Bitcoin Forum

I wasn't sure if I should throw this in the economics sub-board. I mean well, it's just that I'm trying to understand more about Bitcoin and its future.

Of something I've studied today is called "purchasing power parity." I also studied some stuff about exchange rates.

Although I could not find someone saying it's true, am I right to understand that it's stupid easy to get a hold of drugs once you buy (or, otherwise said, are in possession of) Bitcoin, as if people just start advertising drugs to you once Bitcoin is in your possession?

I guess that's to say that Bitcoin has a lot of buying power when it comes to drugs relative to the US Dollar. So, it's "cheaper"/easier to buy drugs with Bitcoin than the US Dollar?

It's almost double the price of the dealers down the street (not that i would know...)  Some believe it is safer than going out in the real world and dealing with shady people.  TOR with a VPN and pretty secure, but getting packages has never been.  It's a numbers game, the more you order, the higher chance of getting caught.  Although there are ways around the package problems, they just take time and money.

That's untrue, it's easier when the transaction goes on in the dark web  or remotely but physically I think the US dollar is often used to perpetuate these activities than any other currency.

I think yeah it can be easily that usd .. if you are buying online.. because making a bitcoin wallet don't need a lot of information name and email i think is enough to make a online wallet and desktop wallet for pc or laptop..
And buying bitcoins to someone don't required a lot of identity..  unlike if you have money in usd like on paypal that restricted to use it in blackmarket.
But if you are thinking about drugs to deliver in your country it will hardly to ship it to your country.. because all of them are illegal..

PPP does not relate to Bitcoin in the sense that it becomes easier to buy things using one medium or another. It's referring to the ability to buy things (purchase) based on the amount of work put in, something much, much different than the question you're putting forward. Are you sure you learned about PPP in the correct manner? Look up the big mac index if you want to get a better idea of how it all works.

No, Bitcoin does not have a stronger purchasing power for illicit material.

Well, if Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet, then it would appear that drugs, guns, and child pornography have been tightly linked with the Internet's purchasing power parity, whereby more of these illicit materials can be bought with BTC than USD (BTC has more value than USD in relation to drugs?). I can understand drugs and guns, but I don't see how a person trying to create his or her own independent government would need child pornography.

I've been looking at this as how a person might be creating a self-autonomous government with various funds and resources while considering purchasing power parity. I assume the BTC purchasing power has been in it's ability to be somewhat anonymous (if you mined for it and/or cover tracks).

I saw the Big Mac index aspect. With a particular currency you can either buy more or less Big Macs with that particular kind of currency. It just seemed like there was some kind of pattern related to drugs and illegal material that I wanted to understand. I guess there was an "easiness" factor in relation to getting materials that I found odd. When you're using the money of the Internet, "Bitcoin," it just gets easier to get certain things. I took a look at some Silk Road prices, and it appears that it was just cheaper to buy stuff on Silk Road than "the street." It appeared that was very much so if a person was using Bitcoin rather than USD, thus the process of shorting USD and using BTC created financial incentive for reduced prices.

I don't really think that bitcoin is in relation in to drugs.. they are not connected bitcoin was made only for trading purposes that we are not expected that the price of this digital coin can increase the value..  they are just use bitcoin to buy those illegal things online due to anonymity they can transact  the money without tracing unlike you are sendng your local money to another that it needs your real info before you can send the money.

On my opinion Bitcoin is much higher to buy that kind of illegal things than US dollar but if we say that bitcoins is much usable in terms of buying in underground transactions that is more transacting in the web called DerpWeb or Darkweb networks. It was easy for them to buy because of anonymous identities on both partues hiding from the blockchain technology.

Well bitcoin has been used in the silk road in the first place, so it a yes for me. They won't use BTC in the Deepweb if it is not more convenient than dollars. Because you can send BTC without revealing so much information then it is much easier than dollars. Fiat money is hard to deliver form country to country because theres so much indentification before you can send money abroad especially large amounts, that's why BTC have been used or being used in the illegal transactions.

It is impossible to know the exact amount that is moving in either currency but it is a sure thing that using the USD dollar for all of those things is easier than to use bitcoin for the simple reason that the USD dollar is accepted almost anywhere while many people don’t know what bitcoin is.

