[2020-01-16] Chainalysis traced $2.8 billion crime bitcoin sent to Binance Huobi

[Thekool1s]

Lol, You can't be serious! Anything can be used for illegal purposes. It's like saying the smartphone companies should embrace the fact that their cell phones are used during/planning robberies, they should do something about it by placing filters on some words like a getaway driver etc. So that robberies can be prevented. Do you see how insane your argument sounds? Illegal activities are a human problem, not a currency problem.

P.S By fiat supporters i meant the banks themselves 

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[bbc.reporter]

Yes, you are making a similar argument as me that we should acknowledge and embrace bitcoin's use by criminals. It is a part of what gives its value. Good on us hehehe.

In any case, part of my criticism is to those people who shout for no regulation and freedom, however, shout for the SEC to catch ICOs because they are unregulated and illegal securities.

[1Referee]

In any case, part of my criticism is to those people who shout for no regulation and freedom, however, shout for the SEC to catch ICOs because they are unregulated and illegal securities.

Those are probably the dumb herd just following a bunch of "gurus" where one of them preaches total freedom, and the other preaches how important regulators are and how they can help legitimize this space. I wouldn't pay attention to those because they're here just to see their bags pump and shout BULL RUN or ALT SEASON whenever they see the price increase by a few %.

I rather focus on those who build cool and useful tools/services, and they are either for or against regulations, not a blend of both. Fewer regulations is always preferred of course, but we know that's not possible within a space that's enabling trustless value movement and storage.

In all honesty, I take my hat off to the platforms playing this game by the rules. They are attracting new capital. No or not significant enough capital enters through crappy exchanges such as Hitbtc, Huobi, OKEx, etc. Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, Gemini, etc those are the exchanges allowing this space to welcome new capital.

[bryant.coleman]

Yes, you are making a similar argument as me that we should acknowledge and embrace bitcoin's use by criminals. It is a part of what gives its value. Good on us hehehe.

In any case, part of my criticism is to those people who shout for no regulation and freedom, however, shout for the SEC to catch ICOs because they are unregulated and illegal securities.

If the SEC was serious about preventing crime, then they should have allowed cryptocurrencies and their derivatives to be traded in NASDAQ and other exchanges. They have rejected the ETF proposal multiple times and this has forced the ordinary users to rely on shady exchanges. Also, the SEC has made it mandatory for the crypto-exchanges to conduct KYC of the users. If someone wants to exchange his $10 worth of bounty, he needs to undergo KYC. But the ICO promoters don't have to go through all these. They would just launch their ICOs from some country where it is not regulated and once they collect enough funds, they will vanish with all of that.

[bbc.reporter]

@bryant.coleman. I do not understand why listing some cryptocoins in the Nasdaq would stop scammers from scamming.

Also, do you support strict KYC on users? Exchanges that make it very hard on users to buy and sell coins might slow down adoption.

[bryant.coleman]

@bryant.coleman. I do not understand why listing some cryptocoins in the Nasdaq would stop scammers from scamming.

Also, do you support strict KYC on users? Exchanges that make it very hard on users to buy and sell coins might slow down adoption.

It won't stop the scammers from scamming. But if that occurs in NASDAQ, then the authorities can't give the usual excuse of not taking action against the criminals (the incident occurred at a jurisdiction, which is outside their area of operations). Scams would still occur, but the scammers won't be able to go scot free.

And secondly, as I pointed out I don't support KYC for exchange users. I have faced a lot of difficulty due to this. A few years back, I used to own several smaller altcoins and tokens and many of these tokens were listed only in one or two minor exchanges. I had to undergo KYC process at least a dozen times for several exchanges. In the end, I made the decision that enough is enough, and I should refuse KYC if any exchange demands it.

It is neither safe nor convenient to undergo the KYC process, just for selling your $10 worth of bounty. But I want the ICO promoters to undergo KYC.

[coolcoinz]

Lol, You can't be serious! Anything can be used for illegal purposes. It's like saying the smartphone companies should embrace the fact that their cell phones are used during/planning robberies, they should do something about it by placing filters on some words like a getaway driver etc. So that robberies can be prevented. Do you see how insane your argument sounds? Illegal activities are a human problem, not a currency problem.

P.S By fiat supporters i meant the banks themselves 

There's much more you can do with a mobile phone than robberies.


If they know the coins were transferred there it should be easy to find usernames and IPs. One one hand I support anonymity, but I also believe that if there's no doubt that your client is a thief you should deny him service and send the money back to the people he stole from. I support social justice not government-imposed justice.

[squatter]

If they know the coins were transferred there it should be easy to find usernames and IPs. One one hand I support anonymity, but I also believe that if there's no doubt that your client is a thief you should deny him service and send the money back to the people he stole from. I support social justice not government-imposed justice.

Very few cases will have "no doubt." According to Chainalysis, stolen bitcoins are usually moved through mixers/coinjoins and sold through OTC brokers before they ever land on exchanges. Huobi and Binance have no right to steal such bitcoins from their clients and distribute them back to victims. It would be very troubling if exchanges proclaimed themselves to be arbiters in these matters.

