Bitcoin Forum

As of late, crypto has become extremely popular due to the negative effects of COVID-19 in the mainstream economy. People are starting to consider crypto to be a safe-haven against the traditional monetary system empowered by banks worldwide. Yet, the vast majority still relies on Fiat for day-to-day transactions because of its price stability and widespread acceptance in the mainstream world.

With the advent of privacy coins, people can enjoy true financial freedom like never before. Privacy coins can become attractive tools for illicit activities because of their untraceable blockchain ledger. Despite all of the benefits privacy coins provide, criminals still rely on Fiat for all of their nefarious actions. I'm starting to wonder why, since Fiat (physical cash) is not as anonymous as one thought it would be. Privacy coins are truly anonymous (especially those that are private by default like Monero and Grin), as there is no central authority behind them. Maybe criminals prefer Fiat because of its high level of adoption in the mainstream world? Or maybe because Fiat has an easier learning curve than crypto?

If by any means criminals start adopting crypto in mass (especially privacy coins), we could expect a full government crackdown on the entire industry. Which is why I think it's best for criminals to continue using Fiat for the sake of the crypto/Blockchain industry's growth worldwide. But we'll never know what will happen in the future. Thoughts? ???

No, they aren't. It is near impossible (if not actually impossible) to be anonymous on the internet.

If you host your own Monero node, run it via Tor, buy your Monero using untraceable cash which you anonymously send to your trading partner without ever revealing any personal information, etc., etc., then yes, using Monero brings you very close to anonymity. Simply buying and using Monero does not, as you can and will leak your information in a hundred other ways, from KYC tracking to IP addresses to browser fingerprints to other currencies you trade to and from.

Probably. Much easier to launder something which can be spent anywhere and everywhere than something which can only be spent or converted to cash in a small handful of places, none of which will be able to accommodate the significant sums of money criminals will be trying to launder without KYC demands.

Maybe convenience. Less hassle of acquiring the funds instead of converting crypto to fiat which requires crypto exchange service and mandatory KYC or by means of P2P. There's also a mandatory KYC in fiat payment processors however these things shouldn't be a problem now for criminals as it was part of the system even way back.


No doubt, one of the reasons. Somehow, people need to know the basic technicalities first of how to use bitcoin in general.

And even for let's say they are familiar, still, they found the usual payment system is more user-friendly compare dealing in a bitcoin transaction.

Liquidating the privacy coins into fiat cash is one of the biggest barrier to them because they can't stay completely anonymous while using internet at some point they will leave their traces which could be never erasable.And also not much of those criminals doesn't know the existence of cryptos that is why they prefer hard cash over banking transactions.

Fiats are more easily accessible to people than cryptocurrencies, many people do not know what cryptocurrencies are while some only hear about it but know nothing about it. If we check the marketcap of the fiats in the world and compared it with cryptocurrencies marketcap, we will realize that cryptocurrencies are still way behind. People depends on fiat more than cryptocurrencies and many people do not even know that some cryptocurrencies are so anonymous like Moreno. Scammers like what their victims have, which are fiats

While dealing with fiats, there are transactions that can be untraceable, a good example is western union. Money sent through western union is not traceable, not only western union but also many others that works like that as well. Scammers also are wise and are perfect during their shady and malicious activities. That is why many of their fiat illegal deals can not be traced to them.

Even, I that knows about crypto, I do not still really know much, not to talk of scammers that knows less than me but good while dealing with what most people know, which is fiat. There was a scammers arrested by the United States FBI this year, there were  transactions he has been making with just a single bitcoin address into his  exchange account he his using, with this, all his transactions since 2016 to 2020 was revealed what a big mistake. So, many scammers of today like using fiats because it is what they are more perfect at.

Some do impersonate people, if they request cryptocurrencies  from their victim, the victim may not know about how to use it, and they victim may not have any cryptocurrencies. Because of this, they will later request for fiat.

So, ignorance is what that is still causing this, when crypto adption increase and more known to the world, when people deal with it like fiats, scammers will learn more about it, knowing it deep down. Thereby, using it more for scam purposes.

I am not depicting cryptocurrencies as bad Also, people should learn how to avoid scam generally.

Actually now a days I do believe that most of the people know about bitcoins , therefore if a person is planning something illegal he would certainly think about all the ways he can get it done perfectly.

Unfortunately fiat is most likely the biggest reason of corruption , the untraceable nature of the fiat makes it all together super easy to be smuggle , even mixing up fiat is quite easy.

The banks can store the data of all the cash with them but unfortunately they cannot individually track it if someone decides to spread it into a densely populated region..

But when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
They are good , they are private , they provide freedom to people BUT with regards to the KYC which is now mandatory for all the wallets , now you can very easily get tracked if you decide to commit some crime with bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. There are mixing services but at the end of the day it can all be tracked.

I agree to both points, fiat is far more accepted than Bitcoin and far less traceable. A user transacting in bitcoins is limited in what they can purchase and would overtime leave traces on the chain as well as identity links. With fiat, it is almost impossible to trace how many hands have handled and transacted with a particular $50 bill. There are privacy channels which can be utilized, but these are not foolproof and it reduces what a scammer can actually do, forcing them to convert to fiat.

We have already seen a couple of targeted attacks on privacy centered currencies like Monero;
... And whether or not cryptocurrencies become popular for illegal activities there would an increasing cost for privacy as governments attempt to regulate it more.

When they work as intended. There have been some privacy exploits discovered throughout Monero's history. Here's a taste: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/bhz6hh/is_monero_privacy_compromised/

These are new, experimental protocols. Like we've seen in Tor's history, there are other privacy exploits that developers probably haven't stumbled upon yet that the NSA and other similar organizations have.


Absolutely. You can spend greenbacks virtually anywhere in the world, at any time. Plus, liquidity issues. Imagine trying to launder billions of dollars through privacy coins.

And cold hard cash doesn't leave paper trails either. Blockchains leave permanent records and metadata that may be unraveled down the road, even if you think they are 100% privacy safe now.

I have recently seen a few article on privacy coins and some crypto analysis service and it seems they were able to break some privacy coins tx although there was no Monero in the list. I don't know how much hard will it be for such analysts but I'm sure someday they will make it. Considering that, you know how much risky crypto is for criminal. Again, you can't remove the footprints by any means once you leave a sign.
I would say criminals are using fiat for their safety, crypto is risky for them.

I have nowhere near your amount of knowledge of the mechanics of crypto, but I suspect you're absolutely correct.  If someone--like a government agency--wanted to trace any cryptocurrency to whomever they were hunting, I'm fairly sure they could do it.

I'm not sure that premise is correct, my man.  I don't know about what criminals are doing as far as what currency they're using, but the average Joe on the street is using digital currency for sure--but not cryptocurrency.  And in the area where I live, using cash to buy stuff at stores and restaurants is now frowned upon unless you have exact change.  The US is experiencing a coin shortage for some nebulous reason....but that's beside the point.

I haven't seen any increased adoption of bitcoin or any other crypto because of COVID-19.  I'm not sure if other countries are having a difference experience, but I suspect that as long as the banks are still in business people are still using fiat to pay for everything, just like they've always done.

You're making this way more complicated than it really is.  Criminals use cash because criminals have always used cash.  It remains the most anonymous method of payment as long as the transaction isn't done in front of a camera and as long as the currency isn't marked, i.e., by law enforcement in a sting operation. 

In addition, cash holds its value quite well, at least in the short term--unlike bitcoin or any of the privacy coins.  If you're a criminal who's receiving money for illegal goods or services, do you really want to take on that volatility risk?  I seriously doubt it.  Anyway, if anyone has proof that criminals are starting to adopt crypto more so than they have, I'd love to see it.

I absolutely agree that using Monero is a safer way of transacting illegal monies of whatever sort.  However you still have to unload the crypto somewhere for cash.  If you unload a lot in to a bank, there are likely to be trigger that you'll set off and the transaction will be reported.  Then if you buy anything with it over 10,000 , at least in the US, it gets reported.  Then you have to be able to account for all the money if you get audited.. so that means you have to launder it which just makes it all the more difficult of a process.  If you use cold hard cash, then there's no online paper trail.  Technically notes have serial numbers and sometimes they can be tracked but that's if the government had something to do with those notes ( which wont be the case the vast majority of the time). 

Well, fiat is the money that the world knows. It's the default money of everyone, good and bad, criminal or not. It is therefore common knowledge that fiat is also the preferred currency of the criminals.

There are, of course, those handful of criminals who are exposed to certain options such as Bitcoin and privacy cryptocurrencies. A lot of them are those who are dealing in the black markets accessible in dark and deep webs. But I guess the percentage of these criminals is very little compared to those who are in the open streets and in glass offices.

I bet only a small portion of the entire world's criminals is familiar with Bitcoin or crypto in general.

The majority of criminals, especially corruption cases, keep their money in the form of fiat not in the country but abroad and usually they keep this money for a long time. They choose fiat because the system is already organized and they are familiar with the system, making it easy for them to hide their assets. Many do not understand cryptocurrency so they don't look at this sector, besides that in their understanding as ordinary people in the Crypto world, they only know bitcoin with doubts and understanding that the price can be very high and has ever dropped to the lowest level, while they consider other coins a scam.

Currently the world is generally run under the fiat currency crypto is not controlled by the government there are many criminals who do not know anything about the use of crypto they are more inclined towards fiat currency due to lack of knowledge. Most of the criminal gangs do illegal business some of them specialize in providing money laundering services to the criminals, the process usually starts btc exchange for other digital currencies like teether. Stable is usually used to prevent quality fluctuations the funds are then exchanged for fiat currency to facilitate business.

People consider toilet paper and canned food and hand sanitizers a safe haven in times of pandemic. Bitcoin is just a risky, speculative investment to anyone who isn't thinking that Bitcoin will replace banks anytime soon, which most don't do. You can see by how it started following the stock market during the initial shock from the pandemic. All what we have is just one big company saying that the believe that Bitcoin is a hedge, and that's all.

Fiat is still widely used in mainstream economy, they have effective ways to launder physical cash and if it works why fix it? This is the problem that bitcoin critics uses to levy against it, they always think that bitcoin or monero will be used for illicit purposes. There is no true anonymity in the Internet, the other reason criminal enterprise do not use it is they do not have a firm grasp yet on how blockchain and cryptocurrency in general works.

As long as Bitcoin is neutral, like it doesn't have anonymizer built into the protocol, the government doesn't have the reason to crackdown the network. Suppose this is the case for Monero et al., then yes. It was proven by the delisting of privacy coins in some regulated exchanges.

I'm not saying enhancing privacy = supporting criminals according to my belief, but that's the government's view about it. Criminals can use whatever MoE they want, but it is important not to encourage/promote such activities by tweaking the protocol to support them if we don't want any trouble with governments.

Actually it is anonymous. None is tracking serial numbers. Yes, if you rob a bank or if you demand a ransom for something, then police will monitor serial numbers from fiat they will give you. But when you sell weed on the street  the fiat bill is same as the one you got in a store, or from ATM.  Yes, when there will be more online commerce where cash cant be used that fast then opaque ledger cryptocurrencies will flourish.

In movies, people know that cash is the preferred way not to get tracked if you are concerned with people tracking you. Let’s be clear about using cash as well. It doesn’t translate to you being concerned with privacy. It’s just an easier way.

For the criminals, It’s easier for them to launder the money to make it legal again without a type of tracing. For crypto, there is a footprint in which you could track where the money goes.

For criminals who are concerned with international affairs, I think cryptocurrency would be a benefit for them as well. Not cash. It can be a case to case basis.

I don't think so. Since doing KYC is usually mandatory on any fiat payment system, this will be so easy to track the criminals if they use the fiat. So, they would prefer to use a P2P currency like monero and bitcoin for the transactions. If you visit the darkweb, you will see many drug dealers and the other criminals asks usually for monero and specially bitcoin because of the privacy and none needs to do any kind of KYC for it. Also, using a simple mixer, the transactions will be nearly untraceable.

Who is doing this KYC you're talking about?
It's cash, we're talking about paper bills you can spend anywhere without showing an ID (unless you buy a gun) and which you can hand to anyone at any time.
It's far easier to hide behind cash than crypto, and far more importantly, you're avoiding fees when you must change from cryptos to fiat, as at one point everyone needs fiat, you can't live on coins alone....yet!


And other than obscure blogs and twitter fanatics claiming this, do we have some numbers for it?
We're still doing baby steps as we speak, extremely popular is nowhere in sight.


You realize that you can't achieve total freedom and at the same time telling people what they should and should not do with their freedom?
No government or any other authority or company control over it, also means you don't have a say in what others do with their money. My keys, my choice!

Cash is always the king in the present market, just because of complete anonymity criminals won't go completely on making transactions with those privacy coins. What we see in the opening post is just an assumption. For a long the usage of fiat on illegal activities and laundering is much high in comparison to the cryptocurrency usage. Right now compared to the past the crypto usage in daily living is high, but the illegal usage hasn't increased. So there is nothing to worry of government cracking against crypto.

Not all criminals prefer cash, but most of them. Maybe genius or high profile criminals using crypto in their illegal transaction. As we all know, crypto-currency is not yet known worldwide, or we can say not all criminals know that there is a mode of payment that can hide their identity. So maybe some of them don't seem aware that they have a good option. And cash is the most comfortable option for low profile criminals to buy and sell illegal things.

The affirmed North Korea-linked Lazarus Bunch heist, including the exchange of stolen reserves over the crypto biological system, as well as the utilize of Chinese facilitators to cash stolen crypto resources gives knowledge into one of the strategies utilized. Paid ahead of time cards connected to crypto wallets can moreover encourage the inversion of stolen crypto back to fiat in little sums.

Not all criminals are fully aware and knowledgeable about crypto so that's probably one of the reasons, unlike with fiat that it does not require technical knowledge. Criminals won't use things they are not good at because it will put them at a bigger risk of getting caught. And maybe also because there's still not enough crypto adoption and the majority are still relying on fiat, criminals can find more victims than in crypto space. But I think it varies with the intellectual and skill capacity of the criminals because if they know how the crypto space runs, then they will take advantage of it.

I think those criminals who used bitcoin are those criminals who targets big amount of money that is very hard to hide in a bank, my bank always ask me where do I get the money whenever I'm depositing, if one would try to deposit a huge amount then it will really be a big problem, specially if they don't have enough background to prove they really own it. It also depends to the criminals, maybe those criminals are not into technology scamming, some criminals are using bitcoin too to make it untraceable for the owner to retrieve his money once he transfer it to the criminals btc account. Some criminals are targeting fiat money first then they will be the one converting it to btc or maybe they would try to deposit it into different banks as a fiat.

I think fiat is widely used still cause they can't really purchase a lot of things using btc, unless they would purchase illegal things too. Everyday necessities can be bought by fiat without hassle, and we are too far away in living using btc only. That's why maybe.

Maybe for convenience because paper bills can't be easily tracked once received and can easily transfer without any KYC methods. Simple criminals prefer the usual thing because it is a common method especially if it's just a small value. It's easy to spend the money with fiat in the market because only a few people accept cryptocurrency for payment.
KYC on cash? I don't think so.  KYC is more mandatory in cryptocurrency, especially in exchanges if the criminals will convert the crypto in fiat.

Because it is much easy to utilize and use in many businesses which is probably the reason why they prefer to steal it or scam it than digital currencies. Digital currencies needs a lot of knowledge and skills about technologies which is really hassle for them to earn so they will think of other ways which is to steal cash.


But still, those criminals are getting larger and becoming more difficult to catch because they also learn and improve due to development and bitcoin's adoption in our society.

As an option: criminals prefer cryptocurrencies less because of their volatility. Since they know that sooner or later they will be caught, they seek to get rich here and now, using the familiar and more stable fiat currency.

Well the price is certainly up. Staying above $10.5K yearly resistance for this long is huge. As a technical trader who views everything in terms of supply and demand, I generally interpret that kind of technical breakout as long term accumulation and mark-up (in other words, demand overtaking supply). That also suggests adoption is increasing.

We also need to account for the liquidity being pumped into the system by central banks. That's causing all assets to pump in price. But I wouldn't assume that's 100% responsible for the rise since March either. People have had a lot of extra cash to pump into BTC and other investments (money saved from not going out or vacationing, stimulus payments, extra unemployment funds, deferred mortgage payments) so it's reasonable to assume there are some new investors in our midst.

Most likely, criminals find it more easy to spend fiat currencies because they are accepted in all establishments unlike crypto that there are chances that they will still be traced and caught from doing online transacations. Although there is already a slow adoption for crypto that is taking place, still fiat is the best choice for criminals because they find it more easy to launder.

I think the main reason behimd why certain criminals do prefer the usage of fiat money rather than getting into crypto is that because they are already familiar on it and it have been a long time that they have already been into it so whatever trouble they could face, they could set up a back up plan to get away on such troble. Unlike into crypto which is just new that they are still in need to work it out learning about it and they might even get caught on it for there are cybercrime teams in police that can track them down once they have made a mistake with the transactions since they were just new into it. They will prefer the familiar and less hassle way of doing their illegal activities for sure for they have get used into it and have proven and tested ways on how they will escape into using fiat rather than crypto.

There's no KYC when you perform cash transactions. This is the fiat OP is talking about.

Cryptocurrency used to buy illegal goods is still a niche. Most transactions are performed in cash.

The number of people who want to buy drugs online and then have them shipped to them is extremely low compared to all meth heads and heroine addicts who buy every single day in parks and alleys.

They still prefer cash because they don't know how to use cryptocurrency and this is not yet acceptable on many places. In my country criminal still prefer cash because they are a small time criminal and they don't need any accounts online just to get the money, they want an easy money so they can buy drugs or anything they want. Cash is still the fastest way to transact illegally, cryptocurrency is just the option for those who transact from other location with a larger amount of money and still it will depend on that criminals, I don't know why but they are all working for money.

There are many factors why criminals prefer fiat over crypto, because the majority of people don't understand cryptocurrency.
So criminals choose fiat because it's easier to do money laundering, they can spend fiat anywhere. After all, it does not guarantee
100% anonymity using cryptocurrency, still using cryptocurrency will definitely leave a trail. The proof is that many scammers are
finally caught by the police, this proves that the internet does not guarantee 100% anonymity.

Well, there are real world criminals and there are cyber criminals. Fiat is far more easier to use after stealing it to someone If they don't notice than Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency. So, to say the least, criminals would always prefer fiat than crypto, not unless If these criminals are modern and tech genius criminals that has a long term plan on multiplying their stolen cryptos in the coming years or If Bitcoin aren't regulated yet and still remain in the gray area that has yet to be called "legal" in a certain country.
Nevertheless, most criminals obviously always prefer cash than any other form of digital currency.

I guess this depends on the country but it is true that it became popular, people are now asking me where to buy and where to earn it though compared to the whole population, it is still small. People here are not actually looking at it as a safe-haven but they wanted to add their source of income by investing in these crypto currencies.

They do not prefer cash in all cases. I have seen cases of kidnapping for ransom in bitcoin. For those cases I understand that bitcoin is superior, because the kidnappers don't have to physically go anywhere to collect the ransom and can move the money much more easily.

For retail drug sales, for example, cash is better.

That is what could be considered as unintended consequence. And it is not Bitcoin's role to sift its users. The more people use Bitcoin, the higher the number of criminals who also use it. The wider the adoption of Bitcoin grows, the more it becomes familiar to the people, and therefore the more it could be optimized according to their circumstances.