I don't Know because The convert amount of Bitcoin is 120k.. when You Convert that Into Dollars its 2448$ .. Big Money when you spend on Evil doings

As per the Global Drugs Survey 2017, 60% of the global drug purchases are made from the deep web (don't know how reliable these stats are). But that doesn't mean that Bitcoin is used for 60% of the drug purchases. Lately, crypto-coins such as Monero has displaced Bitcoin a the preferred currency of trade in the dark markets.

You are a economic student right? I feel this is something study related. So when you say Bitcoin is cheaper than dollars what do you mean, cause normally we value it in dollars. Of course you can value it in other currencies. Look there a very small % of people who do stupid things like this and give Bitcoins a bad name. This is then blown out of proportion by the paid media, drugs were brought earlier to, and now just cause you can buy with Bitcoin doesn't make a difference. Plus Bitcoin can be purchased for anything and everything only condition is there should be a seller.

I think it is more easy with the Bitcoin payment but not with the USD .
But still we can't blain the Bitcoin for such things . Because before the year 2008 when no one currencies like Bitcoin was in the internet then still everything gambling , drugs deal , child pornography was going on easily .
So here everything is possible but still here in the Bitcoin payment no one will remain free because the super intelligent groups for the cyber security can caught easily to everyone with the Bitcoin address track easily ( as happened in the past ) .
Here I will advise and suggest that don't involve himself in any such types of the thing that is making the Bitcoin bad for use .
As an responsible use of the Bitcoin make the Bitcoin clean like our own life .

I get it now, all this time I'm getting so many offers to buy drugs and guns or offers to sell videos for watching child rapes so it all was because I had some Bitcoins? this is bad this is really BAD, now I'm gonna clean my hand off any Bitcoins by throwing them away and exit crypto for good.:/
If that is the reaction you were looking for OP then sorry bro we have no sassy and mama's boys here, we know all about it and we want to continue, if you don't like it then beat it.

you can still track the transaction made with bitcoin, there is the blockchain for that, one thing is more easy to do than usd, with bitcoin, and it's moving a large amount of money in the dark web

would be much harder to do with electronic usd, on the other hand usd can be easily counterfeit in real life to buy those things, therefore it's more easy to obtain than bitcoin, to obtain bitcoin one must buy first which mean he is exposing himself already

yes there is mining, but i doubt criminals are buying gpu rig to mine bitcoin and use it for drug and such things...

At first it seems like a good idea to use Bitcoin to buy illegal items like guns, drugs and subscribe to child pornography because if being "anonymous" but one thing that needs to be considered if one plans to use Bitcoin is the fees that goes along with it and the time needed to have it confirmed. Another thing to consider is if someone will accept such payment since going through all the trouble is not only from the buyer but also from the seller as well.

Yup. Most of the sites on deepweb are now accepting bitcoin. They will benefit from it because they will be more safer than the traditional way of payments. Traditional payments requires a lot of details like your bank account and other personal datas. That's why a lot buyers were caught by authorities. Criminals loves this technology.

It probably is more expensive if you are buying small quantities but I think the advantage with bitcoin is that you can buy it in bulk and bulk purchases are always cheaper. You have a great point though that there should be some premium for the safety you get with anon orders using TOR.

Cheaper? Can't really say as it probably depends on your level and size of transaction or whoever you are purchasing from. Easier transaction is a good characteristics of bitcoin as you can send as much as you wanna send at once without being traced. That trace part though depends, as you wouldn't want to rely totally on that.

From my perspective, Bitcoin is not much different than US hundred dollar bills. If you've ever held one, in used condition, there's no telling how many illegal transactions might have involved it in the past. If run thru a scanner, it will most likely bear traces of illegal drugs. Is that the fault of it as a fairly anonymous currency (of course, a US$100 is not truly anonymous due to the serial number, nor is a Bitcoin transaction). Bitcoin is merely a new form of cash, usable for anything from the purchase of an automobile with all taxes paid to something ridiculously illegal.

