Bitcoin is for criminals - Or so they say.

[lienfaye]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

Yeah not all details were explain in the article. bitcoin is a currency just like fiat money and everyone can use it wether its for good or bad purposes. they just publish the bad side that some people might misunderstand.

[ontrackk]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

thats true and for me it seems to be really sad to be honest, i think that the news should show positive things either because right now there is way too much negativity on it

[Wendigo]

Bitcoin is the preferred ransom method for all the online hijackers of corporate data I think. Also criminals with IT background will opt for Bitcoins rather than use a more traditional ransom payment method like dollars in a suitcase. Drug lords and brothel owners most likely prefer traditional payments in cash right now but they could wise up about the advantages of Bitcoin and start to use it in their operations.

[BitHodler]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

thats true and for me it seems to be really sad to be honest, i think that the news should show positive things either because right now there is way too much negativity on it

I think the majority of the Bitcoiners are used to these kind of articles that are written to make Bitcoin look bad.

The only thing that does concern me a bit, is that the average Joe takes this kind of news very seriously as they believe nearly everything they see and hear in the news.

I some times even think that the larger news/media sites are being paid by the government in order to discourage Bitcoin usage on a massive scale.

[serjent05]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

thats true and for me it seems to be really sad to be honest, i think that the news should show positive things either because right now there is way too much negativity on it

I think the majority of the Bitcoiners are used to these kind of articles that are written to make Bitcoin look bad.

The only thing that does concern me a bit, is that the average Joe takes this kind of news very seriously as they believe nearly everything they see and hear in the news.

I some times even think that the larger news/media sites are being paid by the government in order to discourage Bitcoin usage on a massive scale.

I agree that media are attracted to bitcoin bad press because it gives them alot of views.  but i don't think government are paying for this to make this stuff happen.  Government have more important issue to attend to and give focus rather than destroying something that they themselves can have benefits.

[Btcvilla]

Cash is the most anonymous way to buy illegal goods. Bitcoin is the most anonymous way to buy it over the internet. I find it stupid buying illegal goods over the internet, giving them your private information. What if you buy something illegal on the internet and its really a trap made by the government? If you buy weapons or other items made to do harm, you deserve to be locked up and kept away from society. Drug users are another story. If the drug user is buying drugs for themselves and are only doing harm to themselves, why make it illegal and arrest it? It makes zero sense.

[crairezx20]

Cash is the most anonymous way to buy illegal goods. Bitcoin is the most anonymous way to buy it over the internet. I find it stupid buying illegal goods over the internet, giving them your private information. What if you buy something illegal on the internet and its really a trap made by the government? If you buy weapons or other items made to do harm, you deserve to be locked up and kept away from society. Drug users are another story. If the drug user is buying drugs for themselves and are only doing harm to themselves, why make it illegal and arrest it? It makes zero sense.

Well here if you buy drugs and they know that you are pusher you will be killed by anonymous killers that are planning to kill all users and pushers also drug lord here.. so its impossible even you are anonymous to buy those drugs.

[Daniel91]

Bitcoin is for BTC users
It means that anyone can use Bitcoin since it's Internet based, anonymous, decentralized etc.
So, can we say that Bitcoin is good because good people can use Bitcoin, or bad, if bad people can use Bitcoin?
Of course not.
If something will be used in a good or bad way depends on the motivation of user, not money itself.
Criminals also use real money, don't they?
I agree that sometimes mainstream media can make such rumors but we know it's not true.

[cjmoles]

Come on!  Is the original poster really trying to say that bitcoin doesn't really attract the criminal element?  I am pretty sure bitcoin attracts society's criminal elements.  All it takes is just a quick perusal of the content contained on this very forum to realize that there is a lot of immorality demonstrated within the community....That cannot be denied.  In fact, there are many more fraudulent schemes within the community then has ever been reported by the major media networks.

[n691309]

If we see the recent hack through ransomware then we can see that hackers used to receive the payments from the victims through bitcoin which makes a bad marketing for bitcoin, they use bitcoin because they want to stay anonymous and don't want to get chargeback like paypal.

[Cereberus]

If we see the recent hack through ransomware then we can see that hackers used to receive the payments from the victims through bitcoin which makes a bad marketing for bitcoin, they use bitcoin because they want to stay anonymous and don't want to get chargeback like paypal.

Not only that but they can easily mix the coins after receiving them to not leave traces behind. Bad marketing is something bitcoin has lived with during its life stage so far so it doesn't worries me. Ransomware is getting pretty random nowadays so I would advise to keep more in focus the security of our systems. A ransomware still cannot do any harm to some user who have the same wallet in different places and the seed well saved in different places like USB-s. They can just reinstall Windows and install for example electrum and restore from the seed. Only newbies fall for ransomware nowadays. I guess OP is referring to the black markets as criminals use them but we cannot do anything about it yet.

