Alright, so walk me through it because I don't see how it's easier to wash than other ill-gained funds like cash.
You robbed someone and now you sit on $200M worth of Bitcoin. How you unload them so you have cash you can use, when every transaction is traceable and any exchange willing to trade for those amounts do KYC and follows AML?
Laundering it after that is, in fact, easier.
But the first problem still isn't solved with your statement I think.
This is not true AFAIK and it used to really be not true. There were plenty of no-KYC exchanges or exchanges that offered no-KYC accounts if you had the right connections.
Tell me one big exchange that'll accept a deposit of $200M USD worth of cryptocurrency without asking questions.
> exchanges that offered no-KYC accounts if you had the right connections
Yeah, and plenty of taxmen that will let you wash money if you pay them X amount, but lets try to stick to verifiable facts instead of imagining/assuming a bunch of things.
with another set of clean funds in a second address you buy that token in the liquidity pool
with the dirty funds in the third address you also buy the token and dont stop buying, you use all the dirty funds
the second address sells, and you just are another lucky crypto trader with another 10,000% gain, indistinguishable from any other crypto that’s mooned that much. You, along with all the bots and copy traders and momentum buyers. Just sell into liquidity, withdraw the more liquid crypto on exchanges. Pay taxes.
dont use infura or a node in a data center on the same IP address
if youre not using your own node on your own network, you need to mask your IP address and think about who knows it. Tor works better than VPN for this
Oh well, easier for criminals to get caught I suppose, so not much harm done.
Its not about the chain analysis, its about proof. Any random charting site will raise flags about the token buyers, but can the prosecutor use that? The cases arent being brought
Binance paid U.S. regulators a $4.3 billion for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws a year ago. There are many crypto exchanges that have poor KYC or deliberately do it in a way that can be circumvented - Bitzlato was one example. I imagine if you have some dirty Bitcoin you can find an exchange today running in a non extraditable jurisdiction that will trade it for cash for cut.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/co-founder-seized-crypto-...
That's a wild thought that hadn't occurred to me.
With increased KYC and tamp down, where does this money go next?
People will assume I mean buying drugs, but actually, I mean:
- when I had $10k in my US bank account but couldn’t access it while traveling because I ran afoul of whatever KYC at Western Union after losing my bank card; or,
- today, when I couldn’t prepay for OpenAI platform credits because I have the “wrong kind” of bank account for them.
Society views the fascistic impulses of those in control stifling innovation and growth as damage — and will perennially route around them to get the system flourishing again.
I think this is an outdated meme that has not proven very true. I won't go into a full rant unless you want, but long story short the architecture of the internet has turned out to be more fragile than expected.
>Society views the fascistic impulses of those in control stifling innovation and growth as damage
Maybe not society as a whole, but certainly sub-societies do, so yes. In this case, Lazarus group is a sub-society that is parasitic to society at large.
The internet has successfully resisted multiple government-sponsored PSYOPs and allowed the formation of a revolution to fix society from its current trend towards fascism, unifying the liberation movement across continents — which I would argue is working far beyond expectations.
(Ed: I’d genuinely like to hear the rant, even as a tangent.)
> Maybe not society as a whole, but certainly sub-societies do, so yes.
All of society does.
Which is why regulation (and oppression) needs to be focused to be effective: if you want to suppress Lazarus group you can’t catch too many strays or you build up enough societal counter-pressure your regulation is subverted.
Why would you first stop be western Union if you lost your bank card? Ignoring my confusion as to why you didn’t have a credit card handy, or a phone with a banking app handy if you’re well off enough to have $10k in the bank. Why would your first thought be going to western union, a well known haven for scammers everywhere. OF COURSE it set off all sorts of red flags with your bank. I’d be more concerned if they didn’t put up roadblocks to someone claiming to be you, in another country, trying to pull out large sums of money at a western union.
I had both a credit card and a phone; you can’t get cash with NFC. I was stuck using credit card services and cut off from most of the economy of the primarily cash-based society I was visiting. To the extent merchants accepted digital payments, it was primarily in their local banking app.
> OF COURSE it set off all sorts of red flags with your bank.
Do you not understand why I regard me standing at a WU branch with my passport in hand and access to my authenticator app on my phone, but unable to actually use the service regardless, as a frustrating experience?
Roadblocks would have been fine: there was no road at all, no matter how many checkpoints I was willing to satisfy.
From the same bank who happily allows online transactions to drain my account in obvious patterns of fraud from well-known fraudsters (eg, chat.versailles) without a single roadblock — so they can harvest fees.
My physical cards were lost together — which admittedly was dumb, but losing your wallet while still having your passport and phone/Apple Wallet shouldn’t result in “frozen out of banking”.
You think society sees financial regulations as fascistic impulses that stifle innovation? Where do you get that from?
> Society views the 1:[fascistic impulses] of those in control 2:[stifling innovation and growth] as damage
I say that people who run our societies are fascists — and their impulses for control [1] then cause a stifling of innovation and growth [2]. Which a five minute conversation with someone that does business will convince you of better than I will.
However, you got cause and effect reversed in your reading: I said that fascists are stifling innovation with regulation, not that regulations are fascistic.
I also carefully said lost opportunity — because regulations become routed around precisely when they introduce more cost than benefit. Eg, some regulations boost opportunity by creating stable business environments.