Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin's anonymity is really a great characteristic. It enables users to use BTC in any transactions with nearly no traces. But is this really a good thing? Let us consider utilizing bitcoin in a negative way. Since bitcoin is considered currency, there is no doubt that a person that needs money will not reject bitcoin even if it involves unethical or illegal act.

Due to the anonymity of bitcoin, some uses bitcoin in a negative way [citation needed]. They can easily use bitcoin in paying others to commit crimes. They can even use bitcoin in bribery and/or money laundering. This characteristic of bitcoin are abused [citation needed] and it will never end well.

For the case of terrorism, terrorist can easily purchase weaponry from other country. With the use of transaction using bitcoin, authorities will have a hard time tracing that transaction thus, will give advantage to the side of terrorists.

This is not an impossible scenario. People can now use bitcoin in any way they want to. It's inevitable.

We had this discussion so many times. The first time it was probably on the day Bitcoin was created. It always boils down to this.
- Bitcoin is not anonymous. especially if you don't know what you're doing. But it is very hard to trace if you know what you're doing.
- It is pretty much the same with cash and nobody seems to see these points with cash. O wait they just started to notice it and are pushing for a cashless society so we can be controlled better. One more reason to use Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is a tool. It is neither intrinsic bad or good. It depends on how people use it. It is the same with a knife. A knife is a tool. Most people do good things with knifes and it helps many people with their daily life. But you could also use it for bad things like killing someone. Still nobody would want to forbid knifes.

Depending on the person/company who is using bitcoins.Yeah for all people anonimity is an advantage.An advantage that can be use in illegal and legal things.You're anonymous so you are free to spend and buy all you want illegal or legal.And in terrorism yes this happens bitcoins are  being used to buy guns and drugs thats why some country banned bitcoin due to massive terrorism in their country caused by bitcoins and people can buy anonymously

This had been discussed so many times, you can hide your identity when using bitcoin but it is still traceable, and linking bitcoin with crimes and terrorism is a bit absurd, bitcoin can be used to trade weapon or ransomware because it is valuable, same thing with fiat, because of this wrong publicity, it is very difficult for us to recruit new user

Such negative feedback or the negativity spreading is the one that makes the decreased adoption of bitcoin as well make people hesitant in using it. Bitcoin usage in terrorism is not that high compared to the usage of dollars for terrorism and other illegal needs.

In some point of time, Bitcoin's usability will always boil down to 2 points, the good and bad use of it. Like cash, it will always depend on the person who has it, whether he will use it to some good deed or to a devastating act. We cannot limit it. But that will not hinder other people to use it if they just know what's the true value of it. Proper dissemination of knowledge about BTC is very important to emphasize its good use.

Actually, we have been using bitcoins the way we want it to as early as 2010, right when it started to gain more and more value, be it for legit purposes or shady activities, bitcoin is being treated and used as cash, the way it was intended to be in the first place. As time progresses, we are seeing more and more usage for bitcoin and that's not only the money as it what's intended to be.

Cash can be used for all of this. Ban cash!

"can be used" or "someone is using it to..." doesn't mean bitcoin is being used for all that you said.

and as all of them other thousand topics about this say, criminals will never choose bitcoin which stores ALL of the transactions on a public ledger for everyone to see!
instead they simply use CASH which is accepted everywhere with no problem and is untraceable.

it depends on the people on how they use the bitcoins .bitcoins has been made for anonymity but still it can be traced , well terrorists dont understand that they will never become rich or by possessing any guns would not make them any power, still would they be caught.well getting drugs they are harming themselves which is not advisable at all.

That are right words and I'm totally agree. I this anonimity can turn bad to bitcoin and some countries with high level of terroristic activity can simply just block bitcoin and admit it as illegal.

You are right but not in my opinion , let's think . What was happening in the year before of 2008 when bitcoin was not takes birth .
At that time  no gambling , no secret payment , no deals in drungs , no online business etc , you know that everything was also possible before the investion of the bitcoin and also everything is possible after investion of the bitcoin .
So to blam as t bitcoin for such activities is not good :/ .
Well here everyone have own opinion I can't stop anyone to think about the bitcoin in this way .

That is my statement also.
A envelope with cash is as hard to catch.

Just like US Dollars used also for illegal activities,bitcoin is also used for illegal activities.It depends only on the person who uses bitcoin for good or bad.Bitcoin is such a marvelous creation of satoshi.Just like internet is used for both good and bad,bitcoin is also used.

