Bitcoin Forum

The amount of news on hacking, money laundering, drug trafficking and others that involve cryptocurrency or bitcoin seems to never run out. has become a natural law there are always two sides to this life. There is a right there left, there is a good one that is bad. so also in the world of crypto, bitcoin and others. But we must agree together that all return to their own people, want to use it all for good or evil. So there is no side of crime in bitcoin, because bitcoin is just a tool used. The evil is the human mind that directs it.

Pretty much. The thing though is, the media is most likely just simply incentivized to release such news, because I assume these types of news gets the most clicks; along with those "bitcoin is dead" or "bitcoin price crashes" articles. The masses will simply not be that interested when the articles are going to be about bitcoin's fundamentals.

Only the powerful people do not think the way you do. They are labeling Bitcoin as the currency that perfectly fits the mind and acts of a criminal, a currency that effectively conceals the person behind the deals and the wallet addresses. But that is always belied by the available data and statistics. Numbers don't lie. Crimes, may they be international or local, are made possible with the support of money, fiat money.

You can use pretty much any cryptocurrency for evil purpose too, but your traces will be there forever in the blockchain. Compared to fiat, your traceability is higher on crypto, which is why it might not suit your purpose unless you mix it or use some stealth techniques, which sometimes cost you higher transaction fees or something like that.

I do think that's inevitable, as long as a human is the one who uses it. What matters more is whether bitcoin or crypto is more sustainable compared to fiat, and which one is more 'sound' to be used as a currency.

True that the bitcoin was just a tool in order to make evil works or illegal transactions online but come to think of it if there's no such things as cryptocurrency there will be less illegal transactions that may happen online, isn't? but i do like your perspective that it's the human itself that do evil things not the cryptocurrency itself.

Everything that has a value is a tool, like money, but you can blame it to the tool and bitcoin is a good tool for people to be anonymous that's why the government is keeping an eye on it and putting all the regulations as possible to minimize the risk of illegal activities such as money laundering.

Yeah, and now the government wants to regulate bitcoin because of those such crimes recently happen through bitcoin and we may consider as a tool they use but the fact is they cant regulate this tool. There are too many factors may affect if bitcoin is regulated, either may cause corruption. Even fiat can use as a tool to do illegal activities or those having a high value like gold can use also not the only cryptocurrency, we can't avoid those crimes. Being a human who uses a tool we must be careful on every transaction had especially on internet that prone to hacking and scam.

People will see what they wanted to see and not the truth itself. Bitcoin crimes are just an isolated case like of those other scams which involved a lot of money. Robing a bank, human trafficking, steeling things etc. There are always two sides of story. A man robing a bank, an agency who sells women as prostitues, and a women who stole a hundred dollar worth of jewelry. If people wanted to see only these, they will not be interested on the other side which are a man deposited to a charity, an agency who helps people to get a job abroad for free or a women who returned the lost purse to a man. Bitcoin involves a lot of money and its upto you if you only want to see is its flaws rather than people who already becomes financially stable with it.

100% Correct. We have seen how one of the biggest Ponzi schemes <MLM> started to use Bitcoin as a payment option and how that gave Bitcoin a bad name. Previously all kinds of payment options were used to fund these Ponzi schemes and the media did not blame the Banks or the credit card companies for this, but now that Bitcoin is used for the payment method, it is labeled as the culprit.  :o

Bitcoin is a currency and economic crimes needs a currency to commit their crimes, so they use Bitcoin as a tool to commit these crimes. Is Bitcoin a better tool for these crimes.... well that is open for debate.  ;)

The amount of news on hacking, money laundering, drug trafficking and others that involve US Dollars and Gold is much much higher. Read the news. Open your eyes!

Well, you can say that any type of money is a crime tool.

Bitcoin as an asset is not bad or Blockchain as a technology is not bad but on the contrary, the destructive minds of the people make it abusive. As a society, it's our responsibility to use it in an appropriate manner.

