Use of cryptocurrencies, a concern – IMF

[Charles-Tim]

I am so curious that many people do not know or research properly about bitcoin and many other crypto assets, they only know little about them and dipicting them bad to people. Normally, there are two types of cryptocurrencies  in term of psuedonymity and anonymity, they are:

1. The ones with public ledger which transactions can be seen by everyone on blockchain. Example is bitcoin
2. The ones that are are completely anonymous in which transactions are not designed to be tracked

I believe people that know about cryptocurrencies should focus on these while saying cryptocurrencies are used for for terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling. Although, pseudonymous cryptocurrencies  can raise a concern but not like anonymous coins, that is why some exchanges are delisting anonymous cryptocurrencies, because their transactions can not be tracked.

The International Monetary Fund has called for caution in the use of cryptocurrencies, describing it as a concern. It disclosed this during a virtual briefing on the recently published 2020 Article IV IMF Staff Report for Nigeria. The Resident Representative of IMF for Nigeria, Ari Aisen, said the concern on the use of cryptocurrencies was why many central banks were cautious about the development.

“That is why some central banks, not only in Nigeria, have these concerns about what kind of activities these cryptocurrencies are put and how best to monitor those activities.” Aisen noted that some of the activities might be illegal or related to money laundering and drug peddling.

Is the above quote meaningful? I do not see it meaningful at all. Some people are not concerned about privacy and make use of exchange for crypto purchase, while many providing kyc all because exchanges are making it mandatory to do. Many people do not like exchanges because they are making people not to have privacy. Is it not proper for the government to have laws that will make exchanges be able to track crypto transactions rather than banning it. That is why I like countries like USA that do not ban cryptocurrencies  but regulating it. As fiat is, it is most used in all these (terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling).

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

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[Coyster]

Is it not proper for the government to have laws that will make exchanges be able to track crypto transactions rather than banning it.

The Government can already track crypto users with the aid of exchanges since they are centralized, and can answer to the request of the government to disclose the identity of a customer should any need arise for that, tbh, I don't think there should be any concern on the use of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is now being adopted by renowned institutional Investors/companies, prominent individuals and the rest, that's quite an indicator that Bitcoin is not a coin for money laundering or the likes of that, but a currency, investment, a hedge against fiat inflation/devaluation, and prolly the government are only concerned cause it gives it's users control, freedom from manipulation, makes them their own bank etc, something that'll never be possible with fiat.

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

Of course they are, the thing about P2p is that it's risky for newcomers, they will prolly find it easier/safer buying Bitcoin from exchange, than from an individual, cause as newcomers they would prolly not be abreast with security protocols, but other than than, P2p is great.

[Charles-Tim]

Of course they are, the thing about P2p is that it's risky for newcomers, they will prolly find it easier/safer buying Bitcoin from exchange, than from an individual, cause as newcomers they would prolly not be abreast with security protocols, but other than than, P2p is great.

P2p can be risky for newbies if using an exchange that is not recommendable. In this regard, I am not implying meeting people physically that might result to physical attack, but referring to using p2p exchanges. Exchanges nowadays have made it simple, clearly stating it that before releasing bitcoin from escrow, that it should be ensured the buyer have paid. Which means the seller should make sure the money has been received and confirmed. Also, if the money have been paid, the seller should release the bitcoin from escrow, if not released within the time frame, the buyer can make a report. Like me, I prefer p2p to bank transfers.

[Fesatmas]

The Government can already track crypto users with the aid of exchanges since they are centralized, and can answer to the request of the government to disclose the identity of a customer should any need arise for that, tbh, I don't think there should be any concern on the use of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is now being adopted by renowned institutional Investors/companies, prominent individuals and the rest, that's quite an indicator that Bitcoin is not a coin for money laundering or the likes of that, but a currency, investment, a hedge against fiat inflation/devaluation, and prolly the government are only concerned cause it gives it's users control, freedom from manipulation, makes them their own bank etc, something that'll never be possible with fiat.

and I will just add, that before the official domestic exchange becomes legal, then automatically personal data and all data of a person's interests will be entered into government records, usually this has been approved by the minister of finance and trade. So the stock exchange manager and the government agree to have data on anyone who is indicated to have carried out a suspicious transaction. So what you are saying is true, no more worrying about transactions being so easily detected. unless the platform is still considered illegal, it will be highly vulnerable as money laundering for terrorists etc. whereas in countries that have legalized crypto exchanges it has become an alliance between the platform and the government.