Bitcoin is just a tool, a.currency that can be used in any way a user may like. Please do not blame it if terrorists uses it for illegal activist and terrorists acts. Cash can be used as such as well and even more untraceable than bitcoin.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with crimes and terrorism,it's the person that uses it is the one that should be blame,satoshi did not even create bitcoin thinking of this things,he just want a freedom from this banking system,and besides they can still use other form of payment besides bitcoin it's just on bitcoin there's no third party.

not only bitcoin, you can use youre money fiat money you anything you want
you want crime not only use bitcoin , you can anything crime use another curency
so do not blame bitcoin , its wrong only person, not all bitcoin user

True, but then think about it. You could be using cash to fund terrorism as well.

It's not just bitcoin's fault that it is used for illegal activities. Otherwise you'd be also blaming the government for issuing notes that don't have tracking on them, so that money laundering and bribing and other whatevers can happen, using the government printed money.

No, it's not bitcoin's fault.

People can use cash however they want to as well, are you going to say that cash is bad too?

Think about the merits of bitcoin instead of focusing on the negatives. As a seller on the internet i know for a fact that whenever someone sends me a bitcoin payment, there is no need to worry about chargebacks. But when I accept paypal, i have to do background checks on the person to see his previous trades and whether his paypal matches with his story.

Bitcoin is completely interchangeable. 1 bitcoin from you is 1 bitcoin from someone that might not be as trustworthy.

But Paypal, it's different. Credit card payments and paypal, their value differs from the person that you receive it from, because someone you don't trust you're probabyl going to charge them higher rates in paypal or CC terms.

I'm afraid is inevitable. We can't control what other's will do with bitcoin specially using it in terrorism, illegal drugs or illegal activities. Just like what terrorist are also doing in the Internet. They are using social media to run fund raising campaign, online recruitment. More so, terrorist group have their own websites to share their propaganda. Can you blame Internet then? If the government want to track them, then can used blockchain to help them piece vital connection and their movement. Its not bitcoin, or Satoshi's fault.

i like your sentiment mate, as bitcoin really created for good not for this types of actions, its just those who really taking advantage of this system, we can't control people's mind as they knew that btc is just like a fiat that they can easily deal with, so they can use it whenever they want whatever the purpose for them.

Bitcoin allows privacy, and this can be used as the user decides.  All that it does is allow freedom on the Internet, while cash allows freedom in person.  What people forget is that currency is basically just for exchanging goods, I could equally send someone gold and no one would know why I did that (although they would know who I was sending it to).

Recently, I heard report on national TV.
Police find some drug dealers and had interview with journalists.
They explained that it was very difficult to discover them because they bought drugs in the dark web and paid with bitcoin.
So, it's obvious that bitcoin is perfect tool for criminals.
No names, no bank or government control, it's very easy to exchange bitcoin to local currency etc.
I guess, it's the same for terrorists.
I don't know how to solve it.

I think bitcoin being associated with crimes and terrorism has been discussed many times before, and it's no question that Bitcoin has a certain level of anonymity so it will always be considered for illegal activities. But from the current statistics a very less fraction of illegal activities are done with bitcoin while most of it is still done with cash.

That is something that countries around the world are concerned about, so some places have bitcoin laws, and they ban it, anyone using it illegally will be penalized, on the other hand, some The country legalizes it for easy management and brings tax revenue to the budget. In general, bitcoin has a lot of advantages to develop, but its downside is also exploited by criminals, because bitcoins are difficult to manage. This has been discussed a lot of times, but there is no method to solve it.

This is problem we can't slove, it's not even the real problem. The problem is with the human, human can use cash also, but do that mean we have to ban cash? Human can be a terrorist wirhout even money, do that mean spying on everyone? Or stop selling knives and axes? This is problem so much bigger than bitcoin, it's about human way of thinking.

Terrorism.. Lol...

The sad thing is, bitcoin is being used by some corrupt government officials to secure their loots, thus without having to store their stolen money in the banks. This would make their crime anonymous. How can we prevent this?

Ya it is true that each of the users have their own rights to use the bitcoin as they wish. So it depends on the bitcoin users how they are going to use the bitcoin, whether to use in illegal activities or use it as a online job income and do legal activities. But i have seen most of them are using bitcoin for gambling and porn activity.