Therefore, it is impossible to blame any currency for the fact that it is used to make illegal transactions, only a person is guilty of this

And it is not only that

When a plane crashes and dozens of people get killed, it instantly makes the headlines. But virtually no one gives a fuck about many thousands dying everyday in car wrecks because this is not a news, let alone a sensation. It is the same with Bitcoin. When some bastard uses Bitcoin for something like drugs, human trafficking, or whatever, everyone is quick on the trigger. And then again, no one blames US dollars for being used in exactly the same way (and in many other dirty ways) but on a scale by far exceeding illegal operations with cryptocurrencies

Not only Bitcoin is just a tool, but there's no other tool that will be magically free from crime. Like people usually say, all kinds of money are used for bad things. But it's not just that. Let's take a look at people with power on both sides. With fiat, let's take the banks, processing pretty much everything and having a lot they can do with the money of people who gave it to them. Since Bitcoin doesn't have banks, let's take wallet providers and exchanges. Banks sometimes go bankrupt, leaving the users with their hand empty. It's not happening often, though. Banks get robbed, just like exchanges. Exchanges might engage in financial crimes like tax evasion, for instance, but banks are bigger money launderers than exchanges/individuals that use cryptos. It's just that the media is often biassed, trying to hide the shocking news with banks and emphasize similar things with cryptos. I bet the banks even pay them to do so in some cases.

The question here is why are people using bitcoin for illegal activities? Because they know they can launder money with it and they cannot be trace due to lack of regulation, so the answer here is to regulate the crypto market, those exchanges should be strictly monitored and exchanges has to require KYC to their clients so customers can be trace in case they will make an illegal activities with their bitcoin.

Yes. I remembered one local news who made a wrong statement about an investment scam.
The tool used was also bitcoin.
But thanks to social media, the news facebook page had been poured with bashing and different kind madness by bitcoin supporters.
The next day, they corrected it.

It will never stop, we are against something really big and they can make it happen. Also, there is still a larger percentage who doesnt understand what bitcoin really is.

What you have described is most appropriate but I would like to add that the concern here is using the right tool for the wrong purpose.
Bitcoin was created to eliminate the man in the middle for performing transactions/payments but hackers and criminals used it for the wrong purpose.
We can't actually do anything about it other than regualting it but then what's purpose of destroying bitcoin's true motive.

Correct! Its a ridiculous idea to single out Bitcoin being used for illegal activities and this don't make an exception on fiat money being used for same purposes yet no one bothers to blame it or even find concrete solutions! A good analogy for this is the hammer which could be used to build a house or destroy it and I guess it all depends on the intent of its users so we can say that the problem is not the hammer but it is how we use it and in what way it is supposed to be used according to its intended and novel purpose.

I do not want to say anything bad about cryptocurrency, but I must admit the fact that there are sufficiently large opportunities for abuse of cryptocurrency.  For intruders, cryptocurrency provides very good opportunities for anonymity and the inability to track their name and cash flow.  Perhaps this is why you need to work on increasing control over cryptocurrency.

Oh wow pretty such great expectations for good and bad, all things or kind or people have a good and bad Because nothing perfect in this world.
Bitcoin is good but people against bitcoin they create bad news to blame people about negaitve side of bitcoin as currency.

Money is the root of all evil, as they say. We can't help the fact that Bitcoin is money, just like the USD. (It's a better form of money in fact, but that's a separate discussion.)

As long as Bitcoin has value, it'll be used by criminals, just like the USD.

How can you say it so that the powerful people aren't capable of doing those things? When human greed eats them there's never enough of how powerful they are as long as they take what they wanted.

There are crimes also that doesn't need any money to perform such as vengeance. But crimes that take a lot of human lives are subjected to be funded by an organization or a group of people that has one goal to achieve. Cryptocurrency may be used in the future to fund such riot/war in certain places but i hope it won't really happen.

Criminals or not, we all seek to use the most convenient and accepted form of money or payment option to conduct business. People however always blame Bitcoin more than anything else because they don't understand it.

If you also add that most of the average joes pay attention to what the mainstream media is indicating, then it's not all that surprising that people consider Bitcoin a fraud or currency of the underworld.

Most of the news sources that represent the mainstream media have owners that want to push their own narrative for or against something, which in Bitcoin's case means more crap against it because it doesn't fit in their perfect world.

