Bitcoin Forum

So one of the most popular narratives I see is that the utilization of Bitcoin would help put an end to the illegal funding of wars overseas. How do you figure this?

If one entity needs to get currency to another entity they will be able to do so. The way that I am seeing it, it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as they are getting the money in the first place. In fact, wouldn't Bitcoin make this type of funding more difficult to detect?

Then again, maybe I am looking at this the wrong way.

Could someone help shed some light on this narrative?

bitcoin is a currency not an entity, organization, etc. it also can not perform miracles or change the human nature. whoever told you otherwise was lying.

Well, you said it yourself, it doesn't matter where BTC comes from as long as the money reaches the other party so it doesn't help put an end to the illegal funding!

Actually, it does help because BTC isn't anonymous, according to chainanalisys and it's also true because the blockchain can link every wallet to every transaction.
If an investigation identifies where the money comes from, it should also be easy to find out who is on the other end. Maybe the authorities could even apprehend suspects before they could start a war which is more important.

This is probably the first time I've read such narrative so I don't know how that became popular. The usual narrative was actually the opposite. BTC is used by crooks to launder money, drugs, dark market, and anything that's deemed illegal. I don't see how funding of wars would be any good since it can be used by warring nations.

Why you came to that conclusion? Remember bitcoin is E-money and anyone can use that for anything they want including buyinh some illegal stuffs on the black market. And if they really want to use this well they can and somehow this is the best option for shady transaction since the sender or account owner is anonymous and government will get a hard time to locate them since the o chain transaction is hard to trace up.

I surely understand what you mean. Bitcoins is for sure something that can be used like this but we have to understand that, people can fund for wars etc irrespective of the currency. At the same time they need to buy Bitcoins, which they will do so through wallets, now most of the wallets are actually very secure, they need verification, which can be very easily tracked by the government. Well, they are already doing it.

Previously it was used to fund for the wars etc and illegal activities for sure but the restrictions are much more sevear now.

- People are using fiat for ages, what's the point ? If they have to use something they will, does not matter what it is.

We can't blame Bitcoins.
Plus it's way easier to track Bitcoins instead of fiat.
_._

if bitcoin as a currency then where is the center that owns the physical establishment of Bitcoin and what financial system is used? I think it's still very irrelevant to say Bitcoin as a currency. because what we know is that currency has a central state, government and system of complete control over its deflation and inflation.
we still can't see it in terms of and the nature of bitcoin as a currency. and so far Bitcoin is more commonly regarded as digital gold whose properties and characteristics can be equivalent to gold.

Seriously speaking I am not familiar with the narrative you are talking about and don't think there is any such narrative in our Bitcoin community.

But to its contrary basis many crits and government have claimed btc usage on dark web to fund illicit activities because it's decentralisation nature like dealing in arms and drugs etc.You don't have to go through any third party settlement of funds which provides you freedom of funds but not transparency as each and every transaction prompted from any wallet is stored on public ledger blockchain and you can find address details from that.

Bitcoin was created with aim to be used as deflationary payment system by Sathoshi and to provide your freedom from Central banks and fiat to some extent but not to counter any crimes.

Suppose any funds are transferred to some another wallet you can't take any serious action because daily thousands of Bitcoin are moved on the network by whales and investors.Moreover they prefer to make fiat transaction for such crimes as well so we can't say btc or any other currencies would help in this manner unless government themselves took a step to end geographical and political wars among themselves.

Many government has funded wars, rebels terrorist to causing chaos and catastrophe. Even dating back to the time of the Roman empire. So fast forward the present time and such funding will still be going on, in any way they can.
Bitcoin is not a security agency, nor is it an agency for the promotion of crime, it just a digital currency which has it primary usage and goals, but like many projects people find a way of using it alternatively, nothing is perfect not even bitcoin.

Where did you hear this narrative? I didn't even hear someone say this and became the 'most popular. It's been popular that bitcoin has been used in different markets including the black and dark ones.

But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used for good ones. If someone says that it will be the reason for ending those illegal trades, there's no way to do that. Cash can't even do that with the help of the government so as bitcoin as money. It's another medium of exchange for all.

Well, that could happen because bitcoin is an exchange tool that is not regulated by any institution. If anyone abuses bitcoin then no regulatory body can help it, on the other hand, bitcoin is also a form of financial progress, the most important thing is that we must properly be able to make the best use of bitcoin.

Maybe I was a bit exaggeratory. I have seen it loosely thrown around on this forum a couple of times as well as reddit.

No, it's quite the opposite because bitcoin is traceable (different from paper money) and it would be easier to detect from where the money is coming and who is receiving it, since there is good will from inteligence forces to do so. That is the main concern, as we actually don't know who sponsor wars and there might be big fishes who belong to governments among them. And governments have a lot of influence over inteligence forces of their countries. If they don't want an investigation happens, it's really not going to happen, even though they have all the instruments to do that.

Bitcoin is not design like that, on the contrary, there could be proponents that will tell you that it is being used by terrorists group to send funds across border to fuel wars. That has been the narrative that's why you will hear anti-bitcoin sentiments because of this one. BTC is traceable.

Again, btc is not like a magic bean that will end wars, poverty and every other know problems in the society.

I don't know where you got that, but as far as I know, the utilization of bitcoin is to help remove the third party on a transaction and to give you full control of your funds. I guess they thought because bitcoin's transaction can be traced that it can be used to prevent funding terrorists. then again, there are a lot of ways to move money from point A to point B without being detected.

Bitcoin reduces the funding of wars because:

1) War criminals are often funded through dark money. Criminals, despite what news may tell you, would use dollars, other trades, and alt-coins over the more transparent, tracked bitcoin.

