Why criminals prefer cash (Fiat) on top of crypto?

[Serious475]

Those crimes happen for both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, there are many crimes happen with cryptocurrencies, such as Ponzi schemes and money laundering but when we compared the number of crimes happen with fiat currency is greater than crypto because of the convenience and not all of the people are not really good about technology especially about cryptocurrency. The crimes can happen anytime and anywhere as long as they want to execute it.

This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

[Peanutswar]

Let's break down first the two types of possible criminals.
[1] Skills vs [2] Intelligence
1. The people who do not know what is cryptocurrency is most of the time they don't have any kind of idea what it is, most of the time what we are facing money? It is cash, right? because this is the common use for buying or trading for something, also this is the primary use of different countries for paying because this is according to the law that they need to make their own currency.
2. The people who know the use of cryptocurrency, they are knowledgeable about the technology so they know what is the cryptocurrency is they are the cybercriminals today like the hackers, and more.

I think this is the common reason why there are more likely criminals on the internet.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Those crimes happen for both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, there are many crimes happen with cryptocurrencies, such as Ponzi schemes and money laundering but when we compared the number of crimes happen with fiat currency is greater than crypto because of the convenience and not all of the people are not really good about technology especially about cryptocurrency. The crimes can happen anytime and anywhere as long as they want to execute it.

This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

Obviously cryptocurrency is blamed when someone used it to commit a crime (although researchers have found that only 1-2% of the Bitcoin transactions have any relation with contraband or crime). Fiat remains the currency of choice for the vast majority of the criminals and to this I haven't heard of anyone accusing the fiat currency for crime.

[Abiky]

I am not a criminal but I guess the reason is liquidity.

It is true that cryptocurrency is safer to use than any fiat right now since we will be able to avoid direct contacts but since we are talking about crimes, it doesn't matter. With their places limited to spend money right now and with Bitcoin's acceptability here in our country, I would still use fiat. Just imagine you buying drugs and offering criminals Bitcoin which they don't know or even see its value.

Exactly. Fiat is much easier to use and it's available anywhere in the world. Without the need for an Internet connection to use it, Fiat proves to be extremely convenient for anonymous transactions. Besides that, prices of Fiat currencies are relatively stable. You don't get this with crypto nowadays. Unless crypto becomes stable, easy to use, private, and independent from the current monetary system, it won't attract the likes of criminals in the mainstream world. At least, this is good news. That's largely because crypto's legitimate use cases will far surpass illegitimate ones. It could pave the way for mainstream governments to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender. But know this: once criminals start using crypto massively for illicit activities, governments will start cracking down the industry. Only then, crypto/Blockchain tech's growth in the mainstream world will stifle.

Time will tell us how far crypto will go as new developments arise in the industry.

Given that stablecoins are generally all centralized and can be created or frozen by their creators at will, they don't exactly lend themselves to a privacy orientated approach.

True. The only exception would be decentralized stablecoins like DAI and USDJ. All it takes is for a developer to create a privacy-oriented stablecoin that's decentralized and collaterized by crypto. I'm willing to see a private version of DAI in the future. Of course, a private stablecoin will become a reality if there's demand for something like it in the mainstream world. I guess that if this happens, criminals will abuse the system. Then, governments will force centralized exchanges to de-list privacy-oriented stablecoins which will lead to decreased adoption in the mainstream world. It'll still be possible to get access to them in-person or via decentralized exchange. But low liquidity will be an issue in this regard.

[DoublerHunter]

~snip~
This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

^ I don't believe this, since how many years past there is too many hacked exchange but until now none of them get caught by the authorities.
Once the hacker address mark as a scammer and blacklisted on many exchange sites, they will hardly to cash out this and transfer to their personal bank that leads to their personal identity. However, we can't deny the fact that even the bitcoin name has now, I am afraid that someday there is a heavy regulation of bitcoin usage.

[Quidat]

~snip~
This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

^ I don't believe this, since how many years past there is too many hacked exchange but until now none of them get caught by the authorities.
Once the hacker address mark as a scammer and blacklisted on many exchange sites, they will hardly to cash out this and transfer to their personal bank that leads to their personal identity. However, we can't deny the fact that even the bitcoin name has now, I am afraid that someday there is a heavy regulation of bitcoin usage.