It is just negative press. That is how they make money. Shock value. They won't make much if they don't make outrageous claims. The trust is so much more boring then fiction and it won't excite people much.
Hearing about all the negatives and crime makes it more interesting since people are always fascinated with this sort of thing.

If they don't talk about the negatives they will have very little to use to shock the masses. They going for the biggest reaction since it directly correlated to their earnings.

I agree. It is just the human act and decision to used bitcoin on crimes. Bitcoin is only a tool for illegal transactions and it is the people choice. Things has advantages and disadvantages and it is your choice where you want to side because it has different usage. There are people who see the good on it but those who are greed keep going deep and make a plan for it since at has tge potential.

      Even without crypto currency criminal elements are continuously doing their bad intentions to other people so they must not blame to crypto if they will use this as funding for payments like as they are using  fiat money .

Its normal already. Remember that fiat has been used for bad purposes also but they don't put it on news. Bitcoin is just a tool that has been used by different evil persons to transact and it is normal to use it since it has a value.

Even things are being traded because they have value (barter) and so is crypto too. To be honest, I didn't surprised that this has been used for crime purposes. The best thing to do is just ignore what is said on these news sites and focus more on technicals rather than the fundamentals.

True, crime is not done by Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency that is created by man.  It is the person who decides whether he will use it for good or evil.  Just like money, many believes that it is the root of  all evil but most of us misunderstand it.  It is the "love" of money that is the root of all evil..



So much desire to acquire money that people do scams and evil deeds.

Bitcoin was judge as a crime tool is a propaganda and even as a mask in order to common people hate bitcoin and disturbing to a regulation. Indeed, bitcoin have a digital from which way they consider if one make a transaction then the other people will not know it, but that is a wrong perspective. Bitcoin transaction can be tracked and for those people who use it as a legal transaction should be afraid of that. I don't think that is a long term bad assumption if common people have an interesting to kniw more bitcoin. That is the matter of time, when many people know about bitcoin I guess the assumption of bitcoin is a criminal tool will be disappear.

I think that will depend on the people itself, so they know what will they want to do with bitcoin. We cannot blame crypto or fiat because bitcoin and fiat is only a tool and we can choose what we should do. And if we think that what we do is break the law, we should not continue, and we could do for good things. We can choose a good thing or a bad thing.

Not only on Bitcoin or USD, everything that has value will attract criminals to get it. All forms that are valuable are actually not wrong and true said the OP that what is wrong is the human mind itself. But it is very unfortunate that many have mistaken the perception of bitcoin, especially the government, I don't know how the government thinks that short.

For example narcotics. Most people consider narcotics to be illegal and dangerous drugs. But keep in mind that narcotics were not created for that, narcotics were created as certain drugs by doctors. It's just that many people abuse and this is the same as bitcoin. So we have to think intelligently about all the things we just know, most people just listen briefly.

This should be the mind of others whose thinking that bitcoin is a scam because they should know that it is only a tool for scamming people, it is just like other fiat money that has been use or tool for scamming people.

We are doinh evil activity with our govt currency too. Somedays ago, a ship with drugs was seized which was a part of JP, anyway, we can do whatever we wish with bitcoin and govt currency and it depends on us.
In my country, at least 50% of the fiscal year budget go to the pocket of politicians, engineers and other related staff. Are they using bitcoin? No, they are using govt currency.

From the very begininig Bitcoin had the reputation as criminal money. People thought that is only used for money laundering and buying illegal goods and services on dark markets. Situations has changed meanwhile but obviously not enough.
Everything that has some value or can be misused attracts criminals, that is not new. The sane is with fiat money and crypto but that is not the reason for cryptocurrency to have bad reputation.

True, anything can be used for good things and vice versa. We should not blame the tool itself. So if for example, bitcoin is used for bad purposes by some bad people, it is the duty of the authority to find out and arrest them. Technology continues to grow and people must follow it!

Bitcoin and crypto is not a crime tool. 

