Chainanalysis: s brief report about crypto laundering

[o_e_l_e_o]

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Absolutely. As I said, difficult to answer since we don't really have comparable figures.

That is true. But it's minuscule simply because global usage of bitcoin/crypto for payments in general is minuscule. I expect usage for laundering purposes to skyrocket as bitcoin/crypto usage increases in the long-term.

I'm not sure that's true. If bitcoin was this magical panacea for money launderers, as the government and banks like to portray it as, then why isn't the vast majority of global money laundering already using it? There is plenty of volume and plenty of off ramps to support billions or even trillions of dollars in money laundering. The bottom line is that cash remains, by far, the chosen method of money launderers.

Yes, with more crypto usage there will be more money laundering, but I'm not convinced it will "skyrocket".

Money laundering is part and parcel of the package of cryptocurrency adoption. Bitcoin is a currency. There is no way to make sure every single Satoshi is used in the right and ethical way. Just like fiat itself.

Absolutely this. I like the way Andreas Antonopoulos put it when asked if it was a problem that bitcoin was used to by drugs. His answer was that drugs constitute the second biggest market in the world, and if you can't use your money in the second biggest market in the world, then what you have isn't money.

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[mk4]

I'm not sure that's true. If bitcoin was this magical panacea for money launderers, as the government and banks like to portray it as, then why isn't the vast majority of global money laundering already using it? There is plenty of volume and plenty of off ramps to support billions or even trillions of dollars in money laundering. The bottom line is that cash remains, by far, the chosen method of money launderers.

Yes, with more crypto usage there will be more money laundering, but I'm not convinced it will "skyrocket".

My assumption is just that once on/off ramps aren't necessary(when bitcoin/crypto gets actual heavy adoption in terms of day-to-day payments/transactions), laundering will rise/skyrocket simply due to the fact that they wouldn't need to touch KYC'd platforms.

Of course I do agree that cash is still the best for laundering.

[NotATether]

This is the result of Satoshi's vision! They just know how much, they don't know who is behind it.

But do you think crypto scam is more than fiat scam? Scam has always been existing before bitcoin was created.

I would imagine that what is considered laundering by governments and firms like chainanalysis, would not fit into the criminal definition of laundering - i.e, gaining from something illegal like scamming, hacking, drugs, etc and then trying to obfuscate the source of those funds. It's very possible that this statistic also includes transactions of people who are just trying to maintain their privacy without actually doing anything that would be considered criminal anywhere.

Would be ironic if they just labeled user-privacy enhancing in the "stolen funds" category.

To answer your question directly, fiat scam runs all the way to the top corporations whose products you probably use every day. "Scams" or anything that deceives and/or harms people to any scale, would be unparalleled when you compare cryptocurrency users and banks. Just take a look into HSBC's criminal history (and present), let alone any other bank. They are involved in more actual money laundering (let alone drug and other kinds of trafficking) than any statistic they could create and combine for the cryptocurrency market as a whole.

Most (young) people are resorting to online banking with fintechs because they don't trust the Big Old Banks anymore. Though it's more because those banks have crappy user experience and customer services than any knowledge about their past history.

[o_e_l_e_o]

My assumption is just that once on/off ramps aren't necessary(when bitcoin/crypto gets actual heavy adoption in terms of day-to-day payments/transactions), laundering will rise/skyrocket simply due to the fact that they wouldn't need to touch KYC'd platforms.

That's a fair point. My counter would be that people aren't laundering billions of dollars to then spend a few hundred bucks on day to day transactions like buying groceries or paying for gas. If you want to spend that kind of money, then you are looking at buying mansions, yachts, that kind of thing. I'm not exactly au fait with that kind of thing, but I imagine KYC and AML are fairly heavily involved.

Would be ironic if they just labeled user-privacy enhancing in the "stolen funds" category.

I mean, as I pointed out above they are already labeling any bitcoin touched by a company which the US government has sanctioned as "illicit". So the vast majority of bitcoin bought by Russian citizens via Russian exchanges is now "illicit", through absolutely zero fault of their own.

Imagine all your money suddenly being declared illegal and unspendable, by either your own government or even someone else's government on the other side of the world. Bitcoin fixes this, if you just avoid centralized scams exchanges.