Affords a traceable and immutable prevention to corrupt financial institutions like HSBC further funding the Cartels via laundering of the petro-dollar
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/hsbc-became-bank-to...
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/hsbc-became-bank-to...
When the HSBC money laundering was revealed, what was TradFi's answer? Let's stop it, and crack down on it further.
What is the crypto answer? Oh, rules are still occasionally broken, so let's just scrap all the rules and launder all the money we can (and break sanctions, and so on).
I feel like you're (hopefully) talking about a specific case here where some exchange was exposed as actively ignoring activity they knew to be illegal. Could you share what story you're talking about here?
The point of crypto is that you can transfer it without any regard to any rules [1] (by virtue of the diffusion of responsibility due to decentralization enabled by permissionlessness enabled by Sybil resistance mechanisms such as PoW or PoS).
[1] Of course, if you hack the DAO that the people running the blockchain are invested in, they'll stop it, fix things, undo the hack. So there are some rules, but chosen by crypto bros, not old-fashioned things like legislative chambers or so.
Aha, you're talking about one part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. There are other parts of the ecosystem that don't go willy-nilly breaking regulations just for the fun of it, probably Coinbase is one of the best examples of that.
So while your comment probably speaks to a lot of people, I don't think you can generalize that the entire ecosystem is out after breaking sanctions and launder money. You probably realize this yourself too, bit sad you don't include that in your comments though.
They do KYC and maybe even a bit of token AML and CTF. Then you can exchange fiat into crypto, send it to an unhosted (=self-hosted) wallet, and then do with the crypto as you wish without following any rules whatsoever, by design.
Furthermore, there are many less regulated parts of the cryptocurrency ecosystem that do not even abide by that modicum of regulation.
Look, any bank could trivially replicate 100% of the functionality of a cryptocurrency, or a stable coin, with a good old-fashioned database (even a distributed database, so you have all the frequently cited benefits of decentralization - nearly all). And then they'd be shut down, because they'd be in violation of all sorts of laws and enabling all sorts of crimes. (This is not a hypothetical: see what happened to Liberty Reserve, e-gold, and others that had this glorious idea prior to crypto. They were all swiftly shut down.)
So, while the entire ecosystem might not initially have set out to break sanctions and launder money and subvert other rules, that is the use case which the technology enables compared to pre-Nakamoto technology.
Look, guns are about shooting people. But at shooting ranges people are not shot. Nevertheless, guns are about shooting people.
Your link did not say anything about crypto, it didnt imply that HSBC was corrupt, it didn't indicate the cartels were funded by HSBC. All of those additional points were added by your conspiracy imagination
https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
>One memorable detail U.S. law enforcement noted was that Mexican drug cartel members employed boxes customized to fit the dimensions of an HSBC Mexico teller window for their daily cash deposits.
Oh no! If only HSBC had the power to implement tighter controls that wouldn't allow it to receive boatloads of money. Oh well, it's not like they know a lot about money laundering, tax evasion, or handling large sums of money generally.
P.D. other comment mentioned that money flow attracts criminals, and I interpret it as criminals working on HSBC, not cartels using their services.
If you aren't sure why cartels are being mentioned then I suggest you click the Reuters post were discussing. The one that talks about lax controls 17 years ago
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2012/...
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that HSBC actively circumvented rules designed to “block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes.” In one case, “two HSBC affiliates sent nearly 25,000 transactions involving $19.4 billion through their HBUS [HSBC’s U.S. affiliate] accounts over seven years without disclosing the transactions’ links to Iran.”
US prosecutors said that deposits at Mexican branches were so frequent that drug traffickers used boxes that were designed to fit perfectly through the teller windows
http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hea...
This has then led to the families of victims of the Cartel directly suing HSBC for allowing the gangs to launder billions, providing ‘systematic material support to the cartels’.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/11/families-of...
If HSBC were a country, it would be the fifth world economic power. At the time $1.9bn equated to just five weeks of the bank’s profits.