A problem for El Salvador, how do you think it can be solved?

[Rruchi man]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

[Tytanowy Janusz]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

That's not the problem of El Salvador. Thats the problem of whole world but... did you forget whats the main value transfer medium for criminals? Cash. Banknotes. How does your country "control and keep in check the usage" of 100$ banknotes?

Or gold usage and transfer via border by rectum smugglers ? XD
https://nypost.com/2020/10/16/plane-passenger-caught-smuggling-gold-in-rectum-to-avoid-taxes/

[mk4]

You do realize though that cash is mostly going to be better for them, right? Bitcoin is traceable, cash isn't. People have been selling illegal drugs(both in large scale and small scale) since forever even without bitcoin. I mean, take a look at Pablo Escobar and El Chapo— freakin boatloads of money earned.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Transactions for drugs and for any other illicit activity like guns can be made with cash and it's far better if you want to have more fiat than bitcoins. If you did receive a large amount of BTC and wanted to cash them out, you'd be censored. Generally, once you reveal Bitcoin or any other crypto's ownership, the state can act accordingly. Unless you kept them; then it'd be the same like cash.

As for the money laundering, I think that it's been over-discussed. Just FYI, you could launder money with Bitcoin before it'd been accepted as a legal tender in El Salvador.

[Fesatmas]

the government of El Salvador must really work hard to solve this problem, and of course it is not easy, they will face various kinds of accusations, smuggling drugs, weapons and others. we understand the situation. but not necessarily El Salvador made a policy of legality of Bitcoin payments without taking into account the risks.
so I believe what has been the decision is already a challenge for the government of El Salvador.

[hatshepsut93]

Imagine a criminal using their dirty coins (even if they mixed) to order something from the Internet - now the online shop will know their address and identity and it's linked to those coins, and if investigators will trace them, it's as good as they have already caught the criminal. But when you pay in cash, it never gets linked to previous deals.

[sheenshane]

Probably the government of El Salvador trying to solve the problem of having a low cost and quick transaction across borders because as I have read, the largest percentage of their people didn't have access to traditional financial services, but this doesn't mean they will tolerate those elicit activities such fraud and smuggling or it might finance their terrorist using Bitcoin.

It might be also they saw how is the usage of Bitcoin compared to cash when everything is publicly transparent in all transactions that were made by Bitcoin.

I remember in the article once the President of El Salvador once said, criminals already used dollars and other valuable assets to launder money and the problem isn't the dollar, it is the criminals.

[Asuspawer09]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

We don't know how it is going to turn out but for sure there are problems that need to be solved, I think bitcoin will be a great currency for sure and I don't think that illegal transactions are going to go well in bitcoin since it could easily be trace just like what happened in some government or fraud cases where money are able to be recovered.

Bitcoin simple problems like transaction fees and speed could be a bigger problem but since it is just added as a national currency I just don't know if it is going to fit, maybe depending on the situation of every transaction but we're gonna see how it will end up.

It is still big news for bitcoin and this could easily be the start of bitcoin exploding, as 1 country already started to use bitcoin as a national currency all of the people in that country will be introduced to bitcoin.

[kryptqnick]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

It seems that crime rates are really high in El Salvador, but I don't think that making Bitcoin legal is going to increase the number of violent crimes. Since the crime rates are already high, I think the criminals are doing alright with fiat already, and this sort of thing should actually disprove the hypothesis that Bitcoin is deeply associated with crime. In terms of Bitcoin adoption, I really don't think this will be the biggest challenge for the country. Huge challenges are the infrastructure for truly accepting BTC as payment everywhere, Bitcoin volatility or a system of fast transfers to fiat and fixing prices in it. But the biggest challenge is probably the fees which, given El Salvador's poverty rates, can easily be more than they have for food for a day.

[herurist]

maybe the government of El Salvador will try to control things that will have a bad impact on the Bitcoin distribution system. or maybe the government will try to form some sort of investigative team. If that is not taken into account, it will be very worrying when problems like this hinder the early growth of the legality of Bitcoin as an official payment there.

[Little Mouse]

Without BTC, drug dealing, money laundering isn’t stopping. Still, a big portion of drug dealing are dealt with fiat currency. What's the point?
And there are services like chainanalysis which can help to make attempt to trace transaction and the person behind the transaction with so many data.

[Hydrogen]

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

The united states has had the ability to freeze accounts associated with illicit criminal activities for decades. It never did anything to deter drugs, weapons smuggling or any other illegal activity.

Banks have laundered money for terrorists, drug cartels and russia for a very long time. And never received more than minor fines for their trouble.

