Bitcoin Forum

Hi guys I just want to share a short prove showing that Fiat is been used more in money laundering schemes than crypto and if people attacks you with crypto's being used to launder money. Refer them to this article on ccn
Fiat Money Outpaces Bitcoin 800:1 for Money Laundering

https://www.ccn.com/fiat-money-outpaces-bitcoin-by-8001-for-nefarious-activities-report/

Obviously fiat is involved in all the crimes and the ratio is the highest everywhere but also keep in mind that fiat is everywhere, everyone has it, its circulation and use is in hundreds of trillions of dollars daily so obviously it will stay the biggest component of crime as well.
I think with global regulators like FATF jumping in crypto will also be monitored for crimes and money laundering like fiat so all good.

It is a no brainer because fiat is being used by all people while crypto is being used by just a small fraction of the global population.  There is only one conclusion to derive from this.  Criminals will use all means to take advantage of the existing system for their own gain.


You should also consider the ratio of the population using cryptocurrency and fiat in using this kind of comparison.  It is fairer that way.

Fiat has already exist before crypto and crypto is touching its 1 decade this year and people who blame crypto caused by money laundering never try to see the fact. They were the crypto haters.
That's a lot of ration between fiat compared with crypto.

Yes, fiat money laundering has been operating decades and decades of our existence. So the money involved is not comparable to crypto as it is very huge. If people will educate themselves, they will appreciate what crypto really is. But yes, we can't deny the fact that some people will use it for illegal activities. But these activities will always be there, with or without crypto. So why not look at the positive side of things in crypto? I guess the benefits that we are getting from crypto are being missed by many people who over criticized crypto as bad.

Yes I do believe it so because fiat currency was the first to ivolve in money laundering compare to cryptocurrency.

But which do you think could be more safer to launder money the Fiat or the crypto?

Well if not because of KYC money laundering on crypto would be too good without getting caught and that is the reality. However, due to this KYC money laundering has been minize. Yer, we all know that we do not like KYC. This is not really we like to a decentralization system to be remain anonymous.

The fault of having this KYC are those who made abuses of cryptocurrency. This is why we are now having problems with the possibility of our important details that could be expose due to this KYC.

Fiat has been in exietence for ages so it might have a worst record but at ghe long run, digital currency will surely takes over since it is possible to remain anonymous during transaction and there are other tools that makes it possible to provide shield for transactions

It's not a major difference between the two kinds of loundring. In crypto, it's always less risky due to the characteristics of transaction while we can't avoid the tracability in FIAT.

I think it is easier to do it on crypto but people tend to do it on how they know.
They are lazy or scared to try out new things that is why they still prefer to do it on Fiat.
Not that I am promoting to use crypto as a tool to do something illegal but it is just a fact some crypto platform doesn't require a KYC to be used.

I am sure that all governments know this fact. Fiat has always been used to launder money in the past. Until now, cryptocurrencies are not long past and money laundering has been around since ancient times and all governments know this but they lie because they do not want the spread of decentralized cryptocurrencies, governments love control Centralization and cryptocurrencies are not. This is not appropriate for governments, of course.

It's true that using cryptocurrency to launder money is safer and easier than fiat because of it's aspects, But I don't agree with the statement that they are lazy or scared. First of all isn't it scarier to launder money than to discover and use cryptocurrency? Doing something illegal could put you up in jail that's why using crypto in money laundering could raise the possibility of not being caught.

Well, before crypto, people also often did money laundering, so I wasn't really surprised when I heard about money laundering that was bigger than crypto. besides, it is very difficult to cover it. like when bitcoin was used for illegal transactions, yeah, before bitcoin people always used fiat for illegal transactions, even today. so, I guess people just think crypto is not so good because it can be a place for money laundering, but in reality, it happens to almost all mediums of exchange.

Fiat will be used as the money laundering because people use fiat for a long time ago. But if that person is open-minded with new technology and knows the function of bitcoin, they will try to use bitcoin because that can help them hide their identity, and they only give their bitcoin wallet to the victim. But for an illegal transaction, maybe they still choose fiat than bitcoin. But there is an illegal thing such as money laundering that is using bitcoin than using fiat money.

Of course, it's pretty obvious that fiat has been abused by criminals more than ever as compare to crypto. And not that all criminals are using crypto as well, they would rather deal using fiat and cash because that's why they deal for years now. So I doubt that they will change their tactics because crypto can be a good way to hide their assets, it's not.

Criminals can make a lot of fronts and then uses it to launder money. And do we have statistics as to what percentage the criminals are really using crypto? It's all speculation. That's why when we heard arguments about Bitcoin and crypto being used often by criminals, then think again.

This is an obvious win since fiat has been used a long time ago. Bitcoin or cryptocurrency only emerged 10years and still early to compare those two. Many will be biased about this comparison cause your comparing a long time event on fiat versus 10years of crypto.

Its not a good view but the ratio should actually be like that. I will be shocked if bitcoin shows more than money laundering than in fiat.

Much proof is not really necessary. The fact remains that fiat is used more often that crypto. How much in percentage of the entire world population is actually using crypto? It does not even reach 5%.

It logically follows that fiat is much more abused in terms of illegal activities than crypto. That tirade that crypto is used for money laundering and other crimes is just coming from those who are against the growth and development of crypto. They must be the ones who will be affected if fiat is going to lose its use because of crypto.

Not all of the people of the world know cryptocurrencies so they have to transact with fiat or cash. And that's the reason why fiat is still the medium used for money laundering and there were reports that even the banks were involved in some cases.

But I think those people that have intention to do money laundering looking to cryptocurrencies now. But with the intervention of the government and applies the law to the exchanges, asking for KYC, they will have the reference if they suspect someone.

Not even surprise about that. Fiats are way easier to use in money laundering although cryptocurrency has been used by those criminals already lately but they probably convert it to fiat anyway. The statement in an article link given by OP makes sense;
 
 
 Criminals are also more familiar about fiats than crypto thus having some doubt to use crypto in fraudaleny acts.

Why this should be surprising? Fiat is used for everything thousands times more than Bitcoin. Even us, Bitcoiners, overwhelmingly use fiat more than BTC, with maybe some few exceptions. What you should compare is share of legal use vs illegal, for both Bitcoin and fiat.

But Bitcoin isn't a good tool for money laundering, all transactions are public and permanently recorded, if you try to use mixing, it would only bring more suspicion.

Of course, Fiat is in every corner of this world so I expect Fiat to be the best choice for money laundering and other illegal activities more than what we can find in crypto space crime, not everyone embrace crypto yet as we all know it, there are over billions of people who aren't using crypto yet

True, the comparison is basically not commensurate, although now crypto users are already very numerous and even almost the same as fiat users in the past, but this is not very comparable compared to now, because 10 years is a very short time for cryptocurrency.

Even though using cryptocurrencies for money laundering is way better and easier than using fiat money, those criminals have to exchange back to fiat money anyway. The reason is that cryptocurrencies aren't popular everywhere. However, we have to admit that the freedom and no laws of the cryptocurrency market creates a great chance for criminals to do their things.

Crypto is not in big circulation as how Fiat is today and again it's more easy to launder money using Fiat than crypto, many thought crypto is the best place to launder money but no they are wrong, any wallet address of any project can get blacklisted once their is a sign of embezzlement or illegal funds in the address

It's game over for criminals who used or plan to use crypto to embezzled money from illegal sources or stolen funds, you are been watched, once your address get blacklisted it's over, crypto is no more a safe place for criminals and I'm happy about it

I think money laundering with Crypto is difficult, because the Blockchain system can be traced so that criminals have to think about what to do. Although later Crypto users are same as Fiat users, but I'm not sure money laundering will be same as in the article given by OP.

Bitcoin transactions are public, they can be traced easily, this is what many failed to get about Bitcoin, crypto isn't invincible like many thought, even if the project isn't a centralized one once an illegal fund got transfered into the address it will get blacklisted and it will be monitored, mostly by exchanges

I have seen some studies that said that only 5-10% percent of all Bitcoin transactions are connected with shady activities like terrorism, buying drugs or money laundering. But more and more criminals avoid blockchain because they understand that records on the blockchain are immutable and could cause many problems in the future. Maybe they choose more anonymous cryptocurrencies - Monero, but also there is a problem with how to get funds from Monero to the real world.  ;)

Money laundering will be more difficult if all transaction of holders can be in crypto without any fiat exchange, the fiat deposit that the government can freeze, monitor or take tax. My only concern is the process of hiding, it does not indicate that such holder is legitimate to the fund. Fiat is very difficult to launder and some might choose property or legitimate Enterprise but without the personal disposal to the fund money can be lost.