Bitcoin is not a criminal's money but it is not a good boy's money either; it is simply money, a better form of money which people, good and bad, would prefer.

Fiat (if we are talking about physical cash) is untraceable. Plus, unlike privacy coins fiat doesn't need to be exchanged or cashed out.

You will be surprised but fiat is much less suspicious than cryptocurrency. The Golden rule is that if you want to hide something then don't hide it at all.

It is very difficult to explain, but for example. If you suddenly got a huge amount of money and say that you earn it"from cryptocurrencies" then you will have to explain how you get it and this may be very hard.
And for Fiat money, there have been proven reliable and proven schemes for laundering for decades, and these are only those that we know about (and therefore not so reliable). As funny as it may sound, fiat "dirty" money is much safer than cryptocurrency.

They prefer cash because they can easily spend it anywhere they will go. All they want is easy money, to escape easily and hide wherever they want.

You people should see the bigger picture here, who deals with money, a few thousands here and there can prefer cash, but when you raise the amount to +100k or +1m you can't carry all that cash in your pocket, you need banks or crypto! At the lowest level people mostly operate with cash, because people get their salaries on hand (cash) and they spend cash. But how you go to higher levels the need for cash is going lower! The point here shouldn't be about criminals and what they prefer, each of us would like to have cheaper and more secured transactions, not only from hand-to-hand payments, from one country to another too!
Now many people don't have a need for that, but some businesses do that all the time, and they wish the easier way for operating. It's what crypto offers in the first place, ordinary people or criminals doesn't matter, we all need a good tool for the business we have, and it's crypto!

From my point of view, Criminals prefer cash or fiat currency instead of bitcoin because fiat is a medium of exchange or used as a payment that they can't merely spend bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to buy the things that they wanted. Fiat currency is also untraceable that you can freely hide your funds whenever you want. Unlike bitcoin, it is traceable because every transaction is recorded publicly. It is why criminals need to use bitcoin mixers when they do bitcoin laundering to convert bitcoins to fiat currency anonymously.

If you compare fiat with the cryptocurrency you'll see people prefer fiat more than Crypto.
The reason is people aren't well aware of bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Most the peoples don't have the idea what cryptocurrency in the forms of money is,  while some just catch wind of it yet think nothing about it.

The transactions for cryptocurrencies are always traceable. In the first place, it should always be because for example, bitcoin always shows the blockchain, this is one of it's characteristics of being transparent.
The privacy of every transaction depends only to you, you can minimize the privacy to zero or you can maximize it to 100.

Actually if they will be using fiat currencies, if they had to many of it, it is harder to store that makes it to be spotted. Maybe if the fiat that the OP is referring is a fiat that is cryptobased (a crypto that backed up by fiat currenciy).

The only reason that I can think why they would choose fiat(which most are stable) is because it is less prone to value changed. Crypto such as bitcoin is very volatile, in my opnion, probably they are afraid the money that they got from illegal activities would just lose it's value. They want to guarantee that they got a good value.

crypto is really a double-edged sword. It will be good for people with little financial capital like us, to trade without intermediaries and especially we can do everything in the crypto market without anyone knowing who we are. But that privilege is also being taken advantage of by the mafia behind it, and there are plenty of sinful coins that have crept into this crypto market.
I just hope that countries' government agencies have a way to control money laundering in the future, if this continues, the underworld will get stronger and they will begin to manipulate the financial market. main focus. I don't dare think of that scene  :-X

Cash is untraceable, doesn't require technical knowledge to use, doesn't require Internet, power, electronic devices. Can be spent at will immediately.
Imagine that you want to do a very fast, risky transaction, like buy a gun. You meat up at night and exchange within 10 seconds and it's over. With Bitcoin you'd have to know the address to deposit to, be in a cell phone or wifi reception range, wait for a confirmation... Nobody is going to do that and sending a gun via mail is risky. Packages are screened all the time.

Bitcoin is super traceable. Just use Bitcoin blockchain explorer and see. Every coin can be traced to its coinbase.  It is the same way as if someone would put his name on back of a dollar bi when have it. And when give to someone else he would write his name there and so on.

I think it was pretty simple and obvious that criminals find it less hassle and pressure to work on doing criminal activities using fiat for they are more familiar with it compared to cryptocurrency that they are still in need to learn and understand about it. Using fiat is already the way they have used to be before the existence of crypto and they have already lots of ways to get out of trouble using fiat compared to crypto that they might get caught if they were not familiar on how they will execute illegal activities through it. The way those criminal people do not understand fully crypto makes it enough reason why they still prefer to use fiat rather than crypto.

The transactions for cryptocurrencies are always traceable. In the first place, it should always be because for example, bitcoin always shows the blockchain, this is one of it's characteristics of being transparent.
The privacy of every transaction depends only to you, you can minimize the privacy to zero or you can maximize it to 100.

Actually if they will be using fiat currencies, if they had to many of it, it is harder to store that makes it to be spotted. Maybe if the fiat that the OP is referring is a fiat that is cryptobased (a crypto that backed up by fiat currenciy).

The only reason that I can think why they would choose fiat(which most are stable) is because it is less prone to value changed. Crypto such as bitcoin is very volatile, in my opnion, probably they are afraid the money that they got from illegal activities would just lose it's value. They want to guarantee that they got a good value.

It makes sense, though not all are the same. For most new people, hiding their identity in cryptocurrency is still very difficult and only requires them to learn it first. In my opinion, criminal dont really like thing that get them into trouble like hiding their identity through crypto transaction. All transaction are recorded on the network and if they want to be converted to fiat then KYC is still a barrier to hiding too. So, while it may still be hiding behind cryptocurrencies, I think there are still loopholes to find some crime involving illegal transaction with the help of exchange.

Well, there's no such thing as 100% anonymity. But I have to admit, privacy coins are much more anonymous than Fiat due to the lack of a central authority. The level of anonymity you're going to get, will depend on how well you protect your identity on the Internet. If you're careless, you can easily get caught. For the truly paranoid, acquiring XMR in-person, interacting with the Monero blockchain using a VPN + TOR, and trading it via a decentralized exchange would be all you need to stay as private as possible. Despite the many benefits privacy coins provide, they're still not attractive to criminals because prices are not stable on the market. Things would've been different if there was a privacy-oriented stablecoin, though. :D



Yeah. Fiat's high level of accessibility, makes it the top choice for criminals and the average person alike. That won't change since crypto has been unable to become an independent monetary system in the mainstream world. The price volatility, the steep learning curve, and lack of merchant acceptance, makes crypto inferior to traditional Fiat currencies. Which is why I believe that crypto will remain as an alternative to banks than a replacement for a long time. ;)

Well I frankly thing that because fiat is conventional, fiat does not need any support unlike crypto that needs an internet to get an access. And thinking that crypto can be traced, they can be sure that no one's hunting them down. The worst thing that criminals can have is a marked fiat, they can't just spend it anywhere. Addresses can be flagged, exchanges might not accept your crypto if it came from a flagged address especially if the government is the one who flagged it.

Criminal activity uses governed backed fiat by the far majority do they crack down on fiat  :D

In all seriousness until crypto becomes mainstream crypto won't be the main financial instrument over cash/fiat because cash is as liquid as it gets.  And if crypto becomes mainstream and criminals start using it over fiat then it will be too far in for governess to back it out.

In my opinion there are still many people who don't understand crypto, so it's only natural that criminals prefer fiat over crypto.
Moreover, fiat has been used for thousands of years by humans, so it is only natural that fiat is preferred by criminals. Because
human nature prefers something that he already understands. And also criminals looking for the easy to spend, in fact, fiat is
easier to spend than crypto.

I think it is not about bitcoin not being that liquid but because of the fact that with the knowledge that we already have with bitcoin and the blockchain, people could easily track the transactions happening using a bitcoin. Even though fiat are centralized, there is no way that they could track it since there is no records to look into.

I am not a criminal but I guess the reason is liquidity.

It is true that cryptocurrency is safer to use than any fiat right now since we will be able to avoid direct contacts but since we are talking about crimes, it doesn't matter. With their places limited to spend money right now and with Bitcoin's acceptability here in our country, I would still use fiat. Just imagine you buying drugs and offering criminals Bitcoin which they don't know or even see its value.

Not exactly. It's not possible from blockchain data alone to tell when BTC has changed hands. In 3 hops, any given output could have moved through 3 different people. Sure, blockchain analysis companies use heuristic methods to tell the difference, but their methods are not provably accurate. If you thoughtfully employ coin control, IP address masking, mixing, avoid bloom filters, etc. on top, then it's really quite private.

Cryptocurrency is already being use by criminals for years, by criminals, I mean those who are doing illegal. Dark web is very popular on selling legal ang illegal things, and most of them can be buy by cryptocurrency. The reason why criminals use fiat and cryptocurrency could be either (in fiat) they could steal it and bought goods by it, (in cryptocurrency) hacking and stealing it might be hard if you're not that good in hacking.

The very popular way of stealing others people fiat is by what we called "Carding". Carding means stealing someone's credit card, debit card, or VISA without them knowing (instantly) that someone is spending it already.

I don't think so. Although what you've listed are good first steps, there are still plenty of other ways to be deanonymized. If you are doing all of that from any version of Windows, then you are not private. If you do anything else via the same Tor circuit which is at all linked to your real identity (log in to an email or other account, browse social media, etc.) then you are not private. Even doing things such as searching for goods or services in your geographical area or browsing the same sites which you do outside of Tor can be enough to narrow down a search.

Given that stablecoins are generally all centralized and can be created or frozen by their creators at will, they don't exactly lend themselves to a privacy orientated approach.

Exactly, this is the main reason why cryptocurrencies are prone to use in any criminal activity. Liquidity + privacy = successful cashout to fiat.

A nature of decentralized currency I guess may abuse from the others who want criminalities instead of using this in a good deeds. However, this is the reality and the fact that we must accept. Time to time, there are regulations of all wallet that associated to bitcoin user, I mean the costudial wallet should be monitored under by the government and once the Bitcoin address will reported as a scam all costudial wallet mark this a scam and anyone will linked to this will froze and investigate the account.

In order to fully use the cryptocurrency in your activities, you need to have certain knowledge and at the same time have a certain structure in a criminal organization that can control all of its cryptocurrency capital. One way or another, today criminals use cryptocurrencies, but not so massively as to prevail over fiat money. And if a drug dealer has his own regular customers who buy drugs, then there is a very small chance that these customers will be able to buy goods using cryptocurrency when the dealer switches from Fiat to cryptocurrency. ::)

Physical cash is the only currency that is 100% anonymous. None of the other forms of currency (including anonymous cryptocurrencies) can match physical cash as far as anonymity is concerned. I have used anonymous coins such as Deep Onion, Monero and Veil. All of them have some vulnerability, which may make it possible to trace back the transaction. Even if that is not possible, at some point the holders need to convert their anonymous coins to fiat cash. And this is the most vulnerable phase.

Where have you been man? Have you been living under the rock? There are has been a lot of criminal activities that has taken place in the cryptocurrency space, but they were all caught. Cryptocurrencies are not privacy coins as some of you are made to believe , and it’s not a ticket for you to start committing crime using crypto and feeling that you’re very safe and no one would know.

It all depends on the level of crime you commit, no matter what you use, if the government is ready to track you down, they are going to do just that. They will trace you no matter what it takes until they get their hands on you. And by the way, there is a difference between physical cash and a money that was paid straight to your bank account; it will only draw suspicion when a money is paid into your bank account, but if the cash is given to you direct, no one knows about it.

Criminals do find comfortable venue to use for their illegal transactions, they prefer to use what's most used by people instead of
trying to work with crypto which the usages is not that popular yet than how fiat works.
Even there are people who already knew about this market criminals are still looking for much higher usages such as fiat and they
prefer to continue using it without having any major  concerns.

Maybe those criminal's doesn't know yet about crypto or it is easy for them to use the fiat money which is used of all people in everyday lives instead of putting their time on learning in cryptocurrency. Also they prefer the money that they can easily spend without any transaction to make like in cryptocurrency.

Yeah it might the case that cyber criminals love crypto currencies but for the average criminal the education in IT and internet issue is probably very low and they will not trust any cryptos. I would assume that they will value cash always the highest, because they can see and touch it. Also when paying with cash you are more independent. When paying with cprytos you need internet access and government might track you.

I think people with a criminal mind ready to act on and undertake illegal activities don't care whether it is fiat or crypto as long as they can obtain them with minimal effort and get away with it.

That said, only crypto with less involved 'hacking' due to required expert knowledge would be at higher risk, while fiat would be at the top. We need to remember that for now crypto is still in its early days and it would take time until criminals would adopt crypto as their main strategy, like fiat is today, and there are plenty of articles written on exactly this.

That's right. Using cryptocurrency is one thing, and staying anonymous while using cryptocurrency is another. The ordinary criminals may jump in to use Bitcoin or Monero. But he may not be able to convert these cryptocurrencies to fiat or other physical assets. And he may not be able to keep his cryptocurrency transactions secure (i.e without any links that can be traced back).

You are about 8 years too late to make this statement. Crypto has been favorite of illegal people for a decade now, obviously it is not considered money for the criminals anymore because it is a great financial instrument and people who bribe politicians are involved with crypto nowadays which is why they are not allowing governments to ban it, however this doesn't mean criminals just went away.

We all remember darknet and silkroad, dude made over 11k bitcoins thanks to being middle man for all the criminals and people who hired them. Mainly it was a drug thing, people basically bought drugs online thanks to silkroad. So, as you can see bitcoin and crypto in general was used for (and probably still is) for all the illegal stuff, it is not a brand new idea.

Unless they use mixer which is a favorite thing to them. But yeah, I agree because most criminals prefer using fiat because banks can cover for them and they can use this dirty money to buy assets that will clean their money.


They would have done it with banks if the government really has the means to fully crackdown criminal. I doubt they will have the resource and means to do it especially that cryptocurrencies are spreading and being adopted in different countries. It's inevitable to really stop criminal cases with cryptocurrencies and it will still grow because criminal sees opportunity with it. Fiat has just been around for the longest time which is why they have the most records of crime and launders.

Fiat money or cash is easily and readily  accessible for those criminals and they do not certainly need of any other knowledge about it just execution of the plan on how they will run their criminal activities. On the other hand with crypto, they do still in need to learn and understand on how crypto works which can add more hassle to them on learning a new one and formulating new strategies on how they can carry out their momey once case become caught up unlike in fiat wherein they do already have escape plans not to get caught in transaction unlike in crypto that might be due to panic and pressure on handling how to escape can create mistake that will enable them to get in jail once traced. Simply, criminals find fiat a lot more easier to manipulate and handle compared to crypto which makes them more to prefer doing criminalities that involved fiat rather than crypto.

FIAT money is more supported by the real world and accepted by criminal organizations. Banks silently launder money to help criminals. The stability and anonymity of FIAT money are clear.
Anonymous money can still be tracked because it's just technology and there is always a way to follow, we can do it if we are talented enough.

I agree. Low profile criminals don't care about decentralization maybe because they find it hard to deal with Bitcoin and find it easy to use the usual payment system which is fiat. High profile criminals with high volume transactions find themselves in love with cryptocurrency to evade law and of course authority that keeps on tracking them. Humans keeps on finding ways to survive and that is the way it is.

Finding a reliable cryptocurrency mixer is getting difficult nowadays. A number of them have been closed down by the authorities in the recent times. The most well known example is that of Bestmixer.io. It was taken down in 2018, by a combined team led by the Europol. Some of the other mixing services proved to be exit scams, while some others were having phishing links.

That's the only example of a mixer being taken down by the authorities. And it's a special case because Bestmixer advertised themselves as a money laundering service. Other mixers don't.

What's wrong with Chipmixer? :P

Like what you have mentioned, a learning curve in in cryptocurrency is required when you start using the said currency. Compared to fiat which has been the conventional payment that existed since time immemorial, the convenience and accessibility is already preset unlike in cryptocurrency. Although transactions are completely anonymous in the latter, one must still have to learn the fundamentals before they start transacting.


I also agree with this statement. When a criminal has already decided to commit a crime, regardless of the nature of payment it uses, as long as it achieves its goal then it would exercise all the means just to make it happen.

Using crypto for grey zone or even illegal activities does not grant such extent of anonymity as an old and simple cash does. Even Monero and other privacy coins are not straightforwardly anonymous since you may leave traces (entry points to XMR network, exit points when XMR is traded back to cash etc.) Dealing with cash is still much simpler.

Wonder why you say so(assuming you mean physical currency, which are still quite anonymous as far as I can tell.)?

Well, if that happens, a transparent/good cryptocurrency will be used legitimately without much problem if the users/community do things right. No Just government will go after good cryptocurrency networks because of the bad/non-transparent ones. By the way, members of a good Cryptocurrency Network should be willing to help or cooperate with any government that has reasonable issues with them, as long as the government respects the Community/Network cheerished values like decentralization, transparency, immutablity, privacy/anonymity, etc. You can't crackdown on things with no central control especially if they are good things. The so called crackdown should be directed at those abusing the good things.

Those crimes happen for both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, there are many crimes happen with cryptocurrencies, such as Ponzi schemes and money laundering but when we compared the number of crimes happen with fiat currency is greater than crypto because of the convenience and not all of the people are not really good about technology especially about cryptocurrency. The crimes can happen anytime and anywhere as long as they want to execute it.

This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

Let's break down first the two types of possible criminals.
[1] Skills vs [2] Intelligence
1. The people who do not know what is cryptocurrency is most of the time they don't have any kind of idea what it is, most of the time what we are facing money? It is cash, right? because this is the common use for buying or trading for something, also this is the primary use of different countries for paying because this is according to the law that they need to make their own currency.
2. The people who know the use of cryptocurrency, they are knowledgeable about the technology so they know what is the cryptocurrency is they are the cybercriminals today like the hackers, and more.

I think this is the common reason why there are more likely criminals on the internet.

Obviously cryptocurrency is blamed when someone used it to commit a crime (although researchers have found that only 1-2% of the Bitcoin transactions have any relation with contraband or crime). Fiat remains the currency of choice for the vast majority of the criminals and to this I haven't heard of anyone accusing the fiat currency for crime.

Exactly. Fiat is much easier to use and it's available anywhere in the world. Without the need for an Internet connection to use it, Fiat proves to be extremely convenient for anonymous transactions. Besides that, prices of Fiat currencies are relatively stable. You don't get this with crypto nowadays. Unless crypto becomes stable, easy to use, private, and independent from the current monetary system, it won't attract the likes of criminals in the mainstream world. At least, this is good news. That's largely because crypto's legitimate use cases will far surpass illegitimate ones. It could pave the way for mainstream governments to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender. But know this: once criminals start using crypto massively for illicit activities, governments will start cracking down the industry. Only then, crypto/Blockchain tech's growth in the mainstream world will stifle.

