Bitcoin Forum

Philippines war on drugs entered a new phase as drug Syndicates are now using bitcoin to transact and avoid detection from the government. PDEA(Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) recently found out that most organized Drug syndicate are using the dark web to transact to each other. It's clear that some countries are slower at adopting new technologies and these drug syndicate took the opportunity to make their transactions much easier without being detected by the government. here is the link for more details: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/06/11/1925535/pdea-drug-syndicates-use-dark-web-bitcoin

This has been one of the largest concern when we talk about bitcoin, unfortunately the news is right most of the people in dark web used bitcoin to do transaction, I think the government need to do something to prevent this, bitcoin is only tools the one that is wrong is the users and btc is not totally anonymous

This is a sad thing about cryptos, but remember that criminals always find ways to bipass security, no matter what
They were doing this since...ever  :(

Here in Brazil exchanges will need to inform governments about every transaction, but in P2P there´s no way to track illegal activities

Not just in the Philippines for sure because many countries are concern about the transactions on cryptocurrency because it can really use for this purpose and for the purpose of terrorism. Well, I hope that it cannot affect the on-going applications of many cryptoexchanges there.

This issue isn't new in fact this kind of act has been around for so long .
It is the reason why Bitcoin has been famous from the very beginning,
SilkRoad is one of the early market that make a big noise for Bitcoin and drugs.
Criminals are taking advantage of anonymity that is why it is pretty famous in Dark web to keep their track clean.
That is why most people see Bitcoin as something illegal because of those acts.

@acroman08. I shake my head to these people who use bitcoin for the darknet. Someone should advice the leaders of those drug syndicates in your country to use Monero or they will be sorry.

Bitcoin isn’t made for this and Nakamoto doesn’t want this to happen to his creation but criminal minded individuals won’t stop using any financial processes to they’re advantage. Bank been used before, remittances also and especially cash basis.

So as bitcoin and other altcoin.

My thoughts:

Do we have stop using cryptocurrency for this reason?

• No and I will not.

Do government have to regulate it?

•No at this point in time. Soon maybe if they can craft the best law that is fair and square to both the investors and the law enforcers.

Drugs are often an excuse to make many other things illegal. They kill a lot to "save" people from this terrible menace.

Bitcoin usage into dark web, particularly in drugs were very high. At the same time this isn't the major transaction medium for drug, hawala funds gets transacted for the drug exchange in large scale. Governments major indications to restrict usage of bitcoin were the usage on darkweb and illegal transactions.

Bitcoin is a poor choice for these activities, as it leaves traces. Even more traces than fiat...

Sure you could mine some yourself, then maybe buy with them one of the fancy altcoins that promise anonymity, and then try with that, but then you could have mined that coin to begin with...

This was very long overdue and the government of the Philippines only acts now  :'( but at least they are trying to resolve it and starting to invest with their 30 people to train with the South Korean government, I'm looking forward to a much knowledgeable government people in the future that can resolve syndicated groups operating in the deepweb using cryptocurrency.

If criminals can think of a much smarter way to do their bad deeds then the authority must think twice as much, it's hard to be an anti-drug force in the Philippines because even you do a good job the naysayers still say something about them so I salute them for not giving up no matter the cost.

i am always having a hard time believing that there still are people who use "bitcoin" for their large scale illegal activities in 2019! in early years it could have made sense since people didn't know bitcoin isn't anonymous and the "myth" was still around but we already know that and it is clear. on top of that we now have lots of cryptocurrencies that were created focusing on being fully anonymous for these people to use for their criminal activities, for example Monero. so it is not like the option isn't there!

i hope this will not trigger the president to make some regulations like banning btc. i'm from philippines, i'm not sure if those people in the media even understood how crypto works and if they make this more of an issue against the president's drug war, it could trigger the things we filipino btc users fear most. the media in the philippines is the most ignorant of all in the entire world. you can never trust them as they are involve in corruption.

There’s much privacy orientated cryptos to serve this purpose, but they decided to go against it. May be trust is a big deal, they rather trust using bitcoin as a payment than other new more centralized privacy coins.

It would be a sad day if instead of going against the crux of the problem, the government will instead zero in on its focus with bitcoin or any cryptocurrency for that matter. We are wishing that level-headed minds will prevail. When drug syndicates and dealers are using the fiat money, nobody in his own right mind will think to do something about the money -- the same treatment should also be accorded to bitcoin. What should be done then? The same solutions, of course, but this time implemented more strictly and much tighter than before. Strict monitoring and strong KYC requirements must be done by platforms into bitcoin business. And the Philippines has already many laws that can counter these problems, it is just a matter of no let-up implementation.

Something like this had happened before this, only that the government was rather constrained to trace this syndicate. OK, on ​​the other hand or news like that makes the negative side of bitcoin more feared by the public and I'm sure people who don't really understand about cryptocurrency will be afraid, even though the wrong one is the user himself not a tool . bitcoin still has big obstacles to become a legal currency, maybe with developments in the future it will make it easier for blockchain technology to be a better use.

should we see the PDEA soon will be checking personalities in coins.ph with transactions very suspicious? i can already assume they are already doing it.

bwck when i was 16 i did terrible mistakes, i was caught with a bag of marijuana. if they find my name in the coins.ph database. i'd be someone they'd try to watch out.same for those other guys out there.

there are two things you need to fix:

First Is the title: "  Bitcoin, Dark Web, Drugs and Government. "

it seems that bitcoin is being widely used by drug traffickers, when according to the article it is not any of that

second thing is this:


this is the only passage that talks about bitcoin:

are not saying that bitcoin has become the favorite mean used by drug traffickers ... the authorities were talking about that criminal, and in describing the criminal, the authorities mentioned about bitcoin, dark web and how he died

these kinds of articles that draw conclusions from things that authorities speak and post many biased titles are articles that bring nothing good to society.