I have little experience with the dark web, but from what I have seen (mainly gun sales), the sellers tend to stick to the letter of the law, no matter the form of payment. I've seen plenty of guns for sale for BTC, but they, just like USD-paid items, require legal delivery to a FFL (in the US) and an identity check upon pickup. I have no experience in the drug world, but from what I understand that would need to be shipped to the customer, providing an ideal opportunity for law enforcement to jump in at the time of pickup. I don't think at that point it would matter how it was paid for. And as for CP, that may be a more lucrative market, especially with privacy-enhanced altcoins and digital delivery.

So, is BTC inherently enabling for illegal operations? I think not, probably no more so than any fiat currency currently used for illegal activity. And given the scrutiny given to really large BTC transactions to fiat, I think it might even be less so.

Absolutely no!

That's just an old prejudice about Bitcoin and we, as a bitcointalk community, should not try to reinforce.
Also, it is far easier to buy such stuff using dollars (or euros) simply because there are more dealers who accept "traditional" money than the ones who accept Bitcoin.

I don't think so, bitcoin is not really untraceable so it got the same risk to purchase illegal things with USD, and not all people want to accept bitcoin, and not all people familiar with bitcoin and purchasing things from internet is not really safe because it can be traced

I think buying drugs, guns, etc. with bitcoin is as easy as with USD. Not all dealers know about bitcoin and not all their customers have bitcoins (it's easier for them to steal cash than bitcoins). Anywat bitcoin is harder to trace than cash.

This is a dark side of Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is anonymous and cannot tell where the money is coming from. Very fast and safe more than USD (real money)

yes i think buying illegal stuff with bitcoin is easy as paying things with fiat but the problem is, paying with fiat online requires verification, which is they will verify your identity to prove that it is you but in bitcoin you are anonymous, although the amount you sent is traceable but the owner is anonymous

Is it easier to buy illegal stuff with BTC than $? In certain situations, yes.
Does that give officials a motive to go against BTC? Not really.

Reason: Amazon gift cards are a better way to buy illegal stuff with in all situations where BTC would be better than the $.

For me it's impossible to buy drugs with bitcoins, not in my wildest dreams. With dollars I could do something more maybe, but here dollars are not so popular, so I can't do much with bitcoins and dollars. With euros I can buy what ever I wish, here that is the main currency and there is no problem to buy anything with euros.
Can you learn something from my post? It's not easier to do bad things with help of bitcoin, evil existed before bitcoin and will exist after, bitcoin doesn't have anything with that.

This is absolutely a wrong information because bitcoin is not anonymous and if the federal department want to trace the transactions then it is easier for them to do so and if they put those tainted coins in an exchange then it is more than easy to catch them as all of the exchanges run with strict KYC policy and no is going to hide from those.People use fiat for more crime than they do with crypto currency.

Yeah as mostly (dark) sites use credit cards (USd or other currencies) and just few that accept bitcoin payment, not so much as USD acceptance. People like to receive cash instead of fluctuate digital currency, that's why I vote for USD than bitcoin.

Maybe?!  Because you only need some bitcoins, computer and btc address and there you go, you have bought a product.  And it is easier to bit of course at the dark market.  There is nothing to worry about revraling your identity.  Unlike when you will use dollars then you have to communicate with the seller and convinced him that you have a money.  Then risking your identity because of course they do not want to be scammed.

In my country there is never any news about the use of bitcoin for buy drugs, guns, and child pornography, all of which is strictly prohibited in my country. Indeed I've heard the news that there are people or organizations that use bitcoin for transaction drugs. But if bitcoin makes that easy, it's a big mistake

Bitcoin is really powerful and very convenient to use for online transactions. You can buy things using bitcoin anonymously. I think this is the reason why many would prefer using bitcoin than US dollars in buying drugs and other illegal things online. Also, they think that using bitcoin will make it more untraceable in performing such acts. You can do the payments online and have the illegal package delivered somewhere for you pick up. No meet up is needed for the buyer and the seller which makes it safer.

I have no experience in buying drugs using bitcoin and I do not have intentions to do so. I cannot tell if it is cheaper since I have no idea how much a sachet of drugs cost but I think using bitcoin to have an illegal transaction is easier than using US dollars.