[Ucy]

Bitcoin is built to be anonymous. It's probably not as anonymous as the "dark/non-transparent" cryptocurrencies due to its transparency and other reasons.
People need to understand that Anonymity (safe Anonymity) is part of their natural right and could be useful in keeping them safe from tyrants/evil. You don't handover the right to them in order to be accepted. The deal you make with them on the behalf of Bitcoin users must be fair for both parties (Network Participants/users and your opponents)

From old Bitcoin.org publication:

"Participants can be anonymous."
- Satoshi
https://archive.fo/0BPpp
01 Nov 2008

It's most likely possible that satoshi allowed anonymity due to the safety of users in difficult societies, to help keep Bitcoin antifragile and difficult to attack successfully.

[Coinsfera]

I believe people that know about cryptocurrencies should focus on these while saying cryptocurrencies are used for for terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling. Although, pseudonymous cryptocurrencies  can raise a concern but not like anonymous coins, that is why some exchanges are delisting anonymous cryptocurrencies, because their transactions can not be tracked.

The International Monetary Fund has called for caution in the use of cryptocurrencies, describing it as a concern. It disclosed this during a virtual briefing on the recently published 2020 Article IV IMF Staff Report for Nigeria. The Resident Representative of IMF for Nigeria, Ari Aisen, said the concern on the use of cryptocurrencies was why many central banks were cautious about the development.
“That is why some central banks, not only in Nigeria, have these concerns about what kind of activities these cryptocurrencies are put and how best to monitor those activities.” Aisen noted that some of the activities might be illegal or related to money laundering and drug peddling.

Is the above quote meaningful? I do not see it meaningful at all. Some people are not concerned about privacy and make use of exchange for crypto purchase, while many providing kyc all because exchanges are making it mandatory to do. Many people do not like exchanges because they are making people not to have privacy. Is it not proper for the government to have laws that will make exchanges be able to track crypto transactions rather than banning it. That is why I like countries like USA that do not ban cryptocurrencies  but regulating it. As fiat is, it is most used in all these (terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling).
Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

Governments are old-fashioned in the ideas. They want to be the one that controls everyone and everything in their borders. Even without cryptocurrencies, they cannot accomplish their goals. There will be always someone or something that will work without the government knowing. They put their inability of monitoring actions in the country to the cryptocurrencies. Banning or regulating will not decrease malicious actions. People will always find other ways to work secretly. However, cryptocurrencies are not created for working secretly or for malicious parties. The blockchain is public and you can see who paid to whom. But in traditional finance, we cannot see which malicious acts happen currently. Bitcoin is futuristic let's see whether they change their minds.

[andulolika]

Those fuckers that talk just to talk are most annoying and harmfull to cryptos.

[DarkIT]

I am so curious that many people do not know or research properly about bitcoin and many other crypto assets, they only know little about them and dipicting them bad to people. Normally, there are two types of cryptocurrencies  in term of psuedonymity and anonymity, they are:

1. The ones with public ledger which transactions can be seen by everyone on blockchain. Example is bitcoin
2. The ones that are are completely anonymous in which transactions are not designed to be tracked

I believe people that know about cryptocurrencies should focus on these while saying cryptocurrencies are used for for terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling. Although, pseudonymous cryptocurrencies  can raise a concern but not like anonymous coins, that is why some exchanges are delisting anonymous cryptocurrencies, because their transactions can not be tracked.

The International Monetary Fund has called for caution in the use of cryptocurrencies, describing it as a concern. It disclosed this during a virtual briefing on the recently published 2020 Article IV IMF Staff Report for Nigeria. The Resident Representative of IMF for Nigeria, Ari Aisen, said the concern on the use of cryptocurrencies was why many central banks were cautious about the development.

“That is why some central banks, not only in Nigeria, have these concerns about what kind of activities these cryptocurrencies are put and how best to monitor those activities.” Aisen noted that some of the activities might be illegal or related to money laundering and drug peddling.

Is the above quote meaningful? I do not see it meaningful at all. Some people are not concerned about privacy and make use of exchange for crypto purchase, while many providing kyc all because exchanges are making it mandatory to do. Many people do not like exchanges because they are making people not to have privacy. Is it not proper for the government to have laws that will make exchanges be able to track crypto transactions rather than banning it. That is why I like countries like USA that do not ban cryptocurrencies  but regulating it. As fiat is, it is most used in all these (terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling).

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

Before it was hrd to track the flow of cryptocurrency. Byt now it was in different manner. By using the Etherscn.io we can almost track the flow of crytocurrency. May be we can't find the address link to which person. But if you know the address of particular person, we can easily find the incoming transaction to the address .

[magneto]

Is the above quote meaningful? I do not see it meaningful at all. Some people are not concerned about privacy and make use of exchange for crypto purchase, while many providing kyc all because exchanges are making it mandatory to do. Many people do not like exchanges because they are making people not to have privacy. Is it not proper for the government to have laws that will make exchanges be able to track crypto transactions rather than banning it. That is why I like countries like USA that do not ban cryptocurrencies  but regulating it. As fiat is, it is most used in all these (terrorism financing, money laundering and drug peddling).

This is all completely bogus.

You're absolutely right. Their argument is flawed in that essentially what they are saying is since BTC can be used as a means of transaction for illegal entities, then it must be banned.

That is a classic fallacy where the argument stems from an overgeneralisation from a very specific and nowadays increasingly obsolete use case of cryptos due to the introduction of so many institutions into the field.

By this logic, gift cards should be banned because of the high levels of fraud associated with them (and I think Hydrogen posted a nice article a while back regarding this). Heck, bank transfers should be banned altogether because it facilitates certain transactions with tax evasion, money laundering... etc. etc.

It is only that they want to restrict access to decentralised assets that they are making these meaningless statements. No other reason.

[Xavofat]

Bitcoin is built to be anonymous.

No, it's built to be pseudonymous, but it's very difficult to keep transactions pseudonymous because many people have revealed some kind of identifying information about themselves in connection with their address on the Internet.  Especially with exchanges that have KYC in place, governments and others can draw connections between known Bitcoin users and the people that they are sending Bitcoin to.

Satoshi did not claim that Bitcoin is an anonymous system, rather that the possibility to be anonymous or pseudonymous relies on you not revealing any identifying information about yourself in connection to the Bitcoin address you use.

[BIT-BENDER]

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

That's what happened in Nigeria, what the government don't know it's that they Ban themselves, and not Bitcoiner from crypto-currency, and if any country knows any better than Banning crypto-currency then they would know a Ban can't make a Bitcoiner leave Bitcoin or crypto-currency, but alternative options that are available to them then they link/connect with it and peer2peer is an alternative.

[dothebeats]

They are still pondering about the illegal activities surrounding cryptocurrencies, though they weren't even able to create guidelines and best practices to limit the use of crypto in an illegal setting or to have an individual find himself in a tight spot with crypto. It seems like the representative tried to justify what Nigeria did on crypto, without having to put out some good reasons, just that it's inherently 'bad' because it 'can be used to something illegal' and that's it.

It would be nice if they are sharing other things that could be improved and be better, together with their criticisms of cryptocurrencies. But all they do is throw unjustified worry about crypto turning from worse to worst.

[whyrqa]

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

That's what happened in Nigeria, what the government don't know it's that they Ban themselves, and not Bitcoiner from crypto-currency, and if any country knows any better than Banning crypto-currency then they would know a Ban can't make a Bitcoiner leave Bitcoin or crypto-currency, but alternative options that are available to them then they link/connect with it and peer2peer is an alternative.

The fact is that in Nigeria today there are a lot of questions regarding the use and trade of cryptocurrency, especially about the use of p2p by users of the cryptocurrency of that region, because the government in this situation is not so categorical. In addition, the turnover of cryptocurrency in this region is quite large, and one way or another, this week in Nigeria a new maximum of bitcoin was recorded at $ 76,000. But I don’t understand and wonder what is the reason?