Look at this:


But in the title does not mention anything about facebook, why?

Drug traffickers will always find a way on how they can transact from one client to another and with bitcoin's increasing popularity it is not impossible for them to also study what they can do using bitcoin's technology and in this case they use it in processing payment since they can do it anonymously. However, the technology is still new and a lot needs to be improved, hopefully in the future they will be able to improved it better and minimize these types of wrong doings.

it does sounds like that but the title is universal and not just for a specified government although the article is.

also if you read again "one of the local drug personalities" as we all know drug syndicates share/find information if it can make their transaction faster and safer for them and there are a lot of drug syndicates in the Philippines. who's to say that he is the only one who has knowledge in the dark web and bitcoin.

as you can see "abandoned" and I didn't see the need to include it since bitcoin is what I am interested at. also they abandoned Facebook transaction because PDEA agents have been known to use it to trap drug dealers. although there are still who use it to deal drugs but not as many like before.

They also mentioned that they were winning the drug war. This is false. The prohibition of drugs has only brought more money, guns and political power to the cartels.

The American government, the most powerful government in the world is already 5 decades into the drug war, however, nothing has changed. The amount of drug users has only grown in their country.

I've heard this before and I believe that many countries some of the syndicate are in to using Dark Web, many people automatically associate bitcoin with the Dark Web, due to they may be more efficient to use or more stable than government backed currencies. They know to to make the transactions faster and easier without noticing by the police or other government institutions. The government maybe blind to this actions but sooner they will know how to capture this syndicate.

Indeed, many use bitcoin as a transaction in illegal purchases such as buying illegal weapons and illegal drugs. they use bitcoin because it is hard to track because the transaction is anonymous. so it's not only in the Philippines that uses it, even in the whole world it uses it

If you remember at the very begininig Bitcoin was almost always connected to illegal activities. Some people tend to do that even today, Bitcoin is for many still something unknown and shady. At the begininig Bitcoin was much more anonimous and transactions were much harder to trace so in a way it was logical that Bitcoin was used by criminals.
It's true that Bitcoin is also being used for illegal stuff, especially online but this is just one tiny side of it and fiat money is misused too. It's a complex situation and should be considered as such. Governments should find the way how to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to divide legal from illegal, that would be easier for all.

I read an article in which it was written that monero is very successfully used for drug trafficking and in dark net. In any case, the facts cited in the article seemed to me rather convincing. Drug barons found a rather convenient way to avoid unnecessary attention and protect their money from the police and tax authorities. The Philippines is not the only country in which drug trafficking problems are acute, but we must pay tribute, the country's leadership has been struggling hard against drug trafficking in the past 5 years.

This is just a myth. If the government is so concerned and surprised by criminals using BTC, they haven't cough up with the technologies. Every crypto transaction end up exchanged to fiat sooner or later. Also nowadays there already are technologies  which easily track crypto transactions and can evaluate the where it started and where the transaction ended up, it includes dark web addresses.

You hit the nail on the head: bitcoin transactions are transparent and pseudonymous, not anonymous. Once authorities discover the bitcoin addresses of the drug traffickers, they will be able to grasp the full scope of their operations. Sooner or later the authorities will learn how to use the blockchain to track the flow of funds.

Yet for many years Big Pharma was given carte blanche to produce unlimited amounts of opiates and other controlled substances to corner the U.S. market. It wasn't until recently, with large chunks of the country hooked on opiate pills and switching to heroin as they become more scarce, that the government has been holding these large corporations accountable.

The Drug War has been a massive failure and has contributed to the U.S. leading the world in per capita incarceration rates.

It's a known issue  way back and also the reason why there's still a lots of people who's doubting this chain, negative impressions comes first before people realize that it's really part of every industry, those negative things are also present even in the real fiat currency.

The government should act accordingly regarding to this matter, if they seen this then they needed to have a good counter to avoid things to go bigger.

That's right. People should stop associating Bitcoin with criminal activity because it's not anonymous and thus isn't suitable for that. I think the main problem here is journalists who often have little idea on what they are writing. You are right, criminals have stopped using Bitcoin long time ago, but many journalists are not aware of that fact.

I don't believe it too.  I am from Philippines and I don't think there are hundreds of bitcoin users who does transact over drugs here. Most of the methheads here aren't that smart to learn about BTC at all. Philstar.com ain't the kind of paper that can be trusted. Proven in many articles they publish are politically aimed to ruined reputation of the sitting President. Just look how divided we are as a nation because of these fake news from a political party that can't accept the fact that they all lose. Philstar is full of shit.

The government were not surprised that these criminals are using BTC they probably expected it, but only found out/confirmed recently.

PDEA doesn't have the capabilities (not sure why) at the moment and these syndicates took advantage of that.

also there is a news about the Philippine central bank warned the risk of growing cryptocurrency use in the country. although they are not against cryptocurrency they are worried about the technology's potential use in funding of terrorism.

for those who don't know there are several terrorist groups in the country of the Philippines and one of them has ties on ISIS.

