Bitcoin and illegal activities

[BrewMaster]

it looks like that they are mainly categorizing the exchange hacks under "scams" which is also why the total value of it is so huge. if you look at the spikes on that chart you can also see that they coincide with big exchange hacks. one is in 2017 which i forgot what exchange was hacked but a lot of them had lots of issues like that and the other is in 2019 when Binance was hacked around May.

[conhela]

it looks like that they are mainly categorizing the exchange hacks under "scams" which is also why the total value of it is so huge. if you look at the spikes on that chart you can also see that they coincide with big exchange hacks. one is in 2017 which i forgot what exchange was hacked but a lot of them had lots of issues like that and the other is in 2019 when Binance was hacked around May.

I also noticed this, I guess it's a way to cement the thought that bitcoin's anonimity is "bad for you because only criminals would want that", also it doesn't help much that media overblew sites like silkroad instead of focusing on the more benign aspects of bitcoin. But unfortunately in current times what pays is clickbaity titles and sensationalized stories. Most people who want to learn about crypto and the good things about it usually do it on their own. Though I appreciate whenever big medias do mention bitcoin in a better light (not counting when price is pumping like crazy)

[bitbunnny]

it looks like that they are mainly categorizing the exchange hacks under "scams" which is also why the total value of it is so huge. if you look at the spikes on that chart you can also see that they coincide with big exchange hacks. one is in 2017 which i forgot what exchange was hacked but a lot of them had lots of issues like that and the other is in 2019 when Binance was hacked around May.

Exchanges are usualy at the first place when such type of crime is concerned and the amount is usualy high so that gives an extra accent. However, there are a lot of cryptocurrencies connected crines, frauds and illegal activities that are not recored somwhere n
To my opinion real numbers and damage are much higher that shown in any chart or statistics so it's hard to estimate the whole range of losses and victims.

[kryptqnick]

Most of us always question if bitcoin is the best refuge for criminals and scammers and activities such as stealing funds, money laundering, terrorism financing and all sort of illegal activities.

The reality is that a total of 11.5$ billion worth of cryptocurrencies were associated with criminal activity which represents only 1.1% of cryptocurrencies transaction volume in 2019  according to chainalysis. The graphic below tells us that the most common type of crimes is not money laundering nor terrorism financing, it is the act which we all see every day: scamming.

Share us your thought about this matter and if someone knows any other resource that can give us a more detailed view, please provide it.

Thanks for sharing this data. I knew that Bitcoin is not used mainly for illegal activities, but seeing the numbers is more reassuring. However, I wonder how this data is collected since surely a lot of crime goes unnoticed (I mean, transactions appear on the blockchain, of course, but nobody knows who they belong to and what they mean). I am also interested in the percentage of fiat money used for crime purposes for the sake of comparison, but yet again I am sure that gaining objective data on such a matter is quite problematic.

[Sanugarid]

it looks like that they are mainly categorizing the exchange hacks under "scams" which is also why the total value of it is so huge. if you look at the spikes on that chart you can also see that they coincide with big exchange hacks. one is in 2017 which i forgot what exchange was hacked but a lot of them had lots of issues like that and the other is in 2019 when Binance was hacked around May.

Well scams and hacking incidents are quite far from each other. Scamming is more likely can be done easily, you just need a group of people and flowery words for gullible people unlike hacking these were the doings of those computer system geeks, black computer science, all that surrounds the breaching space. The hacking incident with binance last year was so huge that it worth $40 million dollars, imagine those hackers were able to buy a lambo without waiting the btc pump haha. But Binance is also huge it is just a little part of them, $40 million is just like a nail to them.

[South Park]

Most of us always question if bitcoin is the best refuge for criminals and scammers and activities such as stealing funds, money laundering, terrorism financing and all sort of illegal activities.

The reality is that a total of 11.5$ billion worth of cryptocurrencies were associated with criminal activity which represents only 1.1% of cryptocurrencies transaction volume in 2019  according to chainalysis. The graphic below tells us that the most common type of crimes is not money laundering nor terrorism financing, it is the act which we all see every day: scamming.

To me this is not really surprising, most of the transactions made in the market are clean and are done by honest people just trying to use this new technology, the idea that cryptocurrencies are only being used by criminals and people like them is nothing but a myth created by the governments to scare people away from this market because they know they cannot really compete with bitcoin and its characteristics as their fiat currencies are created with the idea of benefiting powerful people like them while bitcoin benefits everyone else.