1- Anything can be hacked online and not just Bitcoin.
2- Money laundering can also be done with fiat and not just Bitcoin.
3- Bitcoin and local fiat can be used for drugs and other illegal means and we cannot blame only Bitcoin for this purpose

We can conclude that it is the use by the humans which make the Bitcoin good or bad. A good human can use bitcoin in a positive manner and bad human can use it in an evil manner.

There is no crime created but evil is present in the bad minds of humans, bitcoin is only a currency but bad people use it for their bad activities so that it has a negative impact on bitcoin, this is bad
But I think this kind of news does not make someone influence because the public is smart in responding to something

It's very sad that people only see Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a tool to promote criminal activities such as money laundering.  These people don't even understand the basic reasons behind the creations of cryptocurrency.  Its high time we in the crypto space clear these negative mentality people have about the entire crypto ecosystem..

Same with anything that can be called money, it can be use in crime depending on how people it, but the government has a job that's why they existed, their function is to ensure to protect its people so expect this will not last forever, regulation if not yet here will come in the way.

It is very silly to consider bitcoin dangerous because it is used for illegal purposes. A lot of things can be used for such purposes, but it doesn't make these things bad. It's all people's fault. If we follow this logic, then Fiat money should also be dangerous.

It is very bad that there are people who consider bitcoin an instrument of crime. Among my friends, too, there are such people. They are convinced that bitcoin is dangerous and discourage me from investing in it. I'm just tired of telling them otherwise.

I don't think I will agree with you on this. Bitcoin transactions are not all that anonymous. Every transactions on the network are stored permanently and can be easily traced no matter how long it takes. I believe the only reason why the government is concern and wants to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies is very simply. They just want to control the amount of cryptocurrencies in circulation and also the amount people can transact within 24 hours. They just want to control the use of cryptocurrencies just like physical fiats.

These three points are very true. Anything can be used as a criminal tool, depending on the user. It's just that, it's different when it comes to bitcoin, which basically becomes a taboo for ordinary people. Even though there are many benefits that can be obtained, the explanation is very reasonable by the OP.

I can give you an example of a knife and knife can be used to  hurt people but mainly the  knife used to cut the fruits and vegetables so you cannot claim knife to be a bad invention.
Same is the case with bitcoins.  It is used for transferring of money and sale and purchase of goods but few people are using it for the illegal task and business.

Well, let me try playing a devil's advocate here

Indeed, knives can be used for anything other than being kitchen inventory, including a murder weapon. But you can't ban knives because their home use (other than homicide, obviously) by far exceeds their other uses. Thus it is out of the question as entirely impractical. Further, some varieties are actually banned from possession unless you have a license (e.g. hunting knives and anything looking more like a sword than a knife). On the hand, banning Bitcoin will not have a lot of side effects and unintended consequences apart from a bunch of nerds wining and crying over here and over there. Simply put, banning Bitcoin is not a big deal

What ever your concern is mate the thing is all of this happens inside the crypto community and even that it’s a human actions still the main source is Bitcoin or the cryptocurrency so if there isn’t no crypto there’s no crypto related crime(but ofcourse even there is no crypto still crime will happen in some areas or life)

Good interpretation here mate and maybe this will be enough to understand what what is happening here the best way is to keep secure and take care of our currency

Bitcoin has a lot of benefits like transferring money from one country to another in blink of second without consuming any extra third party fee etc.  Banning bitcoin will have a serious impact on economy and whats more better is that due to decentralization, no one can completely ban bitcoin and people will still be able to find the ways to use it. ;)  

I've never watched a news report for Bitcoin explaining what it actually is.
Most of the times when they talk about Bitcoin in TV you can see that they are really happy only when price falls. Probably this makes the people that just scratched the surface feel better. Return to sanity or whatever.
Since they talk about this subject which we understand, where it is clear to realize their lies and propaganda, can you think of all the subjects that we don't understand how much they manipulate us?

I'm no longer sure about the blink of a second

Nowadays, it is actually more like hours than seconds (let alone a couple blinks). Third party fees are also irrelevant here as miners are that third party anyway, so under these circumstances it is the size of the fee which ultimately counts. But in this department Bitcoin doesn't shine either. Regarding Bitcoin's effect on the economy, it is greatly exaggerated, and if the role of a devil's advocate should be played to perfection, this effect exists only in the minds (read, imagination) of Bitcoin holders. As you can see, banning Bitcoin in its entirety will turn out mostly unnoticed by the wider public

The authority sees the growing risk in crypto, so they are making ways to prevent it.

Bitcoin through a mixers can be uses for illegal activities but we know that the authority now are very strict to prevent illegal activities such as money laundering. Criminals will abuse crypto if they see it has lax of regulation but we are not in the early stage, lots of mixers are closing now and some are seize, so this is an evidence that the government are making an effort to minimize this illegal activities.

Basically, you are just describing how evil can be, and it's already a given fact knowing that it's always like that, we are the monsters in our nightmares, and we all have to know what to do with it. I remember a story where there are two wolves, a good and a bad one. So who is the stronger one? The one you feed. That's the most straightforward analogy and quite a simple story, a lot of people must have known this already.

In the same manner that a knife could be used both for slicing stuff in the kitchen and slashing someone's throat. I share your perspective on this. Bitcoin is invented for all the beautiful purposes Satoshi had in mind. But it does not mean that it could not be used in a negative way. Just as fiat and gold, it could also be used by the bad people in financing or as payment of illegal goods and services. At the end of the day even as helpful to life as a medicine could also be used to take it away.

bitcoin or cryptos are a currency or a payment medium so its normal if they will be used for paying or buying and it does not matter if what will you buy with , it maybe a good or bad service but a knife that you mentioned earlier is mainly being used for slicing and using it for other purpose ex. for killing someone is already considered to be a crime or illegal   .  bitcoin/cryptos isnt only a crime tool or its not a crime tool rather because its primary purpose is for paying/buying/selling  and not for doing criminal acts  .

Before bitcoin appeared there were fiat currencies that were used for crime. I'm sure that nowadays fiat currencies are still the number one payment tool for bribes, illegal weapons and even drugs. I'd like to say it's not the problem of the payment tool, it's a problem caused by people who connected their lives with such activities.

I understand why crypto image is so bad because there was large number of scam investment growing use crypto as a tool lately and unfortunately people recognized those globally and says all of crypto users are bads but i think the problem is the people themself that how we will use crypto because in the good hand crypto can be utilize to helping people massively but in the wrong hand crypto can be used to scamming people

Bitcoin is a tool for us, and it depends on how we use it in our life. We see that bitcoin can be used for a good thing like, for example, we can use bitcoin as the investment, for making transaction and the others. But bitcoin can also be used for a bad thing like for example to buy the illegal thing in the dark market. We don't know what bitcoin will be used for, but I am sure that there are many people who will use bitcoin for a good thing and they will prevent from doing bad things.

Bitcoin ponzi schemes are being advertised on tv in Brazil. The government is totally incompetent in oversight. They only investigate later, when people have already lost money.

It is a hot topic as of now, but later on after sometimes passed it would be forgotten again, so people would still go back to where it is. Bitcoin or fiat, both can be used as a criminal tool, so why the hell brought up the issue of Bitcoin being  worst than any other types of currencies. That is how the media works, giving the information as if Bitcoin is never a good help in the financial business, but hey, there are also people that believes in it and it's capabilities so again why the hell bother bringing this up.

Bitcoin is a tool used for crime, but not only for all, but bitcoin has also already been used to support and make donations to people who really need it. It could be used for good or bad, but sadly all media like more the bad news than the good news, and fake media doesn't help at all, so, it's hard for bitcoin to grow in a hostile ambient like this.

I think with proper technology we can avoid crimes before they happen. Bitcoin is a public ledger and we have blockchain forensics companies like Ciphertrace that are developing incredible technology to monitor money laundering scams.

There are going to be bad actors in every situation but with advanced technology and machine learning, I think we could dramatically alter the amount of scams that are currently occurring. From there we can figure out consequences

I find them cherry picking when it comes to this. I was on a different place before and I heard people talking about bitcoin and they don't want to get involve in this because they say there are a lot of news about bitcoin price crashes and it has stability issues. They don't know that the volatility helps a lot in earning profit. But there are rare news about good things in bitcoin when it comes to mainstream media.