Time will tell us how far crypto will go as new developments arise in the industry. ;)




True. The only exception would be decentralized stablecoins like DAI and USDJ. All it takes is for a developer to create a privacy-oriented stablecoin that's decentralized and collaterized by crypto. I'm willing to see a private version of DAI in the future. Of course, a private stablecoin will become a reality if there's demand for something like it in the mainstream world. I guess that if this happens, criminals will abuse the system. Then, governments will force centralized exchanges to de-list privacy-oriented stablecoins which will lead to decreased adoption in the mainstream world. It'll still be possible to get access to them in-person or via decentralized exchange. But low liquidity will be an issue in this regard. ::)

^ I don't believe this, since how many years past there is too many hacked exchange but until now none of them get caught by the authorities.
Once the hacker address mark as a scammer and blacklisted on many exchange sites, they will hardly to cash out this and transfer to their personal bank that leads to their personal identity. However, we can't deny the fact that even the bitcoin name has now, I am afraid that someday there is a heavy regulation of bitcoin usage.

Take for example on what happened in Kucoin hacking where there are funds that had been recovered due to some projects which can revert nor hold back assets which totally shows up on how centralized  it is but there
are coins that had already been cashed out and mixed up using dex ones.Not all coins are decentralized as we all know and it had proven out recently.Its just dumb that you would just simply cash out those hacked out funds into your exchange account that had been verified and thats considered suicide.The thing here is that criminals can really possibly erase up their trail for them not to be traced and thats why they do make transactions in crypto but in the end those would be converted to fiat.

I guess you've answered the question which is in thread name.
Interestingly enough there is bias towards crypto because its somehow related to hacking and digital money crimes and money laundering.
But honestly we know about them only because it is trackable which is not the case for fiat

of course . we are here posting to give answer and the answer should be propriate to the topic. money laundering and money crimes can also happen to fiat but why not hacking ? this is possible . people or company can hire a hacker and pay those hackers with fiat but the popularity of online payments makes the best choice of hackers compare to fiat . online related crimes are already known before , not only because its trackable  . people that commit those crimes do also got caught or track but they didnt use a crypto but they use a fiat

Obviously, not all criminals appreciated the convenience of calculating and storing cryptocurrency. In order to pay for a criminal product or service, you no longer need to carry suitcases with Fiat. So I think that in the near future, criminals will use cryptocurrency more.

Most of the cryptocurrencies are used for payment in the darkweb which is almost illegal activities on certain region or the whole world, but compared to the people using it the fist is more used because it is available in more quantity and different countries having different fiat money so criminals might be having comfortable to spend the earned money.

I agree. This criminals will just preferred fiat/physical currency because its easy for them to use it, without any private keys and KYC to consider.Unlike Cryptocurrency, they can be trace as few mentioned here. I think, they will absolutely have a hard time on crypto and will be caught easily through their trace upon accessing the internet. Maybe a few could do well, especially if the criminals is an expert, but i doubt if he'll have a successful tansaction over the advance technology.

Using crypto has convenience but its much easier for them to use fiat instead because its not complicated you can runaway with it easily.

Unlike on crypto you need to withdraw it first, and you might get a problem if its a huge amount.

But this depends on the criminals because even in crypto, bad deed of these people are also existing.

Its not that criminals prefers fiat money over cryptocurrency its just majority of the criminals out there are still into fiat, they aren't adopting yet but when they do they will be more dangerous for it will be hard to investigate them due to the nature of crypto transactions, a lot of criminals lurks in place where we don't know and uses full capability of crypto for their evil schemes thats why we need to educate people about crypto and how this works so that they won't be taking advantage of the minority of knowledgable people about crypto.

Criminals choose fiat currencies because it remains the most private currency at the moment! This is the hardest (almost impossible) to track! Fiat is accepted everywhere!
Although cryptovalues are also a good aid, though they are difficult to exchange for fiat (LOL) and it's not accepted everywhere!

Criminal feel secured to use Fiat as it is don't need to exchange. But i think they also use crypto now to store their asset for future. That's why most of the Criminal are using crypto now.    

Most people are dumb and most criminals are also dumb so the use of crypto will always be limited.
Just think about it for a moment. White collar crimes are maybe 1% of all crimes. The majority of criminals prefer to mug you in an alley tahn carefully plan a ponzi scheme or a bank fraud. Those muggers who have eyes on your wallet, phone and watch will not play around with cryptocurrencies. They don't need to.

If everyone agrees that criminals already use crypto, why don't we look at how much? I mean they do use crypto in a very minuscule amount, most of the illegal trade in the world still happens with dollars, which means us dollars is still number one option for everything illegal and that means we are talking about something major here about how vulnerable dollar is towards criminal usage. Does anyone say that us dollar should be stopped or should be worried about criminals using it?

Pablo Escobar literally lost 2 thousand dollars just on rubber bands for his dollars, he was that rich in dollars, estimates go as far as 20 billion dollars. However when it is crypto instead of dollars everyone acts like the problem is with the currency, it is not cryptos fault that criminals use it, same as it is not dollars fault neither.

The most important thing for criminals is to launder the I'll gained money and that is way too easy to do if the money is in cash as compared to cryptocurrencies. Do everyone here think that the criminals even know how to use a computer properly, most of them only know the use of guns n all. Also Cryptocurrencies are only good for those criminals that are using internet as a means of their livelihood where they can earn money in a pretty anonymous way by taking bitcoins instead of paypal or other methods that aren't anonymous at all.

Criminals are known to be less intelligent than non-criminals. In order to obtain crypto through your crimes, you have to work with other parties using cryptocurrencies as well. That means, you either get paid, pay or steal cryptocurrencies one way or another.

Cybercrimes do require a slightly higher level or knowledge, or a lot of luck (here I'm talking about thefts like exchange hacks). But the majority of general crimes are not related to the digital world - most of them probably do not even have any idea how BTC or XMR works.. most of them probably do not even have much general education or are school/highschool dropouts.

We don't even need studies or any kind of proof to know that BTC isn't a criminal's choice of currency. It's just logics.

Criminals will start using it once they came to know how it works.
For example here French police arrest terror financing ring that used Bitcoin coupons  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5279209.0).
The biggest disadvantage of bitcoins is no one knows where's your money gone?.
If every criminal came to know they'll never use fiat for dealing with drugs or legal things.
The future may be worst and bitcoin can be considered as illegal currency

Of course, because not all criminals know what crypto is and do not understand and how to use it and criminals only rely on what they can do and there is a chance to get fiat by criminal means or whatever and these criminals are not smart.
And to become a crypto criminal requires intelligence and expertise in the field of technology and mastery of how to use it and is supported by knowledge of crypto and it doesn't take energy to get it or anything and this is a smart criminal.

Bitcoin, actually, got its popularity thanks to not quite honest people in this world who used Silk Road!
And still remains the number 1 currency in Darknet... Not Monero, not fiat, just Bitcoin! ;)

I disagree with the opinion on the topic. Professional criminals prefer cryptocurrency to cash. If you look at Deepweb, you will see that many illegal things are made with cryptocurrency. Since the rate of cryptocurrency usage is low in the world, this rate also seems to be low in criminals. However, I think, it is much more than estimated.

This is entirely not true, when WikiLeaks started accepting bitcoin everyone started noticing the new currency and you need to give credit to Laszlo for his 10000 bitcoin for pizza and that made news headline all over the world when the market rallied over $1000 in 2013 and during that period majority of the sites started accepting bitcoin that includes Microsoft.

@OP for criminals they prefer which helps them in making their transaction smooth, cash does not have a money trail and most of them prefer that but it all depends upon the feasibility.

Fiat is simply more popular and knows. How long has been cryptocurrency in use? For 10 years approxately? While fiat money has been used for shady deeds for more than 2020 years already. Imho, it is too early to compare these two. Also, it is harder to trace fiat movement than cryptocurrency.

Its quite nice that criminals are still preferring cash because they still do not have the tools or necessary knowledge to go on large heists within the Cryptocurrency Industry. Even though this industry produces a large amount of money, that money is always used to be converted into cash or be used into different investments.

I think one reason that they cannot use Cryptocurrency is the fact that it can be traced if you only know the basic knowledge. They are traceable and available wallets to cash out Cryptocurrencies requires personal information and that might pass thru a bank.

There are so many criminals in this world and I don't think every criminal is completely knowledgeable about crypto but when the criminals know about crypto, then at least there have been some crimes that demand ransom in bitcoin and I don't think that's entirely with fiat as well as crypto because this is choices and whether they know or not. Criminals who use fiat and crypto are basically the same thing, so in the end criminals have to be punished and any currency will be involved in it.

Perhaps I will say Not very nice words, but all criminals who keep up with the times and are worried about the security of their activities have long been using cryptocurrency for secure financial transactions that cannot be traced and which allow you to pay for any product, having at least smartphone, not a bag of money. Perhaps such information is not universally available, since the very activity of criminals, which involves the use of cryptocurrencies, is already anonymous and inaccessible to society.

Fiat money is so popular to everyone in the world. Very easy to carry and spend without anyone trace where they took the money from. It hard criminals to have access to your crypto because they don't have knowledge about cryptocurrencies and where the money is in the wallet.
I think crypto is not where anyhow person will know where the money is because they only have idea on Fiat cash which is very popular to everyone in the world.

Wise criminals might proceed to that but not all are engaged to crypto most of them still preferred to use fiat as the medium for their illegal did, some might be encouraged to use other channels but majorities still use the old ways.


Logically right, using fiat you are anonymous. There's no system that will trace you up and you can used it all over the place without any system just a straight forward transactions and you'll enjoy everything.

This is the answer to your question, criminals not only use their fiat for the anonymity it brings, if that was the case then privacy coins have fiat beat on that regard, the issue is that they need to spend that money as well and how many people accept those cryptocurrencies? Very few and that will limit what they can do with their money, as such they prefer to use cash for their operations but if at some point the market of cryptocurrencies gets popular enough that you can use it to buy in any store around the world then most likely criminals will begin to use privacy coins instead of cash.

Criminals will have a hard time cashing out their crypto and since fiat is more convenient since it is accessible and ready to be spent compared to cryptocurrency. One of the major problem when a criminal use crypto is how will they convert it to cash for them to spend. They will have to find a way to cash it out in a bulk, and if you would transfer it to a bank, it will raise questions as to where the funds came from.

Indeed, if they use crypto it is hassle when its time to cash out specially if we are talking about huge money, that wont be easy. If the criminals are not aware to the new technology and not into it, then fiat is the answer for them to get the convenience they wanted. Its easy to escape using fiat.

Using cryptocurrency as their wallet for criminal will hidden their identity and police difficulty to know who is criminal person, we know many time hacker make malware using bitcoin and altcoin as their currency payment because bitcoin and altcoin wallet could not know who use it, many platform support to use bitcoin and altcoin wallet except exchange market and kame many people could not know clearly who is behind the hacker action.

They can use Mixing company to mix the coins and hide their identity so it is possible using crypto.
or maybe they have no deep knowledge about that.
Like what i said above there is a way,they can even create a fake KYC because they are capable of everything.
Not that hard,criminals are criminals and nothing in this world that they can't do.

I think the simple reason they use fiat is they can use it universally, because crypto as of now isn't accepted everywhere, but fiat is used in all corners of the planet.

Criminals will use every technology to do bad things. Think, when there was no internet, there were no cyber crimes. But now that there's internet, there are cyber crimes. Should government then attack whole of internet and ban it just because someone is misusing it?

There are lots of advantages of crypto and the blockchain, so I think even if criminals use the pros of crypto for their ill-intentions, if government understands the uses of blockchain and crypto, it will definitely approach and accept it in a positive way!

I was talking about the popularity of Bitcoin among criminal individuals who sell illegal things on the Internet!
Thanks to pizza, positive changes have taken place in the crypto community! However, the popularity among criminals has increased due to Silk Road!
And to this day in darknet is used bitcoin! ;)

The reason criminals use Fiat is because they have no knowledge of crypto and do not know anything about its circulation. Lacking adequate education these people like Fiat currency is in circulation all over the world and in case of hacking or theft Fiat currency can operate everywhere. In the case of crypto this is not possible Fiat is more acceptable than crime on the internet and in banks they have a combined interest in keeping prices stable. Their transparent agreement to keep their trades checked could result in a win-win situation for all concerned.

Most (if not all) criminals aren't quite fond with the latest technologies. Since Fiat can be used offline and no technical knowledge is required to use it, criminals will be more inclined to it. That's not the case with crypto, as you'd need some technical knowledge in order to use it thoroughly for mainstream payments. On top of that, crypto's price volatility and limited scalability scares away the average person in the mainstream world. Criminals want something that's stable in price, easy to use, and widely accepted worldwide. And Fiat is still unbeatable in this regard.

I think that if a stablecoin with privacy features is developed, criminals will become attracted to it. But the stablecoin needs to be decentralized like DAI or governments will be on the issuing company's tail to shut it down. Considering that a privacy-oriented stablecoin is still a dream, we can feel confident that crypto's legitimate use cases will remain in their All-time-highs. This is good, because it'll give the "green light" for the fruitful growth of crypto/Blockchain tech in the mainstream world. Otherwise, governments will be cracking down the industry due to the extensive use of crypto for illicit purposes. In this strange and bizarre world of crypto, anything could happen. Time will tell us what lies ahead with the future of crypto as it becomes more popular in the mainstream world. Just my opinion :)

But that is the issue, governments know this but since they see in bitcoin a potential rival that can not only compete with them but even beat their fiat currencies they are attacking cryptocurrencies as a whole instead of concentrating on those that are committing criminal acts, this is slowing down adoption a great deal but eventually as the economies of the world begin to present problems due to excess printing of their fiat currencies people will realize why we need something like bitcoin to exist but even then I am sure the attacks against cryptocurrencies will become even bigger as recent history seems to suggest on the countries in which something similar has happened.

It is true that there are criminals that prefer bitcoin or other crypto currencies as payment but if you will be asking me, I think the notorious ones prefer fiat to bitcoin or other crypto currencies. Online, most of the time use cryptos since online transactions can be tracked, but bitcoin can also be tracked. That is why some prefer to pay offline since fiat can be used anywhere, they are not limited to use and they are untraceable.

They can easily penetrate in using fiat than cryptocurrency. I think it is not literally trackable the transaction since we are anonymous when we use cryptocurrency. But there are still way to track a certain address due to the blockchain technology which records the past transaction of the coin we used. Well, fiat can`t be tracked easily because you can hide it anywhere. You can use it also in any part of the world specially if you have dollars. I never know how criminals did to their scam money but I am pretty sure that they are good in hiding their money.

As far as I know, that huge money that they got from scams or maybe to other crimes like corruptions are being laundered for example in casinos or most often bank smurfing as they call it. I think it is better for these criminals to launder the money or maybe save them rather than putting the bitcoins they've got in a mixer.

Fiat is easy to dispose of and many criminals are not tech-savvy to convert their fiat to Cryptocurrency they think that they will be caught if they are average internet users against authorities who are tech-savvy in tracing criminals, criminals who work offline prefer fiat, hackers who work online prefer Cryptocurrency because of their anonymity.

People turn to be criminals by compulsion/situation. The root cause will be the poverty, and those people don't have anything to think big. Later the same person gets into criminal activities with better knowledge, this is where people get into tech related criminal activities. People are used to cash, and the same continues.

Cryptocurrency and other forms of transaction involves, when tech and hackers get into criminal activities. According to data from different analysis, the usage of fiat in crime and illegal needs were high in comparison to cryptocurrencies.

So true.

Without these people I don't think Bitcoin will be as popular as it is right now. They are the ones making transactions in these illegal sites generating more transactions making Bitcoin popular. There are other things that people did to make Bitcoin popular, one of them is the 10000 bitcoin pizza.

From my perspective it's seems that it's very rigid for criminals to operates with cryptocurrency because crypto is not centralized, and is not something someone can touch, feel with hand, or something arm rubbers can stop because no one convey cryptocurrency especially Bitcoin.
 
But in (Fiat ) criminals are interested, to obtain who ever holding Fiat because Fiat, it's visible,accessible and also centralized to all over the world.

But another set of people acts as criminals in another dimension via cryptocurrency, it's those people we prefer as people who commit cyber crimes such as hackers and scammers towards cryptocurrency, Such is another method of criminals in cryptocurrencies.

It all depends on the type of criminals as you cannot expect kidnappers to ask for bitcoins as they are not aware how it works and if even they are aware they don't know how it works and imagine someone tricks criminal by sending zero fees transaction and later double spending it and fooling the kidnapper or criminal so it is not easy for them and they demand cash because they usually have a tendency to share that cash among each other and not everyone uses bitcoins or cryptocurrency.

Another problem is like you said being tracked because one who is not careful can easily be tracked as they spend their coins one can track where it goes and so on until the final destination is noted.

Exactly. Fiat is so much easier to use than crypto itself. Not to mention, cryptocurrency transactions can be easily tracked by the authorities (except for privacy-oriented coins like Monero or Grin). Criminals would need to be tech-savvy enough to be able to use crypto properly for their nefarious actions. I'd bet they wouldn't waste their time trying to understand how crypto works and how to use them for their own benefit. After all, crypto is not as widely accepted as Fiat is for mainstream payments. Most merchants and businesses accept Fiat on top of crypto, giving criminals no choice but to continue using physical cash for all their bad deeds. There's nothing we can do about this, since crypto is just starting to blossom. The alternative financial system powered by Blockchain technology (crypto) has a long way to go before it can catch the attention of criminals in the mainstream world. Criminals will dive into the decentralized economy once prices become stable, cryptocurrencies focus themselves on privacy, and a wide variety of merchants and businesses accept crypto as payment method.

Nonetheless, I think it's best for criminals to distance themselves from the crypto/Blockchain industry as much as possible. This will allow governments to recognize crypto as legal tender. As a result, the growth of the industry will be accelerated like never before. Otherwise, you could expect massive crackdowns from mainstream governments in order to stifle crypto's growth worldwide. As long as crypto goes hand-in-hand with the government, everything will be fine. Just my opinion :)

Another option to consider is that while there is no sure way to know the full size of criminal activities in monetary terms we know that market is huge and most likely it is many times bigger than all the market of cryptocurrencies put together, which means that even if criminals wanted to use this market to hide their crimes there is simply not enough interest in this market to justify those actions and as such even if many criminals wanted to do something like that they refuse to do so knowing the market is not big enough right now.

This is a very interesting topic and actually why criminals prefer cash is because of two reasons mainly a) Because criminals are not educated b) is it easy to spend cash

Now if we take a look at the cyber scams we will notice that the cyber criminals actually ask bitcoins as the extortion money because they know no one operates bitcoins like if they accept Paypal the authorities will easily catch them hence they use bitcoins. So, the direct relation of criminals not accepting crypto is because they are not educated enough while the educated criminal will always prefer bitcoins instead of cash because accepting cash can be problematic for them like police can chase them and catch them but accepting crypto payment eliminates this risk for them.

rigid criminals against the use of cryptocurrency are common criminals or amateur criminals. Many criminals use cryptocurrency as the primary means of payment to avoid tracking who is using it. Because if you only rely on FIAT, your identity will be easy to trace.

some criminals opting for FIAT money may already have other strategies to avoid detection. FIAT is indeed the main goal for every criminal.

Currently, more crime is using cryptocurrency as a means of payment.

The world is changing tife after time .. and it's a bit irony to know that thesedays you need something controversial to get popular and in this case yes indeed those bad things involved criminals taking advantage on crypto characteristics that in the first sight it was perfect method to run the crime action in smooth way. We have witnessed that nowadays people blackmailing by asking for bitcoins .. money laundering through bitcoins etc

That's all what makes bitcoin known , yeah unfortunately such terrible moments are the one that makes cryptocurrency talked by the whole world, that's okay for the first step as long as it didn't last forever that bitcoin knwon as such bad thing.