The government officials doesn't need bitcoin, if bitcoin doesn't exist they would use other ways (like swiss banks).
But I also belive that bitcoin should be more public, if you are not doing something wrong then why to hide your transactions? If you belive what is you doing you shouldn't be afraid from other knowning your transactions

Since this is a topic that has being asked many times i will make them short,bitcoin can give us the anonymity but it is traceable and if you are planning to move your coins to fiat currency you really need to verify your documents in most of the exchanges before proceeding .When it comes to money laundering and bribery it is not that different than fiat and do you think that there was no terrorism before bitcoin. :P People can user fiat any way they want and so is the case with bitcoin.

this card has been played many times by media but it just doesn't make sense , the US dollar is the #1 supporter of crime and terrorism
funny that I read an article that ISIS is using bitcoin in Syria in and Iraq , and for me as a Syrian I can tell you that over 99.999% of Syrians don't know what bitcoin is and I'm talking about educated Syrians not terrorists  ( I literally only know one guy that knows what bitcoin is )

bitcoin is much bigger than that , I find it shameful to mention that when we compare the positive of bitcoins with its negatives

People who have power and connections in the government realize illegal cases and with the help of crypto currency and with the help of dollars. It's just that the government wants to show that the crypto currency is dangerous and accentuates it with the help of terrorism

The Point here is not to send Bitcoins or gold to someone for what purpose, the point is that bitcoin send receive are anonymous and  we cannot track if the money is being used in terrorism or such stuff.

Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Every transaction is visible on the blockchain and can be traced. Authorities can easily trace the transactions.
No one is safe just because they're using Bitcoin.

Other altcoins such as Monero are a totally different story.

You have to choose. You want privacy, or you want the government to have full access to everything while trusting they will do a good job with the data?

That is the ultimate dilemma.  Some people trust governments and think their corruption is small compared to the damage they can prevent from happening, some thing terrorists having access to anonymous technology is not a problem compared to what governments do behind closed doors.

Who is right? who knows.

Well, Amir Taaki has been using it for years and he's a terrorist. That doesn't seem to have hurt bitcoin so far.

Bitcoin is just an instrument. And it can be used for good and for harm. It all depends on what hands he gets into. Bitcoin is not to blame for being used by some for drugs

Money is money, every currency should be banned if they are the cause of terrorism and crime ;D

This is not a new thing topic, since bitcoin is an open source. which it can be really use for legal and illegal activities. And we cannot trace those people who will gonna do that things because of the anonymity it has. However, you are also correct that this was not impossible instead it is very much possible to be happen several times in any of the country's.

Unfortunately bitcoin is often used for illegal activities including terrorism and itt anonimity contributed great deal to that. That is the reason why bitcoin had bad reputation very long time, some even considered it as a criminal currency although every currency in the world could be used for crime.

Bitcoin is the crypto for darknet lite users at this point, there's a ton of other cryptos that are far better are keeping their users completely anonymous and move money a bit faster than what Bitcoin can do. Most criminals using Bitcoin still are just looking to exploit a lot of users on the surfacenet, such as ransomware producers or the like. I rarely hear of anyone using BTC on Silk Road anymore, but that's just anecdotal.

In the criminal world, as in the real world, the dollar is most used. The cash. Bitcoin is used very rarely. Still few people (and terrorists) know about bitcoin

i do not consider that bitcoin is crime or terrorism its just a digital currency and which use for online transaction and and all bitcoin users is very satisfy from bitcoin and all people supporting bitcoin and no one thin negative about bitcoin.

yeah we can not say that bitcoin is a crime because bitcoin is a crypto currency and bitcoin aimed is to use it for online shopping so no one can be says that bitcoin is crime.

right. as a meter of fact, it depends on the person who uses the coin, but sometimes chance makes people do something bad or even crime. however, that's why we need to use money wisely, whatever what kind of mone it is.

Of course, When people feel that bitcoin is a bad thing and it can start crimes and terrorism, They are all clumsy.
I don't like this idea about bitcoin. I feel angry when i hear that bad things about this awesome coin. I think if people start to descover more this cryptocurrency maybe they feel good about it. It have a huge of advantages which that help us to do a lot of thing whether in the internet or outside.

bitcoin created to be used and exploited in a positive thing. bitcoin created to facilitate all transactions in the digitial era today. use bitcoin is begative certainly not wise, people like that can not control their emotional. so that they fall to the abyss that is not good. the average they are criminals.

I think you are showing bitcoin more horrible which is not in actual as in actual bitcoin is used by students and by software technicians and by well educated people while the uneducated criminals do not know much about it and if know then they are unable to handle bitcoin.

i do not think bitcoin every be use for illegal activities.

By that same extension fiat is also bad because it's also used to fund crime and terrorism. Bitcoin is simply most, that's it. And money is simply a store and means of exchange of value, there's nothing inherently good or evil in that.

Bitcoin can be laundered and used to fund various illegal activities just like fiat can. It's just a matter of knowing what to do. I don't know the technical details but what I understand is that it's not totally anonymous and there are other cryptos better suited to illicit transactions. In that case bitcoin is only an intermediary rather than the actual currency used and so blame cannot be placed just on it.

Ohh my three favorite topics. :)

Bitcoin is the best.

Crime is cool but terrorism sucks.