Cash is actually the best option for crime as it leaves no paper or electronic trail which can be traced. I think anyone who watched TV knows criminals ask for their money in "unmarked bills" cash.

There are no advantages to using bitcoin for money laundering or crime. And there are definitely some drawbacks and disadvantages. As we have witnessed with the colonial pipeline ransomware attack where almost all of the bitcon ransom funds were recovered by law enforcement.

US investigators recover a ‘majority’ of bitcoin ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline to Russian hackers

United States investigators recovered millions of dollars of cryptocurrency paid to Russian ransomware hackers in the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, the Justice Department revealed on Monday.

The FBI was able to recapture a portion of the ransom by obtaining a password to DarkSide’s Bitcoin account. Investigators seized $2.3 million of the $4.4 million paid to the ransomware group by court order from the account, according to court documents.

https://news.yahoo.com/us-investigators-recover-majority-ransom-193123878.html

[Renampun]

...

for a criminal thing like this, the whole world is still having a hard time dealing with it, not El Salvador alone...

long before there were Bitcoin, arms, drug, and money laundering traders had already used money, gold, and other valuables, so what's the difference with now. the advantage of bitcoin is that it has a blockchain where every transaction is recorded, as long as the perpetrator does not use a coin mixer, his/her wallet can be tracked.

[boyptc]

I would reverse the question about using USD or fiat. That's the same situation that they're dealing with even if bitcoin hasn't been declared as a legal tender.

I'll let that problem leave to the authorities and let them solve their own problem in that matter.

[Darker45]

This problem has been El Salvador's problem even before Bitcoin came into existence. At this point, we cannot tell for sure whether the adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender would in fact cause the proliferation of drug and weapon smuggling in the country. The adoption has just began. Perhaps we may revisit this question with statistics to back the findings after a few years.

However, to my mind, this is not going to be the case. If we are to believe the president's words, 70% of El Salvador's population is unbanked, which could mean to say people are using cash in their transactions. Cash is more anonymous than Bitcoin. It leaves no trace.

[Dhoe]

el salvador has legalized bitcoin,, and has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, with them legalizing bitcoin, it's only natural that the problems, challenges and risks they face are getting heavier, it's only natural that goods that can generate large profits have big profits . risk. Even the old fiat currency itself has a high risk, I'm sure the government of El Salvador must have prepared a solution to solve the problems they will face.. I'm sure El Salvador can..

[OcTradism]

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

It depends on the AML law in El Salvador and how effective the El Salvador governments can cooperate with governments from other nations. The world is flat and the Internet connect us very easily. With Bitcoin and crypto currency, transactions are borderless, cross-nations but problems with dark markets, money laundering, criminal activities don't prevent the mainstream adoption for Bitcoin and crypto currency.

They can develop their tracing tools or they can hire trusted companies that are competent with on-chain analyses to work for them.

You can not totally believe on governments, they can trace transactions and beat down criminals but governments themselves have many secret to hide from the public eyes.

[Dave1]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

I really thought that when I open the thread I will find a different facing problem for El Salvador since they have legalised bitcoin, like world governing body legal and economic concerns when they shift to BTC.

Anyhow, I would agree that this could be a problem, but just like fiat and the rest of the world, we all have drug problems. Every country from Asia to Africa is fighting this cause. So maybe El Salvador government will have to form some kind of agency to deal and handle such cases.

[cabron]

I have watched youtube videos and read into some of the articles about El Salvador discussions related to BTC but I have not really learned what they are actually doing and plans.

But if they are going to be using BTC every day in paying for every transaction, they might just use the government-sponsored wallet app which also asks KYC and perhaps using LN wallets.

[Sithara007]

Since El Salvador has accepted bitcoin as a legal tender, we all know that there are some problems/challenges that will come with this new development.

First off, how do you think the government of El Salvador can help control and keep in check the usage of bitcoin in a manner that drug and weapons smugglers, as well as other criminals in their country don't be at an advantage, especially since it is virtually Impossible to get the exact real identity behind a wallet address since it can be opened with informations that are not particularly identifying unlike the banks, or to even freeze the bitcoin wallet of an individual or company for money laundering?

What a load of BS? In 99% of the cases fiat cash (in physical form) remains the preferred form of payment for the drug dealers and other criminals around the world. So what are the central banks (who issue fiat currency) doing to combat this issue? And regarding Bitcoin, all the transactions are stored in Blockchain and it is not as anonymous as fiat cash. Even if some criminal tries to cash out his coins, it can be easily tracked to him. The crime rate in El Salvador was extremely high even before BTC was made a legal tender. We will look in to it, if it goes up further due to BTC.