You know what they say there is not such thing as bad publicity, governments have tried to stop bitcoin adoption by spreading misinformation about the people that use bitcoin and label them all as criminals, and while this has been effective so far how long it will take until people finally realize they are lying, basically some curious people will learn about this bitcoin the government talks about and will look about it themselves and they will discover the governments are lying, ironically the governments of the world will become the biggest promoters of bitcoin as they force the media to spread false news.

Criminals paid in cryptocurrency need to receive their final payout in cash. This requires obscuring where their funds come from. Unfortunately, several sophisticated services and tools help criminals do so. After all, if there were no way for bad actors to cash out cryptocurrency that they had received through illegal means, then there would be far less incentive for them to commit crimes in the first place.

There would be no less incentive, because illegal things are their routine work, and if it is not possible to convert bitcoins to fiat, they would definitely not go to work at the factory! ;D
Personally, I don't see any problem in the fact that criminals are using bitcoin! What difference does it make what currency they use at all? Whether it's bitcoins or dollars...

There's really nothing much of a problem except the crime they've committed. Criminals would more likely prefer cash simply because not all criminals are knowledgeable with this technology. What if it is a robbery? Will they ask the people inside the bank to send Bitcoin in their wallets? that would be silly. Also, it would be a hassle on their side, spending time to convert into fiat just to be able to make use of the money especially in areas wherein cryptos are not widely accepted. Indeed, but there are already many instances wherein cryptos are involved in crimes. So maybe, it depends on the ones who commited.

Why their prefer cash simply. Because cash is easy way to use than crypto cash is no security system than crypto it is very easy to use cash than using crypto but the advantage of using crypto is having a security for account.

Because they are use to fiat money that is why they always prefer cash on top of crypto. During the pandemic many scammers where all over the crypto looking for someone to scam and collect cash on top of their crypto. Most of the criminals in cryptocurrency don't have any idea concerning the coin the investors are using to invest to make some good out of their investment.the criminals in cryptocurrency just have idea on fiat money that is why they always after the cash on top of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin laundering, frauds and scams are mostly the crimes involving Bitcoin and other cryptos in the previous years. There is even a study in the University of Oxford, year 2017, wherein findings stated that there are 44 percent Bitcoin transactions which are related to crimes. So it is quite not a surprise knowing that anonumity is protected in this technology, as we all know. But to compare this with cases involving fiat currencies, odds will be on fiat to be more likely included in the motives of crime offenders, probably because it would be easier for them to use the money to anywhere and anytime they would want to.

Because criminals, mostly, are can we say uneducated in the first place, they're not the kind of criminals we've seen in movies who are highly intelligent. If you think about it, the people who are mostly in the news related to crimes, have problems that result in them being on that side of the road. So being Fiat money as the commonly used fiat money that can be used everywhere, makes for it as the center for attention. Unlike in crypto, where it is undeniably hard to learn, and crypto is uncommon to the general knowledge of the mass.
Aside from those reasons, crypto is not tangible, unlike fiat. For these "Criminals" to know if a person currently has a great amount of crypto in their pocket, assuming that they do research about their target, taking a hold of crypto can be a real hassle for them,

Maybe because it is very complex to convert the money from crypto and it requires KYC where personal details are required before getting the money.

So they prefer the traditional thing and besides not all of them are capable of hijacking cryptocurrency.

It's obvious that it's easy for criminals to use the traditional which has easier transaction processes.

Exactly. I believe that what's missing here is education. If criminals knew how to use crypto for their own benefit, they wouldn't be using Fiat for all of their nefarious activities. It's just that most criminals are not tech-savvy enough to understand how crypto/Blockchain tech works. I'd prefer them to continue using Fiat for the sake of the entire crypto/Blockchain industry. If criminals start adopting crypto in mass, you'd expect a massive crackdown from mainstream governments. Only then, the growth of the industry will stifle. As much as I want to see crypto succeed, we need to expand it's legitimate use cases for governments to be friendly towards it. But the advent of privacy coins, decentralized exchanges, and even "De-Fi" platforms, might attract wrongdoers into the industry. Governments will try to interfere, but they won't have any luck due to the decentralized nature of crypto/Blockchain tech. After that, they might declare crypto illegal for mainstream use.

Nonetheless, crypto's price volatility, transparency, and steep learning curve will scare off many criminals in the mainstream world. They'll continue to use Fiat because it can be used offline, it's stable, and extremely easy to use for day-to-day transactions. As long as this is the case, there should be nothing to worry about. Let's hope that crypto is used more legitimately for the sake of its growth in the mainstream world. Just my thoughts ;D

This is what i do have in mind where converting your cash to crypto will really be having that kind of problem on someone who do tend to make out conversions throughout to exchangers
which basically means that you would need up to pass some KYC before you would able to do so which criminals doesnt really like this kind of thing of course.Unless
if there would be some p2p purchases then they might able to get some bitcoin but in most cases this would really be on exchange platforms.
Why would they dive into things that will put up some headache if they can just simply make use of fiat directly just like the good old ways.?

But there are mixers nowadays. You put your stolen crypto there and you get it back clean without traces.
In terms of kyc, it is also not difficult to create a fake info today. You edit a document with your image and personal info of a different person then use it to complete kyc.
Wise criminals will always choose cryto over fiat, it's just that most people are still not yet completely aware of how these crypto works so most of them still prefers fiat.

besides being easy, the value of Fiat is also more stable. different from crypto which is very volatile. for example, today the thief gets 1 million dollars, when it is stored into crypto, the next day the asset value can be 0.99 million dollars, because the asset value is difficult to predict.

That is probably the greater risk for criminals, after all if you want to obtain fiat currency for your bitcoin most likely you will have to identify yourself, however what will happen when they can finally use their bitcoin to buy whatever they want by just using bitcoin without converting to fiat? Most likely at that point it will become impossible for anyone to catch them if they are smart and this is unfortunate as it will become impossible to recover the funds stolen in scams or hacks.

Exactly. There are many ways to remain "under the radar" when using crypto for illicit activities. The real problem is that criminals are not tech-savvy enough to understand how crypto truly works. If they did, they would've used crypto in mass already. Aside from the fact that crypto's prices are unstable on the market, there aren't many merchants and businesses accepting it. Fiat, on the other hand, has widespread acceptance in the mainstream world and it's extremely easy to use. As long as this is the case, most criminals will continue to use Fiat for all of their wrongdoings in the mainstream world.

Nonetheless, I'd imagine that there would be a full government crackdown on crypto if criminals begin using it in mass. Which is why, I believe that the more criminals are using Fiat on top of crypto, the better it'll be for the growth of the Blockchain industry. We need more legitimate use cases for crypto in order to maintain its approval from mainstream governments. Fortunately, institutional investors and serious traders are joining the game. Companies and prominent businesses are also jumping on the crypto train, giving a greater level of legitimacy to the crypto/Blockchain space. As long as this is the case, crypto will receive mainstream recognition by central banks and governments worldwide. Just my thoughts ;D

This is life... Criminals are exactly like us, they just make a different living... If they can use bitcoins everywhere, it will be better and more convenient for us to use bitcoins too!
By the way, now it is also unrealistic to return stolen funds... So I don't think that anything will change much if the bitcoins are accepted all over the world!

Precisely. Most crimes committed mowaday aren't extensive by any measures of intelligence, so it wouldn't comes as a surprise if these criminals wouldn't even be aware of cryptocurrencies in the first place. Besdies that, we can also assume the reason that they wanted faster transactions in exchange for their own privacy of course.

The number of people actually considering bitcoin to be a safe haven is so small it's a rounding error. It would round to zero on a global scale. Covid hasn't really done anything to push adoption. It would be one thing to try to argue it's beneficial because it's digital and cash is physical and could spread the virus, but almost no one uses crypto for commerce, so that's not really a viable argument. The only thing I agree with is that the vast majority use fiat over crypto and the reason is simple- utility. Fiat is still the king for commerce. Bitcoin isn't changing that any time in near future.

I agree with you. Some criminals preferred cash or physical money rather than crypto currency because I believe that some of them have no knowledge in  crypto world and they might get caught with just a wrong move that they will make. This criminals just wanted an easy to use money that is why they tend to always choose fiat for a sure spendable money, anytime and anywhere.

This is very sound and logical answer. liquidation is number one and no  money trail. Because they are doing suspicious activity, they have to cover their tracks so that they cannot be trace by authority.


That's another reason, cryptocurrency needs somehow a little knowledge of technology. Most of them prefer old school ways of transaction, that is preferring to use cold cash. Some are also in doubt with technology. But they are evolving and hackers and cybercrime are prevalent and rising where billions of  dollars  are already lost online.

Most criminals are not educated as criminals are choosing cash fiat at the top of crypto they like Fiat because they have no idea about crypto. Fiat currency is used all over the world and criminals can easily do everything with cash. But in the case of crypto fiat is not possible. Criminals will face many problems if crypto circulation is not everywhere. Criminals will use Fiat currency wherever they want to go wherever they want the transaction of criminals is much faster.

Cash is truly the most anonymous money in the world.

However, there is a trend towards restricting the use of cash around the world (especially in the Scandinavian countries).  

Cash is very difficult to control.  You can, of course, rewrite the numbers and series of banknotes ... This can be effective if the money is known to be stolen ...

Regulators are trying to ban cash altogether.  Most likely, they will succeed.  

In my country, stores do not accept cash due to Covid-19.  I can only pay for purchases with a credit card.

The new digital cash of the 21st century is Monero (XMR).  I think that cash will not disappear in the 21st century.  21st Century Cash = Monero.

It's hard to acquire big sums of monero anonymously due to the low adoption, what would force criminals to use an exchange, what would be easily traceable, it's true.
But seems that is the only thing preventing private currencies considerable usage by criminals. If monero were a common currency being used by lots of people these criminals could easily find some strawmen to help them informally with their schemes through p2p transactions. So I think it would be very near to anonymity.

Simply, they have no knowledge yet on how to store value in cryptocurrency. I think if they have some options in keeping their stole money, they probably choose to store it in anonymous and secured place. We just be thankful because cryptocurrency is not yet the main wallet that theft and other criminals use when they want to store. But for sure, there are criminals that are hiding their money in cryptocurrency specially those who are in government position that is corrupt.

I tend to disagree with this view

Indeed, the top dogs among criminals may have little knowledge about cryptocurrencies and how they work, but they have accomplices and sidekicks that are pretty well versed in virtually anything, from finance to chemistry. Otherwise, drug cartels simply wouldn't exist. So rest assured, if criminals are not using crypto, it is not for the lack of knowledge or anything to that tune. Cash (fiat) is just better as far as large-scale criminal operations are concerned

Additional technical knowledge is required to use Monero.  Criminals may not be competent enough to use Monero.  

The Sibyl attack was recently launched on the Monero blockchain.  An unknown attacker tried to de-anonymize network users.  The attack was unsuccessful.  Riccardo Spagni recommended transactions using Tor.  

https://decrypt.co/47798/malicious-nodes-attempt-sybil-attack-on-monero

Monero developers will make this cryptocurrency more anonymous and private. Monero developers have excellent professional competencies.

But this will always be a "battle of armor and shell".

Maybe they don't know how to use crypto and it's difficult for them to cash out and convert into fiat money because they will catch by the authority. But once criminals knows how to use crypto, I am sure they will use it than fiat because it was decentralized and they can make transaction online, fast and hassle free.

Criminals are trying to hold on to cash as long as possible because it's so anonymous. But government and central banks are fighting them more and more. Large denominated bills are being taken out of circulation, making transfering large amounts of cash more difficult because now weight and size increases a lot. I think criminals are adjusting to these trends and try to go digital themselfs. Many crimes these days are done via the internet, so why not store your stolen money in crpytos? Would make perfect sense to me.

The main reason is there are more market in Fiat currency so they still using that for many scheme .


It's not difficult to convert it into Fiat the only problem is if you want to widraw large amount using crypto currency there are government will watch your money and look at you because they think that this can be use for money laundering , but if you will convert the money slowly then there is no way they will be interested to track your transaction in crypto currency.

Which criminals? I don't know the statistics to know about the currency criminals use. And I think it depends on how many criminals according to their field. And the current fact, there are more cases of real world crime than cybercrime cases. It is also determined by environmental factors, criminals do not have to keep the proceeds of crime without spending it.

I don't think it's going to work out as planned (if it is planned that way)

And I don't think either that top-brass criminals are going digital even under the circumstances described. Indeed, there is a lot of criminal activity happening on the Internet right now, but this type of activity is closely related or based on the Internet and the possibilities it provides

However, criminal activities that don't require the Internet are unlikely to get it used widely because there is a higher risk of exposure. But this is the last thing crime bosses would want. More likely, they will start using gold, diamonds, or anything physical in lieu of cash if it becomes unavailable one day

There are actually two basic factors which makes criminals demand cash instead of online payments and crypto payments.

1- Inability to liquidate the funds: Suppose they ask for bitcoins but while cashing the bitcoins they can be traced down, because a criminal doesn't have the brain or education to know how to avoid being tracked and if even there is no way to track them they are not aware of that and they simply demand cash so they can use it directly.

2- Based on the victim: The person they ask money from might not be knowledgeable about how to buy bitcoins so they rather make it easy by demanding cash.

Those who don't know how to avoid being hunted down get caught up

So it is natural selection at its best, with all ensuing results. Further, by lacking the brain or education you obviously refer to small-time street criminals like pickpockets and their likes. But seriously, how do you think organized crime exists in the first place if they are effectively braindead, according to you? There's something inconsistent in your line of reasoning, don't you think? The most successful criminal is the one who has never been caught, a mastermind, in a sense. And we can't know how many of them are out there, at large

Actually cyber criminals always prefer Bitcoins and almost all the ransomware attacks on big companies demand Bitcoins in return. Sometimes this makes it feel like Bitcoins is a currency made for the sole purpose of hacking and ransom but this is a really bad perception and image being created by hackers for Bitcoins.

The reason why actually cyber hackers ask for Bitcoins is because of the decentralized nature and the value of Bitcoins. Hackers know they cannot ask for PayPal from their victims and there is absolutely no way to demand cash or something like that because they will be caught so they demand payment in crypto because they know they can mix coins and even void being traced through BTC addresses.

You need to ask yourself why hackers demand crypto when they carried out successful hacks on their victims? Criminals have different levels of smartness and understandings, each of they choose what's best for them, though it's hard to stay off the radar online without been traced successfully but it's still damn possible

I also share the same opinion with you.  By criminals, use of Fiat is seen as safer than using crypto.  Let's let them stay like this.  If the use of crypto is more common in the criminal industry, it means huge international pressures for us.  Let's continue to use cryptocurrency as an investment tool.

It depend on the criminals actually and If I will be the criminal then I will prefer to use cryptocurrency for protection from getting identity. There are exchanges that are actually not mindin for KYC and this is the ideal when using bitcoin. I think mostly of us here hate KYC and that is why there are secured wallets not asking for your identity for you to remain as anonymous.

However, cryptocurrency is not yet fully and most of the criminals do not know about this so this could be the reason why criminals use the traditional method use of fiat currency.

I agree a little bit here with you because the criminal activities are now moving towards better standards and now kidnapping and such are even done with proper planning like they are well educated of what they are doing and planning it.

The reason I think they do not ask for BTC is because they need cash to pay their team and it would not make sense to ask for BTC and then sell them and distribute so why not directly ask cash. It is more like why criminals do not ask for Gold that is because they are not going to wear jewelry instead their aim is to get cash. I mean you cannot expect a criminal to hodl BTC right? ;D They need money and they need cash so they demand that directly instead of asking for BTC/GOLD and then sell it creating another process.

1. I disapprove that all criminal does not have an education. Many of them are good enough to steal your money without letting you know. Consider many ICOs in 2017. Who is sillier? investors or those criminal founders exit without investors' money? The number of people using cash is more than the number of people using cryptocurrency. But if you meet a cybercriminal, you might be stunning by what they can do

2. Agree. More people use cash, more criminal steals cash. But fiat criminal is never the same as cybercriminals.

Cannot agree with this, criminals are always updated on any technology that could help them to do their illegal activities. Bitcoin has been here for how many years, most of them jump from one to another technology that they could use to steal money from their prey. Criminals also uses fiat currencies because it's value is fixed, and is much easier to understand. But we have what do we called money laundering, where I think, bitcoin is much susceptible with.

Bitcoin can be easily traced

On the other hand, more anonymous cryptocurrencies like Monero or Zcash simply lack the required volume to make them really useful for large-scale criminal operations, even though they are indeed used on the Internet for a lot of minor illegal activities. Gold is good as a store of value, but low-profile criminals are spenders, not savers. Therefore, cash is the best payment option in these circumstances and will most certainly remain that in the foreseeable future

There are scams happening in the Crypto sector as well, there is no industry directly related to finance that's scam free  the whole picture  to try and tame here is trying to liaise with centralised exchanges to bring the culprits to book. Criminals would prefer fiat to cryptocurrencies because they wouldn't be safe transacting a large sum of coins that has traces and all eyes would be on them.

I do not know why someone made such a conclusion, but if this is so, then it should be borne in mind that cash is almost impossible to track if you do not mark it in advance or rewrite the banknote numbers.  Cryptocurrency is tracked if desired, with the exception of cryptocurrency with a high degree of anonymity.

Simple, cash is the true untracable means of payment method meanwhile with blockchain you got your transaction recorded for eternity and could possibly be traced after few years goes. There's reason why those so called hackers have a hard time cashing out their money because everyone literally taking a look and watch their address movement and once they made a mistake the money could be gained back by exchange or swap platform.
Cash on the other hand, so hard to trace it has become number #1 method for those illegals activities or criminals in making a deal.

Although I would agree with your observations partially, I have to say that the situation is changing. Bitcoin liquidity is getting better with every passing month, and unless you are dealing with a huge stash of coins (tens of thousands or more), then it is possible for you to liquidate them within a few weeks without attracting unwanted attention from the law enforcement authorities.

good point bro, its just that not all crytpo users are that smart either, few hackers have been apprehended after the successfully hacked a exchange or platform, not all crypto users understand what mixers are, not all crypto users understand the difference between monero and bitcoin, now that crypto address can be easily blacklisted its harder to stay off the radar in crytpo space.

I dont know why hackers hack exchanges this days because the money will be useless to them on the long run, for them to swap the stolen coins to fiat they will still need some kind of verifications on the platform, KYC and ID verifications so they can easily get caught in the process, once you hacked a exchange and move fund to a particular address you have been tagged already, the hunt is on.

Bitcoin mixers are there to help you out

However, you can't know in advance which of them are real ones and which are only honeypots to get people like you caught red-handed. With that said, if you are already smart enough to steal from an exchange a few dozen bitcoins or something to that tune, you must be smart enough as well to cash out these coins safely, without attracting too much attention (beyond what you will be receiving anyway). That would most certainly mean splitting your spoil into smaller portions and using different avenues for cashing out in order to cover your tracks

Since all nations in the entire world are presently used fiat currency, then few of them adopted the concept of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin.
In which means, majority of the people here in this field of business are not ready yet to accept Cryptocurrency to their own country or territory places. And this might be the reason why most of the criminals now becomes more aware about in cryptocurrency, just a thoughts
only.