Why would people launder money if they aren't criminals? Yea? Only criminals will launder money either with crypto or Fiat, people need to abstain from all this criminal life, I have no problem with crypto or Fiat since my money making way are clean and pure, you have nothing to worry about if you have no skeleton hiding in your closet

It is undeniable that money laundering often occurs using FIAT. Due to the centralized nature of fiat, it is most likely done by someone close to the government or the person in power, it is prone to laundering. Referring to the current value of bitcoin is not that big. But on the other hand bitcoin alone can be used as a money laundering infrastructure because of its anonymity and it can be done by anyone.

Money Laundering is commonly present with criminals and corrupt people, trying to hide
their wealth and use platforms not being caught.
If you are not involved with such kind of activities there's no problem whether you use
fiat or crypto venues.

---

In the present of KYC from most exchange, laundering is now can easily detect by the
the owner and can freeze once there's some sign
of illegal practices / activates that being sighted.

Fiat as an old currency still dominated the world's financial requirements and transactions thats why it's not surprising to called like that. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies only existed in 2008 up to present, while Fiat currency largely recognized all over the world, with or without internet, while cryptocurrency was only concentrated in a place that has an internet connection, and those illegal activities like money laundering are not limited in one place thats why Fiat as the worlds most recognized currency still the most laundered currency compared to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies 

Fiat money surely is still the best choice for money laundering but crypto is catching up fast. It's getting difficult to move fiat but crypto are much easier to move without getting caught. I don't mean to accuse crypto but it's nature does provide better option for laundering. If we really want to stop people from money laundering, we should rethink the way money gets circulated and used in society than to wage a never ending ware between launderers and authorities.

This can be a proof that even government controlled money is prone to such illegal activities and government can't really do anything to completely stop them, so we should stop saying cryptos can be used for illegal purpose.

More note to add that money laundering happes via mixers but in 2020 the usage of mixers reduced in considerable amount compared to 2019.

No, I don't think so because if they know about crypto, they will see how to convert from fiat to crypto. And now, we have so many sellers we can trust to help us convert to crypto. That can give them a new way of money laundering. The police and the government need to work hard to clarify and investigate this problem before the bad people use crypto for illegal things. If that happens, people will only know that the crypto will only be used for illegal things, and they will not want to use crypto for good things.

This is a clear fact that no one can fault. Not minding the ratio because Fiat users are way more than cryptocurency users, it's still the easiest for the larger populace to use.

There are more FIAT users in the world than crypto users, so it's surety that FIAT will be used more in crime activities, I'm starting to like the idea of blacklisting crypto addresses or freezing addresses, at least this will bring fear into the mind of hackers and other criminals

This is expected. Fiat exists for such a long time and crypto is a newbie in the money laundering schemes. Even tax heaven could also be considered as a legal way to reduce tax or tax evasion so there are some money laundering schemes with fiat out there also in the borderline of the grey arena. I'm bet crypto for money laundering schemes is just a baby to them.

Definitely, fiat currency would have been used more for money laundering.  Let's consider the fact that how many of those laundering money were involved in crypto?  Definitely none or very few.  It is possible in the future that there is a turn of table if those people adopt crypto and get to know that it is easier to launder money with digital currency than fiat ones.

It's difficult and it's true, but there's always a way. some scammers are yet to be caught until now because maybe they know they way and we still cant figure out how they hide the money they got from scamming but fiat certainly easy for money laundering just move from an individual to another individual and no one knows and fiat has always been used for many bad things aswell compared to crypto.

Yea, probably because many criminals don't have the knowledge of how crypto works and what crypto flaws are, people really need to stop using something they have to knowledge about.

Do you know which currency is the most used one for shady activities? American dollar. Do you know that almost every american dollar, as paper money, has on its surface trace amounts of cocaine? So what we are talking about? This idea about cryptocurrencies is totally wrong!

