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Comment by ShamelessC | Hacker News Reader

I don't know much about bitcoin, but how hard would it be to actually exchange that money for US dollars?

Small amounts are somewhat easy to exchange, if you want to exchange millions it gets much, much more difficult since you have to explain the source of funds to the exchanges and banks involved. If you have hacked them they will use blockchain analysis etc.

they will use blockchain analysis

Tumbling the coins would help with this, right?

If you have to explain where it's from it may be more suspicious if it looks like you took steps to hide the origin, calling for even more detailed proofs.

Does any currently operating exchange actually care about the origin of coins?

Most of them [exchanges]]will have tagged stolen coins from known hacks so when they are deposited the account is flagged/locked.

Tumblers/mixers are the most likely place to pick these up.

If you're in the US getting dollars wouldn't be hard.

Laundering it appropriately that wouldn't raise questions might be a bigger issue. By no means impossible but a challenge that all by itself could get you in trouble.

It'd probably be easier to just withdraw a small monthly amount (<500$) to pay for bills and such. I'd be a good way to pay for non-essential things, maybe even rent.

If you're small-scale then this works. I imagine big wallets are being tracked by governments, you probably don't want to create a log that can be traced to you.

Ultimately, big-scale heists will always need money laundering.

Laundering on a blockchain should be fairly simple (Monero or ZCash can be used to filter the money).

ShapeShift was popular with ETH thieves. Convert & tumble. Not sure now with ShapeShift moving towards KYC requirements.

doesn't seem that hard, launder it through mixers and then sell it on unregulated exchanges at a discount, maybe use localbitcoins too.

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