[Thekool1s]

@squatter exactly, plus why would they want to put their reputation on the line? One small hiccup up and their reputation goes down the drain not to mention the time and money spent in verifying the claims of the victim economically don't make sense. Unless they'd want the victims to become their customers which again won't put them in a good light. I strongly believe if you want to prevent Scams then put your time and money in educating people. Something like Coinbase's earn program if you really have good intentions of helping people. Simply put, Prevention is better than cure.

[bbc.reporter]

@bryant.coleman. I do not understand why listing some cryptocoins in the Nasdaq would stop scammers from scamming.

Also, do you support strict KYC on users? Exchanges that make it very hard on users to buy and sell coins might slow down adoption.

It won't stop the scammers from scamming. But if that occurs in NASDAQ, then the authorities can't give the usual excuse of not taking action against the criminals (the incident occurred at a jurisdiction, which is outside their area of operations). Scams would still occur, but the scammers won't be able to go scot free.

Agreed. Scams would still occur, however, the people who run and play the Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street are the old breed of scammers. The type of scammers that would convince the government steal their citizens' retirement money to give to them for them to play in the derivatives market similar to 2007 and 2008 hehehehehe.

[bryant.coleman]

I was thinking about this particular piece of news for the last few days.. and then something came to my mind. Binance doesn't require KYC for its users, if their daily transaction volume is less than BTC2.00 (someone please correct me if I am wrong). Obviously a lot of the governments are not happy with this. The US authorities even forced Binance to block users from that country (the US users were moved to a KYC-enabled platform recently). Now I don't support criminals using Binance or Huobi to launder their booty. But what I don't want is the government using it as an excuse to force KYC on some bounty hunter, who is looking to sell his $5 worth of tokens that he received from the campaign.

[Happy Bunny]

I thought that this might be good job on investigative journalism and a confirmation of the theory that exchanges are part of a global money laundering ring. However, again, when I read where this report was based from, the skeptical me thought that this was only another paid for advertisment from the corrupt world of bitcoin news media as usual.

https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/money-laundering-cryptocurrency-2019

https://i.ibb.co/Mscz6JW/AEA07782-D4-D1-4734-B7-ED-A0-FFDB561663.jpg

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said Wednesday that it traced $2.8 billion in Bitcoin being sent by criminals to crypto exchanges in 2019, with the bulk of those transactions going to Binance and Huobi.

"While exchanges have always been a popular off-ramp for illicit cryptocurrency,...

...
"Overall, just over 300,000 individual accounts at Binance and Huobi received Bitcoin from criminal sources in 2019," Chainalysis noted.

...

Read in full https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/53138/chainalysis-traced-2-8-billion-in-bitcoin-being-sent-to-crypto-exchanges-by-criminals-last-year

$2.8 billion looks huge, but keep in mind on a Global scale involving hundreds of players it is just a few drops in the big-time financial bucket.

[figmentofmyass]

$2.8 billion looks huge, but keep in mind on a Global scale involving hundreds of players it is just a few drops in the big-time financial bucket.

more than that, the number itself is inflated. if you read through their methodology, so much of it is based on unproven heuristics. they are making assumptions about peel chains many, many hops out. they assume that mixed/coinjoined outputs that ended up at [OTC broker--->huobi/binance] were automatically the "illicit" funds they were attempting to follow. the list goes on.

what this boils down to is chainalysis talking a bunch of shit, and hyping up their blockchain analysis capabilities.

[bbc.reporter]

It might be inflated numbers, however, we should know that Chainalysis is not to be underestimated. The blockchain data they collect can be given to the government to use against you.



It started with a $9,000 data software contract for the FBI in 2015.

But just five years later, Chainalysis is now the cryptocurrency-tracing equivalent of Palantir, the data analytics company flush with lucrative government software contracts. Chainalysis is, right now, doing millions of dollars worth of business each year with the U.S. government, dwarfing its competitors in the young industry of blockchain surveillance.

The company is by far Uncle Sam’s leading crypto analysis contractor by spending and has become the go-to firm for 10 federal agencies, departments and bureaus.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/inside-chainalysis-multimillion-dollar-relationship-with-the-us-government

[bryant.coleman]

$2.8 billion looks huge, but keep in mind on a Global scale involving hundreds of players it is just a few drops in the big-time financial bucket.

Yes... it is like a needle in the haystack. But the problem here is that most of the financial crime is being done by big banks and they have lobbyists in every powerful position in the government. So the government authorities may hesitate to touch them. Did you heard about the scandal involving the HSBC bank and the Mexican drug cartels? There was a lot of hue and cry initially, but everything was hushed up in little time. Bitcoiners are easy targets, since they don't have collective bargaining power.

[1Referee]

So the government authorities may hesitate to touch them.

Why would they touch them? It's an easy income source for the government, and one that's recurring as well because you know that the profits made by banks are far higher than whatever they end up paying in fines. Governments happy because they receive hundreds of millions in fines, and the banks happy because their profits are largely still there.

If governments were genuine, they would increase their fines to such degree that the profits made by banks would not only be nullified, but the bank actually loses hundreds of millions. The current system is set up strictly to enrich the government and allow high level money laundering to take place because they get a slice of the pie.

[bbc.reporter]

@bryant.coleman. $2.8 billion might be small compared to the global scale of the total on financial crimes, however, it is continuing to grow in the cryptospace. Darknet revenues were up 100% according to another report by Chainalysis.