I think they must do regulations regarding this. Not because it could affect bitcoin's value or integrity. But just simply eradicate crimes. Even though drug pushers or syndicates are now using this technology, fiat is still involve in this drug issues. This is going to be bad for bitcoin if the government can't watch over these guys who chose to use bitcoin, and dark web to transact illegal actions.

I am not convinced that these drug lords are using bitcoin to transact in the dark web when there are many anonymous coins in the market that will give privacy for their transaction, from what i understand is that they are blaming bitcoin for the illegal transactions and i am sure they understand the difference between bitcoin and the rest of the coins in the market. I support their hunt for illegal drugs distribution and violence but blaming bitcoin for everything is not the proper way to conduct things.

it must always be a bitcoin that is a scapegoat from a transaction that is considered unlawful, actually if we think well, bitcoin is just a tool or media that we use to facilitate our transactions, like a knife that will produce something good in the form of food if we use it for cooking but it will wreak havoc if we use it to hurt others. So actually it is not a bitcoin that is the source of the problem, but its unwise use will be a problem.

@yusupjatigumilar. There are reasons why the government in any country do what they do. They want to spread fear and then make themselves needed and available to "keep you safe" hehehe. However, it is really an illusion made to control their citizens.

Need an understanding to be a journalist in order to not make a topic which is not relevant. This is one thing that should be know by everyone who which will make a topic about bitcoin. They are just consume a topic without knowing the fact, because there are a lot of cases which has been handled by a police about illegal transaction that use bitcoin.

Once again bitcoin is not fully anynomous, the transaction will be known by everyone because the system is really transparent. Hopefully, in the future the illegality that use bitcoin will be disappear because this information will make everyone afraid and have a negative thinking to bitcoin. It will be good for a journalist to write an article that stated bitcoin is not anynomous in order to the perpetrator aware that if he use bitcoin for their payment system will be known by a police.

I think this is one of the reason why some countries want to banned bitcoin because of the illegal transactions doing by bad people. They use bitcoin for their safety, bitcoin is a useful tool that can help society to improved and i feel so sad that some people use it for bad.

That could be true because they don't want to see bitcoin will be used for illegal transaction although they know that bitcoin can do for whatever reason. The used of bitcoin itself will depend on the people, and I am sure that each people will have different purposes in using bitcoin.

Bitcoin can be a good thing or the bad thing, and we should use bitcoin for a good thing only so we can get the benefits of bitcoin and we don't have to break the law. But if we know that bitcoin has been used for the illegal transaction by our friends, perhaps, we need to remind them not to use bitcoin for that thing because there is a risk behind of the illegal transaction in the future and they don't know what exactly will happen to them.

Its not about the news. Its about the media making the country's war on drugs program a failure because of drug syndicate using BTC.

Philstar are known to have spread malicious news to paint Duterte as the bad guy in this country. They publish news about the guys and his family dealing drugs and a member of Chinese triad and so on. The media and the liberal party in the Philippines are working together to bring down the current administration and when Duterte becomes critical to them they cry out oppression of press freedom.

The first time I read this news I thought the illegal transaction was carried out with a monero where Monero himself was a full anonymous coin. Actually, if you use bitcoin they can still be tracked from the exchanges used unless they are too smart to do money laundering.

Maybe one day when crypto became known, these criminals will find Monero and I don't expect that Monero will become a crypto crime.

Well, it is decentralized, it is obvious that there will be people that will take advantage of this. If I am not mistaken, this is being done for a long time now so I am not surprised by this. Also, there are a lot of people that are caught so we don't need to say that they will continue. Bitcoin is not to blame but the people that are using them, we can't control or stop them since it is Bitcoin.

Actually I was aware of serious problems with terrorist groups but I did not remember that , you reminded me.  I guess in this situation when the situation is so serious, government should not just track the crypto transactions but give out laws which states that KYC should be done in case of crypto starting from some transaction amount.

The war on drugs will forever fail and it has been proven over and over and over again. It is all about money not your health or crime. We use drugs daily. Drugs are used in hospitals. Infact the reason street drugs kill so many people is because they have been made illegal so the people making them don't give a shit about the quality. There is also so much misinformation and fear. The war on drugs is just a fear campaign.

How do people not hear how stupid they sound when they talk about drugs as a "War". How the @#$! must you get peace through war??? *massive double facepalm*


"Every crypto transaction end up exchanged to fiat sooner or later" absolute nonsense. If this were true bitcoin would lose value continuously. Bitcoin has its own value you don't need to convert it to fiat.

You all paranoid and delusional about terrorism.

KYC is the devil.

It makes me scared that our government might make some unfair regulations regarding bitcoin because of people who engaged in such illegal activities. I hope they focus catching people like offline rather than online instead since sending drugs will be done off line. And I hope they do something about the addresses of those people.

Crypto surely makes illegal trade easier. And as banning crypto is not an easy and effective task, governments are now trying to give options to people to use government monitered crypto that gives every crypto benefits minus the tax free and anonymity. China has some form of it while USA now trying to launch a global coin with the help of elite enterprises led by Facebook.

PDEA is really outdated when it comes to intelligence about such matters. The Feds already know about this back in 2013 and had effectively seized bitcoins from the Silk Road and other known persona involved in the said marketplace. This has always been an issue for bitcoin, but fact of the matter is it's not only being done through bitcoin but also with fiat. Drug money and funding from terrorists all came from the USD prior to bitcoin's inception, so there's really not much the governments can do even if they banned crypto in their countries because nefarious people will always find a way to complete their activities.

