900,000 illegal bitcoins.

[Bitcoin_bullish]

The problem with the Bitcoins held by criminals and scammers is that their activities are rising and becoming more of a problem. There is a growing use of Bitcoin in the darknet markets and increasing concerns. This may be used by governments as an excuse to ban or regulate Bitcoin unfavorably.

The chart below shows the use of Bitcoin by the dark web markets. While this activity is rising Bitcoin will keep being seen as a method to facilitate transactions coming from illicit activities. Russia for example passed a law recently regulating cryptocurrencies but not allowing the Russian population to use them as a currency, which is their actual purpose.

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[imstillthebest]

And this numbers is only growing....

they are because illegal activities are always there and they only got stronger when market of cryptos are pumping  .  the known numbers are roughly close to 900k btc's but the the rest of btc belongs to legit transactions so its fine i guess ? while there are also btc that doesnt belong to someone else because they havent been mined yet but we can still do something like controlling the scams , hacks and other ilegal acts as early as possible  before those btc fall to wrong hands

[Dominic_Crypto]

Bitcoin is very actively used in the Dark Net. Therefore, there is no guarantee who had your coins in the past. It's the same as with paper dollars ... yesterday this money could be used to pay for drugs or weapons, and you got change with them in the supermarket. Because of this, you did not become a criminal.

[TimeTeller]

One day, all these bitcoins will somehow hit the market.  

It's very possible that our coins are already mixed with illegal coins those were marked on the addresses. You never know.

Does this worry you much?
It doesn't for me.

When we deal with cash, we do not know the source of that cash whether it came from an illegal or legal source one hand before me. I think the Bitcoin hatters are very active to plant the seeds in our head some day we will be in trouble. There will be time when we will not have these centralized exchanges with centralized fiat, there will be a time when we will not have any centralized financial system. Wait for those days.

PS: I am not encouraging those illegal Bitcoin traders by any means. I just think that nothing can stop Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is very actively used in the Dark Net. Therefore, there is no guarantee who had your coins in the past. It's the same as with paper dollars ... yesterday this money could be used to pay for drugs or weapons, and you got change with them in the supermarket. Because of this, you did not become a criminal.

Just like what Royse777 stated above. We have no idea where are our coins originated.
As long as you know you're not doing illegal activity, you are good to go and you don't have to worry.
Same with our fiat money, we don't know how many hands had it passed on.
And with crypto mixers, very likely that at some point we encountered some of those illegal bitcoins.

[desticy]

These are definitely interesting numbers, but it certainly doesn't come as any surprise to me that the numbers are this high.  I would love to see the numbers for fiat currency, they would be so far beyond these numbers it's not even funny. I think it's important people keep that in mind.

That would be the smartest indicative statistic for Fiat.
Even if this data is correct, it is less than 5% of the total amount of Bitcoins. Even if they hit the market at the same time, they won't change anything. First, their movements will be immediately noticed.
Secondly, if the price drops slightly due to the sale of these BTC, then this will be an excellent chance to increase the volume of BTC in your portfolio.

[friends1980]

Not quite sure what these figures are based on. I suppose these criminals didn't PM the writer of the article to let them know how much they have in their bags. The probable conclusion is therefore that these charts are based on stats, which I personally believe is crap.

Another important question, and people stated this before, is how you define "illegal". I think we all know the definition of "crime" but "illegal" as a concept is a lot larger than "crime".

This is however, in spite of the shortcomings of the original article, a very interesting discussion. (which I am not used to in the General Discussion Boards )

What about coins that were bought with legal money but not declared to the IRS? Are these coins illegal?

What about coins that were bought with money from gambling or prostitution in a country were gambling or prostitution are legal, but by someone who lives in a country were it is illegal? Are these coins illegal?

As you see, this deserves an in-depth discussion, which is way too large to be simply captured within the limitations of a simple chart.

[int03h]

I do not pay much attention to these because they will find a way to dissolve them into the market. Thousands of Bitcoin transactions are made every day. It could be done through exchanges, peer-to-peer, and they would certainly have to go through a mixer to make illegal money legal. Currently there are thousands of bitcoins that cannot be recovered from private wallets. I just look at their chart and believe bitcoin will continue to increase in value.

[goldade]

I do not think we need to be bothered as to where our coins originate from. Just like fiat, which have circulated so much that we do not care about it's origin, whether legal or illegal, we do not have to worry about the origins of the coins.
Trillions of fiat currencies have originated illegally and yet have found it's way into circulation that have gone through even many of us. As long as your coins aren't used for illegal purposes, I believe you're good to go

[0nline]

BTCBTC How about use those bitcoin for good purpose,