Yes, many criminals do not know about crypto and cryptocurrencies are not usable everywhere so criminals do not choose Fiat. Criminals can use it everywhere to print money fiat Money is issued by the central banks of the United Nations fiat is one of the largest companies in the business world. Also criminals can conduct illegal activities very easily although cryptocurrency has been seen as a disruptive tool challenging dissociative financial markets, we have witnessed a trend of change in recent times where exchanges are trying to work with stock and asset markets.

I'm sure other people already pointed this out, but the crypto transactions are permantently stored on blockchain.

Even if you use some mixing schemes or something like that, eventually your transactions can be tracked if you represent a serious interest to some agencies with high-tech tools.

Many government try their possible best to fixe the economy which covid-19 has reduced in the country to start working as usual in all the communities . During the pandemic many citizens find it difficult to grow their businesses in the country because many of them are use to fiat money in the area of investment. Most of the criminals who are use to fiat money in the country, know all the strategy to scam fiat currency user in the country than cryptocurrency, which is just newly legalized in the country that most of them don't have any idea concerning cryptocurrency. Most of them don't know how to use crypto to invest and make a good profit from the investment. All crypto user wallet are well safe because many people in the country don't even know what is wallet and how we can use it to save our money without any criminals have access to your money.

I imagine if it happens in my country, only those who know about crypto and can be detected so easily.
Well about criminals who prefer crypto, it may be only limited people, not many criminals concern with it or popular with crypto. But later, who knows? Probably there will be some kind of revolutioner from criminals to widen their sectors to crypto?  ;D ;D

And now, cash is likely still much easier for the transaction, this is what they need

Exactly. Cash is anonymous, whereas most cryptos are pseudonymous. Back in Bitcoin's early days, many people believed it to be anonymous just like cash. Once it was discovered that the Blockchain was completely transparent to the public, some people made the switch to privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies like Monero and Grin. What's stopping criminals from using crypto is lack of knowledge and high price volatility. If crypto were easy to use, and prices were stable on the market, criminals would've used it on top of cash any day. Still, not many merchants and businesses accept crypto as payment method. Despite crypto's mainstream success, cash is still king when it comes to widespread acceptance in the mainstream world. I guess criminals will continue to use cash (Fiat) on top of crypto, because of its high level of accessibility.

Nonetheless, it's best for criminals to distance themselves from crypto as much as possible. This would make the crypto/Blockchain space legitimate, attracting institutional investors in the long term. As long as governments give the "green light" to crypto/Blockchain tech, the industry will continue to grow towards unprecedented levels. Otherwise, expect a massive crackdown from mainstream governments into this revolutionary industry. Just my opinion :)

It is because fiat currency is the traditional one and some criminals don't even know or have knowledge about cryptocurrency so they prefer to fiat-crypto. Not all criminals know everything about crypto but those who know it are thinking that they cannot be tracked by the authorities once they already stole the money or an asset of an individual. Hackers are commonly the criminals that will choose to steal crypto than fiat because they can do so online.

When some hackers steal other people's funds, they are still found and punished, and if cryptocurrencies are used for other criminal activities, then this is not a fact of going unpunished. If there is a crime, then there will be evidence, and after investigation and capture of a criminal or an organized group, there are financial accounts, including cryptocurrency wallets. None of the dealers will sell drugs to their customers if they don't use cryptocurrency.

Not always true and there are hackers who are making a life out of hacking others and demanding money in return and they are never caught because they are smart enough to leave no evidence.

How would you catch a criminal who took payment in crypto, used a public IP or maybe VPN to make account at an exchange and after depositing he withdraws money to an address that was sent to a coin mixer which has then again sent to another exchange or even a gambling website and then finally he withdraws it to a new address. There are so many hacks that often happen and they demand Bitcoins as payment option because they know it can't be traced being a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.

This is also a major weakness that makes it difficult for Crypto to be widely accepted. Because no one can regulate Bitcoin right now, it's all anonymized transaction and this will make it even easier for criminals to launder money. In addition, accepting crypto payments in the country will help criminals lessen the money laundering phase :)
There are many hidden corners as Bitcoin is accepted worldwide. Hopefully this anonymity will not affect the crypto market as much in the future.

Those people don't have to go to exchanges that requires KYCs, they are criminals so usually they just send them to certain wallets and send them to a mixer. Mixer is usually their go to when laundering hacked and scammed bitcoins. Still, I agree with you, I still prefer fiat because of its liquidity.

Exactly. That's largely because crypto is not as anonymous as its proponents claim it to be. For instance, Bitcoin's blockchain ledger is visible to the general public. Anyone with your public address can easily see your transactions on the blockchain, making law enforcement an easy task. I think this is one of the many reasons why criminals avoid crypto in the first place. Privacy coins are a better option, but they're often harder to use than traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. The steep learning curve, price volatility, and lack of merchant acceptance, is what's keeping criminals away from crypto. I'd prefer it to stay this way for the sake of the crypto/Blockchain industry. If criminals begin using crypto for their nefarious actions, we can expect the government to do a full crackdown on the industry. After that, no one will be able to buy or sell crypto with Fiat easily. Everything will be performed under the scope of mainstream governments worldwide.

Nonetheless, Fiat will continue to be the payment method of choice for criminals in the mainstream world for very obvious reasons. As long as crypto's legitimate use cases are expanded, it'll be here to stay for a very long time. Government collaboration is necessary in order to lead the industry towards new heights. Time will tell us what will be the fate of the crypto/Blockchain tech as its popularity rises in the mainstream world. Just my thoughts ;D

Not when you use monero blockchain network. Monero is completely untraceable and untrack transactions that's why most hacking transactions and kidnapping happens. They feel its very easy to exchange values through monero, that's why even the dark web make use of it everyday.
The government agencies are only trying to break down the network by launching a bounty, perhaps they might succeed in the future, hence for now don't under extimate scammers, they can take away your love savings and goes free.
#stay safe my friend.

Criminals can do many harmful things without any second thought which normal people can not. They are smart too and that's why some of them are using the cryptocurrency method for their payment. Fiat can easily accessible and it's common and open to all. They used something which they can receive from any place without their absence and I think they like it.

It is very difficult to cash out on a large scale, as it attracts the attention of law enforcement agencies, and the criminals always need cash. It is better for us to hide the earned money from the government in cryptocurrency and use only the amount that we need.

Criminals are obviously various types, from idiots to smartest one. Now the thing is first category might be not smart enough to understand the cyrpto based transactions and perhaps they are man of traditions! If you buy-sell things with the fiat then it is pretty fast and on the spot. I don't think anyone would stand on street for hours to get their payment which is being received for the crime that they just did.


If smart group is using this one then they know the value of anonymous transaction.

However, there is loop hole in such transactions. They can not easily launder huge amount of money which is coming from the crypto space. Today or tomorrow they will need the crypto's converted to fiat for their daily needs. The only source they can the money is via their bank accounts.
Just imagine millions of transactions getting recorded in the bank account will surely sound the alarm for local authorities.

So it's still confusing for them and good for us since we will get great deal of volume in the crypto space.

Fiat money is older than bitcoin in the world which many investors are use to fiat money in the area of investment. Many countries never still believe that digital currency is a good investment, that people can use to grow their business in the country. Those countries that bitcoin is not legalized, it hard for such criminals to have access to bitcoin because they don't use to bitcoin in the country. Many criminals  are use to fiat money which they have reduced many investors in the community.

Because not every people have the knowledge about bitcoin or cryptocurrency. They usually prefer fiat over crypto just simply because it is easy for them to live or to use it when they escape and hide. They don't even need to convert it, unlike with crypto they need to have gadgets and internet connection to be able to use or transact with it. 

Considering what you've said, yes. I think it would be better if criminals just continue with using fiat. (Better yet, they could stop doing crimes, but that's impossible of course.) I mean, people are just starting to adapt crypto and they're already skeptical about it because of some crimes which makes use of crypto as their instrument. If many criminals adapt it, then people might not accept crypto at all.

Fiat money is easy to use anytime, anywhere and it is tangible unlike bitcoin which is digital currency, you can't touch and it always needs internet connection in order to make a transactions and need knowledge how to use it. Criminals don't like a complicated transaction and also if they use crypto, they need to learn it first.

I think they are not using crypto because to aquire a large amount of crypto they need to buy it with fiat and there are not many black market holders with large funds to buy crypto from so they need to purchase throught legal ways and that will compromise their identity plus a big portion of the illegal activities are done manually(hand to hand) so cash will make it easier for them.

To be able to use crypto thoroughly, one needs to have some technical background. Average criminals are not tech-savvy enough to be able to hide their nefarious actions when using crypto. They prefer physical cash (Fiat) on top of crypto because it's extremely easy to use, anonymous, and stable. Besides that, criminals can pay with physical cash regardless of catastrophes such as natural disasters, a war, etc. Crypto has many downsides to it, which limits mainstream adoption. At least, the number of legitimate use cases on crypto are increasing at a fast pace. This should allow the approval of crypto/Blockchain tech by mainstream governments. Things would've been worse if criminals used crypto in mass. It would stifle the growth of the industry as we speak.

Nonetheless, time will tell us whenever criminals will continue to use Fiat or switch to crypto altogether. With CBDCs, governments will be able to keep track of every transaction performed on the ledger (which greatly undermines a person's privacy). Since physical cash will no longer exist, the only alternative against government surveillance will be crypto. My guess is that privacy coins will be heavily used for criminal activities in the future. Once that happens, one would expect a full government crackdown on any cryptocurrency with anonymity features. At least, Bitcoin and other non-private cryptocurrencies will be able to survive for long. Privacy coins will eventually fade into oblivion because of the aforementioned reasons. Just my thoughts ;D

They might likely adopt the new technology or maybe its too complicated for them to use crypto currencies. They prefer fiat because its easy to handle it could be untraceable if they wanted too. Majority of them might keep it traditional if fiat system will not change, however it won’t be easy for them to transact fiat anymore if the government will push the use of CBDC to its citizens so a privacy coin could be there last option but the problem now is authorities are starting to crack these privacy coins nowadays.

Follow the simple logic...on the street level you can deal with cash, but as you go higher it's becoming impossible to make deals with cash! Nobody is carrying or have at home +10M in cash (except some drug lords probably!)
And you can't generalize this matter, some criminals prefer crypto instead fiat, of course if they know how to use it in the right way, and there're many good examples for that!
In the end criminal is just a person that is doing something illegal! As long there's a need for people to do illegal stuff they will do it, and they will find a way to charge it and transfer that money everywhere around! With time, it's getting harder for them (if you know history you know how illegal activities survive despite all those new government measures, rules, jails (all kind of punishments), agencies, spying equipment....) but people will adapt! It's the process of surviving!

I'm not sure you have any influence whatsoever on what items criminals use to store their ill-gotten gains. They will use whatever currency they want if it helps them move money around or hide it from government organisations like the police. It's better if all governments work together to stamp out law breaking worldwide if you really want to prevent Bitcoin from being tarnished by rule breakers, but it is unlikely to happen as lots of people turn to crime for "easy money".

Mostly we can see two kind of criminals. One is the high tech criminals and the other is local criminals. These high tech criminals have little knowledge about the technology advancement, but those weren't used on the criminal activities as they haven't used to it. Local criminals keep them engaged on small level of crimes around the locality. So there is very limited usage of bitcoin by criminals.

I do not believe in the complete anonymity of any transactions on the Internet. You give cash in your own hands and it is not recorded anywhere, while little is known about cryptocurrencies, although everyone claims to be anonymous. In fact, only the creator of the token knows about the real state of affairs.

that's different thing. Those so called hackers that encrypt their victim data demand crypto because that's the only way to extort safely without limitation on how far the victims are. But, criminality in real life usually done with cash.

For example drug dealing, they usualy uses cash not bitcoin though there's history of drug dealers caught using crypto

The Bitcoin blockchain is transparent.  Information in the blockchain is fixed forever.  The offender can already forget about his crime.  However, the information about the financial transaction is still on the blockchain.  This information cannot be removed from there.  

Riccardo Spagni (the main ideologue of Monero) advises against using Monero to commit crimes.  Yes, Monero is the most anonymous and confidential of all cryptocurrencies.  However, regulators are constantly looking to hack Monero.  Tracking of transactions is possible.  People are frivolous creatures.  They tend to make mistakes and neglect safety considerations.

Therefore, it doesn't make sense to use cryptocurrency to commit crimes if there is cash.

Criminals are used to running their business using fiat currencies. If they will in any way consider using crypto, I am very sure they will need to understand what it is including the pro and the cons. I am very sure many of these criminals will be dealing with a huge amount of money which means if they have it in crypto for ease of transfer, they might end up making use of a centralized exchange that will Require KYC before they can withdraw. DEX could have to be a choice but due to low liquidity, they might have a problem handling and processing a huge amount of money. The issue of the government banning crypto due to wrong used has been emphasized and the chances are small. Every currency has its pro and con including fiat so we cannot because of the cons stop using fiat

Maybe that is because of their safety, we all know that technology and security are innovated that they can access everything especially illegal activities. We can say that they are using fiat because they are aware that technology can track them. They can monitor the movement of their illegal work if they are choosing fiat as a mode of transaction. There are actually lots of hackers that can access their transactions and also hackers that are supervised by the government. Also, it is depending on the knowledge of a criminal about the knowledge, if they can use it, why not to use it right?

How would they notice if these people are taking money on cash and not withdrawing it on the banks? They won't be able to track this cash wherever they go while transactions in bitcoin could be tracked as every transactions happening can be seen in the blockchain.

Its obvious that criminal's needs instant money because all their attention is to achieve their objective or aim towards looking at criminals very well no of them like delay, going on fiat currency it's very easy and easier to grab it without much circumstances but going on cryptocurrency especially bitcoin they will undergoes different process in order to actualised their objective towards crypto, it seen as one of the reasons criminal have to isolate crypto and face fiat currency, shall I will say that it's based on individuals who involve as a criminal, and normal without much agitation criminal have to prefer fiat currency because them know it very well.

This is exactly the answer there is no way for them to widraw it back to cash without using exchange which it will require kyc and it's easy to track it using their bank account which is way too dangerous compare to direct using Fiat currency.  Cryptk currency as way of payment will only work if they are planning to hold it for long term, means they will not convert it Fiat currency or if ever they do there are persons that will buy them directly using cash without using bank account .

The only way to avoid not getting caught online is by never changing crypto for fiat, even if you hack or steal digital assets you will still need to sell for FIAT and all platforms that accepts switching crypto to Fiat requires I.D Verifications, KYC is a must, so when address to address are been tracked it will lead them to your Fiat gateway, that will put the person in hot soup

I used to ask myself why hackers are stealing coins that can't be sold or change to Fiat without getting caught, this days address can be traced or tag, binance exchange for example is very good at blacklisting a scammer address, they will keep tracking until the hacker made a mistake one way or the other, smart criminals will prefer Fiat over digital currency because Fiat is less traceable

Fiat in the form of cash is surely less traceable than crypto, but then there are huge risks, for cash to be used they have to be physically transferred from one place to another which involves lots of middle men which can cause more problems for them than simply using crypto and using a bunch of coin mixers to prevent being caught. Ultimately when they sell they might try to sell through peer to peer exchanges!

There may be several reasons for this.  In general, of course, cash is less traceable than cryptocurrency.  Also, not all criminals are well versed in cryptocurrency.  Therefore, they are simply afraid to use it.  On the one hand, they are afraid that they can be identified, and on the other hand, that they will not be able to cash out the cryptocurrency in the end.

That's certainly true, mate. Physical cash will always be the leading choice for criminals, because of its anonymous nature. Not to mention, it's always stable in price. Criminals will need to exercise extreme caution when using crypto in order to avoid leaving any trace that would create a link to their identity. While there's already a solution for full-fledged privacy on crypto, it's somewhat complicated for the average person to understand. I doubt criminals will take the time to study crypto in order to use it for their nefarious actions. As Fiat is much easier to use than crypto, it'll continue to dominate the "underworld".

At least, crypto land will be able to enjoy legitimate use cases in the mainstream world. The less illegal activity there is on crypto/Blockchain tech, the better it'll be for its approval by governments worldwide. These entities will give crypto the "green light" as long as the majority is contributing towards a good cause. The day when most people conduct illegal transactions on crypto, will be such when governments crack down on the entire industry. Considering that the number of malicious actors are slightly reducing on the crypto/Blockchain space, it shouldn't be long enough before the whole industry is legitimized. I wouldn't worry about criminals on crypto, as most blockchain networks are open for anyone to explore. Governments can simply track & trace transactions on transparent blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum in order put illegal activities to rest. Just my thoughts ;D

I believe that first of all it is necessary to take into account the fact of what kind of criminal business we are talking about. If we are talking about the sale of weapons or drugs on a large scale for millions of dollars, and not retail trade, then it is possible that the cryptocurrency is used very successfully. But in retail, all customers are unlikely to be familiar with cryptocurrency.

This is because when you need to transact illegally through anonymous channels, you're not as concerned with price fluctuations of the currency as you are with the transactions being anonymous. Retail consumers care very much about the price fluctuations of the currency they're transacting in, which is exactly why bitcoin is currently one of the worst currencies for commerce. It simply cannot hold a stable value, and nobody can have any confidence what it will be worth next week, which is the primary function of a currency- to hold a stable and predictable value.

Here are some of the reason criminals prefer cash on top of crypto:
1) Easy to collect: Fiat money is very popular in the country which is very easy for criminals to have access to someone money.
2) Knowledge: Many criminals don't have the knowledge of crypto, that is making them to avoid crypto than to go after the money  which they know very well . They know how to spend the fiat money easy than crypto.
3) Uneducated: Most of the criminals are uneducated which they don't know how to use crypto to get rich because they don't know  how to operate digital currency. Many of them are use to fiat money to do any types of transaction in the country.

Exactly. Volatile prices is what's preventing crypto to be used as digital cash. Criminals want something that's stable, anonymous, and widely adopted by merchants and businesses alike. Fiat is the perfect option for criminals as it meets said requirements. Privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies are good for preserving anonymity, but they're volatile in price and lack merchant acceptance in the mainstream world. As long as this is the case, Fiat will continue to be the #1 choice for criminals worldwide.

At least, crypto will be able to enjoy some level of legitimacy in the mainstream world. The less illegal activity on the Blockchain, the better it'll be for crypto's chances of approval by mainstream governments. The day when criminals adopt crypto in mass, will be such that'll lead towards crypto's demise. Thankfully, most cryptocurrencies have a transparent blockchain ledger in order to help governments fight crime. The real issue will lie on anonymous cryptocurrencies themselves (like Monero, Grin, Beam, etc.). It may turn out that these coins will become de-listed from every crypto exchange, leaving people with no choice but to use them "under the radar". Regardless of what happens in the future, crypto/Blockchain tech's decentralization will allow it to survive for years on end. Just my opinion :)

How did you even know that the criminals prefer cash or fiat over crypto?
We already have so much criminals in crypto so how could you be so sure that they still prefer Fiat?

I think that soon fiat money will change, a tracking system will be introduced in it, something like an NFC chip. Every time a banknote goes through the cashier, there will be registration in the global financial system. This will end the anonymity of fiat money. The governments of the countries are constantly "tightening the screws" for everything that is anonymous in this world, banknotes are not monitored in any way at the moment, there is only a number on each of them, but it is not tracked anywhere.