Bitcoin is really used for illegal purposes, it's true. But countries, on the contrary, should not prohibit it, but accept and begin to regulate transactions with it. It is impossible to ban it, people will still find a way to use it.

Honestly this is the bad side of bitcoin ,they using it for payment method of using illegal transactions, because bitcoin only track transaction and thats only,and you could'nt know who the one or who the person about to trade by using it.

Its not surprising anymore, syndicates will find a way that is convenient for them and they use bitcoin for that. But bitcoin itself is not a a part of syndicate. I think we should not change our positive views about btc because of that. Bitcoin itself is also a victim. It was made for the good welfare but it was use for illegal purposes.

War on drugs is stupid but not because of the reasons you have provided. Hospitals doe snot use hallucinogenic drugs and stimulant drugs . People on " the street" use particular drugs for completely different reasons than in Hospitals. The way to stop that should be completely different than " war" on drugs. Portugal is a good example.



It seems that you dont understand the issue. Every bank has to comply with AML, crypto transactions should also comply. If crytpo is not controlled by laws in particular area , then in case of terrorist financing it could be a tool for them.
If money is transferred via crypto with the aim to buy goods, It will be exchanges to fiat. Right now there are not a lot of vendors accepting crypto as payment form.

Dark Web is the deepest part of the deep web where the content in it is a negative majority, for example drug buying and selling sites and so on. Dark web is also hidden. Some dark web sites are often used to trade inappropriate things in black markets or black markets. Some examples of crime activities found on the dark web: sales of drugs, pornography (including child pornography), sex trafficking and human trafficking, arms sales, counterfeit currency sales, fake documents, hacking software, malware, stolen credit cards, hackers payment, to contract killers. It is this buying and selling activity that requires deep web users such as contract killers with their clients to be able to transact safely and anonymously so a currency that is not tied to a bank, country and company is created. In this case the Deep web chooses the Bitcoin currency as the primary payment instrument and is accepted by everyone in the deep web.

Bitcoin itself was chosen because the bitcoin currency meets several criteria, namely the deep web currency is not affected by the state and the bitcoin apparatus and currency do not ask for an identity when used so this currency only requires a recipient's address and sender's address, not a home address unique code that is different from each person.

In that unique address no information can be obtained regarding the sender and recipient of bitcoin. What they know is that the address becomes a name, the photo will not be visible. Bitcoin itself also has a system of "Final Action" which is when we / other people send bitcoin for payment then the action cannot be canceled once you press the Send button, Send Bitcoin, Pay then the money in Bitcoin will be transferred directly to the Bitcoin Wallet go and this transaction cannot be canceled or revoked.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have worked hard to bring down the dark web community used by criminals, according to James Chappell, founder of the threatening intelligence firm based in London Digital Shadows.

A public blockchain can easily be traced especially with the proper technology. Ciphertrace reported $1.2 billion total they were able to see was either lost through theft, scams or fraud. I don't know the exact hard number which was attributed to the dark web exactly

I don't know why the government is blaming the bitcoin for all those dark web activities. Is the Government trying to say that Dark Web illegal activities didn't exist before bitcoin was invented? Of course it did exist. People did illegal activities over there using fiat. To keep their themselves safe from getting tracked, they used gift cards as a form of making payments.
It's totally bullshit to put all blames on crypto currencies. Why not find a better solution or a way to just crackdown all illegal activities taking place over there?

Whether the war on drugs will fail or not is of minor importance regarding Bitcoin usage. What is important is that BTC, because of its traceability, has been no longer used by high ranking criminals of the Dark Web. What most of them have been using is Monero, Monero, not Bitcoin, period. Actually, I think governments are aware of that. The reason of all the confusion is some journalists who are poorly versed in the subject of which they write.

It is almost completely false, you can get a lot of information.
If someone wanted he could gather data from darkweb, he could identify the btc addresses which are tied to dark web, identify addresses of mixer and exchanges and even those who are selling btc for FIAT. Now agencies can track the transaction to the person or organization like exchnage where it was exchanges and if the amount was big then it will be possible to identify the person who did business with exchanger.

Most syndycates that are active in illegal industries are the first to adopt innovate technologies. And why is that?
Because it is ahead of everyone and they make their lives easier with paying with Bitcoin for example. What makes me sad is because of that issue, bitcoin may be regulated in Phillippines. Or it may be stronger that will make it to be adopted by citizens faster.

I do not think the president will ban Bitcoins in the Philippines because of this issue on Drugs or being used in Darkweb.  There are several signs that Philippines are getting more accomodating to blockchain technology and Bitcoin is one of them.  The Philippines had prepared a regulatory guidelines about blockchain technology and ICO's (https://news.bitcoin.com/philippines-announces-new-cryptoccurency-regulations/) to take advantage of this trend.  They even approved more than 10 crypto exchanges in the country so I think the president won't waste this opportunity for the Philippines.

Though, these drug traders on the dark web should have used anonymous coins in order for them not to be tracked by the authority.  Bitcoin is fully traceable.  I bet those who used them will be pinpointed and be put to jail soon.


Well said, I also believe that BTC that passes mixing service will be traced to.

hope so. its not the president i'm worried he'd decide differently, he is very much open to new ideas and new approach to things. this is the best president we could ever have. i like this one the most. its those around him that has the bad intention like the media, the previous administration who rules the country for more than30 years but had done nothing but to stay in power.

and what about drug business that's running on fiat currency for centuries? Every invention has both good and bad usage. We can't say CC is bad since its used by drug dealers. There are many positive aspects of CC which we must take into account

If the "government needs to do something" what do you think they can do which will not harm people? Do you actually think Big Government will help and how?