[LUCKMCFLY]

I think that everything comes down to the basics, control and business models, worldwide it is known that both banks and governments want to have control of money, their liquidity is everything, no matter the debt that is generated or how much there are many people who lose their houses through the loss of their mortgages and arrive at situations where they depend faithfully on the world economic system. Everything that threatens not to be in control is like cryptocurrency to superman the economy of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, since there is a lot of money that is in the market capitalization, and the fact of not being supported as well as the actions of the stock market for they are not safe, and prefer to stay away from volatility and focus on the safe.

Insurance is not bad, like investments in the stock market or investment in gold, but the fact that a market depends on the action of the Law of Supply and Demand, of emotions and of Strong Hands that can mostly be tech enthusiasts, it doesn't give them confidence. I think these are a primary reason for mistrust. And based on the fact that the IMF is a body of respect worldwide, it can make these types of affirmations.

[fiulpro]

I do think that if a crypto currency is saying that is anonymous they are not even concerned with the facts that the banks and their every account is linked and is being tracked. What I do think is , if people are going to make an anonymous Crypto they would have to do transactions in fiat!!! ( More of a reason so as why fiat more dangerous than cryptocurrencies)
Why is the government not worried about the cash in the first place ? People literally stuff money in their houses in corrupted nations and it's so weird that the tax authorities literally put a blind eye to such individuals. The COVID fUND itself was something which never reached people 90% was itself lost to the corruption and then people talk about cryptos being bad for the society.

You can't track the cash , the money , but you can try and track the crypto market and the virgin coins also the moment they make any transaction would be available to the public , what are people worried about in the first place ??

They are just scared go loose control , to loose dominance to give people financial freedom for real because if this happens then their long years of " rich getting richer and poor getting poorer won't work "

[ChiBitCTy]

I see this as a concern to some extent.  As you mentioned, there is no way you could ever ban cryptocurrency because there will always be the OTC ( over the counter ) trading that is absolutely impossible to stop, not to mention the rise of decentralized exchanges that will surely change the game as well.

But..there are a good amount of people who still believe bitcoin is anonymous and that is bad for bitcoin.  I think coins like Monero are amazing but I have a fear that they will end up being banned by quite a bit of countries ( think about it, many countries don't allow for women to vote or show their face in public, or allow people to have freedom of religion etc.).  So while I think most countries will understand that bitcoin and monero , for example, are two very different things, but others will use the anonymity of Monero/Zcash etc as an excuse to "ban" crypto overall.

[DrBeer]

Blockchain technology with transparent transactions, such as Bitcoin, looks much more "legitimate" than, for example, bank transactions covered by the privacy law of account holders. If the IMF is so afraid of the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, then let it open up access to the banking system so that you can see account balances, transactions, and owner data? Or here, in the banking sector, is anonymity correct and in the blockchain technology not correct?

[so98nn]

Central banks that ban bitcoin only encouraging p2p.

After reading your post and at the last this statement hit me hard!! Nonetheless they might be thinking about it in the background but since p2p work based on the mutual consent no one can surely track down whether this is crypto transaction or not. It could be just normal business sending money, or relatives getting their money back from other relatives etc etc.

But this will eventually have worst effect on economy if it happened on mass level. The reason is simple, p2p transactions might be shown as temporary money, lenders money, emergency or anything which may not get taxed at the year end thus its loss of government itself.

[Febo]

Only way for any government t have some control over transactions of opaque ledger cryptocurrencies is that people trade them on regulated exchanges. If they ban them then that cant happen anymore. People will use decentralised exchanges and atomic swaps and Governments will lose all control over all transactions that their citizens make.  But maybe that is inevitable anyway.

[oHnK]

The central bank in my country also prohibits cryptocurrency transactions as a medium of exchange, but the government allows it as a commodity.  At least with the legalization of Bitcoin, the government has the ability to monitor transactions carried out in my country through its exchangers.  But it is not denied, there are still many who carry out p2p transactions for quite confidential purposes. What is important is that every country that bans Bitcoin and other cryptos is a country that is lazy to make regulations.  And the economists are the less literate.