Unless im terrorizing my dog at the dog park by not letting him play with his frvorite frisbee while waving it in his face.
 ;D

 :o

Hey buddy, who told you criminals are not educated. I agree ,some are uneducated .But there are so many thieves who are well educated . They use their knowledge only for high tech robberies. Daily if you read newspaper you can see about it. Bank robberies, hacking etc etc. Uneducated people cant do these types of robberies. And for using bitcoin, one does not require master degree in any subject. Actually its very easy. Nowadays even uneducated person knows how to use a smart phone . So its not a big deal to learn how to use bitcoin.

You don't need to solve anything.
Savages have been among us since the genesis of civilization.

Just wait til Monero catches on, as in mobile wallets come into fruition, kovri hits stable and point and click clients enabling the everyday user to easily switch through Bitcoin to Monero and back again without leaving a link become the norm.
Agents are already addressing their concerns and we haven't even surpassed one year of sales on the number one DNM.
http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-concerned-about-criminal-use-of-private-cryptocurrency-monero/

Ive read any statement like this, bitcoin can be used by crimes & terrorism. But, its stillbe traceable, the people who uses bitcoin can do such things like this. Bitcoin purpose is not to do things such acts like this, its more uses on mining and sending a transactions through online.

If bitcoin was to have any significant utility - which it hasn't - it would be to allow the financial aspects of what you call terrorism and crime.  After all, that's what economic freedom is about: being able to spend/finance whatever you want with what is yours.  If you want to finance terrorism, this is your good right, and a good permissionless currency should allow you to do so.  If it doesn't, it means that it is not the free, permissionless currency you thought it was.

In fact, the ultimate test of whether a payment system is truly decentralized and permissionless, is: can I finance terrorism and crime with it ?  If I can't, it means the system isn't truly decentralized and permissionless.  It is the ultimate test of a freedom currency.

True, but it is anonymous.

People shouldn't be worried about bitcoin to be honest. Bitcoin is like cash. It is technically anonymous, but it has a traceable ledger that people can refer to to find out about transactions that one person has made.

Monero on the other hand, is designed for cyber fraud and money laundering, to be honest.

There is really no point of having anonymity beyond bitcoin's standards.

And i certainly do not think that terrorists are even aware of bitcoin yet. They would rather stick to the cash the government issues.

This is a myth. Bitcoin is way way more traceable than fiat bank accounts in off-shore banks.

I do not think that it is a terrorist currency and I know that not much of the illegal activities are done with bitcoin because bitcoin is a new currency and for the understanding of it we require a good knowledge . I want to say that well educated people can adopt and handle bitcoin and these educated people are not involved in crimes and the terrorists are not much educated so they will find it hard to adopt.

Indeed, there are people who are using bitcoin for bad things. Pretty bad things in fact.

If you ask anyone on the streets what they think of bitcoin one of the top responses they'll probably give is money laundering, fraud, buying drugs on the deep web, prostitution, all these illegal things that people do.

But there isn't really anything we can do about it.

Terrorists are able to use fiat currency as well. And most probably do due to the fact that bitcoin is still underappreciated around the world especially in areas where internet usage is still low. If they choose bitcoin to operate on, then that's like choosing cash. People use cash to buy groceries, and people use bitcoin to buy legal things as well.

Yes, which is why i went on to say that altcoins like Monero and Dash are probably the thing that law enforcement should be more worried about because these coins are 100% speculation + illegal usage.

I take that back though, bitcoin is only pseudo-anonymous, which means that there are addresses that can be traced publicly, but it is very very difficult for someone who doesn't have access to top secret government info to trace down these individual addresses to link them to an individual.

Anyways, thanks for pointing that out.

That will obviously happen and there's nothing the government can do about it much. I read an article that india may ban the use of bitcoin because recently the country and banned the notes of 500 and 1000 in order to fight against corruption but many people started buying bitcoin by the black money they had. And i remember the original price of bitcoin was 900$ and exchanges in india were selling at 1030$ or something closer to that.

It is just a digital currency, but that doesn't change its usage which can often be negative.  To be fair people are right to suggest that cash could be used for illegal methods as well, but Bitcoin's pseudonymity is very helpful for criminals on the dark web.  Unfortunately I think that this is essential to preserve Bitcoin's support of privacy and lack of government control.

This means freedom. Like fiat money, you can't really be sure where they money goes. You can't control everything, bcs if we could nobody won't be happy. We have to change the way people treat to each other, we have to learn not to be aggressive but to find solutions through talk. I know even then our world won't be better but I hope all the bad things one day will end. After that you won't care who use btc, fiat money etc, bcs you will know that they won't do bad things and actions.