Media had been biased for over a decade, they always favor who is in power, or who they are in favored with.  But I see the president bombarding this biased media stations.  So, I think he will not be influenced by these kind of people.


Government can't ban their self made currency.  It will be a slap on their face if they do.  And  i believe physical cash is the more anonymous if traded in p2p so the government will have a problem tracing drug dealers using this kind of medium of exchange.  That is why, whenever they have an entrapment mission, they always use a marked money to catch the perpetrator.


I think all they can do is to regulate cryptocurrency which is what they are doing right now.  "Big government" or let us say Developed countries always share intels amongs their ally.  That way, they can help countries that lacks technology in tracing things.

Bitcoin is indeed a good technology that makes it very easy to conduct financial transactions. Naturally bitcoin is used for positive transactions. If bitcoin is used for negative transactions, it will reduce the self-esteem and popularity of bitcoin. I am afraid that public trust in bitcoin will be eroded again. As technology connoisseurs, we should be wiser in utilizing existing technology for positive activities. Don't let us participate in damaging the morale of the nation with drugs.

I completely agree with you there. Just look at what he did last month with sending  all these barges of garbage labelled as recyclables back to canada where they originated from. Or if they did not take it back he will declare war on their country. So of course the peaceful nation in which they are accepted taking back the garbage to their country and will be disposing of it the proper way and not sending it off to another country to deal with.
So he is being quite brash in his methods but they are effective.

Without bad there can be no good right? Every currency has this unfortunately, some more than others but we are all to blame the same.... kind of :)

Yes man im missing the old world before bitcoin.there was no crime, everyone was happy, respectfully.i dont want to live here anymore with evil bitcoin.

Many people love Bitcoin because of its anonymous transactions feature, either to the criminal. They love using bitcoin mixer system to hide the resource of Bitcoin.

Money laundering through bitcoin by syndicate groups is a real problem for some countries. This is a very serious problem that need to be resolved by governments as soon as possible. Some countries such as India already planning to ban bitcoin with the same reason.

This was to be expected as everyone knows about the existence of anonymous cryptocurrencies.It is the dark world that pushes many people away to use cryptocurrencies.It's really a problem.Let's see how will behave the FATF.Yet they must take some appropriate steps.

Btc would be popular if we could stop using btc for illegal anonymous transaction. Now most of the people think that btc is the easy way to hide identity and to deal with illegal items like ammo, drugs and porn. Older citizens think that btc was created for illegal purpose only. But honestly, btc is more usuable than that. Underlying block chain tech is a revolution. But our greed and dishonesty will make btv suffer. It is our fault

You are right but you can't control others, their decisions and thinking.
People will always use any chance to cheat others and it's nothing we can do it about it.
We should promote bitcoin to others and also explain about it very well.
People are always doubtful about new technologies but they will eventually accept it, when they understand it, I have no doubt about it.

Many of the member here are right about what is really happening into it. Those drug users and drug pushers are just using bitcoin as their tool for the transactions. Bitcoin is not the real thing there but it involves.
There's always consequences in anonymity this is the example of it. The government is fixing this and making a solution into it for sure. We as a bitcoin user we don't really have the power to do something big about it but the only thing we can do is to make them understand what really bitcoin is.

The people especially for those who consider that bitcoin is often to be use as a dark activity should be understood that all currency can be use as illegal activity not bitcoin only. Don't only see bitcoin is new currency so as they are free to give a negative feedback to the function of bitcoin even if compare with the using of money fiat bitcoin is a safe way to be use as payment system because we can track all our transaction transparently which mean the government can see activity of their citizen who use bitcoin. This is like an attack in order to new people who will buy bitcoin will not gonna happen, many people don't like bitcoin and we should not give more replies to them, assuming this is just a trial.

This is truly saddened about bitcoin being used on these kind of unethical ways by group of criminals and this is not new to us all even before bitcoin was used on several illegal acts. Bitcoin has greater purpose and uses and could make our lives even better, in a good way. We just have to accept that we cannot control anyone to use it for good or bad, it's just the negative and dark side of bitcoin, that is. But overall bitcoin is a great innovation and everyone adopters should be proud of.

I have a remedy to change peoples minds about Bitcoin and Crypto Currency in general :)

In my opinion Dark Web and Drugs have become a normal use if you talk about this with Bitcoin. What becomes more complicated is the government now, Affairs with real people only know a small part of the Blockchain Technology. And also additionally with the politics can make blockchain and cryptospace become sick.

How can you really be so sure OP? If this is really happening then it will be difficult for the authority to track drugs transaction related crimes. But, I think that government are already conducted a study making the possible solution for this problem. Probably it will be the reason why blockchain and other altcoins are being  abused by the clients.

No crime? Are you serious? A lot of people or let's say criminals are taking advantage of the decentralized crypto currency in the past. In fact there are a lot of people that became popular since they are caught in the deep web using btc to sell and buy things there. If you don't want the btc you are seeing right now, you can just leave your btcs.

Not only in the Philippines the Human Being and trickster guy, There are many more transactions than we think. :-X

there will always be that person who even very bright and clean projects that should benefit humanity will be used with malicious intent.  the whole history of mankind is built in such a way that someone will do well, and someone will deceive.  It is through the prism that you can look at Bitcoin, because someone uses it for good purposes, And someone in criminal activity ..