2) Wars are often funded through the inflationary tax. Bitcoin reduces that tax burden, so wars must be more open in their causes.

3) Wars are fought over control of production, energy, and of the monetary supply (to control these other two). Even today. The cause of war never changes. If you democratise the monetary supply, then war has to find new ways to control production and energy.

4) Bitcoin ties people more closely together, and ties their best interests with ours. By binding together people across all cultures into a democratic monetary system, your future is more closely tied with their success.

War will find a way to continue, but a democratic currency like bitcoin has the best chance at reducing this inhumane element.

People can use fiat money for funding of war if they want. Bitcoin is not the main issue here, even before the invention of Bitcoin, people used to funding for war. Bitcoin was not created to raise money for war or to stop raising money for war, It is an e-currency like other digital currency, the main difference is Bitcoin is decentralised, that's all. People most often use fiat money, other digital currency or asset like gold, silver for funding of war. If people use Bitcoin for bad purposes, I don't think their responsibility will be on Bitcoin but it is user who are responsible for his working purposes.

I literally never heard anyone saying that Bitcoin can stop the funding of wars. Also, when people talk about funding wars, they rarely mean money transfers, usually it's weapons, materials, fuel, etc.

Whatever Bitcoin can actually do, it needs to achieve very big adoptions to be able to do it, like more than half of population completely switching to it. For now this seems like a distant dream.

On the point..

There were people who are really wrongly informed about bitcoin or simply doesnt even know with the basics and ending to believe into something which is totally not correlated at all.

Why would really be minding about bitcoin funding of wars? Try to look out first on whats happening with fiat which had been used already and doesnt really get any issues at it?

People do really love on digging up issues without even thinking back that this is already a common problem or does exist before crypto boomed out.

Just because bitcoin is anonymous does not mean that transactions cannot be traced.

The great utility that bitcoin has is that all its operations can be tracked, there is an " * "here with that, but saving that, it is more difficult to wash bitcoin than the traditional one (Fiat), it is a technical issue that compares technologies and it is something not complex but extensive to explain, but to understand it more you should read about the AML laws and how Fiat money evades them, mainly with the use of tangible money (paper money) and that is the big difference for example with the use of bitcoin, It is electronic, it is 100% auditable (minus the exceptions that arise with "*").

Fiat money coexists between physical money and electronic money and although with certain tricks electronic money may not be 100% auditable it can be traced, but when converting it into paper money, its use is practically private and depending on the skill of the person who uses it, can make it anonymous.

If you are still lost on the subject, to finish I can tell you that each bill (paper money) has a unique serial but only serves to identify its end user (e.g.) but it does not describe in which transactions was he involved or by what "hands" this money was used on its existence; with each satoshi that exists you can know its life line in each transaction.

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Sometimes you have to understand related topics, to understand certain questions or concerns, it is an interesting topic that involves things like AML, KYC, among other topics.
https://www.fatf-gafi.org
www.acams.org

Would you explain the narratives of why Bitcoin would stop illegal funding, and where did you get it? I don't think that narrative is the popular nor the correct one.

Anyway, you get it right in the second paragraphs. It is indeed Bitcoin "facilities" the illegal funding. One of the examples is ransomware, people cracked into company systems, and bribe them with Bitcoin. Nevertheless, Bitcoin is expected to be able to maximize the greater goods rather than the bad ones. And so does the potential of Bitcoin to do beyond goods is greater than evil.

Personally, I think it will be absurd to misrepresented bitcoin because of its capacity to do illegal things just like how you could blame the current FIAT because it does facilities an illegal thing.

in my honest opinion bitcoin it self will help funding of war  :-X or other cryptocurrency will do like darkcoin or monero or any other privacy coin. bitcoin it self have bitcoin mixing right. remember that most dark website using crypto as their payment system

Even the governments of some states are now using cryptocurrencies to circumvent international sanctions. Of course, some weapons are also sold for cryptocurrency. Therefore, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies cannot stop wars, they even contribute to them to some extent. The high degree of confidentiality and anonymity is perfect for this.

I don't think that Bitcoin can help stop the funding of wars, if anything it could even make the payments for everything relating to funding the war easier because it's easy to transfer between parties. Even though we know that there are a lot of wars that have gone down before Bitcoin but I don't think that BItcoin can make any positive changes to it.   

Broadly speaking, Bitcoin is the same as various things that are calibrated and used for transactions. If someone uses Bitcoin to commit crimes, it is not his own problem.

Regarding war, one thing I understand may be that other countries can use digital currency to help the weaker party. And because of the anonymity of cryptocurrency, there is no need to receive control. Imagine that when a country tries to occupy another country, and this country can receive funding from unknown sources. This will make it more difficult to calculate the cost of war, and to a certain extent will hinder the launch of war.

It's quite the opposite actually because bitcoin has already been used to fund terrorist groups so you claim that it can stop war has already been refuted. Also, bitcoin isn't a Miracle Machine, it is just a tool that humans can use for the goood or for the bad.

it makes Bitcoin bad more than good if it makes funding hard but you think it was good because it can stop war .
 the legality of btc has nothing to do with it because they can still use Fiat's and other payment methods that they are comfortable to use without getting caught .
 Bitcoin is one of the payment methods that can make them anonymous and they can send funds more easily .

Especially if the government itself is the funding the war, it's not like they are new to this kind of thing and bitcoin isn't going to be the thing that will end all wars. Search the story about Gary Webber and his discovery of US government's funding of contra rebels with cocaine money.