Bitcoin valued 15% with investors looking for alternatives after the terrorist attacks in Europe. And since the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates in the middle of this month, analysts note a stronger bet of emerging-country investors in crypto-currency, a way to protect themselves if US interest rises lead to capital outflows Economies.

I think Bitcoin is not used for illegal activities much because if a person adopt bitcoin then he will earn himself without any bad activity like if he start trade or to start any other online job with bitcoin. So then he will not need any other illegal activity for making money.

I think it's pretty naive to think that Bitcoin isn't used much for illegal activities, just look at how much Bitcoins the FBI seized from the old Silk Road and look at how many more of those marketplaces are still operational.

Also, someone using Bitcoin isn't magically going to start making money just by using it. Earning Bitcoin is much like earning regular cash, you need to work hard to do so.

What about the crimes that bitcoin protects me from? Anonymity is my right, not a "problem" to be fixed.   

As Bitcoin is digital currency and user only owner with full control of his wallet so it's like natural often used for illegal activities. There so much government has not control this currency so always risk to attempt criminal activities using wallets. I think government should control not only fight against terrorism, but also money laundering too.

Everyone will be judged only and solely by their own actions, if I believe in 2 or more gods/ commit crimes/ steal/ kill/ rape all are considered sins.
Who am I fooling truly? when I die I'll meet my maker and will have to answer only to Him and no one will vouch for me and I'll not be able to blame anyone but myself.
So whatever we do we're the responsible party not strings of codes, you don't go around saying wow see what a miraculous currency/network/alternative (better of the banks) financial instrument this bitcoin is.
ISIS has it's roots in 5 countries and has many believers/followers/supporters/mercenaries/for hire to kill in those countries and they have got their hands on more than $1 Trillion dollars and now you would think they're so desperate to resort to bitcoin? do you really think such activities could be financed with a cryptocurrency which is decentralized by the way and the supply is somewhat fairly/evenly distributed and the whales are publicly known to the world?

You wish if the big players in crimes/ cartels/ terrorism really were using bitcoin as a mean to transfer value, I know BitMixer and other mixers combined have big coin reserves but not to that extent.

As I know drug dealers use bitcoin to sell drugs. Not good way of using crypto currency in my opinion.

Illegality comprised of a whole lot of actions and inactions. We are not dealing with a burglar or a wallet theif here but criminals of cyber fraud can use it as a form of payment to perpetuate crime likewise drug dealers can use it to launder money globally for payment of their illegal activities hence people use and can use Bitcoin illegally.

i do not believe that drug dealer use bitcoin to sell drugs because bitcoin is just a digital currency which is use for online transaction and there is no one can sell drugs with bitcoin and i see that fiat money is very much using for drug selling .

People who flip out at how bitcoin could be used for terrorism should check out other coins that actually offer privacy like Monero. The hardest part though for any of these coins is safely pulling it out into a fiat currency you desire like USD. You could trade in person but in large amounts its dangerous and very hard. The exchanges are the chokepoints.

Reason why authorities and people in power are worried about Bitcoin is due to its wide spread adoption. The other alts are just niche players now. When they grow, the focus will shift to them.

If you can't buy weapons and drugs with something, it's a terrible currency.

Every single currency known to men can buy weapons and drugs.

In fact, bitcoin is easier to trace than most currencies (if you don't pay with credit cards or digital transactions.

'terrorism' is just some buzz-word the governments use to get people to do what the government wants them to do, because oh no, 'terrorists' are bad.

Every government needs some invisible enemies they can 'fight' so they can unite their citizens against this invisible enemy and control them.

These days due to the ease of exchanging availability altcoins that are quite popular too was used for the ransomware and terrorist transaction needs. This at times make new users to think of it, but than the past now it has decreased a lot.

Cash and gold can be used in that scenario too, which is harder to track. any form of payment can be used in
illegal transactions it's just that bitcoin is new and people are trying to make the full use of it.

OP, what's with the [citation needed] stuff?  Did you copy/paste this or something, or are you writing a wiki article or what?  Just curious.

Indeed, this is a dead horse that, were it still alive, would beg you to stop beating it.  Bitcoin is used for crimes, certainly, but I think its use for terrorism has been blown way out of proportion.  It's definitely used for buying drugs--that's true.

The attitude on this forum about such things is "who gives a shit?".  And that's my stance on the matter as well.  Fiat is used for crime, terrorism, prostitution, and everything else under the sun.  It's not the form of money that's a problem, it's the fucking nature of humanity that's the problem.  So viva la bitcoin, and let's let this topic die a good death.

Amen. You got it.

I just don't want to be labeled plagiarizing or whatever. The content is true but I don't have the source so I just placed "[citation needed]"  ;D
Not copy pasted nor I am writing a wiki article.

