| ▲ | Bitcoin's big secret: How cryptocurrency became law enforcement's secret weapon(bitwarden.com) |
| 64 points by LopRabbit 2 hours ago | 24 comments |
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| ▲ | bawolff 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Starting around 2014, law enforcement discovered something remarkable: Bitcoin's blockchain was a permanent, traceable record. It took them until 2014 to read the satoshi white paper? |
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| ▲ | snthpy 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | They're still a decade ahead of most people. It seems only now that people are becoming aware of privacy coins. I go to a lot of crypto meetups and every time I bring up that bitcoins aren't fungible (because they carry full provenance and you might not be able to cash out tainted coins) I just get blank stares. FATF Travel Rule is turning up the heat on this. I haven't kept up with developments though. What are best privacy coins these days. ZCash seems to be the institutional favourite while Monero hasn't moved much. | |
| ▲ | AndrewKemendo 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Three years is pretty good for police to get through a paper. First they had to learn how to read… |
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| ▲ | hereme888 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| How is this a secret? It's literally a feature: transparent ledgers. |
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| ▲ | mrunix 2 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Because crypto bros market Bitcoin as "anonymous" and "untraceable" | |
| ▲ | kragen an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because in clickbait "journalism" everything is a "secret". | | |
| ▲ | LexiMax an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Anecdotally, I don't think that this is widely understood by people who use crypto for illicit purposes, which isn't exactly uncommon. | | |
| ▲ | evolighting 10 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Because people who hype Bitcoin claim that its value comes from it: Bitcoin is anonymous, secure, and private, and therefore can be used for illegal transactions without fear of being traced. |
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| ▲ | senectus1 27 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | also the uninformed mix up "crypto" with encryption with privacy. I STILL encounter people that get this confused. |
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| ▲ | patchtopic an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| this kind of blockchain analysis for the non-privacy oriented coins has been well known at least for a decade.. I don't see how it's a secret weapon except against the naive or uninformed |
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| ▲ | Ethan312 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Fascinating how blockchain’s transparency has flipped the script on crypto anonymity. Law enforcement now uses forensic tracing to dismantle criminal networks, from dark web markets to ransomware rings. The real challenge remains jurisdictional reach, not technical capability. |
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| ▲ | Ms-J an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Use privacy preserving coins such as Monero instead of Bitcoin as it is much more safe. Not bulletproof, but much better. Monero also complicates any type of investigation much more than Bitcoin. It is very hard for investigators. They also don't want to burn techniques unless the case is absolutely massive. Also make sure to never use an exchange that forces KYC. |
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| ▲ | cheschire an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I also noticed on a darkweb site that keeping monero in an escrow account is used to further muddy the trail. Not sure how effective that actually is though. | |
| ▲ | rajamaka an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Seems to be the case that the conversion to fiat is the part that is difficult to do while staying anonymous | | |
| ▲ | Ms-J an hour ago | parent [-] | | As long as one takes moderate measures to stay anonymous on the network level, an exchange that is P2P or doesn't force KYC can be used to convert. There are many of them out there. Fees may be higher is a note. | | |
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| ▲ | idiotsecant an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Monero is great so long as you don't care about conversion to cash. That part is ... tricky. | | |
| ▲ | SchemaLoad an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Of course it's difficult. Even if you could convert it to cash you wouldn't be able to deposit in any bank or meaningfully use it. The moment you do anything with it you'll trigger anti money laundering laws and have to explain where the money came from. | | |
| ▲ | Ms-J an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | It isn't very difficult, see my earlier post. Once successfully converted the cash can be used in a multitude of different ways. With an imagination and taking proper anonymity safeguards, the possibilities are endless. | |
| ▲ | solumunus 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Well yeah, you also have to launder the money if you’re a criminal enterprise… | |
| ▲ | metadat an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Hot-dog sales outside NY stadium. Seriously though, the days of easy tax avoidance are long gone at this point. Welcome to The Matrix of America.. and China. |
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| ▲ | arctanJimmy an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Monero is great so long as you don't care about conversion to cash. That part is ... tricky. Make no mistake, this is not coincidence. It's hard because non auditable financial transactions would undermine the fiat issuers authority. |
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| ▲ | greesil an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_Cash Ethereum has entered the chat |