[Youghoor]

I think if we are actually looking at a cryptocurrency that is used for illegal activities then i think privacy coins are the ones that used mostly on the darkweb. Coins like DASH and Monero are used mostly.

[thesmallgod]

People take advantage of the anonymity of the crypto to perpetuate evil and that is exactly why I somehow support KYC verification. A week cannot past without a crypto scam being announced. This shows that people are rapidly using crypto negatively. Just a few weeks ago, Some criminal requested for bitcoin to be paid as ransom for kidnapping a boy.

[FlightyPouch]

I think if we are actually looking at a cryptocurrency that is used for illegal activities then i think privacy coins are the ones that used mostly on the darkweb. Coins like DASH and Monero are used mostly.

I think bitcoin is motly used too in the darkweb. Despite the not-totaly-anonimity of bitcoin, it is still used in the darkweb, in fact a lot of criminals selling illegal drugs in there is caught and the bitcoins used were taken from them. Though, these totaly anonymous coins are also used too.

[adzino]

You sure the stats are accurate and taken/collected from a credible source? Yeah, 1.1% is actually really small  and is almost negligible when compared to the illegal activities that take place using fiat currecy. Trust me its only the naysayers that try to convince people that bitcoin and crypto currencies are devils creation that can be used for committing criminal activities. To be honest, they are actually all butthurt. They regret for not joining the community and invest on cryptocurrencies when the prices were cheap. They act like fiat currencies are never used for doing illegal activities, but little do they know most of the corruption and illicit acts takes place using fiat currency.

[USBitcoinServices.Com]

The Dollar is the currency behind everything illegal. Bitcoin doesn't even compare to that.

If the dollar is behind everything illegal, why some people and politicians like to refer to bitcoin as the bad boy doing illegal things when in reality it is FIAT (dollar) the main one at this time causing problems in society.

Some people like to say so because they don't even know how bitcoin works and their first reaction is that easy one.

[Magkirap]

The Dollar is the currency behind everything illegal. Bitcoin doesn't even compare to that.

If the dollar is behind everything illegal, why some people and politicians like to refer to bitcoin as the bad boy doing illegal things when in reality it is FIAT (dollar) the main one at this time causing problems in society.

Some people like to say so because they don't even know how bitcoin works and their first reaction is that easy one.

Because people who have evil intents also have innovation, they understand now about how bitcoin works and they will take advantage of it like it can't be tracked. Yes i understand that dollar or fiat is the main cause of problems in our society but it is because it existed long time ago and it is an essential need but bitcoin only existed for like 10 years so it is obvious that we can't really compare the both but in the time now where technology is in our grasp bitcoin have a very high possibility to be used in illegal activities, but it doesn't mean bitcoin is bad, it only look bad once evil people used it just like the fiat, both bitcoin and dollar is not a bad thing, it is the people who makes it look bad, it is how we used it.

[stompix]

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because i love giving exaggerated stats in response to exaggerated topics that are throwing big ass numbers around based on nothing. besides it is not far fetched either, you say 0.1%, i say it is far less than that. CMC reports bitcoin trading volume in past 24 hours is $43 billion, most of that $2 billion is from traders that are running around like headless chickens.

I actually took that from the value of bitcoins transferred from one address to another as trading isn't really a transfer between entities unless you withdraw from an exchnge ...which..comes as a tx

besides, terrorists raise funds through extortion (local currency), taxation (local currency), selling oil (USD), robbing (various fiat) and receiving government support from countries such as US, UAE,... (again in USD). none of these methods are using cryptocurrencies!

And when there will be no more fiat, will those activities cease?
Have they existed before the us dollar, have they existed before paper money?
Will they exist in a world with only cryptos?
I guess it's a no, yes, yes and yes. 

What is with this whataboutsim? If a kidnapper is demanding bitcoins in payment there are hundred saying, but what about the ones demanding fiat? Is somebody scamming with cryptos, but what about those scamming with fiat?

I don't get why people are so triggered and immediately try to show something that is worse than bitcoin, as I said before, yeah, it's used in various ways, evil and good, does it make it bad or good? It's just a tool and a piece of code, people will use it as they see it fit. You can't have a thing that protects your money from confiscation by the government used only by people that pay their taxes in full willingly