I believe it's more easier to escape with fiat than crypto, it's easy to hide all tracks with Fiat but not with crypto, it's why I'm not buying the decentralized idea of many crypto projects, if you can track any crypto projects what makes them decentralized then?

Top crypto has a better value because of its popularity so it's no wonder when criminals choose cash that is at least worth the top crypto, I don't really realize that there are still many criminals who choose cash because most criminals who are in the news at that time at least they chose or using top crypto such as bitcoin as ransom. Well, I guess that's not something of a concern, because I guess criminals will choose anything as long as it still has value then they'll use it.

The traditional fiat is more widely accepted around the world than crypto, and we know all the criminals, scammers and corrupt leaders prefer their money in fiat, since it's much easier to spend just about anywhere, whereas if the money is in crypto you have to be taking it out but by bit to avoid any suspicious activity, for this reason criminals prefer laundering money in fiat instead of crypto.

People aren't much aware of the cryptocurrency market. The fiat usage seems to be easy accessible than cryptocurrency. As per my knowledge, usage of fiat makes the path clear and no back tracking is possible. In my country, politicians just go for staking up the traditional fiat, to avoid the taxation. Finally it goes wasted when the government demonetize the fiat system. :(

Having always access to your money is key for some criminals. They might be on the run from the police and having fiat cash under the mattress might be the best way to quickly move around. Especially in third world countries where access to computers and Internet might be limited.

I think that the simplest answer is about the necessity during the Chrismas. We know that on Chrismas, we commonly spend a lot of money to buy some necessities like food, ticket, decorations, and other necessaries. In this case, not all merchants accept crypto as a payment method. And many people will need more money to cover the outcome. Therefore, they will prefer to sell some of their crypto balances.

Because it's easier to give the local low-level blokes a pile of cash than teach them how to safely do it with Bitcoin without getting any unwanted attention.

Internet anonymity is one of the biggest myths around...

Even as you don't believe in complete privacy crypto offer, I am very certain criminals always have a way of selling their coins and cash out fiat without worries. Thus is why regulation bodies are still against the use of montero because that sh*t is so anonymous and used most of the time in dark webs.
There are instances that these criminals sells the complete wallet that contain priva6keys to this coins they receive from innocent people and conbert them at discount to receive monero.

Simply, the controls.  For a criminal, the first problem that arises when he has a large sum is how keep it.  However, if he went to the bank to deposit this sum, the banker would be forced (normally) to ask where those funds came from.  This is why the criminal uses cash, because instead of depositing it in the bank, he can go (for example) to a jewelry store and buy, in cash, a Rolex which still remains a luxury item that maintains its price over time.  This obviously for the common criminal, certainly not for Tony Montana ;D

there are criminals who use crypto, they are Scamer. don't we see him often? like some Airdrop and ICO projects. but after they get profit they more often change their funds to Fiat, maybe because their target is only getting quick profits, not investment and this is supported by still a few shops that accept crypto as payment.

Indeed. CBDCs will become the end of an era for privacy. Governments and central banks will gain greater control over people's lives like never before. When that happens, criminals will have no choice but to rely on privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies in order to stay afloat. They will be forced to learn how to use crypto in order to continue with their illicit activities in the mainstream world. My guess is that governments will ban the usage of privacy coins because of their anonymous nature. But the decentralized and open source nature of crypto, will allow anyone to get access to it via the use of other methods. This will enable an "underground economy" that's truly unstoppable by third parties.

Nonetheless, Fiat will continue to be the top currency of choice for criminals because it's stable, anonymous, and widely used in the mainstream world. This will be the case until governments and central banks introduce CBDCs to the world. At least, we won't have to worry about crypto being "outlawed" in a few years from now. The switch from physical cash to digital cash will not happen overnight. It's a process that will take decades before it becomes a reality. As long as crypto has the "green light" from mainstream governments, there should be nothing to worry about. The more people use crypto legitimately, the higher the chances of being approved by the government will be. It's best for criminals to stay away from crypto as possible for the sake of the entire industry. Just my opinion :)

they prefer both in the scenario that you share because they start with crypto and convert the crypto with a fiat ,

they know that crypto as payment for shopping is still limited but why will they still continue ? thats not their excuse .
scamming is wide and does not only cover cryptos , online world can be use for scaming and scammers can demand other payment methods such as bank transfer , non crypto currency , gift cards , and so on

That is why petty criminals use fiat funds, as they are much easier to work with. But large criminal businessmen can afford to use cryptocurrency, since they never cash out money, but use assets only for payment when buying or selling goods.

It's a very interesting discussion for me. Why do criminals prefer fiat money of course because fiat money still dominates higher adoption and of course they still find it easier to use fiat currency than crypto.
In addition cryptocurrencies have unstable value, perhaps that is also the problem for them.
With the implementation of KYC security system and fingerprint of course this is also the fear of criminals.

The price volatility of crypto is what's killing its adoption in the mainstream world. Criminals can make use of privacy-oriented coins like Monero and Grin to preserve their anonymity. But without stable prices on the market, such coins won't be used seriously for daily payments. Not to mention, merchant and business adoption is extremely low. Because of these and many other reasons, criminals will continue to carry on with their lives using Fiat as their top currency of choice.

At least, governments will approve of crypto once illegal activity is reduced to a minimum. Bitcoin and other public blockchains' transparency, allows law enforcement to track malicious actors with ease. Criminals will stay away from these types of cryptocurrencies as much as possible, embracing privacy-oriented coins in every way. This will lead towards a full government crackdown on coins like Monero and Grin. But their decentralized and open source nature will allow them to operate "behind the scenes". It'll be interesting to know how everything unfolds in the crypto/Blockchain space as it becomes more popular in the mainstream world. Hopefully, criminals would stay away from crypto for the sake of the entire industry. Just my opinion :)

Conventional crimes are not yet ready to adopt cryptocurrency as their means of handling money. You have to understand that hackers(black hat hackers) and drug ring are a different kind of criminal. Hackers knows the in and outs when they are in the cyberspace so they wouldn't have a problem with cryptocurrency, meanwhile criminals that are not in the realm of cyber space like drug rings as I said earlier have problem trusting technology, they know that authorities are on their tail so anything that they can't control like data flowing on the Internet is not the best option, not to mention that schisms and treason can be a thing in this rings which means that if they were to deal in cryptocurrency, one of them could simply take it without everyone knowing where it went. Criminals also have a hard time going for new technology so they stick with what works for them the best.

That's the main reason why they are still using fiat. Besides, I believe most of these criminals are not yet well-versed with crypto. Though they can always learn if they want to. But it is hard to change their old habits. They are already used to fiat for long time, for as long as they can remember doing their illegal activities. But I believe for those who will discover the advantages of crypto, they will more than likely use it. As they can transfer from one border to another without carrying any cash, they will find out that is easy peasy to move money without incurring so much fees. They don't need to pay other third parties just to move their money.

Simply criminals prefer cash or FIAT it is because they can already use it as long as they get it they can transfer it to anyone and the easiest thing to do is that they can use it already without any hassle, but I agree with you mate if they will know that crypto can help them to manage the transactions without tracking, they may like it also but I understand that it is a matter of accustomed in which the criminal was already doing their old transaction by using fiat money it is hard to convince them to switch into another platform. But if they will just know the advantage of crypto maybe they will know that it is more good to use.

Criminals prefer fiat because it is old, accessible and job-proved way to get money. Well, but there are also many hacker attacks. I frequently read news about cyber-attacks on exchange markets. Remember also Nicehash hackers attack in December 2017, when approximately 4,700 Bitcoins (US$64 million at the time of the hack) were stolen. Think, most hackers in crypto try to play for high stakes

In my opinion, there are no statistics that show that criminals will prefer cash. If your opinion is a financial crime? Either way, I think they won't like using cash for their activities. that means the evidence will face them. or for a higher framework, the "hacker" high-tech crime, cash will point a knife at them.

I have found some relevant figures:
Suppose this is the paradox. Any use of money would be known to be criminal? WTF...

One of the great features of cash is that it cannot be traced. It can facilitate transactions anytime and anywhere, and the official cannot review the flow of funds, so that the safety of funds can be guaranteed to the maximum extent, and it will naturally be loved by criminals.

not sure about the statement because I think we should use the ratio of the number of crimes and population and compare it to the number of crypto crimes and crypto users. crypto criminals keep raising every year. we only see a few on mainstream media, but it always involves big money on it.
I believe most of the crimes rely on fiat because they don't have much time to educate the victim about bitcoin first  ;D

Wash everything is very clear!
1. Cash is well accepted by all participants in any transactions
2. It is convenient to "hide" them in the mass of other money.
3. Cryptocurrencies, especially anonymous ones, have come under the attention of regulatory authorities, and most likely will soon become essentially illegal.
4. Cryptocurrencies, for the opportunity to take advantage, must be converted to fiat.
5. Large amounts of cryptocurrencies, now it is difficult to withdraw to fiat

That's certainly true, mate. Fiat is much easier than crypto because it exists in a physical form. It's stable in price and can be used offline as well. This allows criminals to remain under the scope of law enforcement, as there's virtually no way to trace physical cash transactions back to them. Crypto is all of the opposite, since most of them have visible blockchain ledgers anyone can audit. It's easy enough to track & trace criminals through transparent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum than Fiat itself. Privacy coins are a better solution, but they're extremely volatile in price and mainstream adoption is very low. For these and many other reasons, criminals will continue to use Fiat for all of their nefarious activities.

At least, crypto will come out as "clean" in the long run. The more people use it legitimately, the higher the chances of governments' approval will be. Believe me, once criminals start using crypto in mass, governments will crackdown on the industry until they reduce its prominence in the mainstream world. They might shut off Fiat on/off ramps for crypto, while declaring it to be illegal. Only then, crypto's growth will diminish until it becomes the holy grail of the underground economy. Let's hope that criminal activity on crypto stays low in order to prevent this from happening in the future. Just my opinion :)

It is relatively simple, the adoption of bitcoin while still increasing is moving at a slower rate than what we expect, criminals use fiat currencies because they can easily deal it among themselves and use it to buy the stuff they want or need, cryptocurrencies as attractive as they may be to us have not reached the level of adoption we all may like and as such criminals are still dealing mainly with fiat currencies despite what the media and the governments may like you to believe.

Since most criminals are not familiar with crypto, moreover selling crypto is not as easy as selling Fiat. From that simple thought, criminals will
definitely prefer fiat over crypto. Although crypto is anonymous but the reality is easier to trace, after all, nearly all exchanges enforcing KYC
make it difficult for some criminals to sell crypto.

Usually simple criminal thinking, they are looking for something that is easy to spend, so Fiat is  the right choice. Because Fiat can be spent
anywhere, especially US Dollar almost all countries accept US Dollar. Meanwhile, not all countries accept crypto as payment. Therefore, if there
are politicians who say that crypto is widely used by illegal activities, it means that they are not doing their research properly, due to the fact that
Fiat is the most widely used for illegal activities.

That is true.

Other people think that Bitcoin will prefer cryptocurrencies because they thought that they can take advantage of the anonymity that it offers. They don't know that even there are a lot of scammers and hackers taking advantage of the anonymity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, there are a lot of criminals taking advantage of the cash' untraceable and untrackable trait.

Many people believe that cryptocurrency can be used to launder money or evade accountability. In recent years, there have been cases of bribery through cryptocurrency in China. The impact of cryptocurrency in the criminal field is indeed worthy of attention.

 A significant portion of criminals simply do not know how to use cryptocurrency well enough not to be tracked down. Therefore, they are afraid to make a mistake that could lead to either their detention or blocking of funds. Therefore, it is easier for them to use the old reliable methods with cash, which are almost impossible to trace if they have not been pre-marked or rewritten bill numbers.

Yes, and also - don't forget - a bundle of dollars is ALWAYS $ 10,000, and 1 cue ball is $ 35,000 today and $ 3,000 tomorrow. The question is - why do they need such risks? Of course, it can be the other way around, but this should be analyzed, studied, risked ... This obviously cannot be attributed to the properties of criminals :)

Cash is very difficult to trace, do you know the huge amount of money that is being stolen everyday and also the vast amount of drug money that is being laundered everyday, very huge. If you have a dirty money, there are process to use to make it clean and this has been happening for years unlike Crypto that is just 10 years  and with better tracking technology, most of these Crypto can easily be traced unlike Fiat

I think this is another factor, bitcoin is not really anonymous and unlike bank accounts the whole transaction history is there for anyone to analyze, which is precisely what governments have done, and a single mistake could cost therm their freedom, so they do not want to deal with bitcoin and instead prefer to rely on their old methods of using cash for their transactions, but if governments keep limiting how you can use cash as they have been doing during the last decades then we could see a renewed interest of criminals in cryptocurrencies.

Except monero or any privacy coins out there which even the US government is trying to find anyone who can crack the blockchain and gives out some reward.
Though it's true that paper money is really easy to launder, I mean there's reason why those drug dealers always try to use the USD when they make transactions it's because using this money is easy to buy anything and to launder. Crypto in the other hand, need to go through KYC process when trying to liquidate it, definitely not a convenient way for criminals.

Cash is the very basic currency where anyone can access to which is also the reason why most of the criminals depends on it instead of crypto. Anyway, not just because that most of the transaction of crypto can be tracked is the reason why criminals don't widely used them. Crypto transaction tracking can be easily avoided through many ways such as mixing it which makes it harder for anyone to track the source and wallet it will be sent to. Rather for me the main reason why criminals prefer cash over crypto is due to the additional hassle it gives off and cashing it out tons of bitcoin would be too much of a trouble.

Criminals can use for their activities Not only cryptocurrencies, but also any values that can be used as a means of payment. At least governments today are looking for at least some reason to harm users of cryptocurrency and prohibit cryptocurrency, but I believe they will have to put up with the global trend, since not only ordinary people, but also big business are more and more interested in cryptocurrencies ...

These "big businesses" aim to invest their money in cryptocurrencies.

Not if you are talking about those huge underground groups that are operating illegally or selling illegal things like drugs. As far as I know, all of these new businesses having an interest in cryptocurrencies are those that wanted to invest their money in crypto mainly Bitcoin. Hope the government would not "harm" these new users.

Fiat money is easy to get and more reliable to accessible. You can easily steal fiat than cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain innovation makes their security more intense to break and criminals would prefer not to waste their time by hacking it.
But if the criminals are smart like a scammer ( who may consider as a criminal ) it can easily misdirect people and stealing their coins.

Indeed, when we talk about criminals attacking banks or robbing money, even trading illegal items, they often do not trust each other between transactions and they always prefer the speed of transactions, cash is always more stimulating, not too many criminals like to waste minutes or even hours getting a transaction confirmation, more than enough time for the police to arrest them. But maybe in the future, criminals may be smarter, apply crypto to optimize anonymity, the government will be more difficult to find but there is no doubt that crypto regulation will become more closed

This might be true in the last few years. But now with Bitcoins being above 50,000 USD it becomes very rewarding to steal just one 1 BTC. I think the risk/reward is what drives criminals into the crypto market. If you get more money for your work then it becomes more attractive to go for coins at the moment. I would expect for criminals to try and convert any stolen coins to FIAT currency very quickly and just store their wealth in cash somewhere easily accessible.

KYC is only necessary when using centralized exchanges to get access to crypto. Smart criminals would simply use a decentralized exchange or perform in-person trades in order to avoid verifying their identities. If that's not enough, criminals could purchase a privacy coin like Monero using physical cash (paper money). Yet, the average criminal is not tech-savvy enough to do this. It's the reason why most criminals haven't changed physical cash for crypto, despite its ever-rising popularity in the mainstream world. After all, it's much easier to use paper money than crypto itself.

Nonetheless, it's best for criminals to stay away from crypto as much as possible. Otherwise, governments will begin cracking down on the industry like there's no tomorrow. If we want crypto/Blockchain tech to succeed, illegal transactions need to be reduced to a minimum. That would allow crypto/Blockchain tech to flourish in the mainstream world. Fortunately, Bitcoin's (and some other cryptocurrencies') transparency allows law enforcement to track criminals with ease. The real issue would be dealing with privacy coins. They may be declared as "illegal" due to governments' inability to track and trace transactions on them. I wouldn't worry about this as long as most cryptocurrencies are approved by mainstream governments worldwide. Just my opinion :)

KYC is only necessary when using centralized exchanges to get access to crypto. Smart criminals would simply use a decentralized exchange or perform in-person trades in order to avoid verifying their identities.

Yes they can use decentralized exchanges but it would only mean that they changed their bitcoins into some other coins, at some point of time they have to sell the bitcoins and that is where the biggest risk for criminals exist as it might reveal their identity. Yes, some people might help them out with in-person trades but the sum of money being large will always bring a doubt in their mind.

That is another reason, I fully agree because although we know how easy it is to keep everything anonymous, not necessarily the criminals know that and if they knew about it, they would be doing a job ;D.

Yes exactly and usually criminals are a group of people and cash makes it easy to distribute among them all, imagine each of the criminal paying transaction fees and having their own address. It makes me feel laughing just thinking about it.

Almost all the ransomwares now days are demanding bitcoins only which shows that educated thieves have actually adopted Bitcoins and this is another reason why governments are banning crypto but the one who gets hacked will arrange bitcoins somehow.

There are hardly any statistics on this topic. Most likely, this is just an assumption that criminals use cash more than cryptocurrency. Although it would be logical. After all, not all criminals are well versed in the world of cryptocurrency to risk their freedom with it. And cash is simpler and more reliable, and besides, it is almost impossible to trace it. Therefore, we should not give up cash.

It's quite easy for regular people & others to commit crimes with physical currencies compared to virtual currencies like Bitcoin or digital fiats.     Bitcoin makes it easy to catch criminals due to its transparency and immutablity. The activities on the network is visible to the public compared to fiat which is more like a dark money.

If you shine light on crimes committed using physical currencies, it will probably humble alots of people.

And if those criminals are using Crypto then smarter ones from them are using Mixing services to make turn their money white.
I used to think Monero is transparent until recently someone started exposing the porn habits of people and their IP addresses made me question its anonymity.

You have said nothing but the pure truth. This is nothing of criminal but also terrorism. If we analyze criminalities and the rate how fiat is been lundered with drugs and illicitly transactions, you will be awe in shock how fiat has done bad than cryptocurrency but you know governments will always be what they are and would say the other way. Since crypto is known for global adoption, it easily make trend when an illegal activity is done which is easily spread across countries.

I guess you mean "I used think Monero is anonymous". I think transactions on transparent Blockchain would be visible to the public, like Bitcoin and other transparent Blockchains are.
I  believe transactions by crypto users, including anonymous users, should be transparent... You are only protecting the user's privacy , which is actually a right. Transparency is part of the reasons I prefer Bitcoin and other true cryptocurrencies.

You are somewhat right but I think that the reason that fiat is the preference of criminals is because they have an already established way of cleaning the money and they don't know how cryptocurrency works so they might have a problem because of Internet trail that they might leave behind.

Cash is virtually untraceable, while most cryptocurrencies are not. It makes sense to use paper money for illicit activities than crypto itself. Privacy coins could serve as an alternative to Fiat, but they're often complicated to understand. The average criminal is not tech-savvy enough to be able to get ahold of crypto for their own benefit. As such, paper money (Fiat) will continue to be the #1 currency of choice for these malicious actors. At least, crypto/Blockchain land will come out cleaner than Fiat as illegal transactions are reduced to a minimum. Transparent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum will ensure the bad guys will stay out of the system for good. Authorities can easily track and trace criminal activities on these popular blockchain networks.

