NFT for money laundering?

[bbc.reporter]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

However, the lawmakers are beginning to crackdown on the art market. I reckon for the first time in the cryptospace, the government might be there ready, waiting in advance and backed with regulations hehehe.



This year, the treasury department is expected to complete a study on whether there is evidence of money laundering in the broader art market. The Senate banking committee will then use the findings to determine whether the same anti-money laundering provisions applied to antiquities dealers should apply to all art dealers.

According to one art law attorney, the outcome of that study is “a foregone conclusion: an alliance of government regulators, class-conscious legislators, and art market critics will seize upon the opportunity to convince the Biden cabinet to regulate the art business,” says Michael McCullough of the New York firm Pearlstein and McCullough.

Read in full https://news.artnet.com/art-world/what-will-stricter-us-oversight-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081

[Tytanowy Janusz]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

However, the lawmakers are beginning to crackdown on the art market. I reckon for the first time in the cryptospace, the government might be there ready, waiting in advance and backed with regulations hehehe.

Yep. People are speculating on NFTs, buying jpg images for thousends $ hoping to catch a next 1 mln $ nft not knowing that 99% of the most expensive NFTs are just fake trades to launder money making odds of success much lower than they think.

NFTs are so far the easiest way to launder money in crypto that I know. all you need to do is create an image and buy it using your scam money. Done. You have clean money from selling NFT now.

[avikz]

NFT is indeed a speculative asset and it's no wonder that it could be very well used for money laundering. Criminals will always find ways to chrat the system and with NFT and privacy coins, it has now even become easier than ever.

NFT is a strange market already where people are buying jpg files for millions of dollars which you can't even physically see or feel. Isn't it stupid? Criminals can now create a shit art and sell it for millions to a pre-defined buyer through cryptos. Black money becomes white for the seller and money is transferred for the buyer. The ownership of a jgp changes and who know what happened in background.

[budlo]

Of course now it is possible but money can be laundered in other ways. Companies that monitor blockchains and try to identify users are already starting to work with nft. I think in the future this method will be less popular than now just because of such companies.

[OcTradism]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

The high value of NFT and the growth of those NFT projects have something behind that we don't know or at least I don't know.

There are companies, institutes, corporations invest into NFT projects. There are people who do the same as retail investors. With NFT, you can sell them on decentralized exchanges, martketplaces and make the trace of transactions, money become more difficult.

I don't think people who want to do money laundering will skip NFT. They will do like it and use it for their activities.

[Yudhisthir]

Of many ways of money laundering, arts and crypto are some prominent ones. And NFT combines the goodness of both.
A real mostly doesn't depreciate in value. Making it a stable and profitable investments. People laundering money buy art from different countries (Argentina) and store them some place safe (Switzerland) just for the expectation of monetarily gain and turning the black money into white. NFT's would be the same and you don't need to transport them or let others store it for a fee.

[DeathAngel]

NFT’s are a scam mostly in my opinion. People sell NFT’s to themselves using multiple seller accounts. They artificially inflate the price of their NFT by selling it to themselves for a lot of money. They then re-list the NFT & hope some rich idiot falls for it & buys it.

I mean come on, who wants to pay several hundred thousand $ for an image. It’s not art, it’s a scam.

[tyz]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

The whole crypto space is vulnerable to money laundering. And the fact that the NFT market, as part of the crypto market, is also susceptible to money laundering should not be new knowledge. I mean, if even the offline art market is frequently used for money laundering, and the regulators haven't gotten a handle on that yet, then it's very likely that they can't do anything about the decentralized online art market at all, even if law enforcement wanted to.

[towi078]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

However, the lawmakers are beginning to crackdown on the art market. I reckon for the first time in the cryptospace, the government might be there ready, waiting in advance and backed with regulations hehehe.



This year, the treasury department is expected to complete a study on whether there is evidence of money laundering in the broader art market. The Senate banking committee will then use the findings to determine whether the same anti-money laundering provisions applied to antiquities dealers should apply to all art dealers.

According to one art law attorney, the outcome of that study is “a foregone conclusion: an alliance of government regulators, class-conscious legislators, and art market critics will seize upon the opportunity to convince the Biden cabinet to regulate the art business,” says Michael McCullough of the New York firm Pearlstein and McCullough.

Read in full https://news.artnet.com/art-world/what-will-stricter-us-oversight-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081

Since the NFT boom, eventually there will be bad actors who use it for their benefit.  One of them is a means for money laundering.  Especially by looking at the prices of some very expensive NFTs, it doesn't seem reasonable.  I think it's only natural, if the government finally takes action

[TravelMug]

Yes!, the premise has some weight on it. I mean criminals can just put their money and buy some NFT to hide or make clean the dirty money they have, similar to what mixing services is.

So for sure, they are going to come hard on NFT's, of course, not everyone is a target, but for those who are taking advantage of "investing" on NFT to recycle money then that is something that the government are going to look at, specially that there are a lot of hype of NFT still up to this day.

[jrrsparkles]

Well, this might be risky way too since NFT is not a stable asset compared to cryptocurrencies but this might bring another chaos to the regulators who don't know how to handle such assets. In my opinion NFT is not going to last long so this won't be a problem in long run.

