Crypto makes cybercrime pay, without it collection would be almost impossible. The post I'm responding to argues that it is worth it. I disagree and think it's presumptuous to claim it has anything of a net benefit for society.

The idea that it doesn't make whole categories of crime profitable and therefore attractive, or that the impact is negligible, is not really supportable in a world with rampant cryptolockers and other crypto-currency enabled extortion.

Further, the appeal of this sort of financial privacy for non-criminal use is pretty limited. But you know all this, the alleged privacy benefits have been a talking point for many years now but in the end there's no real legit crypto use cases and still no real interest in crypto beyond crime and gambling.

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a day ago | parent | next [-]

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Cider9986 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I'll add some numbers to back up crypto—it is built on trustless numbers, unlike your fiat, after all.

Chainalysis's most recent report puts "illegal" activity at under 1% of total crypto transaction volume[1]. UNODC[2] estimates "The estimated amount of money laundered globally in one year is 2 - 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion - $2 trillion in current US dollars. Due to the clandestine nature of money-laundering, it is however difficult to estimate the total amount of money that goes through the laundering cycle."

HSBC[3], TD[4], Cred Suisse[5], and others have each been moving cartel, sanctioned, or Iranian money in sums that dwarf every ransomware payment ever made combined. If enabling "crime" disqualifies a payment method, then fiat loses in that comparison by more than an order of magnitude.

>Crypto makes cybercrime pay, without it collection would be almost impossible.

Ransomware predates Bitcoin by two decades. The AIDS Trojan in 1989 demanded a cashier's check to Panama. Pre-Bitcoin lockers like Reveton and Winlock collected via MoneyPak, Ukash, Paysafecard, and wire transfers.

>Further, the appeal of this sort of financial privacy for non-criminal use is pretty limited.

Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which accepted crypto after Russia froze its banking. The Ukrainian government, which received over $100M in crypto donations in the first weeks of the 2022 invasion. WikiLeaks, after Visa/MC/PayPal blockaded it in 2010 with no court order. Nigerian #EndSARS protesters, whose bank accounts were frozen. Iranian, Argentine, Lebanese, and Venezuelan savers watching double-digit monthly inflation destroy their hard earned wages. Migrant workers send remittances home for ~1% instead of Western Union's 7–10%. Here[6] is a list of hundreds of Non-profits that accept Monero—because people want to be able to donate, privately. The FSF received[ a total of 900,000 USD in Monero donations in two large contributions just in this past year. GrapheneOS, which has employees across many continents, pays all but one of it's 10+ developers in cryptocurrency.

>no real interest in crypto beyond crime and gambling.

Besides pushing back on the idea that, "crime", without a specific definition of what is happening, is bad, XMRBazaar hosts over 8000 legal, trustless craigslist-style listings[7]. Eggs, real estate, italian meats. I'm shivering in my boots at all this Crime[1].

[1] https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2026-crypto-crime-report-in...

[2] https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/money-laundering/overview.htm...

[3] HSBC: https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/hsbc-moved-...

[4] TD: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c153d14vqwyo

[5] Credit Suisse: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/credit-suisse-agrees...

[6] https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-h...

[7] https://monerica.com/non-profits/page/2

[8]https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/yWKK/, https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/kAEU/, https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/cdpN/

Ah, "Crime", it irks us so much.

Gay people need to respect the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminalization_of_homosexuali...

Women need to respect the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_Sta...

But legal things like Flock Cameras, Mass surveillence, civil-asset forfeiture. All these things should be protected.

	▲	Nursie a day ago \| parent [-]
		Some of your response is disingenous. Ransomware has been around a long time, certainly, but adding cryptocurrency payrails has made it far more prevalent, those other methods are much harder and riskier to execute well. Other parts of your response are irrelevant and nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Because bad laws exist with regards to abortion and sexuality, we should disregard all laws, is that your argument? And searching for people's experiences on XMR Bazaar is hilarious - "When looking at the platform's homepage statistics and browsing other listings, it seems like the vast majority of offers never see a single trade, even the interesting ones with Escrow enabled. There appear to be significantly more listings than actual completed orders." So I'm not sure that's an argument for there being general interest in day to day use of cryptocurrency. Lots of your other claims are easily dismissed - migrant workers are still not really using crypto for remittances, it's estimated at under 3% of the market, and is also rife with predictable problems - https://www.austrac.gov.au/news-and-media/media-release/aust... There are some interesting edge cases in there, when it comes to Ukraine, certainly. But in general we appear to have the same handful of enthusiasts doing niche things, no general interest, and a lot of dodgy shit. Fundamentally, I wonder what the rest of the on-chain transaction volume can be, because cryptocurrency has failed to go mainstream as a payment service over the course of 17 years now. Investment/speculation springs to mind as an obvious candidate, so we're effectively back to gambling by proxy at that point.