I think it's inevitable... Those drug syndicates will always find a way to keep the business running without getting caught. And I think it's also one of the negative side of crypto. They're using it for illegal purposes and giving it a bad reputation. I just hope, it won't affect the use of bitcoin and other crypto in the Philippines.

The funny thing is any currency can be used to buy these things which are seen as illegal in some places while in others they are not.
So it all comes down to crossing the line of ethics in which these devices of going against ones countries own law is in view of whether it is right or wrong in the authorities eyes of those governing countries. Thats all really. :-[
You cant just ban bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and expect these problems to magically just go away.
That is just plain absurd. ::)

thats why some country ban this cryptocurrency because of there illigal activity. they use bitcoin to hide there idintity and untraceable transaction...

That is the main threat bitcoin facing today.Using bitcoin by criminals for their criminal activities.They using this un-detectable advantage of bitcoin wisely,They doing their job and putting all bitcoin network in danger.Then the government officials come and try to ban bitcoin.End of story.

That's right, criminals will always find a way to do illegal businesses, with or without Bitcoin. Also, if some crypto should be banned in this regard, it's not BTC. Criminals realized long ago that they can be tracked because of using Bitcoin, and started using Monero (XMR) for thier transcations. Other so called "privacy-oriented" cryptocurrencies include Dash (DASH), ZCash (ZEC), Verge (XVG) and Bitcoin Private (BTCP). The developers claim keeping their network users' identities and their activities completely hidden from prying eyes of everyone, including police. If they are so inclined to ban crypto, governments should ban those in the first place and leave Bitcoin alone.

this is one of the weakness of bitcoin to be utilized by persons who are not responsible that cause concern from the government will be expanding the crime rate is, in fact bitcoin is just the object, depending on the subject who use them are to be used positive activities or negative activities like crime

It’s just happen that PDEA has found something that they can throw a word against cryptocurrency or in Bitcoin specifically,but we all know that this is happening around the world and even without bitcoin around this bad elements will find ways how to deal their illegal activities so the thing here is nothing in the world can stop them unless they will put under 7 feet.because even the bars can not prevent them from doing thisc activities so what would the crypto community can do against them?

Drug dealing and other bad stuff are there for centuries. Even with fiat currency, it's very hard to detect them because of there ties with government officials. Bitcoin price is volatile yesterday it was 7100 and now it's 6800. I don't think its a good idea to trade drugs for such volatile currency.

That's true, crimes are for centuries. Government can do almost nothing with that. Nowadays, when technology (including cryptocurrencies) developed so fast, crimes has grown. New laws and 5AMLD aren't able to stop it completely, just prevent it in some way. I think it's quite useful and might be helpful in some cases.

That has been like that for years and now they worry about crypto being involved... ::)

It is a reality they should take measures sooner than later / never of course as other countries are doing so far.
Considering Philippines is one of the most popular and used countries for such illegal stuff i am sure it will be hard for them to fix their issues.

I just hope that can manage to regulate something up so it becomes a green sign.

the country has more issues than drugs and this war on drugs of Duterte administration which had been politicize for years already. the people behind destroying Duterte are also the ones who own the drug business, methlabs, TV stations, news stations and water concessionaires, they hate the president for they can't bribe the old man.

TRUMP and DUTERTE share the same issues. the news outside our country are very much blown for propaganda for character assassination of President Duterte.  the news outside US was that Trump is the worse but in realityTrump gets a lot of support from US.

actually, every country have bad news, but not all revealed or publish. and bitcoin is just one of the other way that used by them because it have advantage, and there are many ways to make transaction and government still dont know about. crime will always be found everywhere, and people will always success break the system.

Bitcoin has been majorly associated with dark web by the government. No doubt bitcoin got recognition from the dark web only and the main utility of bitcoin as a currency was there only. But if you compare the trades carried out with bitcoin to that if cash, cash will win by huge margin.

Bitcoin has the specifications which make it really easy to be used in dark web transaction. But banning bitcoin won't solve the problem of dark web's illegal activities. Bitcoin is just a payment mechanism. People will find some other to fund their illegal activities. There isn't much what government can achieve by banning bitcoin when it comes to dark web.

As what you have been said, that was true that sone of the drug lords are using bitcoin and dark web nor deep web in order to make a anonymous transaction so that the government will not be able to see the transactions that was doing by the drug syndicates. It is merely a fact that in Philippines was who are very slow in adapting the new technology will be able to start a investigations on what are really happening inside the internet and how would the drugs are depositing in each country to the use of internet. Those drug syndicates are taking the opportunity to transact drugs in those countries that are very weak when it comes to the security in the internet, and many news that not only drugs are selling through the use of bitcoins.

Indeed. Bitcoin was used before for selling and buying drugs, weaponry, and other illegal activities in the dark web, that is why the government was not infavor with bitcoin before because it is also very difficult for them to track criminals when they are making transactions. I think bitcoin is still been used in illegal activities in the dark web because as long no person was not arrested because of it, they will still continue.

Less and less to be honest, as Bitcoin is traceable, it is getting eliminated from darkweb slowly.

This is the negative side of using Bitcoin since it is decentralized and untraceable. These evil activities don't only exist in the Philippines but other countries as well, one reason why the government doesn't approve of using Bitcoin or not in favor of cryptocurrencies since they can't track the transaction of the member involved. Too bad because it could be one of the reasons why other country's governments choose to ban the use of Bitcoin as it'll be used for bad transactions.

