So, I came across this report by Ciphertrace about Anti Money Laundering, and it says that pretty much all drugs sold on the darknet are bought using crypto. The University of Technology Sydney also found that Bitcoin is linked to 46% of illegal activities every year. This is such an interesting topic since a lot of folks are quick to judge crypto without knowing the full story.
It does make sense to use an anonymous form of money for buying drugs, but cash still seems to be the go-to for shady transactions because it can't be traced. Ciphertrace mentioned that 76% of transactions on dark markets are still done with BTC, mainly because it's the most recognized.
What do you all think about this? Do you believe using crypto could actually help track money flows better?
I think most of the people who are buying on the darkweb are confident knowing that it won't be traced back to them because it's too challenging. I would imagine companies like Ciphertrace would only start to investigate when there are large amounts of money moving.
There's no way to know the owner of the transaction involving bitcoin. While it is easy to find which address send money to other address, but it is next to impossible to point out the owners of these addresses unless someone proclaims the ownership of those addresses! Probably that's the reason why bitcoin is still the preferred payment method in darkweb and that's a big reputation risk of cryptos! Moreover, bitcoin mixing services are present in the market to hide the money trail effectively! