 28 2015)
http://www.pressreader.com/indonesia/the-jakarta-post/20151030/281539404821793/TextView
So the advantage is people asking what is bitcoin? then they knew it (free advertising)
disadvantage well, all we know that

What precisely does "harm to Bitcoin" mean?  Are we talking about attacks on the network or a reduction in what is called "market cap"?

In both cases I suspect that our limited historical data will reveal criminal activity being pretty good for Bitcoin in the short term (with the occasional exception).

Of course, there are people that would use Bitcoin were it not for various stories linking it to criminal activity.  I'd argue that many of these people would only harm Bitcoin by adopting it today.  They would be easily scammed, lose money/keys, create volatility, and complain loudly about their negative experiences.

Bitcoin today is usable by more than just crypto ninjas but it is certainly not suitable for the weak-minded, the irresponsible, or the naive.

As for Bitcoin's long-term prospects, other uncertainties surely dominate public perception concerning crime.  If Bitcoin does continue to grow and infrastructure forms allowing even the economically childish to benefit from its use then an advertising campaign declaring an end to Bitcoin's "wild west" should prove a cheap and effective manipulation.

Well criminals are criminals. So for me it harm bitcoin. Because bitcoin should be peaceful.

At the moment the mainstream media has such a large influence they can make new things appear bad to the masses no matter how much criminal activity there is or isn't.  It probably doesn't matter much either way.  Things like mtgox did dent confidence though for sure.

Use of bitcoin by criminals will only do harm to bitcoin. Many of my friends are aware of bitcoin and think it is something related to illegal activities, and they never take bitcoin seriously.

Well professionally it does help others coz the price increased after that incident but it might soon dump coz the criminals will sell it soon.Overall it has negative effect because it also spreads negative information about bitcoin.

If you check a search engine, you'll find thousands of entries for "narcodollar". But I don't see the dollar suffering much from this situation. In Europe, the Red Cross doesn't mind using the same Euros as the Italian mafia. I have knives in my kitchen, they probably can be used to kill people, but I need them to eat.

thats why i always said that there is a dark intention behind this, something like trying to destabilize bitcoin, in last months you can see that there is lots of news related to that, in the end all those things just made me think  that bitcoin is doing well, since they seems to be very scared ;)

This is a very controversial question and it is mainly an ethical matter than an economic one. If it will be handled only as economical one for sure make good. The big demand rise the price of bitcoin and this show and strength the power of it. But if we go further and see for what this bitcoin is used and who buy it then the things changes. That big amount of bitcoin is bought by a criminal (or some of those) and its use (or even part of it) will be for sure used by this criminal (or criminals) for bad purposes (even if it will be used only to feed him or those). In this kind of view the opinions are divided. Some people don't care about this second part of interpretation and think that their action do good to bitcoin. The seconds ones, which put in balance what is right and what is wrong and then decide choosing the right, think that their action do bad to bitcoin making the others to think that bitcoin is used mostly by the criminals and for doing bad things. I'm part of the second group.

When i read in news that it is mentioned bitcoin i am happy.
But when it is used for illegal things and activities this is bad.
When it is mentioned in bad news then people will not hurry to be interested in bitcoin.

Price increase is always good for bitcoin but associating this fact with ransoms and kidnappers are not. Media are overreacting and as always try to demonize everything.
FIAT is equally as anonymous and even harder to track than bitcoin, so telling us that it is currency used by criminals alone is pure FUD.

It may be a publicity stunt done by some bitcoiners to make it visible to the world. Else educated criminals are hard to find .

what ever you are telling is right but when the culprit gets the ransom then the next day he would have sold everything and then the market should have gone down. but it is increasing it steadily, their are big players buying in the market and the small players are booking profit so cannot say buy i think it will cross 400+ market in november.

Exactly. Criminals do anything with fiat as well. No different with bitcoin. So, specifically seeing bitcoin along with criminals is completely meaningless. We must accept that bitcoin is somewhat traceable than fiat. So, there is no special case for criminals if it's bitcoin.

As law abiding people, if we use bitcoin more, the proportion of bitcoin used in bad business will be smaller.

I care a great deal about right and wrong.  I enjoy doing what I think is right and feel bad doing what I think is wrong.

I do not believe that all crime is necessarily bad.  "Crime" is defined by the state and I do not believe that the state is perfect.  If I thought the state were perfect then I would trust its money and have little interest in trustless money experiments such as Bitcoin.

I care little about appeasing those that think "crime = bad".  On the contrary, I care to dispel this myth.

Criminals are doing good and bad for bitcoin. That price rise was a good thing for bitcoin, but won't people ask about the random 5.5k bitcoin. When they realise that the money came in because of ransom, do you really think they will still want to use bitcoin. I would use it but I think it would against people morals.

I don't think they're doing any good and I also don't think the price rise was because of this. There must have been other factors such as European union accepting BTC as a currency etc. Criminals harm bitcoin's reputation every-time they harass/blackmail/steal from someone. But I hope the only good affect of this is people start to care more about their privacy online, so things like this don't happen in future.

What is a criminal? If those deciding what a criminal is, are by their own definitions criminals. Then this whole discussion is a bit of a circle jerk.

they say bitcoin used for sex is bad,, i say
https://cdntam.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/500-dollars.jpg

they say bitcoin used for drugs is bad,, i say
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/illegal-drugs-money-guns-close-up-shot-cocaine-us-dollars-gun-black-background-52507072.jpg
http://rehabreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/maxresdefault-1.jpg

they say bitcoin theft is bad,, i say
http://xpanda.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/girl-pick-pocket1.jpg
http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Bank-Robbery-Doesnt-Pay-e1339557990950.jpg
http://e-pao.net/leisure/images/Essay/2011/CC_201104_2.jpg

Wrong...Try toting a million dollars thru an airport's security, onto the plane, and then wait for it to be inspected and weighed by your clientele while you're under the security of their armed guard, who could easily rob and shoot you in any instant, and then tell me that there's no difference between bitcoin and fiat when it comes to crime.

I recommend it's as being a advantage, it is good personally as extended because the cost increase

Black market products certainly account for much of the volume of bitcoin....so that is good.  However, many people will not adopt bitcoin because it is attractive to black market traders, so that is bad thing for the regular Joe.  

First of all i hope that every service provider relating to bitcoin blacklists the kidnapper's address and don't let them use their bitcoin.
Second, i think that yes, if you see for the price and popularity of bitcoin, criminal activities are doing good for the price of the coin. We get media coverage because of these things. Bitcoin came into limelight when it was used in the blackmarket so according to me, yes, we need these things for the betterment of bitcoin and after all criminal activities are a part of this world.

For the general media and common people it's definitely bad advertising. However I'm sure the black market moves a lot of BTC per day. If you throw in grey activities like gambling, then it's even bigger. I for one, don't really know if Bitcoin has a true identity, to me it is still making the first steps on what could become. But not sure if it will ever shake off that reputation of being something illegal, bad or unsafe because of cyber heists and other scandals.

You cannot use bitcoin for drugs. You can use US dollar bill to wrap the drugs and then take them. You cannot do that with bitcoin.

I believe they do harm bitcoin than promoting. Bitcoin needs better public image that "illegal use money"
But I still think they do add lot to bitcoin market. Illegal things will always happen, it does not affected by what curreny they use or jewellery.

no the cost decrease if a criminal get tons of bitcoin for free, he will dump without thinking no matter the price, maybe he will hold a portion, but there is no way that this will contribute to a better value