Nonetheless, there's still the possibility of criminals adopting crypto on top of Fiat sometime in the future. I believe that once CBDCs are launched, criminals will do the switch to decentralized cryptocurrencies. After all, privacy will be non-existent on digital currencies issued by central banks themselves. Governments will be able to easily surveil the system underpinning CBDCs, as everything becomes visible on a digital ledger controlled by central banks. It'll be something similar to credit/debit cards but worse. At that point in time, privacy coins like Monero and Grin could be outlawed by mainstream governments as they become heavily used by criminals worldwide. Bitcoin and other transparent cryptocurrencies will survive in the long run as it's easy to trace malicious actors on-chain. As long as Bitcoin gets the "green light" from mainstream governments, nothing else matters. Just my thoughts ;D

Criminals don't have an opportunity to trade crypto with their fiat.
For what reason would they picked the crypto when they can take the cash without burning through their time.
They never do online exchanges they generally met someplace and exchange weapons and drugs.
You can not buy or exchange drugs, weapons, and illegal things online so they prefer money more than fiat.
There's another likelihood that these crooks don't know about bitcoin or blockchain innovation the less information on bitcoin constrains them to utilize fiat than some other crypto.

This should be a weak opinion for today's digital age. Behind the scenes criminals also have high IT knowledge which makes them untraceable for years even they have a high educational background before being recruited as members. If you think their technological knowledge is very limited then I think it will end in a weak opinion. Illegal trade is carried out online and has been done regularly for a long time so that their activities in the black market are more likely to be successful because they are equipped with good knowledge. It is possible that bitcoin and other privacy altcoin are also used as a means of payment.

Well there 2 types of criminal activities  online and in live one which in online is they used bitcoin or crypto as a payment since it is easy than fiat but in other type they used the physical one which it is easy but criminals now are really careful they are using the internet and crypto to not be easily detected

Exactly. There are many limitations when it comes to using crypto for illegal activities than it's the case with Fiat. You need to have some sort of technical knowledge to be able to use crypto properly. With Fiat, that's another story. You can use Fiat in an offline manner, and even pay for goods and services everywhere due to widespread merchant acceptance. Not only that, but Fiat is stable whereas crypto is not.

If someday criminals decide to use crypto, I think they'll resort to privacy coins like Monero and Zcash. After all, transactions are obfuscated from prying eyes (not like transparent cryptos where everything is visible on a public blockchain ledger (eg: Bitcoin, and Ethereum)). Crypto surveillance techniques are getting more sophisticated each day, so it'll be hard to preserve anonymity if you're not very knowledgeable about crypto/Blockchain tech. I'd prefer criminals to stay away from crypto as much as possible, so the industry would flourish without any obstacles (eg: government crackdowns) whatsoever. Just my opinion :)

Fraudulency is obviously observed in both fiat and Cryptocurrency, the main idea is that in fiat there are many loopholes to penetrate various elements of scam and theft such as physical or forceful acquisition in form of armed robbery, attacks on banks, pick pockets, careless in handling money, dubiousness, falsification, fake and pretendance for quality, among others.

while Cryptocurrency only has the highest victim of such to be on newbies, who don't have the full knowledge on how to identify criminality elements in disguise for promotions, free gifting of crypto, fake bounties, among others, and one can also be careless in revealing the logging credentials to wallets to the criminals.

Another interesting point is that fiat criminality can be operated by learnerd and uneducated personalities but Cryptocurrency need an expert already into crypto, skilled and equipped with digital informations, steady internet, smartness and skillful on information and technology system.

If you are scammed in crypto its as a result of your unscrupulous alertness and lack of technical know how, which the blame should be attributed to you. In a nutshell it is easier to operate fiat criminality than in crypto

Criminals always prefer fiat money since then, it is because if they were to make a heist in a group then fiat money easy and best way to divide it according to the plan and also it is untraceable. Even if it comes directly from the bank, the government can't track all those cash (fiat) that have scattered remotely.

While if they plan to attack on crypto, the chances of making it successful is too small and it's not worth of their time. Most of the criminals are in need of instant cash and not in the form of cryptos because if they were to exchange it in cash then they'll be having a hard time to cover their tracks.

It's easier and more convenient to use fiat than you buy a coin then convert to fiat and now exchanges are mandating KYC for those who trade with a large volume of transactions every day or by means of fiat money. For P2P convenience, another big problem is that when converting to fiat money on the exchange, you have to KYC. In fact, using the internet nowadays is very easy to leave traces and locations I think criminals have the mindset that fiat money is more convenient than cryptocurrencies, which carries a higher risk for them.

This thread is very interesting, in the case of those who always think that only bad things are done with crypto and that is not the case, if we go to a very basic example like in Colombia, a drug dealer does not trust Crypto, they trust it is what that fiat money weighs, because they don't even count the money, they only know the weight of $ 1M, or similar figures, and for them, insurance is what should be trusted.

If we take into account that any activity with great technology serves to make many arrangements and solutions in life, as well as solves and fixes there are many who will want to use it for bad activities, usually privacy coins are widely used by Those who want to preserve their privacy and anonymity, but as long as the criminals decide to study about crypto I think they will waste time because they stop doing bad activities, so for me this is progressive, they will always find the ways for bad practices, and currently every drug trafficker , or criminal in the world, I imagine that you must have your professional team of hackers, and financial analysts as advisers, by any way who wants to do harm, will do it.

In the reality of the little that can be known from the flank where we are, that is, we really know how organized crime operates that move large sums of money, that is, it is perhaps not so objective in the current present to think that only fiat money works for crime as your favorite.

There are so many ways to move traditional money and assets today that crypto seems to just be an addition to the complex web of organized crime.

Then the Cash is obvious that remains for common crime  always be your favorite. But maybe you have an address or a flash drive at hand.

because they don't want to be complicated and bothered with conversions and the like they prefer direct exchange, this is the same as bartering and buying and selling in traditional times with the assumption that there is money then there are goods (drugs).
indeed maybe not all use things like this but most will stay like that by using a barter system like most others.
they don't want anything modern I think because maybe even their money is placed not only in fiat but in other forms for example stored in safes or certain places.

Look outside and see how people live and what they are doing, you'll clearly see that they don't need crypto for day-to-day activities and fiat is enough for that. Do you want a volatile coin that can bring you chicken today but maybe you won't be able to buy egg tomorrow? Or the opposite can happen, you can buy egg today or be left hungry but you may have chicken tomorrow. Yeah, price is very volatile and that's why people prefer fiat. They can use USDT or any other stablecoins but fiat just does the thing!

First of all, Financial freedom starts from the moment when you are able to feed yourself without the help of others. In poor countries, that's impossible. When you are financially free, then bitcoin and cryptocurrencies just can fulfill that freedom the way you mentioned.

Where are you from? There are old generation criminals, from 70s, 80s that don't have any idea what the hell bitcoin is. Bitcoin isn't anonymous btw and the less criminal uses it, the better for everyone. And finally, those coins are converted into fiat, we never measure the price of things in fixed btc prices, it's always volatile as price in USD changes.

Indeed true that privacy coins keeps them from being identified since it is anonymous but when the time comes that they need to convert their coins into fiat currency then that time they are no longer anonymous because transactions like that needs proper identification to convert it into cash. But there are still some loopholes that they can use because the system itself is flawed.

Still they can't make a stronghold within the crypto space because they know there will be a time that the government will and eventually can crack them. So instead of privacy coins they still prefer fiat so some various reasons.

Some of them use the casino, exchangers and any of thing available that can help them to get out their stolen money, for sure those criminals knows how to do that since for the series of events where scammers millions of dollars from their victims for sure they have a lot of dummy accounts nor someone help them to withdraw it without anyone getting notice about it.


Also they prefer fiat its because they can use it anywhere rather than crypto where they cannot easily pull it out once they need something in terms of emergency.

even though the crypto is broken into several wallets, but in the end all will be known too. Therefore, even though it is anonymous, crypto is also transparent, so actually criminals using crypto can be tracked immediately, especially since many exchanges currently require KYC, and that is actually very helpful for the government in overcoming crimes that abuse crypto money.

With privacy coins and decentralized exchanges, KYC no longer becomes an issue. Criminals can remain out of the radar if they make use of decentralized and anonymous alternatives. The reason why most of them are using Fiat on top of crypto is because Fiat is stable. Not to mention, most merchants and businesses accept Fiat as payment method. Crypto's wild fluctuations in price tells us that it's more suitable as a speculative instrument than a real currency for day-to-day payments. I'd prefer criminals to stay away from crypto as much as possible so governments can give the "green light" for the industry's growth. The more legitimate uses crypto has, the better it'll be for its mainstream adoption. Just my thoughts ;D

It's happening now, before Bitcoin represent crypto in digitl space is being use most of the time by illegal transactions,
having negative views from people who don't really understand the value and always listen to fuds and negative media
reports. Look now, with ahuge acceptance from institutional investors the market is moving positively and gained numbers
of trust from current investors.

People havent thinking that criminals had been long time using up Fiat if we do talk about preference and on the time that crypto had existed then it turns out to be a solid option or at least a choice for them

to make some transactions way more anonymous or cant be known which tracing becomes even more harder which its just understandable that they would really get this kind of option because they do know

that they could at least cover up their tracks and less likely to get caught but in the end of the day they will surely stick out with fiat.

I believe one major reason also is how they are educated on how to use crypto. Most of them will prefer the traditional fiat method vs crypto, as I think, most of them don't know yet how to deal with crypto. If they have been using fiat for long time, most of them won't divert their way of doing things. However, for maybe younger generation of criminals, they will explore their opportunities in crypto. They are way easier to learn this new currency and more than likely, more willing to explore new method of dealing with their funds. Criminals will always find their way in this market. I think we can't stop them from using it once they got acquainted of the technology.

People often confuse and mix up the different purposes of these digital currencies. There are some instances where it may be useful to have anonymity but for many day to day transactions it could be totally unnecessary, you simply want a digital version of physical cash which enables you to buy things. If I wanted to buy a book from a shop, I'm not super concerned about privacy that seems to be the endless quest that some people connect with cryptocurrency. The fact that nobody knows the wallet keeper with crypto like Bitcoin will be enough anonymity for most people. It is definitely true that criminals desire more privacy and chase these other coins because they want to "clean" the money that has been gathered through various illegal sources, it's all about finding a balance and holding a coin with a good reputation.

That's certainly true, mate. Lack of education is one of the main reasons why criminals still use Fiat on top of crypto up to this date. If they knew how to use it properly, they would've done the switch already. I think criminals will use privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies for illicit activities, because transactions are completely obfuscated from third parties. Not like Bitcoin or Ethereum where everything is visible on a public blockchain ledger. This will be a huge blow to cryptocurrencies like Monero and Grin, as governments start cracking down on them to prevent criminals from "doing their thing".

What matters is that crypto stays decentralized and censorship-resistant to help stand the test of time. Criminal activity on crypto is the least reason to worry about if governments do their part. Since the market is mostly dominated by centralized exchanges, it's easy enough to detect suspicious transactions. Fiat is still the dominating form of currency, so governments will "ignore" crypto at least for a while. Just my opinion :)

On the whole, there are ways how to withdraw money anonymously. Or you can spend it for online purchases. The other question is that not all privacy coins are really private. So it's better to choose coins that have their own decentralized exchanges, like Crypton (https://u.is/en/currencies.html) does. As many of so-called privacy coins still can be tracked or will be tracked once you'll decide to exchange it on a regular exchange.

It's not something we can generalize, for some old guys in the criminal waters fiat is the best way, for younger crypto is better and easier! And it's not just the difference between generations, small-time criminals who hang around the corner will definitely use more fiat, but the ones who think big and work on the global stage will probably find crypto as more suitable for moving money from one place to the other...

And in the end, I believe there are always exceptions! There are people (despite age and their position) who think out of the box, people who are ready to try new things and explore new possibilities, and to find the way that suits them best!

Most criminals only think briefly, he doesn't care about investments so they always choose cash over crypto, they certainly think to have big cash because they don't understand crypto and this is what makes me sure that corruptors or other criminal transactions will not use cryptocurrencies.

Such criminals created smaller crimes or harm less. Those who commit multi million crimes has several backup plans and scenarios.

Criminals prefer cash, because it is still more untraceable than crypto. Cash does not leave path and less evidence. Cash is simply more popular.  Subconsciously, having cash or just feeling money in hands gives more pleasure than knowing that you have ones and zeros in back account. It is still easier to use cash as a payment when making huge purchase. Try to withdraw or make a transaction of $100,000 - bank security will immediately give you a call and monitor your activity. $100,000 cash can be carried in a plastic bag. When criminal gets crypto, he subconsciously think how to cash it out, how to used. With cash "all the doors are open".

I like privacy coins exactly for the fact that none of my operations can be tracked. And I've chosen $CRP from Utopia P2P for that. It's rate gained 50% during 24 hours on the inner exchange https://u.is/en/currencies.html That's pretty nice!

Criminals and drug traffickers prefer fiat, because they find it an easy accessible than crypto. When transaction were made through cryptocurrency, the process is simple and there is chance of backtracking if small mistakes were made. People have a belief, cryptocurrency is much used for criminal activities, terrorism and darkweb needs. I don't say crypto isn't used, but compared to fiat it is very very small.

In recent days hackers prefer crypto currency. Because, they're technically skilled and knows how to bypass different parameters involved while a transaction is made. The world is at the very beginning days of crypto adoption. So, at present it isn't possible to spend big with cryptocurrency. There are possible ways, but everyone aren't good enough and strong to take such risks.

Things that make criminals don't want to use crypto because they are afraid of risk, cash according to them is more feasible because it is more secure and stable, and most criminals don't want to bother with technical things like having to go to exchanges that have to KYC verification.

Criminals prefer fiat because they find it faster and easier without accessing anything on the internet. They see it as less complex that they could do transactions even without the use of the internet. However, some modern criminals prefer using cryptocurrency because of the anonymity that it provides. Traditional criminals aren't knowledgeable about cryptocurrency yet.

Younger people are quite fond of technology. There's nothing stopping a young criminal from using crypto in the first place. Older ones will eventually adapt themselves to crypto/Blockchain tech as it becomes more popular in the mainstream world. With privacy coins and other decentralized solutions in play, criminals can perform illegal activities without getting noticed. It's up to the government to ramp up its surveillance efforts in order to prevent this from happening on blockchain networks as much as possible. We're still in the early days of crypto so we can't tell how criminals will react to something new in the mainstream world. As long as crypto has legitimate use cases, governments will give their approval for the long-term growth of the industry. I wouldn't worry about criminals using crypto on top of Fiat for now. Just my opinion :)

Whether you do like it or not then theres no way that we could stop on those criminals on using up crypto but for now if they do make out some top priority that with fiat then its their choice and theres

no stopping of them but im not really surprised that they would still prefer cash than with crypto yet dealing with fiat directly will really make things more easier but somewhat can be traced up

but to think that even before that crypto didnt still exist they are still making such thing without any problems.Its how or depend on covering up their tracks.

especially if the criminals are on an international scale, of course they will be more practical when using crypto money. Therefore, many international drug syndicates use it, and this is also the focus of the government so that it becomes one of the reasons for not regulating money

I think for criminals they don't care about crypto or fiat, as long as it is convenient for their transaction.
We keep talking about the issue of cryptocurrencies being used a lot in illegal transactions, but in reality the most illegal transactions are still fiat. And simply because it's detrimental to them (the government) doesn't like it, they blame it.

This, on the other hand, has a valid point. If you're a criminal, they'll pull an identity thief or devise a workaround to get around this verification process. Fiat is the most direct method of spending money, and I believe that this is the primary reason for its popularity. In order to take advantage of this, criminals employ this method the most frequently. However, I believe that they are switching to crpyto because of the anonymity and speed it provides, as well as the ability to send large sums of money

There is no general answer to that question what criminals prefer. It does depend on a whole lot of factors, not least the geographic circumstances of a criminal transaction. If you make a big deal with someone from another continent, what do you prefer? Payment in Monero or a couple of big bags with cash? It is just a question of the requirements and conditions concerning a specific transaction.

Basically you are right that cash is the most anonymous form, but the bigger the transaction gets, the harder it is to do with cash.

Well, for many years, the biggest crimes have been done is with FIAT money, before cryptocurrencies did not exist until 2009, in fact in the times from 1950 to 2000 the crimes were something incredible, in drug trafficking the drug traffickers weighed the dollars and had the fixed price in Kg, that's where they got the ceuntas, and for them it was much better to have that cash than to have to put it in some digital tool.

Currently there is still drug trafficking, and they continue to carry out their crimes through FIAT money, that is a chain that does not burst, many may now commit crimes and use cryptocurrencies, but it is not something so relevant, FIAT money is still the preferred In the biggest crimes, bandits trust FIAT money more than digital money.

Most criminals do not understand cryptocurrencies so they prefer cash, this is what makes me optimistic that no financial crimes are deposited into crypto, so the negative issue about crypto being used for illegal transactions is the issue of haters who do not like the development of cryptocurrencies.

If I were to be the criminal, I would veryuch prefer fiat in a bag which I can spend anywhere any time in whichever suits my conveniences rather than a ledger with cryptocurrencies on it which would prove to be very tedious to utilize in times of need. But I guess, it always depends on the purpose or the situation. If looking to go to places far from residence then a ledger filled with crypto would be better than carrying a bag of cash that you need to declare on airports otherwise you would be in a shitload of problems.

In criminal transactions though, whether to use crypto or fiat as payments for illegal transactions would be dependent on the distance or in the ideal anonymity and security by both parties transacting.

Criminals only care about cash, they will not save money in banks or crypto because they think it can be blocked, cash is the best thing so it is safe and can be used anytime, moreover most people think crypto is very risky and can lose up to tens of percent in a short time .

other crime on the blockchain, They may not know how to properly implement key AML processes such as Know Your Customer (KYC) identity verification or they may just feel like the challenges of unmasking criminals is a burden that's not theirs to bear.i mean,  the criminal has no knowledge they don't know how to do run a fiat so they prefer cash over the bank transaction that's just the easiest process for them.

I think people with a criminal mind ready to act on and undertake illegal activities don't care whether it is fiat or crypto as long as they can obtain them with minimal effort and get away with it.

That said, only crypto with less involved 'hacking' due to required expert knowledge would be at higher risk, while fiat would be at the top. We need to remember that for now crypto is still in its early days and it would take time until criminals would adopt crypto as their main strategy, like fiat is today, and there are plenty of articles written on exactly this.

Criminals will commit any crime they know and can escape the law. Why do many criminals choose fiat over crypto, because the majority of criminals
are not familiar with crypto. So they won't risk committing crimes against something they don't understand. It's the same with most people today,
there are still more people who invest in Gold than crypto. Like you said crypto is still new in this world, the majority of people are not familiar with it.
So it does take time for criminals to choose crypto over fiat. If in the future many countries have legalized crypto, then I am sure that criminals will
also slowly start to switch to choosing crypto over fiat.