It was surely a good option to use since bitcoin technology was already unique and revolutionary to a lot of users , they could easily make a transaction without being tract by a government since the bitcoin have its anonymous transactions in the blockchain surely they could easily use it but it is more like of a test since the people from Philippines was not all expose to a advance technology like bitcoin.

Let the government and the rest of the haters continue to take a swipe at Bitcoin in their bid to discredit and drag it down. They've tried enough damage yet Bitcoin isn't dead. It's a big shame on them because 2020 will see another halving of Bitcoin that will further strengthen the price. Bitcoin has come to stay whether it's labelled a courier for drugs and illicit activities or not (as if fiat isn't used for such too), the community will continue to seek it.

Even if fiat were used instead of crypto, it wouldn't change anything. Dark web would find ways to obtain funds.

I think it was given since the Philippines was already adopting a technology it was already a great asset for them to use,
They could easily use bitcoin as an asset of transactions for selling drugs since it was impossible to be trace because it has an anonymous transaction,
Surely the government could not do anything about this but they could just banned bitcoin in the country, surely the president is just going to be violent about this.
And I think it was not yet fully developed or use in drug transactions since a lot of bitcoin wallets in need a KYC I think they will not risk giving their identity.

Bitcoin transaction ledger is seethrough.
Drugmarkets use Monero reportedly , which has maybe the best anonymity features
Of any crypto that are privacy focused.

Started to wonder as I saw the title, and remembering recent news of Monero dev Spagni
stepping down officially from leading position in Monero.
Maybe he wants to have distance to XMR as it's use as a darkmarket currency could bring problems to him.

Well, anyway kids - Don't do Drugs.

It's really funny considering fiat takes up the biggest portion of currency being used for dealing drugs or any criminal activities and bitcoin is the one that take blame. the mentality of media right now is always putting crypto at the position to blame meanwhile if we are talking about money laundering there are definitely so many method out there that didnt use crypto but still can get away easily. even i doubt people with right mind will deal illegal things using crypto anyway considering how hard it's just to cash out from exchange.

That is one of the most dangerous uses of bitcoin. It is being used in illegal transactions conducted by terrorists and syndicates which makes things harder for the government to take legal actions. If this would continue, we should expect that drugs will be more evident in different parts of the world, not only in the Philippines. Also, there are other illegal products that are being sold under the black market where bitcoin serves as the mode of payment so it should not be a surprise seeing things like this anymore, I mean it's not new.

Drug syndicates are also getting smarter and smarter just to find a way on how they could sell drugs. It is the reason why a lot of countries has a bad view about bitcoin because some people used the dark web just to make transactions with their illegal businesses for them to be untraceable by the police or the drug enforcement agency.

they need to be smart so that they can think of the ways on how to continue thier business because this where they get thier wealth the most  . business like this are easy money and they can earn huge but the big problem is that it is illegal   .

darkweb is the one that we blame here not btc because btc is only a currency and a currency can be used anywhere but a website like darkweb is only specific for listing strange things and illegal things as well  .

I don't think we should blame dark web markets either. While I definitely don't agree with some of what's being sold or offered there, it shows that the people on these markets enjoy the benefits of what Bitcoin has to offer.

If these people using these markets can enjoy what Bitcoin has to offer, we as regular users can do so too. As long as that is the case, I don't see much wrong with how other people are using Bitcoin. Things are as they are whether we like it or not.

To be honest this is not surprising anymore. The same case was reported from other countries as well. The only difference is that it's from a different location, who honestly has one of the worst online security. In fact, my first introduction to Bitcoin was something like this, you can use it in illegal websites like dark web and such. But then I quickly realized that it doesn't have much difference from fiat money, it's a medium that you can use to exchange for almost anything.

Terrorists and syndicates have always been smart to do such things, they have to after all. It's a waste that they use such minds to perform such schemes. But then again, a quote took me aback, it says "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain".

It's not something new dude. People have been using bitcoin all over the dark net since a long time now.
There is no stopping to it till date which is why bitcoin is still being used on the dark web despite new cryptocurrencies getting emerged.
So using a particular thing for a good purpose or a bad purpose completely depends from person to person.

It depends from the intentions of the users, since bitcoin was been accepted as a currency even those illegal practitioners will take the advantages to use this system. It's not new anymore everyone is free to use this currency whether they use it illegally or use it in the right manner it will only depending with the holders and hope they will practice the freedom that they have from this industry.

Well bitcoin is just what gives these kind of people the opportunity to do such acts. But they would have most likely found a different way if bitcoin was not an option. But it will just be labeled as bitcoin being the scapegoat in the situation.

Sometimes its very sad to see the government always relating cryptocurrency or Bitcoin to the dark web, drugs and other criminal activities seen in the world but they forget that the decentralized nature of the cryptocurrency platform makes it easy to trace every transactions made on the blockchain network. Instead of them joining the crypto space and deploying developers into creating systems that can be used to track down these activities, they just spend their time developing useless policies that will not help prevent these activities........

For what purpose else is BTC has created?