Don't underestimate criminals about their knowledge about learning a new thing for their illegal activity. They don't use crypto to money laundering as much since there are still a lot of centralized exchange so they don't want to risk.

This is not surprising. Fiat has a much larger volume than the crypto market as a whole. In addition, Fiat has long been used for money laundering and this familiar scheme will not soon be replaced by cryptocurrency. Also, it remains difficult for many to use cryptocurrency for these purposes, if you can do it very simply with Fiat.

Probably, this is the last claim of people that do not understand cryptocurrencies. But, as you can see it is completely wrong. It is because people are afraid of new technologies, they do not understand it, they do not want to learn something new because they are lazy. But, they will realize how bad is this attitude after they loose another opportunity becoming rich.  :)

last claim hmm so you mean there are other claims of people on crypto just to avoid it ? how dare them but thats fine , those kind of people can become toxic on our community if ever they experience bad on using crypto so we dont need them . why would they be afraid of new technologies when this cant harm them , they should be afraid of those new gadgets or microchips that said to be inserted our body .  i dont think being lazy can be use as a good excuse on trying crypto because its not that hard to use

This is right that maximum money laundering case are related to fiat money. According to the international law, money laundering occurs mainly in three ways. Placement, Layering and Integration. All these ways occur through banking channel and fiat money is directly related to banking transaction. That's why money laundering with fiat money is directly related. As crypto currency is still not properly engaged in banking channel, very few money laundering occurs with crypo-currency. Yet, There has a less opportunity of money laundering in crypto than fiat money.

Still, there's reason why these fiat money launderer didnt switch to cryptocurrency because it's difficult for them to do so. Most of crypto based company always ask for identity and that's already an end for those who want to launder money. I'm sure crypto is not ideal for money laundering and that's why we should keep the stigma regarding crypto being used for criminal away because that's not true.

Sooner or later, they will use crypto, especially if they think that using the crypto can help them hide their identity from other people. I think some criminals already use crypto to ask the ransom because they can sell the crypto in the dark market without anyone knows. But the criminals still use fiat in money laundering because I think they have their people who will help them send the money to the banks.

 Well fiat could be higher but you have to take a look at amount to money launder ratio. For example there are so much dollars in the world and there are so few bitcoins in the world, we don't know money laundering numbers because some people do manage to do it without getting caught, plus bitcoin ones are smarter because they are people who know how to use bitcoin and usually that requires a bit if brain. When combine all of that together I would say that % of bitcoin transactions being money laundering versus % of fiat that is money laundering would be different.

 That doesn't mean bitcoin is a money laundering currency, there are million other ways you can use bitcoin, but just like fiat, money laundering could be one of the ways to use bitcoin as well and the anonymous nature of bitcoin makes it a bit easier to do money laundering.

Well, the idea that "fiat is used more" can be in anything. Obviously it is used more in money laundering, it is also used more in buying a burger, it is also used more to pay salaries of workers. Bitcoin is not used as much as fiat in almost everything in the world, that is why we say we need adoption.. okay maybe not from money launderers :D.

So, why were there some accusations towards bitcoin that it could be used for money laundering? Well simply if you do not do KYC, I could sell my drugs for bitcoin, ask people to pay me in bitcoin, they will, and then I will sell that bitcoin on some exchange and cash it out to fiat and if anyone asks I could say "I bought it long time ago and now wanted to profit" and nobody could prove otherwise. That is why there was a "risk" of it, not saying it was higher than fiat.

The main problem isn't really whether they are used for crimes or not... what matters more in my opinion is how to prevent or make them hard for criminals to use without violating the fundamental rights of innocent currency users. This is the problem current modern fiat currencies have seriously failed in... People's other rights are violated to fight criminals.  You can fight criminals properly on well decentralized systems/currencies without violating the rights of the innocents

Yes, the percentage of bitcoins in money laundering are higher than the percentage of dollars in money laundering if compared to their respectives total supplies. But it doesn't mean criminal bitcoin activities can't be tracked.
Several schemes dealing with bitcoin were already uncovered by law forces and their authors arrested in different countries. That makes bitcoin money laundering be like any other currency money laundering. There is no reasons for the media or authorities segregate bitcoin for money laundering usage. If they want to do this, they have to blame all the kinds of currencies first then!

no need to compare. you need to understand the perspectives of each tool. Now it’s convenient for us to use fiat money, but in the future cryptocurrency will be more convenient and that's why we need to invest and accumulate cryptocurrency

From this, we know that reading and analyzing something deeply is the key to success. Do not make opinions without evidence as a basis for addressing something. Use a wider perspective so that we know that everything has good and bad sides. And it all depends on the user, the man behind the gun.
Cryptocurrency is a fairly new innovation, many pros, and cons, it all depends on how we react. If we are only afraid of the bad side, then we will not develop and can not get extraordinary benefits from crypto.