Just random thoughts. Not posted to ban bitcoin or whatever, just viewing bitcoins capability at some point.

It is what it is and it's up to people how to use everything either for good or for bad and bitcoin is not exception, do you really think criminals and terrorists wait for you to develop something like bitcoin to conduct their businesses? no I'm sure they find their own ways.

You cannot consider bitcoin as a crime nor terrorism, it is a digital currency and sometimes, it is used for crimes and it is not the crime itself. The thread does not said that bitcoin is a crime and terrorism, it just shows the usage of bitcoin on such actions.

You hit it.
That is very true. They just want to blame it to bitcoin to make it bad.
True that there will be bad intentions for it seeing it being anonymous they will be hard to track.
They will just have to pay little by little where they wont need to send information about them with the limitations of some wallets.
Now that is getting larger in price, it will be more easier for them. They wont need hard cash.
I have experience once about this so I think it is true although there is just a few.

Indeed, you're right pal! this is nothing difference in money laundering topic, I just don't where does I read that in the forum section. But I will still answer it, bitcoin was very open to anyone and it is not design to use for a bad activities but it we have to admit that it can be use for legal and illegal purposes, but let us not abuse the good reputation it has in terms of business.

The US dollar is the mos used currency in these kind of activities. Although the nature of BTC makes is attractive to a new breed of criminals.
In the end karma will win, although I believe bitcoin as it stands, can be improved.

because characteristics bitcoin is  currency or as a medium of exchange for the bitcoin transactions are also not much different from fiat currencies. the purchase of drugs, prostitution and criminal are still many who use fiat currencies. not a problem in bitcoin or curency, but a moral man to commit a crime is one that must be resolved together, or perhaps if the dev of bitcoin can help the UN to track and suppress crime in the world.

This is not new because even the fiat is being used in doing illegal transactions, but bitcoin is more prone to that illegal transactions because of the feature of being anonymous. I don't think that bitcoin anonymity is a good feature because it is more on a bad side than a good side which the criminals can take advantage of. I hope the team will do something to make bitcoins transactions at least traceable for government authorities.

You stated it right. It's really up to the person that has the coin to do whatever he or she wants with it. There was and is many different methods that allow terrorists and criminals to pay for certain things online while staying low-key or anonymous. Bitcoin is only a beta program so it isn't perfect and if the people that was doing those bad things were caught then they definitely wasn't using Bitcoin correctly. The media likes over exaggerating certain things about Bitcoin, nothing new though.

I think Bitcoin is not that anonymous, I read some articel (can't remember the title) said that FBI can even trace those Bitcoin that was transacted using mixers, so lots of illegal activities now are into real anon coins when it comes to their transaction.  It can be used to support terrorist but Bitcoin will only compromise their activities.  And I guess terrorist already know that

Thats the point I think, bitcoin is not even close to any kind of crime: the blockchain is great technology which can be implemented in many sections of financial sector.
I also got up on an interesting idea, because fiat has obvious inflation and bitcoin doesnt , it means that terrorist groups and organized crime gangs can simply buy it to store later: as they do with gold, or properties.
Bitcoin for them is even better than gold, and the reason is that the police can find storage with their precious bars, but they won't have an idea where the private keys to their btc are stored.

We need to remember that the big part of bitcoin transactions are payment for ordinary thing, which is great because we need more and more people into the cryptocurrency range.
Im still waiting for bitcoin to break next barier, and see what is going to happen :)

Great crime ideas are co-opted by criminals.

Las Vegas casino-hotels in the 1940s were great tools for laundering money, pimping prostitutes, receiving stolen merchandise and more for crime families. The government eventually realized that purpose and heaped legislation and oversight on to casino operations. Bitcoin is a great crime idea that was not only co-opted by criminals but started by Silk Road. Legislation to follow.

So true

Yes you are right.Bitcoins anonimity is being abuse by people who is doing illegal activities online or even in person.Just like silkroad in the deepweb,they offer guns drugs and gun for hires in exchange of bitcoins.But we cannot control this thing since bitcoins is a currency and it can be use in many different ways depending on how the user will use it.

the initial goal the use of bitcoin is to facilitate all financial activities humans. when people use bitcoin for negative actions such as crime then the person is a person who can not maximize the use of bitcoin. they are the people who are not lucky.

We all know that bitcoin has a lot of good features and uses but there will be always disadvantages. Bitcoin related crimes are unavoidable and all what we can do is lessen it. Preventing it is very difficult because we all know that even fiat currencies are also used in illeggal activities that has never been stopped. That is part of reality so just accept it.