Only BSV is legit and law abiding

this is the reason why bitcoin can't be accepted in many countries, one of which is that many countries are not ready to adopt the latest technology (blockchain) because they don't have developers in the blockchain field. when decentralization goes, freedom is a right. so someone can do anything about their assets in crypto. including drug transactions without being tracked. there are good and bad things about Bitcoin. the good thing is that bitcoin makes it easy for all distant transactions in a short amount of time. the bad is that bitcoin can be used for anything (including illegal transactions without being tracked)

That's why we do understand them, because if we they will let this to happen meaning that they are also allowing dard web, criminals to do illegal things in their country, so they really need to make sure that at least they are doing their job to protect the country or else, if Bitcoin will be widely used in a certain country it will be their obligation at all.

No doubt that Philippine drug syndicates are using bitcoin to sell and buy drugs in the dark web to avoid detection from the government because Philippine government is still not yet fully aware about cryptocurrency and bitcoin, that is why drug syndicates is taking all the advantage and freedom for them to sell and buy drugs in the dark web.

Lots of people on the dark web are now making use of Bitcoin as a way to be out of sight from the government. That has been a major point for most people when they want to speak against Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but there's really nothing we can do about this issue. Some people, when they are given freedom tends to misuse it, and that's what they are doing with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has given people freedom to do whatever they want and stay anonymous ( not 100%), so some bad eggs in the society are now trying to misuse that opportunity they have been given. This does not mean that bitcoin is the core reason because these types of illegal things are here for decades to century. Some governments has realized this fact whereas most governments are still studying bitcoins in this aspect.

Philippines is already a troubled place with all the fights between drug lords, terrorists and government people, there is no doubt that lots of these negative people are using crypto to launder there money in. Governments may try regulate with serious measures in order to stop the activities. Its a serious concern which should be discussed in order to grow as a community.

It is not surprising since bitcoin was already use by terrorist in a lot of illegal transaction in all over the world surely they are going to recognized this kind of technology overtime and try to use it also in a illegal transactions the bitcoin technology was surely a great option for them so that they could easily make transaction and hide their identity at the same time.

None of this would even be a problem if they just legalized drugs. -_- lol and a "war on drugs" that is the bs USA started after ww2 when they were the ones testing drugs on their own soldiers.... -_-
You can't get peace through war. "the war on drugs" is a pathetic saying anyway. It sounds retarded. Now they want to blame crypto for "enabling" people to buy drugs.
Like seriously??? Happy people don't go waiting in the middle of the night for a drug dealer, do they? So I guess the problem is that the person is unhappy and not the drugs. Blaming drugs means you too weak to take responsibility of your own actions. A drug will sit on the table it cannot harm you. You have to make the decision to take it.

Rather than waging a never-ending war and a war that they can never ever win they prefer to punish people for their drug use. How about you fix your society so people are not so unhappy?
I very much doubt bitcoin is used to buy drugs its just bs and FUD.

In addition, online learning for the sake of regulation will not be enough at these days. We need seminars to educate the people and activities for them to be knowledgeable on how to use bitcoin and cryptocurrency properly. Because actually with the current status of Bitcoin, it is very hard to make people use it in legal ways especially if they are doing illegal acts already. And we all know, how important it is to make cryptocurrency spending wise is because even a single illegal use of it might lose the trust of many people, those that are just starting to adopt to cryptocurrency.

We should not blame cryptocurrencies for their illegal way at all. Everything can be used legally as well as illegally. We need to teach people to use things for human benefits.
For the illegal usage of BTC in Drug, BTC is just a mode of transaction. And if it possible to restrict BTC for those things, the illegal users will move onto a new mode of transaction. So it will be better if the Gov look to stop the addiction of drug rather than imposing restrictions on the medium of transactions.

I'm not with the these drug syndicates but TBH, they are already late when it comes to the new technology.

In some countries, there are many syndicates that are already using cryptocurrency to buy anything from drugs to guns to gruesome videos etc.
Now I'm thinking, these drug syndicates will push the government to know anything about cryptocurrencies since our government isn't involved in anything related to crypto. Philippine government will be aware that these kind of things are existing and it is because of these syndicates. The problem is that they can't stop them from transacting to other people to buy but they can stop them from spreading the drugs to the pushers.

I'm not against the war on drugs by our President and I see that the government right now is giving more time to drugs compare to our previous administration however, it is not enough to stop all of these. Drugs are already spread across the country and to stop it, I don't see any solution to it. It is like a virus that has already spread nationwide and there is no cure for it.

These are maybe correlated with each other, I can say that because there are drugs selling at dark web right? but how are they gonna acquire that? What is their payment method? Bitcoin of course. They can use bitcoin as a payment method when buying drugs on the dark web. We all know that there are lots of illegal that are happening at the dark web not only drugs. But why is the government belong to these terms? Maybe because the first thing comes on their mind is that bitcoin is also illegal they do not know what bitcoin is really about. That is maybe because of these dark web and drugs relation. The government are banning bitcoin maybe because of that, they are thinking that it can only use through illegal transactions.

Dark web and also the deep web is a different world and it is so hard to have an access on it and because of this the drug transactions are being made here in order to transact country over country without noticing by the government and this is the most dangerous part here. If a large of people are having a transactions like this in the deep world of internet then it is really hard for the government especially with the police to point out how they are transacting it and who are those person who are involved here.
Let's be honest that in the internet world it is really hard to find out those criminals especially drug syndicates and people who are making bad things because the internet world has a lot of holes to get out.

The problem of drug traffic and huge role that Bitcoin plays in it can be solved by legalization (as well as dozens of other problems). People of power doesn't wanna change that but they blame Bitcoin for being part of the problem. This is appaling and must be stopped, I hope big pharma and alcohol/tobacco indstries will finally give in, this'll 100% lead to a healthier society.