Debate: Do you think criminals do more good than harm to bitcoin?

[gentlemand]

Nothing any of us lot can do about it. What someone can do is keep plugging away until the criminal element is drowned out by the normal folks using it. I'm not so sure criminals have thought it through very much. They may have all those lovely coins but selling them for local currency is likely to be their undoing.

[Betwrong]

Lately I have seen another news of some kidnappers demanding ransom in bitcoin. Then the family seems to be really bought $1.7M worth of BTC (about 5.5k BTC as my estimate). This would be one of the reason for the recent price increase ($1.7M is a lot of money!). However medias keep spreading false information on bitcoin, like stating 'bitcoin is using widely in criminals' etc.

So how do you think? Does the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

Personally I don't think such events are good for Bitcoin. It is already associated with criminals too much. That's why some people who hate criminals avoid using BTC.

[pereira4]

Every publicity is good publicity. Remember that in the early days of the internet, all we had was a bunch of people telling us how it was evil, the idea of people communicating worldwide and without any censorship. Everything that threatens privacy is seen as "evil" but eventually the mainstream catches up.

[dollarneed]

Yes, I think they bring a lot of attention to Bitcoin and put it in the news. It's free advertising where's the harm in that?

like this?
this happened in my country Indonesia and its headline news right now
the suspect (suspected bombers) demanded 100 bitcoin from management of Mall Alam Sutera unfortunately they just give him 0.25 Bitcoin, he was arrested by the police on wednesday evening (oct 28 2015)
http://www.pressreader.com/indonesia/the-jakarta-post/20151030/281539404821793/TextView
So the advantage is people asking what is bitcoin? then they knew it (free advertising)
disadvantage well, all we know that

[teukon]

What precisely does "harm to Bitcoin" mean?  Are we talking about attacks on the network or a reduction in what is called "market cap"?

In both cases I suspect that our limited historical data will reveal criminal activity being pretty good for Bitcoin in the short term (with the occasional exception).

Of course, there are people that would use Bitcoin were it not for various stories linking it to criminal activity.  I'd argue that many of these people would only harm Bitcoin by adopting it today.  They would be easily scammed, lose money/keys, create volatility, and complain loudly about their negative experiences.

Bitcoin today is usable by more than just crypto ninjas but it is certainly not suitable for the weak-minded, the irresponsible, or the naive.

As for Bitcoin's long-term prospects, other uncertainties surely dominate public perception concerning crime.  If Bitcoin does continue to grow and infrastructure forms allowing even the economically childish to benefit from its use then an advertising campaign declaring an end to Bitcoin's "wild west" should prove a cheap and effective manipulation.

[CoinThug]

Well criminals are criminals. So for me it harm bitcoin. Because bitcoin should be peaceful.

[doublemore]

At the moment the mainstream media has such a large influence they can make new things appear bad to the masses no matter how much criminal activity there is or isn't.  It probably doesn't matter much either way.  Things like mtgox did dent confidence though for sure.

[7788bitcoin]

Use of bitcoin by criminals will only do harm to bitcoin. Many of my friends are aware of bitcoin and think it is something related to illegal activities, and they never take bitcoin seriously.

[Anmol_Verma]

Well professionally it does help others coz the price increased after that incident but it might soon dump coz the criminals will sell it soon.Overall it has negative effect because it also spreads negative information about bitcoin.

[countryfree]

If you check a search engine, you'll find thousands of entries for "narcodollar". But I don't see the dollar suffering much from this situation. In Europe, the Red Cross doesn't mind using the same Euros as the Italian mafia. I have knives in my kitchen, they probably can be used to kill people, but I need them to eat.

[okae]

If you check a search engine, you'll find thousands of entries for "narcodollar". But I don't see the dollar suffering much from this situation. In Europe, the Red Cross doesn't mind using the same Euros as the Italian mafia. I have knives in my kitchen, they probably can be used to kill people, but I need them to eat.

thats why i always said that there is a dark intention behind this, something like trying to destabilize bitcoin, in last months you can see that there is lots of news related to that, in the end all those things just made me think  that bitcoin is doing well, since they seems to be very scared

[n2004al]

Lately I have seen another news of some kidnappers demanding ransom in bitcoin. Then the family seems to be really bought $1.7M worth of BTC (about 5.5k BTC as my estimate). This would be one of the reason for the recent price increase ($1.7M is a lot of money!). However medias keep spreading false information on bitcoin, like stating 'bitcoin is using widely in criminals' etc.

So how do you think? Does the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?

This is a very controversial question and it is mainly an ethical matter than an economic one. If it will be handled only as economical one for sure make good. The big demand rise the price of bitcoin and this show and strength the power of it. But if we go further and see for what this bitcoin is used and who buy it then the things changes. That big amount of bitcoin is bought by a criminal (or some of those) and its use (or even part of it) will be for sure used by this criminal (or criminals) for bad purposes (even if it will be used only to feed him or those). In this kind of view the opinions are divided. Some people don't care about this second part of interpretation and think that their action do good to bitcoin. The seconds ones, which put in balance what is right and what is wrong and then decide choosing the right, think that their action do bad to bitcoin making the others to think that bitcoin is used mostly by the criminals and for doing bad things. I'm part of the second group.

[traderbit]

When i read in news that it is mentioned bitcoin i am happy.
But when it is used for illegal things and activities this is bad.
When it is mentioned in bad news then people will not hurry to be interested in bitcoin.

[Snorek]

I suggest it's as a advantage, it's good for me as long as the price increase

Price increase is always good for bitcoin but associating this fact with ransoms and kidnappers are not. Media are overreacting and as always try to demonize everything.
FIAT is equally as anonymous and even harder to track than bitcoin, so telling us that it is currency used by criminals alone is pure FUD.

[xmaxbit]

It may be a publicity stunt done by some bitcoiners to make it visible to the world. Else educated criminals are hard to find .

[aakashsangwan]

5.5K BTC is quite a large amount, but not enough to move the market this much. And that's considering they really bought 5.5K BTC. The current price advance looks more like a rally rather than 1 entity buying coins just to be able to pay the ransom. At the end it will only be negative as the coins most likely will get mixed first and then dumped.

what ever you are telling is right but when the culprit gets the ransom then the next day he would have sold everything and then the market should have gone down. but it is increasing it steadily, their are big players buying in the market and the small players are booking profit so cannot say buy i think it will cross 400+ market in november.

[davinchi]

I suggest it's as a advantage, it's good for me as long as the price increase

Price increase is always good for bitcoin but associating this fact with ransoms and kidnappers are not. Media are overreacting and as always try to demonize everything.
FIAT is equally as anonymous and even harder to track than bitcoin, so telling us that it is currency used by criminals alone is pure FUD.

Exactly. Criminals do anything with fiat as well. No different with bitcoin. So, specifically seeing bitcoin along with criminals is completely meaningless. We must accept that bitcoin is somewhat traceable than fiat. So, there is no special case for criminals if it's bitcoin.

[BitcoinCounty]

As law abiding people, if we use bitcoin more, the proportion of bitcoin used in bad business will be smaller.

[teukon]

In this kind of view the opinions are divided. Some people don't care about this second part of interpretation and think that their action do good to bitcoin. The seconds ones, which put in balance what is right and what is wrong and then decide choosing the right, think that their action do bad to bitcoin making the others to think that bitcoin is used mostly by the criminals and for doing bad things. I'm part of the second group.

I care a great deal about right and wrong.  I enjoy doing what I think is right and feel bad doing what I think is wrong.

I do not believe that all crime is necessarily bad.  "Crime" is defined by the state and I do not believe that the state is perfect.  If I thought the state were perfect then I would trust its money and have little interest in trustless money experiments such as Bitcoin.

I care little about appeasing those that think "crime = bad".  On the contrary, I care to dispel this myth.

[Blue_Tiger73]

Criminals are doing good and bad for bitcoin. That price rise was a good thing for bitcoin, but won't people ask about the random 5.5k bitcoin. When they realise that the money came in because of ransom, do you really think they will still want to use bitcoin. I would use it but I think it would against people morals.