There's no such thing as untraceable in todays age, the tech people, developers and security researchers will surely find a way to trace those people whose using it illegally.
And since the beginning of it's creation bitcoin was first widely use in darknets and deepwebs for illegal purchasing of stuffs then people from the world wide web started to discover it because of it's awesomeness. If you ask me nothing has really change for bitcoin.

There is such thing that still untraceable today, Please do a research first before you give this kind of opinion. I will some example for this, If you are familiar to Anonymous group and their activities you will realize that you don't have a point for saying such things like this, There group always attacks government website and database but still they are not been identified and arrested, They are using advance stealth mode to cover their location/IP address so that even though US government will not detect them. The innovation on this world is limitless, So if the tracing system will be upgrade then stealth mode will be upgraded too.

At least more people should be realized if another kind of the currency that other currencies have also used for the criminal purpose. It's the important thing that needs to be considered as a counter, to prevent those are blaming the bitcoin itself.
Except for the government, some of the ministers with a harsh head should still be said the bitcoin is the criminal currency or used to the criminal activities.

only those people who aren't really aware of what is happening in the world would think that. and sometimes media, although not directly, implies that bitcoin is criminal money.
they never say it out loud, it is a propaganda, they keep releasing news that bitcoin was used by some hacker as ransom, used by someone to buy drugs, etc. they never report millions used it to do other things.

It is the sad truth.

As long as bitcoin exists, there will always be people using it for illegal purposes.

Much like as long as cash exists, people will probably be using it the wrong way as well.

Google started out great because people would be able to search for pornographic videos and photos on the internet which was basically all there is on the internet at that stage easier. Then it developed into something way more than that, an advertising platform complete with a cloud drive, customised results for each user based on their profile, etc.

So I would personally expect bitcoin to be something similar to how google started out - used for questionable purposes, sure. But in the end the good will outweigh the bad pretty dramatically.

yes, the governments are using the false allegations on bitcoins and they want that some how any thing is proved against bitcoin which can make it of less or no use to the people., but this will not happen.

Yes, There are multiple cases in which Bitcoins can be used illegally. Bitcoins bring with it, a notion of anonymity which allows people to transact without revealing their identity. This privilege can be highly misused. However all exchanges in the world mostly are following Anti Money Laundering and Know your customer Policy to avoid any illegal activity by any user of Bitcoins.

Yes and they are people who doesn't have responsibility about the future of bitcoin,
 makes bitcoin being bad with money laundering via bitcoin,
 bitcoin be used for bad are like crimes and terrorism but doesn't mean we can blame the bitcoin.

Its the same as our fiat money, you can spend bitcoin whatever you want  or intend to spend it. Its on the spender's decision. Whether it is a bitcoin, fiat or another else, it is very possible to spend it in illegal means.

This depends on its users, we can't blame bitcoin due used for illegal activities such as criminals, purchase drugs, terrorists and others. better to punish the culprit is not the means of payment bitcoin.

Yes true, illegal transactions already exists although many ways done to prevent it, such as blocking the bank account. We do not blame the presence of the bitcoin as triggers illegal transactions because it depends of the user.

Bitcoin currency just isn't authorized by reason of premature and uncontrollable, so naturally many people consider bitcoin transaction means a crime is illegal. But on the other hand great country will not close bitcoin, they understand the future potential of bitcoin could control the world. If bitcoin when used for terrorist transactions was only natural because there is no governing trade via bitcoin.

Bitcoin, Crimes and Terrorism is not a new one for us because those are existing even the bitcoin is not yet released, And we can't say that the growth of crime and terrorism just grow faster because of the bitcoin because i didn't agree with that because even the fiat money are being used to support those kind of illegal activities. We can't blame anything for those kinds of activities because they will find ways (criminals, terrorists) just to execute fund for them.

if you think of it, bitcoin is not the perfect companion of funding criminals or terrorists because it requires them to be online one way or another when using the internet
which could giveaway their locations. imo fiat remains the number 1 preference to use for such activities and bitcoin can not be held responsible for illegal activities that have existed before it .

Terrorists and other illegal activists are using bitcoins for many years now. Its an open secret, everybody knows this. The governments take Bitcoin transactions suspiciously because of this. There are only some governments who are Bitcoin friendly.

1. Terrorists/other criminals will always find their way to make transactions, if you somehow make cryptocurrencies and cash disappear, they will use precious metals and gems. You can't shut them down by removing their currency.

2. Limiting freedom of whole nation to deal with terrorists is not acceptable, especially when you take into account how common it is for governments to abuse their power.