This is true anymore, not all criminals will be an old school hardass that's going to stick with fiat if they know that they can probably get away with what they're doing if they use bitcoin. But to answer the question, I feel like they still want to insure that they preserve the value of their ill gotten wealth if possible and given how volatile cryptocurrency is in terms of prices, I really don't think that for a crook, it's not good to have your stolen money get slashed in half suddenly just because you have waited a bit too long to transfer your money.

like you said because they really prefer things that are instant and don't want to be complicated about complicated procedures.
maybe even compared to fiat they prefer real money directly when transacting because indeed this does not require excessive things and is very simple to do.

As for what you said, there is some truth to anonymity and until now bitcoin is still considered a tool for terrorist financing based on this.
but actually if we look at the current cases it is very rare for this to happen

I think there are two ways to look at it.
1) When it comes to hacking or siphoning off money, I expect it to go the same way as a bank robbery. Before the age of internet, bank robbery implied a group of men physically entering the bank and robbing money/gold. Did it change as soon as the internet began? No. It took some years for criminals to understand internet and how to use it effectively to siphon money, which is very ubiquitous in today's world (hardly we get to hear about physical bank robbery today). With the pseudonynomity of bitcoin, it becomes relatively easier as compared to creating a fake account and closing it as soon as the transaction is done.

2) However, for money laundering, the two important differences are: a) It's mostly done by people who are well known in public space such as politicians, heads of big organizations, celebrities etc. as opposed to hacking which is mostly done by unknown people/groups and b) Even with so much advancement in the notorious use of internet, money laundering is largely restricted to cash.  This means that money laundering people care a lot about anonymity. Although people claim bitcoin is anonymous, it's pseudonymous to be honest. And history (Mt. Gox case for example) shows us that stolen bitcoins can be recovered. I'm not saying that people won't use bitcoin for money laundering at all. They will and may be that number might increase with time due to better understanding of crypto, but majority of them will stick to cash manly because of the anonimity and difficulty of tracing cash transactions.

Let me know what you guys think  

In addition to this argument, attention should be paid to the fact that the process of legalization of cryptocurrency is still ongoing in the world and this process will continue for a long time. This means that states and their governments are constantly changing the conditions for the circulation of cryptocurrencies and such rules are becoming more stringent and require a further process of personal identification in transactions with cryptocurrencies. Criminals fear that during operations with cryptocurrency, at a certain stage, they will need to confirm their identity. And usually, the movement of criminal amounts of cryptocurrencies is monitored by law enforcement agencies and therefore it will be very easy for criminals to lose money obtained by criminal means. Therefore, they prefer not to take risks.

im sure if criminal point at crypto, but they will fight with different situation. and most criminal will play at fiat, easy thing than the other. playing crypto make them use more brain, and the simple is just show your gun than take the money. but, scam already haunt every newbie, and many of them loss their fund because of fraud, and undetected.

Criminals will be afraid of bitcoin even the machine been Bitcoin ATM machine center were transaction is done, because the way am seeing the criminals you will know that they don't need stress or delay in any of their operation, fiat currency is very easy to trap from bitcoin because is money that is popular to everyone and is easily to be spend.

Of course, the reason is simple, namely fear that if the money stored in crypto will be of no value, as we know that there is a lot of negative news about crypto, namely if we invest, we will lose and lose money because the value is not clear, this is what makes many countries afraid to invest. legalize crypto so criminals don't want to save into crypto.

Liquidity and closed exchange where as BTC has a ledger for everything.   Dollar is still far bigger, a whole suitcase of even moderate size bills is enough to cover most transactions and nobody will ever know the details of the seller or any parties who received or gave the money.   If BTC wasnt open ledger I think government would have opposed it far more then anything now, if anything its an aid to government in that respect despite being the alternate to officially issued dollars.

very good and like you said, it takes prosen to know and follow the current flow, especially for bitcoin.
need a process to really figure it out and make them usable as this requires some knowledge (minimum basic knowledge) and the criminals won't be focused on it.
on the other hand there must be cheating at any level and in any case because indeed bad people will always make things to their advantage with the strength of the supporters they have.
I don't want to say influencers and artists or streamers are really bad people but their act of making people believe what they say (eg pump meme coin) is something that is quite evil.
regardless of whether they do not invite or anything but they are public figures that indeed everything they do will surely be followed by many people including misleading things

it's not a problem on price but knowledge itself ! news about countries don't want adoption but society and ppl still want to own crypto especially bitcoin ! this transparent system with traceable addresses is something that make criminals doubt ,besides that their knowledge doesn't necessarily know what crypto is ! the difference is the criminal himself is he the one with the tie or the one who likes to wear a pickpocket hat

When storing in cryptos with no potential, the result will inevitably be a loss of value, even a lot of damage as criminals always place very large orders of value but the percentage of such opportunity is not high when the criminal also has a technology team and has a very good money laundering ability. They do not direct many images to crypto due to fear of transaction time not allowing, besides, in order to make what is owned in crypto valid, need to join exchanges then transfer money through bank, once banks get warning about these black money they will freeze, so cash seems more suitable as a fugitive

Liquidity for Fiat currencies is a lot higher than crypto. Not only that, but most merchants and businesses use Fiat as a medium of exchange. For this and many other reasons, criminals won't abandon Fiat in exchange for crypto. Privacy coins are an option, but they're widely volatile in price and are less adopted than traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin has a transparent blockchain ledger, so it's easy enough for governments to catch malicious actors on-chain. I'd prefer it to stay that way in order to legitimize the crypto space as much as possible. With most criminals out of crypto, we should have nothing to worry about. Just my opinion :)

It is very difficult for a drug trafficker to believe in cryptocurrency technology because they will not accept the fact that they can go down in price and they know that if they go down in price they will lose money, and they are not that kind of person, if you are in Mexico, a drug dealer from that country is not only the most jealous of all with money but the most bloodthirsty, simply for them there are no losses, some prefer to die before being captured or having their money taken away, the case of the cartels in Colombia They are less bloodthirsty but they do not leave any money to the government and much less to the DEA, for this reason they prefer fiat money.

Volatility would be the main issue on here even though it can be somewhat be tracked but they've been doing these on ages and still haven't bust up nor get rid off which simply implies that it do still
works and now that crypto did exist and they are aware off on how volatile it is then its true that most of them wouldn't really want to lose even just a little on what they are currently holding
or had able to stole or hacked or something like that.

Crypto would be just an option for them to take which I could say that this would be their last resort if they would really intent for them on not on being traced up
coz its simply anonymous which is really a great recipe on hiding off your crime.

So its a matter of situation on which one would be ideal to make use.

Yes, it is a last option, although it is also a lot of money that can be handled in that sense, I think one way to do it is through stablecoins, because transferring FIAT money from one country to another, or even from the same state to Another state in the same country is complicated, especially if the authorities discover that amount of money, although in countries like Colombia, those who engage in these activities buy from everyone, from police to military who guard their own limits, their mode of operation is to offer them money, money they have never seen in their lives.

I do not think they believe in crypto in the same terms as a hodler would be, like a future investment and a store of value, but I do think that they see the merit of many cryptos being anonymous or pseudo-anonymous and that is obviously a tool of any shady trade. The fact that they may get paid in bitcoin without having to carry around money is clearly on the wish list of any dealer of banned or restricted stuff but that does not mean that they cannot convert quickly to fiat as needed - they are using crypto for convenience not for true understanding.

Exactly. If criminals become attracted to crypto, they will only use it as a digital currency (not a store of value). Anonymity and ease-of-use comes first, so if crypto meets those requirements, it'll surely bring criminals' attention in the mainstream world. Around 90% of all cryptocurrencies have transparent blockchain ledgers, so it's hard to believe criminals will use them for nefarious purposes anytime soon. They're better off using cash (paper money) than anything else.

Besides, most (if not all) centralized crypto exchanges require ID verification. Criminals can still get access to crypto without going through a centralized exchange, but that requires a certain level of technical knowledge. With crypto's many limitations, Fiat will remain as the leading currency for illegal activities. Just my thoughts ;D

I'm not sure if at this time there are still investors who believe in such news. indeed the price of bitcoin is not clear because the price of bitcoin can not be predicted, but this is not an excuse if bitcoin or crypto is a bad investment. all investments certainly have their own risks, although the risk of investing in bitcoin is quite large but you also have the opportunity to get a big return as well.

to soar higher it begins with a crash on bitcoin and is followed by most altcoins. even the decline in bitcoin is sometimes deliberately done to benefit the whales. and I think crime can occur in every element which of course has certain weaknesses and I think it is very natural to happen, and of course there are ways to prevent it if we are not negligent

Trend maker we do say and its been always been like this because bitcoin is the main ones where the market is where heading on and if its bearish or drops then it would really be normal for the entire market to be heading on the same situation. Why need to freak out if you could see these movements to be
downward if you could actually make some entry on buying back while its still cheap rather than freaking out and selling for lose?

Going back into the topic on why criminals do still prefer fiat? Doesnt really matter which one because they all matters on how they would exploit those.

Cash is hardly anonymous. The logistics of keeping cash on hand is a nightmare. You can never deposit it in a bank, and no retailer will accept cash on large orders with requiring documentation on the purchase. If you're talking low level criminals with small amounts on hand, that's another story, but anything in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even less, isn't anonymous. This is why money launderers exist, taking illegitimate money and converting it into legitimate money that the government recognizes to be legitimate.

Bitcoin does not have that issue, bitcoin is a bitcoin. I'm not advocating that bitcoin is for criminals, just that government requires cash to be registered in large amounts. You cannot casually deposit large amounts in your local currency without having the government asking where that money came from.

It’s not that criminals don’t believe in cryptocurrency technology. First of all, they want them not to be installed by law enforcement agencies. They know that law enforcement will do their best to find them. And cryptocurrencies often leave material traces. Under what circumstances and which ones, not all criminals know about it. That's why they don't want to take risks. Cash is the most untraceable and easy to use money that has been known for a long time. But in the world of cryptocurrencies, everything is constantly and rapidly changing. The rules for trading on exchanges are changing, and it is increasingly necessary to leave your identification data. Criminals are afraid that they will not be able to cash out the cryptocurrency without leaving their traces.

Legalization of crypto can be the solution for fiat theft and fradulent activities around fiat by criminals. If crypto is gave that legal standing it can help savings in coins to increase and you can choose to convert more money to hodl in crypto and nothing will happen to it there. Fiat currency is a scam tool for scammers, it is easier for them to play smart one on people.

How do we know that all criminals are beginner and what about the criminal that attacks online. They have a knowledge in crypto already but if they are completely new to it they can still be able to learn it. Even kids now knows how to operate a crypto and if they do it, that wont really create a bad impact on the reputation of crypto. We can just assume that criminals are now using crypto because crypto is now popular.

Ever since before we always have news about hacks and thefts but cryptos and crypto supporters are still here. Nothing have changed to them and if there are countries or people that reject crypto, that was because of other reasons.

it is true that fiat is easier to retrieve and can disappear immediately if it escapes pursuit and can immediately spend it, but if crypto requires a very complicated process and level of account freezing, KYC is exchanged which can immediately capture data, so fiat is more popular with robbers than crypto

But most criminals are generally not tech savvy and they just want fiat or valuable items that can make money because it is very easy to use and quick to spend, and most criminals only have the capital of courage and carelessness.
and crypto criminals must have more expertise in technology to be able to hack it, and crypto criminals are few and not as many as fiat criminals because becoming a fiat criminal is easier and doesn't take long to do.
except in this world everything uses crypto then there will be no fiat criminals, because fiat is still valuable and used and easier then all criminals will choose fiat over crypto and it is also safer.

Tech savvy or not you can't always be anonymous when doing crypto transactions you will eventually get yourself screwed on day, fiat is a safer tool for illegal payment or activities not crypto.

A little bit reasonable and you do have some point its neither fiat or crypto then those criminals would still be having the same mindset when it comes on doing illegal transactions which neither they would be using both

or neither of the two.If they do prefer cash then so be it but for sure they've been using up crypto on other purposes too which anonymity and decentralization does really have those advantages
but its not really that something to boast off since this is the things on where government do really focus out the most because of its features which make things even more harder.

We're talking about different classes of criminals when discussing fiat and cryptocurrency transactions. The local drug dealer isn't inclined to accept cryptocurrency because they are running a cash business - they buy in cash, they receive cash and they restock in cash. Besides that, their customer base is unlikely to be super sophisticated to use Bitcoin, or at least enough customers don't do it to make it worth additional hassle. The type of criminals you see talked about in the news and referring to crypto are large scale - randomware attackers, money launderers and criminal syndicates that generally just need to move money across borders with ease.

Drug dealers need something tangible that can be used offline in the easiest way possible. Cash fits the bill nicely due to its wide acceptance by business and merchants alike. I doubt drug dealers would want to get into something as transparent and volatile as Bitcoin. Not to mention, it requires some level of technical knowledge to get used to. With Fiat (cash) you just hand in the money to the merchant and that's it.

For these and many other reasons, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum won't attract many criminals into them. Only hackers and scammers will find crypto useful for their own needs. As long as the majority uses crypto the right way, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts ;D

The most important thing for which criminals prefer cash on top of cryptocurrency is to make the funds legitimate. For some time period they'll be criminals, and rest of the time these people will be into different kinds of legitimate businesses. This gives them ease of investing and withdraw it as legitimate money. The same isn't possible with cryptocurrencies.

Most of the cyber criminals prefer cryptocurrency as there is no intermediaries. Because, if there is some intermediary the funds can be frozen. Even with cryptocurrency these days it is possible to track the stolen funds. Recently the bitfinex thieves were arrested in similar case after years.

Yes. But what if I told you it's possible to get access to crypto without KYC? Criminals can simply use a peer-to-peer trading platform or a decentralized exchange to turn their cash into crypto for peace of mind. Of course, this requires some level of technical knowledge. But if criminals are willing to learn, I don't see why it won't happen anytime soon.

The main issue is not access, but rather price volatility and lack of merchant acceptance. Without a stable cryptocurrency price, I don't see crypto replacing cash (Fiat) anytime soon. It's this level of convenience which makes Fiat a true winner for illegal transactions. If crypto was stable and widely accepted by merchants and businesses alike, things would've been different. But that's not the case, so criminals using crypto on top of Fiat is only a dream. I'm fine with that as long as crypto's legitimate use cases are expanded. Once illegal activity is reduced to a minimum, crypto will flourish like never before. Just my thoughts ;D

Since ever the introduction of bitcoin in 2009, the rate of criminality involved in bitcoin is incomparable to fiat and i so much believe that security and privacy in bitcoin makes it difficult and a thing of threat to any criminality element to het involved, fiat act of theft can be carried out in various easy means like physical assault and the likes, while the major cause of crypto own majorly is as a result of our personal carelessness and lack of know how as a week point.

I hope that criminals will not shift their targets to crypto, because if that happens, of course there will be many people who will become the targets of their crimes later, indeed now many criminals (hackers) are starting to target to steal from the exchange but maybe only a few people are able to do it this, because it requires computer programming skills which may be above average for some people, but for traditional criminals of course fiat money can be an easy alternative for them and I think they also don't want to take the risk of targeting other people crypto assets because it is complicated process.

Sooner or later you'd have to convert that ill-gotten crypto to fiat and that's when you become most vulnerable. And then there's the issue of what if the price suddenly collapse. What, you gonna halt operations and wait for it to bounce back? Unless you're transacting cross-borders, you're probably just really better off using fiat. It's tried and tested! Even government swears of its usefulness ;D

Fiat is basically invisible if it don't go through banks. Just set up a small business that accept cash payments and you're done! Sure might have to pay taxes on that (can't beat the biggest criminal of course) but for all intents and purposes, your money is "clean".

Converting crypto to Fiat (cash) wouldn't be necessary if there's a decent number of merchants and businesses accepting crypto as payment method. Of course, there's the problem of price volatility. But that can easily be solved via the use of decentralized stablecoins like DAI and USDJ. The reason why criminals are still using Fiat it's because of its ease-of-use. Not to mention, you can use Fiat (cash) when there's no Internet access whatsoever.

I'd prefer that criminals stay away from crypto as possible, so the industry can come out clean in the long-run. Otherwise, governments will try to stop crypto by making it "illegal". We're living in uncertain times, so anything can be expected in the future. As long as the number of people using crypto legitimately succeeds those who don't, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts ;D

Actually, a lot of criminals also uses crypto for their payment especially in the black market. Why? Because it is hard for the authority to track all the transactions, and if they do, how will they locate the criminals? having fiat money is more risky because the authorities have a money that they call "Marked money" where if they saw it, it means that the person who is using it is a criminal or maybe they used the mark money for the payment. But before that happens, usually the criminals will get caught.

In my opinion, it depends on what kind of transaction they were doing. If it is in an online black market, they will use crypto, but if it is a transaction between two party, they will use fiat money.

Fiat is still in demand by criminals because it is easy to use, and easier to spend. Moreover, there are still quite a lot of people who don't understand
how to use crypto, it's too complicated for some people to use crypto, while fiat is used by everyone in the world since childhood. So it's very natural
that many criminals have chosen to use fiat until now, and I don't understand if there are politicians who say crypto is widely used for illegal activities.
Even though it is clear that fiat has been used by criminals for a long time, so there should be more criminals who use fiat.

We as part of the crypto community definitely want crypto to be legalized by all countries in the world, so it's a bit advantageous to know that
criminals use fiat more than crypto. But the problem is that the government's view of crypto is already bad, so for now it is quite difficult to expect
all countries to legalize crypto, because there must be some countries that decide to ban the use of crypto. Perhaps this is due to the lack of
knowledge that some state leaders have, even some state leaders have misleading information about crypto. But over time, many countries will
realize the importance of legalizing cryptocurrencies.

Many people don't understand cryptocurrencies, and if criminals want to use them, they need to know more about them to use them, so it's easier to use fiat currencies than bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Fiat is still less traceable than cryptocurrency. I've read that even mixers dont give 100% guarantee that you wont be identified. Deal in cash are quicker to make. Just give a stack of money and that is it. But if you crypto, you still a device to check that you were paid, need to find a way to turn crypto into more local currency. It is mentally better to feel cash in hands, than have a paper with privatekey in the pocket, or keep hardware wallet in hands.

As I have said before, FIAT money is safe, it is something that you have there and you know that you count on it, that the only way it will lose value is if there is a world fall or crash or if its inflation runs more than 10% which it is a very difficult scenario to occur but not impossible, this makes it something safe for a criminal mind, which, we must not forget that many criminals are very intelligent and know the potential of cryptocurrencies and that they can do a whole wash through crypto through the deep web or a mixer, but in the same way a lot of knowledge and hard experience is needed, but it is something that cannot be ruled out, but according to this they are currently still more inclined towards fiat money.

I understand Fiat is much easier to use than crypto, but it's biggest downside is that it's tied to the corrupt banking system. Inflation will keep soaring, effectively making Fiat worthless in the long run. That's not the case with crypto these days. With crypto, you truly are your own bank. There's no middleman, no fear of losing your purchasing power over time due to constant money printing, and  you get complete anonymity in return (depending on the type of cryptocurrency used).

If criminals learned about the benefits of crypto, they would've ditched Fiat already. The reason why they haven't done so, it's because not many merchants and businesses accept crypto as payment method. Also, crypto prices are widely unstable making it unsuitable as digital cash. Knowing that this has been the case for quite a few years, it's unlikely criminals will switch to crypto anytime soon. I'm fine with that as long as crypto's legitimate use cases are expanded. With most people using crypto responsibly, governments will adopt Blockchain tech with open arms. Just my thoughts ;D