FIAT being in existence years before crypto is supposed to be used more in money laundering comparatively, such comparisons should be made from when Bitcoin was invented till present and not otherwise. By the way nice article OP, atleast we can use this to prove a point for those who always associate crypto to scams / money laundering, and claim crypto will never be acceptable mainstream due to this mishap.

there are more ways to make fiat more untraceable than BTC which is why its easy to use them in laundering. a blood money with just made up receipts of a made up business, it could already come out clean and taxable.  its like money out of thin air. no mining done nor blockchain trail. its harder to do it in crypto because everything is recorded on the ledger. if anything the authorities can freeze your account. ETH wallet can even be frozen which is a lot easier for authorities to stop transactions.

All of the fiat currencies have ever used for the money laundering.
Some people use this to FUD crypto as they were also crypto haters at the same time. We know that fiat was also being used for money laundering too and this is a common thing that already known very well by all of the parties.

Even without being told, everyone knows that money laundering is mostly done with fiat right from time immemorial and it will continue that way too. Also, crypto is still growing while fiat is already established, meaning that the number of people using crypto is far smaller when compared to those using fiat, that is to say, there is very high chances of using fiat to carryout all manner of fraudulent activities than crypto.
Those who always associate crypto with fraud, do so because they have no better understanding of crypto therefore looking for ways to discredit it.

Most people who associate crypto with fraud are those that have no sufficient knowledge about crypto. And because media is one of the major sources of this skewed perception, this will not go away unless they will educate themselves about the nature of crypto. So if someone is only thinking of the bad consequences dealing with crypto, then it is his loss of not discovering the true potential of it as part of his daily life.

it also happens in my neighborhood, they assume cryto with negative things, without seeing the potential in them, whereas if they know cryto has many advantages they will not see the negative side, because the positive side of cryto is pretty much

It is the reason why people are afraid to invest their money in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that they assume it is all about the scam and illegal activities because of fake news and gossips that they heard in live television and social media sites. But they do not know bitcoin and cryptocurrency has a lot of benefits and advantages to a country's economy that it could reduce unemployment people for them to provide their everyday needs.

I think it is happening in many places because people don't see the advantage of crypto for them, and they know about the negative things from crypto. That people think that crypto invented to cover illegal things. If we try to explain to them, we can get a long debate that will not end because they will stick with their opinion and not accept other people's opinions.

When people will understand how low interest here in crypto (for some countries at least) this ratio will be changed

I think whichever money it is, Is it crypto or fiat both are used for laundering, gambling and many other worst actions. The main issue is how to control it. The fiat many circulations is in trillions and everywhere that why the money laundering graph is more than crypto. But if Crypto is regulated and monitored the money laundering and other worst illegal action may be minimized.

Well, I don't know which more people use money laundering, whether it's fiat or crypto, it's just that I feel that laundering has been around a long time ago. besides, people just want to blame crypto about anonymous transactions, so that it can be money laundering. it's just that it's quite difficult to launder money from crypto when the exchange applies KYC for certain nominal transactions.

For the crypto haters and it will not change the situation. We can't deny all of financial systems have its own chance to be used for the criminality. Whatever about the crypto haters said regarding it and just take as a correction if anything is not perfect.

It looks like the money laundering cases in crypto have been decreasing a lot.

On the contrary, I believe that cryptocurrency in such cases is much more convenient to pay than fiat. This advantage is the speed of calculations and there is no need to transport a huge amount of fiat. In addition, criminals withdraw cryptocurrency outside the exchange market and verification is not required there.