Take for example on what happened in Kucoin hacking where there are funds that had been recovered due to some projects which can revert nor hold back assets which totally shows up on how centralized  it is but there
are coins that had already been cashed out and mixed up using dex ones.Not all coins are decentralized as we all know and it had proven out recently.Its just dumb that you would just simply cash out those hacked out funds into your exchange account that had been verified and thats considered suicide.The thing here is that criminals can really possibly erase up their trail for them not to be traced and thats why they do make transactions in crypto but in the end those would be converted to fiat.

[themohit]

Those crimes happen for both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, there are many crimes happen with cryptocurrencies, such as Ponzi schemes and money laundering but when we compared the number of crimes happen with fiat currency is greater than crypto because of the convenience and not all of the people are not really good about technology especially about cryptocurrency. The crimes can happen anytime and anywhere as long as they want to execute it.
This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

I guess you've answered the question which is in thread name.
Interestingly enough there is bias towards crypto because its somehow related to hacking and digital money crimes and money laundering.
But honestly we know about them only because it is trackable which is not the case for fiat

[shoreno]

Those crimes happen for both cryptocurrency and fiat currency, there are many crimes happen with cryptocurrencies, such as Ponzi schemes and money laundering but when we compared the number of crimes happen with fiat currency is greater than crypto because of the convenience and not all of the people are not really good about technology especially about cryptocurrency. The crimes can happen anytime and anywhere as long as they want to execute it.
This will be rough for the criminals if they will do some theft(crime) in crypto because there is a big chance that they may be tracked by authorities just like what is usually happening for the criminals online.

I guess you've answered the question which is in thread name.
Interestingly enough there is bias towards crypto because its somehow related to hacking and digital money crimes and money laundering.
But honestly we know about them only because it is trackable which is not the case for fiat

of course . we are here posting to give answer and the answer should be propriate to the topic. money laundering and money crimes can also happen to fiat but why not hacking ? this is possible . people or company can hire a hacker and pay those hackers with fiat but the popularity of online payments makes the best choice of hackers compare to fiat . online related crimes are already known before , not only because its trackable  . people that commit those crimes do also got caught or track but they didnt use a crypto but they use a fiat

[tvplus006]

Obviously, not all criminals appreciated the convenience of calculating and storing cryptocurrency. In order to pay for a criminal product or service, you no longer need to carry suitcases with Fiat. So I think that in the near future, criminals will use cryptocurrency more.

[Findingnemo]

Most of the cryptocurrencies are used for payment in the darkweb which is almost illegal activities on certain region or the whole world, but compared to the people using it the fist is more used because it is available in more quantity and different countries having different fiat money so criminals might be having comfortable to spend the earned money.

[Sapphire915]

Liquidating the privacy coins into fiat cash is one of the biggest barrier to them because they can't stay completely anonymous while using internet at some point they will leave their traces which could be never erasable.And also not much of those criminals doesn't know the existence of cryptos that is why they prefer hard cash over banking transactions.

I agree. This criminals will just preferred fiat/physical currency because its easy for them to use it, without any private keys and KYC to consider.Unlike Cryptocurrency, they can be trace as few mentioned here. I think, they will absolutely have a hard time on crypto and will be caught easily through their trace upon accessing the internet. Maybe a few could do well, especially if the criminals is an expert, but i doubt if he'll have a successful tansaction over the advance technology.

[lienfaye]

Using crypto has convenience but its much easier for them to use fiat instead because its not complicated you can runaway with it easily.

Unlike on crypto you need to withdraw it first, and you might get a problem if its a huge amount.

But this depends on the criminals because even in crypto, bad deed of these people are also existing.

[Maroons]

Using crypto has convenience but its much easier for them to use fiat instead because its not complicated you can runaway with it easily.

Unlike on crypto you need to withdraw it first, and you might get a problem if its a huge amount.

But this depends on the criminals because even in crypto, bad deed of these people are also existing.