OP how you and most of the people look bitcoin is very wrong. To start from the begining, problem are we, humans because we do illegal things. Next problem is money, fiat money, it's used in our everyday life and even bitcoin is calculated in USD value. Next problem is technology, let's blame technology before bitcoin. Without internet, computer and etc you wouldn't be able to use bitcoin so why not to consider technology as a tool of crime? I think with that logic that's the main reason and problem.
Then what about banks? Just see Deutsche bank and others, they were involved in money laundering and in other things. Also when does bitcoin comes finally? On exchanges, so let's blame exchanges because they give us possibility to exchange bitcoin into usd and other currencies.
So to sum up, that logic is "out of logic".
Everything has it's pros and cons and everything can be abused or misused, bitcoin isn't a problem.

What is a bad transaction for you can be a good one for someone else. In a country where gambling is illegal such transactions are bad but in other regions they are good. You can't know for sure which transaction is good and which is bad. For a drug addict buying drugs is a good transactions and for the police it is bad. We shouldn't judge!

I agree, everything depends on the holder. If we use bitcoin for criminal activities like money laundering, it is not the fault of bitcoin but it is our own fault. Marijuana can be used for medical purposes but can also be used for negative things. All depends on its use

Although bitcoin can be used for an illegal thing, we should not use bitcoin for that because we can use bitcoin for a good thing. We don't want to break the law by using bitcoin for an illegal, so we need to prevent or avoid that so we don't have to worry with anything. Besides that, by using bitcoin as a good thing, we can get the benefits that will help our lives too, and we can make money with bitcoin, and we can help bitcoin to be spread in many places.

Hi, sometimes when we responds to post like this, we have to ensure that we do not only reply to the topic, but we have to look deep into the content too, the topic might be misleading, but the content will bring out the true picture of the intention of writer,. the op was never against bitcoin, and he said very similar thing to what you said also.

When there is a new system, there is always tendency of people to bring its weakness out and without bringing that weakness out, it would be impossible for it to be strengthened, there are many other areas where people commit fraudulent practices, and bitcoin is even the least of them, but sooner than later, it would get to a point also where the crime rate in crypto will be reduced to almost minimal,

Crypto crime is easier to control than even other system, even the Fiat money is still getting very difficult to control the crime rate through it but with blockchain technology and regulation, cryptocurrency can still be very control to have little or no scam in the system, but until we have regulation, there might be noting much that can be done.

that's a very good idea. There are some people who deliberately use bitcoin as a tool of crime, but what actually creates a negative image of bitcoin is not bitcoin but it is a person who makes bitcoin a tool of crime.
The use of bitcoin is not controlled by the government or an authorized financial institution. As a result, these conditions open up great opportunities for committing criminal acts such as money laundering and tax avoidance.
The lack of government control also makes bitcoin seem worthless. In addition, some financial observers consider bitcoin to be an illegal currency because it is not encouraged by law that is legal.

Bitcoin started as an Digital Asset and was only meant to be used for payments. Intellectual Users always have something on their sleeves to gain advantage over others. They may started to use it as funds to transfer dirty money but it doesnt mean that we should start to think bad of Bitcoin. There will be always some users that will use Bitcoin incorrectly but we should set them as an example NOT to follow.

Bitcoin has really good intentions for all the people who uses it but when foolish people start taking an advantage through the use of bitcoin,crimes start taking place.It's the foolish people themselves who should be blamed about the negativity news being spread about bitcoin and not bitcoin itself.

Only people with shallow mind will see Bitcoin as a criminal tool for money laundering and other criminal activities.  Its high time people spend good quality of time to read and study the whitepaper of Bitcoin to help them truly understand the purpose and reason behind the development of it...

Hmm. I'm just curious about how they transact. There must be an escrow for them because we all know that bitcoins transactions are irreversible and cannot be retracted anymore when sent. Maybe they have created some release or something with the BTC.

That's the wrong side of people, using the image of BTC to deceive. That's why it's impossible that everyone is going to use it.