[Vikingr]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

According to my views the drug users are totally dependent on their local currency for buying drugs, maybe there will be someone who will use bitcoin for that in their local deals, but on digital means I don't think that they will be able to sell drugs as it is banned all around the world and will not find its place on internet.

[n691309]

If we see the recent hack through ransomware then we can see that hackers used to receive the payments from the victims through bitcoin which makes a bad marketing for bitcoin, they use bitcoin because they want to stay anonymous and don't want to get chargeback like paypal.

Not only that but they can easily mix the coins after receiving them to not leave traces behind. Bad marketing is something bitcoin has lived with during its life stage so far so it doesn't worries me. Ransomware is getting pretty random nowadays so I would advise to keep more in focus the security of our systems. A ransomware still cannot do any harm to some user who have the same wallet in different places and the seed well saved in different places like USB-s. They can just reinstall Windows and install for example electrum and restore from the seed. Only newbies fall for ransomware nowadays. I guess OP is referring to the black markets as criminals use them but we cannot do anything about it yet.

On one side it is good to have a privacy when spending your money but at the other side this is not good to be used from hackers, I wouldn;t say that only newbies are victim of ransomware but also those intermediate. A hardware wallet can be very useful in this case avoiding to be encrypted by these viruses.

[Cereberus]

The news sites only show the bad news about bitcoin. And they didn't explain than more than 90% of criminals don't use bitcoins, the % of drugs sold for bitcoin is small, most users pay with dollars or its national fiat money.

According to my views the drug users are totally dependent on their local currency for buying drugs, maybe there will be someone who will use bitcoin for that in their local deals, but on digital means I don't think that they will be able to sell drugs as it is banned all around the world and will not find its place on internet.

Hello, ever heard about the hidden internet ? What about Silk Road drug marketplace ?  Its up an running now on version 3.0 and you just need 0.13 btc to pay the fee to become a vendor there to sell of kind of stuff including a very large selection of different drugs. FBI have put down Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0 but the version 3.0 is going smoothly. I cannot go more into details of how they sell the drug there, but they definitely do it even by digital means like you say. Just search on google for Silk Road and you will see that you are wrong in this point.

[Universat]

i dont think that bitcoin is specially make for criminals. i think good and bad elements are present in every society. and so they are getting benefit from bitcoin.

[MyBTT]

If a criminal uses bitcoin, they're incredibly dumb. Their transactions will be totally public, and for all we know governments are monitoring the blockchain. Why not use XMR or the like?

[btvGainer]

i dont think that bitcoin is specially make for criminals. i think good and bad elements are present in every society. and so they are getting benefit from bitcoin.

Right.Bitcoin is a currency, it doesn't have will of its own.It depends on its owner how he uses it.Like fiat,bitcoin can also be used for bad things as well as good things.
Bitcoin has smaller user base compared to regular currency.Once bitcoin become mainstream, we will not hear media blaming bitcoin

[samcoin]

This is the dark side of Bitcoin , I read many articles talking about the role of Bitcoin in some crimes , I also read some reports about how the Bitcoin contributes in transfer the money from the European and American countries to the terrorist groups in the middle east , but as the others said , Bitcoin is not the only currency which criminals and terrorist use , there is also the Dollar .

[Yakamoto]

i dont think that bitcoin is specially make for criminals. i think good and bad elements are present in every society. and so they are getting benefit from bitcoin.

Right.Bitcoin is a currency, it doesn't have will of its own.It depends on its owner how he uses it.Like fiat,bitcoin can also be used for bad things as well as good things.
Bitcoin has smaller user base compared to regular currency.Once bitcoin become mainstream, we will not hear media blaming bitcoin

Everyone can use next to everything to get something that is illegal as long as there is enough of a demand for the item. It's not like any of this has changed throughout history, and this is just one example of something unconventional being used to buy some illicit things.

Even if Bitcoin was to go mainstream, though, there would still more than likely be a lot of backlash from the media and the government, and they would still try their hardest to control it in whatever way possible. I personally think that we'll still hear the media blaming Bitcoin for a lot of things.

[daringdiscovered]

Bitcoin is for anyone not just for criminals. Bitcoin was not created to use it as a tool for illegal doings. It is created as an innovation in the cyberworld as a currency. Maybe others use it at illegal things because of its anonymous transaction but it only depends on how you are going to use it. Is it for good or bad? People always finds a way on how to use a certain thing for good and bad.