Of course, Fiat is been used more in money laundering schemes than crypto, because fiat already exist for a long time ago and crypto especially bitcoin was launched in 2009. And as i recall, the first illegal action to use bitcoin was publised at 2013. Even though with this fact, for people which don't like crypto, the will keep blame it

Hopefully people who continue to accuse crypto of being used for money laundering can read articles in the opening post. Actually there is still
a lot of other evidence that is spread on the internet that shows that fiat money is more widely used in money laundering schemes compared to
cryptocurrency. Therefore people who say that crypto is widely used for money laundering must be lazy to read, and lack of knowledge about
the world of finance.

Most of them are old boomers who don't know what is a cryptocurrency. They just want to ban crypto and use a pretext of cryptocurrency used in money laundering schemes.

money laundering seems to be very easy to do via digital, especially since crypto currency has been widely rumored that money laundering is already a lot, therefore all good exchanges are now required to do KYC for its members

Is it normal for you to use evidence that is obviously incorrect in its comparison? You still compare the number of people killed in WW2 and the Napoleonic wars and say that the second were not terrible.
Naturally, Fiat will have a larger volume of laundering - just because EVERYONE HAS it. To launder money using crypto, you need to understand at least a little about it and be an enthusiast (or understand what's what).
In General, a very dubious proof, I'm sorry.

Crypto is somehow new while Fiats have been in used for so many years  . so the rate of financial crime such as money  laundry will definitely be higher with fiat than with cryptocurrencies.
Nevertheless, we should also understand that so many people are yet to understand and use crypto which is what makes the rate of Fiat crimes  to be higher  than crypto .

Obviously... The simplicity of fiat and the believe system makes it extremely common in money laundering. Unfortunately, this hasn't been stopped or rather cannot be stopped since people believe way more in fiat than cryptocurrencies. The technicalities involved in crypto makes it unattractive to a lot of money launderers even though crypto is by far more effective and efficient. The transparent nature of crypto makes them avoid it as it will likely expose their fraudulent activities.

I quite agree with your point. Fiat will definitely be continued to be used for laundering because of its long existence and general acceptability by many and like you have rightly said about crypto that the transactions are public,this will definitely not make it easier to be used for illegal purposes

KYC is a requirement for the exchange site to comply with the regulation. crypto and fiat will be always linked into the money laundering as that's also the disadvantages to being a payment system.
We should remember if when a good guy will always use something for good and otherwise.

It is common sense that fiat will be most used for money laundering because if we compare, we will see how much people using fiat in real life. Use of crypto is too low. So, the overall situation will always be saying that, fiat is being using mostly with money laundering unless bitcoin becomes the main currency of the world.

The challenges involved in converting crypto to fiat, most especially a huge amount might prevent people from laundering crypto. Also, they would think of the volatility of crypto and not want to use that means. Although, some still use it, but i of the opinion that many would prefer the fiat. A legal tender and readily available currency, accepted by many, would be preferred.

Its obvious that fiat has been used for alot of criminal activities :-\, because 95% of the total world population uses it, unlike crypto which is being used by a few fraction people, fiat has been used in distant time to commit all sort of crimes while crypto has being around for about a decade now, but I think using crypto for money Laundering is alot more easier, less risky and more safer than fiat, because it helps to hide your true identity.

This is so because the world population still uses FIAT and most of the people often being prey on by criminals uses FIAT, the world's population currently using cryptocurrency can still be considered insignificant and just to clear things up, it is easier to get away with fraud through cryptocurrency than FIAT because crypto is decentralized amd Fiat is centralized with identity of everyone involved

well, I totally agree with what you say, but you also need to know that digital currency cryptocurrency is also often used for crime and even money laundering that can be done by anyone who is familiar with cryptocurrency.

In my opinion, though it's been a long time money has been laundered through fiat, but I think the emergence of crypto makes money laundering easier.  Considering the anonymity nature of crypto, Someone can have like 1000BTC in his or her wallet unannounced, unlike fiat where there would have been lots of uproars.  But because the adoption of crypto still at a minimal level, fiat is still considered the most form of money laundering.

Both fiat and Cryptocurrency had been used for the money laundering purpose. The exchange in crypto was not easily identify and so it was considered mostly used for money laundering. But it's not a real fact. Because nearly 60 percentage of people in every country was not heard about cryptocurrency. The people who had a knowledge of crypto currency ,had some fear to inverse in it.