US Government Working To Target More Iranian Bitcoin Users

[Homeless_Victim]

A few days ago the US department of treasury came out with new sanctions against two Iranians who allegedly were involved in hacking of websites...

https://cointrader21.wordpress.com/2018/11/30/us-government-working-to-target-more-iranian-bitcoin-users/

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[Baofeng]

Well I wouldn't be surprised though. We all know how US treat their enemies, whether they will go to the right channels just to take them out is not the right question. But rather how US will undermined other nations sovereignty. In relation to crypto, yes, by now maybe the Feds are monitoring suspicious bitcoin address and will try everything at their power to stop them.

[eddie13]

I think these people probably know what they are doing in crypto so basically this will be interesting in that we will get to see if the USA can do anything about it at all.
They might not do much to free their coins from the spectacle anytime soon but I think eventually they will, and then we will see who wins.

If these guys can obfuscate their coins better than any independent blockchain detectives can chase them but the government still has been able to track them then they effectively will have to blow the cover off of some of their 0 day tactics and reveal what they actually can do. 

Not that I side with the Iranians at all but I think they will win and it will be BTC 1 GOV 0.

All of these privacy coins and whatnot I'm still not convinced a person couldn't still accomplish the same anonymity goals with BTC.

[davis196]

Sooner or later USA will ban all cryptocurrencies,just because the iranians use them.
Just kidding.Let's hope that this won't happen.Anyway,those "bitcoin users" are involved into website hacking activities,so it's OK to punish them.

[rickadone]

I seriously do not understand what USA is trying to do with Iran at this point. I mean I understand they are feeling like they are the "police of the world" and all that and I am really glad to see that they are trying to do this without violence this time because it would have been horrible for all of world if there was another war going on between USA and middle east but honestly they do not have to do any of this, they can seriously just say "I don't care" and move on.

This whole economical warfare is not going to help anyone at all, there is no "winning" in a war like this, you are just going to let some Iranian people have worse life because two governments are not working together like one of them wants? You are literally destroying a countries economy and affecting millions of people just because you do not like the president of a country? That's really really wrong.

[gentlemand]

All of these privacy coins and whatnot I'm still not convinced a person couldn't still accomplish the same anonymity goals with BTC.

Japanese regulators have already asked several exchanges to stop dealing with privacy coins. I can well believe the same will happen elsewhere. I suppose atomic swaps will be the way out of that but they'll need to be fully obscured all the way from traceable wallet to traceable wallet.

Tainting and blacklisting is only now starting to warm up. I don't see how it'll ever be made to work.

And it's a bit sad privacy is thought of as some sort of novelty. In reality if crypto is to become a functioning element of an economy it's going to be a prerequisite for most people. Dunno how this circle will be squared.

[cellard]

All of these privacy coins and whatnot I'm still not convinced a person couldn't still accomplish the same anonymity goals with BTC.

Japanese regulators have already asked several exchanges to stop dealing with privacy coins. I can well believe the same will happen elsewhere. I suppose atomic swaps will be the way out of that but they'll need to be fully obscured all the way from traceable wallet to traceable wallet.

Tainting and blacklisting is only now starting to warm up. I don't see how it'll ever be made to work.

And it's a bit sad privacy is thought of as some sort of novelty. In reality if crypto is to become a functioning element of an economy it's going to be a prerequisite for most people. Dunno how this circle will be squared.

I don't think it's possible to trace back coins after they have been properly mixed, it's too much of a mess to trace back and at some point it becomes impossible to prove as far as I know. You don't need fancy ring signatures like Monero or zsnarks or anything, just mix your BTC. Of course be aware that after mixing it, you may not be able to sell them for fiat. I realize this after I mixed myself some coins to learn. I don't think I can sell these coins now as they would ask for origin of fund and they are obfuscated because of the mixer... so I cant use these coins to buy a house now I think unfortunately.

The net result would be that they scare everyone about selling coins and thus the bitcoins stay within the bitcoin economy raising the price.

[cizatext]

This will go a long way in sanitizing the entire cryptocurrency network, weeding out scams and hacking cause the activities of this evil people have tarnished the image of the entire system. US government deserve applaud on this one and this is why most investors call for more regulations in the cryptocurrency network in other to minimize the chances of people losing the found to this hackers and scammers.

[blackhawkeye1912]

The point here is that cryptocurrency might be used to fund illegal activities such as terrorism. Instead of looking for a financier, they might be trained to hack so that they'll just steal cryptocurrency which is hard to trace. One drawback of decentralized system.

[Initscri]

The point here is that cryptocurrency might be used to fund illegal activities such as terrorism. Instead of looking for a financier, they might be trained to hack so that they'll just steal cryptocurrency which is hard to trace. One drawback of decentralized system.

Yea, that's been my primary fear of the state of Bitcoin. If the percentage difference of illegal activities in contrast\ to the amount of legal/valid activities grows too large, we can kiss goodbye to the US (and other states) support/allowance of BTC.

TBF, it used to be a lot worse though.

[Marcsymon]

This shows the US government is highly very active against terrorism after the 9/11 in which the illegal people should think twice if they desired to enter the US space. The bad guys specially if they will use crypto in US must be warned by this development against money laundering and terrorism activities.

[Oasisman]

This shows the US government is highly very active against terrorism after the 9/11 in which the illegal people should think twice if they desired to enter the US space. The bad guys specially if they will use crypto in US must be warned by this development against money laundering and terrorism activities.

Well, they are always active in terms of counter-terrorism and threat. The question here is ; how would they treat these Iranians?
Are there really a sanctions? or this is just another opportunity for the US to take advantage of this growing technology?
There's no denying, cryptocurrency will become huge in a year or two. 

[Kemarit]

This shows the US government is highly very active against terrorism after the 9/11 in which the illegal people should think twice if they desired to enter the US space. The bad guys specially if they will use crypto in US must be warned by this development against money laundering and terrorism activities.

Of course they have been actively chasing lots of terrorist that's why they looking at crypto because they know those criminals are using it to obscured the source of their funding. But then again, its going to difficult because of the decentralize nature and those people will always be one step ahead of the game to hide their names on their addresses. We don't know how long the US government tracked those two Iranians but I'm sure it take them years to follow and build the case against them.

[GregH37]

Iranians are not that free of guilt on this part neither. Currently there are 6 cases in USA that convicts some Iranian business man with the charges of bringing illegal amounts of gold into the country, now gold carrying from one place to another has limits and if you exceed those limits for profit that is illegal, prices in Iran could be quite cheap compared to USA so if everyone started to get golds from Iran and move all of it to USA that would benefit USA and would mean they would have a lot of gold but both the prices of gold would fall in USA which is something they don't want and would cripple the Iranian gold market.

This is just an example, Iranian business man keep doing the same for Bitcoin as well but the reverse, since Iran has a lack of access to bitcoin, people keep getting cheap bitcoin around the world and cash out in Iran to profit. They can't be allowed to do that constantly.

[Homeless_Victim]

Iran needs to have an exchange like Bitfinex.