[OrangeII]

NFT’s are a scam mostly in my opinion. People sell NFT’s to themselves using multiple seller accounts. They artificially inflate the price of their NFT by selling it to themselves for a lot of money. They then re-list the NFT & hope some rich idiot falls for it & buys it.

I mean come on, who wants to pay several hundred thousand $ for an image. It’s not art, it’s a scam.

I also thought the same thing. why would they buy such a thing at such a high price. however, I may have a positive view of this. maybe they are thinking of owning NFT art and selling it at a high price. we know that artists can even sell canvas with less ink. however, I don't know how artists think, so maybe some things they can interpret as art. therefore, it is expensive. well, who knew anyone would be interested in buying such a thing at such a high price.
I'm not saying it's a scam, but normally, and personally, I wouldn't buy an image NFT at a very high price either.

[Kavelj22]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

The whole crypto space is vulnerable to money laundering. And the fact that the NFT market, as part of the crypto market, is also susceptible to money laundering should not be new knowledge. I mean, if even the offline art market is frequently used for money laundering, and the regulators haven't gotten a handle on that yet, then it's very likely that they can't do anything about the decentralized online art market at all, even if law enforcement wanted to.

I can well understand your point view and adopt it. But this brought to my mind another question, what govs and security institutions can do against this kind of money laundering except to forbid all kind of digital art trade? In the same field, using art works for money laundering isn't reserved for NFTs or digital arts in general, but it may contain almost all kind of arts. So how to verify that such an art product isn't made for suspect activity to launder dirty money?

[herurist]

Things like this will of course always be used because it is to legally avoid taxes and even a few days ago there was some news that said there was an nft work that was paid for with fantastic figures but after being traced it turned out to be a colleague who bought it himself, this proves that they are taking advantage of the hype happening for their own benefit.
because apart from avoiding taxes this can also create a good strategy to make the impression that the NFT is of high value and they may bring other investors to follow it.
without realizing it is this kind of thing that destroys the hype.

[tabas]

The same with the physical arts, there were criticisms that how they're being valued so the NFT market as well. I'll wait until the first government that has unveiled someone who did tax evasion and money laundering that have thrown his money into NFTs.

[Fatunad]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

However, the lawmakers are beginning to crackdown on the art market. I reckon for the first time in the cryptospace, the government might be there ready, waiting in advance and backed with regulations hehehe.

When we do talk about money laundering then it could really be applied or would use up something as long it would able to do so including NFT's if ever there are people whom do consider on launder money
on using up this method but just like on what others been saying that these are speculative assets.You wouldnt know if in the future they would really be valuing that much or would be having a sharp
drop after making out some accumulation or ownership thats why its really a big risk for those who do tend such thing because you wouldnt know on what comes next.

[samcrypto]

The same with the physical arts, there were criticisms that how they're being valued so the NFT market as well. I'll wait until the first government that has unveiled someone who did tax evasion and money laundering that have thrown his money into NFTs.

Government will surely look into that and laundering can happen anywhere its just that NFT is on a trend right now and this reason might be enough to kill the hype for NFT.

Money laundering and a negative statement from any government will surely create panic on NFTs, which i see as a normal process to create FUD. Though for now there’s nothing to worry about since it is not on the headlines yet and the NFT market is still up trend.

[dothebeats]

It's not far from reality IMO. The NFT space, especially art NFTs, have been used by some money launderers already and no one really dare say anything. For sure the governments already have their eye on NFTs as it's yet another avenue for illicit traders and money launderers to carry on their schemes. I would not be surprised if a report surfaces that over hundreds of millions of dollars have already been moved on the NFT space that are involved in money laundering. 

[tabas]

The same with the physical arts, there were criticisms that how they're being valued so the NFT market as well. I'll wait until the first government that has unveiled someone who did tax evasion and money laundering that have thrown his money into NFTs.

Government will surely look into that and laundering can happen anywhere its just that NFT is on a trend right now and this reason might be enough to kill the hype for NFT.

Money laundering and a negative statement from any government will surely create panic on NFTs, which i see as a normal process to create FUD. Though for now there’s nothing to worry about since it is not on the headlines yet and the NFT market is still up trend.

That's for sure but we'll see if their own market will stand firm and unlikely to be shaken by the government once they're already in it. Unlike the usual crypto market, there have been a lot of FUDs and bad news from the government from each countries and affected the market directly.
But it has recovered eventually.

[eaLiTy]

I have speculated that NFT will be the next part of the cryptospace where much of the money laundering and tax evasion might occur. Why is this? This is because NFT is art and much of the art world is unregulated.

Why do you think that cryptocurrency space is used for money laundering and tax evasion. In any market space you will find people doing illegal activities including tax invasion and money laundering. The NFT art is registered in the blockchain and it is hard to hide them unlike physical art that are not in the blockchain.

However, the lawmakers are beginning to crackdown on the art market. I reckon for the first time in the cryptospace, the government might be there ready, waiting in advance and backed with regulations hehehe.

If you think that the government will be well equipped to crack down on the art market they can very well do the same in any other cryptocurrency market as well.