3. Bitcoin's main innovation is being uncontrollable by governments, without it Bitcoin will be worth nothing.

Any type of currency can be utilized for illegal activities so this is never a peculiar feature for Bitcoin. This is the reason why government institutions are now trying to exercise some control by implementing KYC on the sender and the receiver of the Bitcoin which in a way not hampering Bitcoin in my opinion. No matter if Bitcoin is really anonymous, we can find creative ways to somehow control people who have negative intentions and purpose in using Bitcoin.

The Anonymous group you are saying are not entirely untraceable. They are traceable but it is very difficult. They are just brilliant in hiding their identity. As long as they are in the cyber world, nothing is untraceable, it may be difficult but they are not entirely untraceable. You said it yourself, "if the tracing system will be upgraded", meaning there is a possible way, regardless if they upgrade their stealth mode, there is still a way to trace them.

Anonymous does not always produce evil act, anonymity can also be used to do good. it all depends on the user and our perception Anonymous does not always produce evil act, anonymity can also be used to do good. it all depends on the user and our perception.

Anonymous is the biggest bitcoin problem and very serious thing that must be immediately resolved, it's time to wallet provider verifying bitcoin user identity, so if there are problems of course can be accountable.

How come that anonymity is a problem? This is a characteristic of bitcoin and others are just using it negatively. Some wallet providers already had that kind of feature. They are requiring for a government-issued ID (a picture of that ID), even they require the wallet user to take a selfie for verification, as well as verifying email and cellphone numbers. These type of wallet is already existing.

This leaked Wikileaks reiterated something we already suspected: Our devices are not 100% safe. No matter what type of encryption we use, it does not matter what "secure messaging" applications we use, no matter how careful we are when we enable 2FA authentication. The CIA (and we must assume that other hackers as well) can invade our operating systems, take control of our cameras and microphones, and do what we please with our phones. The same can be said of Smart TVs, which can be programmed to record our conversations in the living room without us noticing.

Yes, this is a great point. Remember the investigation into Silk Road? How many feds were working that investigation.. maybe 10.. 20? probably not a huge amount, and yet we know at least two (and there was probably more) of them that tried to turn themselves into millionaires by stealing bitcoins. How many government hackers and others involved in bitcoin investigations (in the US and elsewhere) are going to pass up taking funds from addresses they can gain access to? Well, from our sample we see it looks like a fairly high percentage try to steal. I think it's reasonable to assume then that a large number of crypto thefts are perpetrated by government agency employees.

If anonymity and secrecy are good for crime, then bitcoins are bad for crime. Bitcoin are just like cash, the identity of the buyer and seller are anonymous to one another and everyone else.  However, the payment network that processes bitcoin transactions is complete transparent.  Anyone in the world can look up the exact path of every bitcoin transaction of all time.  This information is stored in the block chain. bitcoins offer criminals no secrecy and only a a trivial amount of anonymity.

i do not think that it is a problems it is one of the best characteristic of bitcoin and most of the people like bitcoin because of its anonymity. if bitcoin will lost this characteristic then its popularity will also effect. therefore we can hope that bitcoin will continue its anonymity characteristic for ever.

I share the same sentiments as above. That is why some countries do not support the use of Bitcoins because it has successfully penetrated their respective jurisdictions without requisite regulations.

I really think that Bitcoins can go a long way for the better, however, its proliferation should submit to a State regulation in order to do away with illicit businesses that come with it. Just like a normal currency which is developed as a means of exchange but is still widely used as means to create crimes, Bitcoins also have the same dilemma. Thus, the only answer is a sound regulation that will address this issue. The aforesaid regulation cannot be expected to do away with all the negative intricacies but will only somehow eliminate the unacceptable side. 

This much like the barrier that hinders certain countries to acknowledge bitcoins. Gaining anonymity on bitcoin transaction gives advantage to those terrorist who were collecting money through illegal means. This means that we would have difficulty to track where the funds came from and where it would be send.

Bitcoin is essentially the perfect anarcho-capitalist currency, and that's the issue that governments have with it. Trying to regulate it will do nothing to the terrorist cell or the criminal and it hurts the average user far more than anyone else. Terrorists will still get their money, criminals will go back to using cash or other illicit means, and nothing happens to really stop anything.
Regulation is not going to solve their issues, especially considering Bitcoin is used for crime that typically has very few victims and is rarely used by terrorists, aside from some high-profile cases like the Paris attacks.

Bitcoin is only used as a tool and that should be prevented is bitcoin users and not bitcoin, I think the same thing with this may be some people abusing bitcoin but I believe that all the problems that exist in the bitcoin can be overcome

I've just read the whole story and the posts under this thread. What I can is that you guys are making the bitcoindeviate from how it is actually and currently. I don't really understand how you find these type of ideas... Anyways, you can keep discussing something which is not true.