Its not that criminals prefers fiat money over cryptocurrency its just majority of the criminals out there are still into fiat, they aren't adopting yet but when they do they will be more dangerous for it will be hard to investigate them due to the nature of crypto transactions, a lot of criminals lurks in place where we don't know and uses full capability of crypto for their evil schemes thats why we need to educate people about crypto and how this works so that they won't be taking advantage of the minority of knowledgable people about crypto.

[3meek]

Criminals choose fiat currencies because it remains the most private currency at the moment! This is the hardest (almost impossible) to track! Fiat is accepted everywhere!
Although cryptovalues are also a good aid, though they are difficult to exchange for fiat (LOL) and it's not accepted everywhere!

[sarmrakib]

Criminals choose fiat currencies because it remains the most private currency at the moment! This is the hardest (almost impossible) to track! Fiat is accepted everywhere!
Although cryptovalues are also a good aid, though they are difficult to exchange for fiat (LOL) and it's not accepted everywhere!

Criminal feel secured to use Fiat as it is don't need to exchange. But i think they also use crypto now to store their asset for future. That's why most of the Criminal are using crypto now.    

[coolcoinz]

Most people are dumb and most criminals are also dumb so the use of crypto will always be limited.
Just think about it for a moment. White collar crimes are maybe 1% of all crimes. The majority of criminals prefer to mug you in an alley tahn carefully plan a ponzi scheme or a bank fraud. Those muggers who have eyes on your wallet, phone and watch will not play around with cryptocurrencies. They don't need to.

[jostorres]

If everyone agrees that criminals already use crypto, why don't we look at how much? I mean they do use crypto in a very minuscule amount, most of the illegal trade in the world still happens with dollars, which means us dollars is still number one option for everything illegal and that means we are talking about something major here about how vulnerable dollar is towards criminal usage. Does anyone say that us dollar should be stopped or should be worried about criminals using it?

Pablo Escobar literally lost 2 thousand dollars just on rubber bands for his dollars, he was that rich in dollars, estimates go as far as 20 billion dollars. However when it is crypto instead of dollars everyone acts like the problem is with the currency, it is not cryptos fault that criminals use it, same as it is not dollars fault neither.

[lumeire]

Criminals choose fiat currencies because it remains the most private currency at the moment! This is the hardest (almost impossible) to track! Fiat is accepted everywhere!
Although cryptovalues are also a good aid, though they are difficult to exchange for fiat (LOL) and it's not accepted everywhere!

The most important thing for criminals is to launder the I'll gained money and that is way too easy to do if the money is in cash as compared to cryptocurrencies. Do everyone here think that the criminals even know how to use a computer properly, most of them only know the use of guns n all. Also Cryptocurrencies are only good for those criminals that are using internet as a means of their livelihood where they can earn money in a pretty anonymous way by taking bitcoins instead of paypal or other methods that aren't anonymous at all.

[20kevin20]

Criminal feel secured to use Fiat as it is don't need to exchange. But i think they also use crypto now to store their asset for future. That's why most of the Criminal are using crypto now.    

Criminals are known to be less intelligent than non-criminals. In order to obtain crypto through your crimes, you have to work with other parties using cryptocurrencies as well. That means, you either get paid, pay or steal cryptocurrencies one way or another.

Cybercrimes do require a slightly higher level or knowledge, or a lot of luck (here I'm talking about thefts like exchange hacks). But the majority of general crimes are not related to the digital world - most of them probably do not even have any idea how BTC or XMR works.. most of them probably do not even have much general education or are school/highschool dropouts.

We don't even need studies or any kind of proof to know that BTC isn't a criminal's choice of currency. It's just logics.

[worldofcoins]

Criminals choose fiat currencies because it remains the most private currency at the moment! This is the hardest (almost impossible) to track! Fiat is accepted everywhere!
Although cryptovalues are also a good aid, though they are difficult to exchange for fiat (LOL) and it's not accepted everywhere!

Criminals will start using it once they came to know how it works.
For example here French police arrest terror financing ring that used Bitcoin coupons .
The biggest disadvantage of bitcoins is no one knows where's your money gone?.
If every criminal came to know they'll never use fiat for dealing with drugs or legal things.
The future may be worst and bitcoin can be considered as illegal currency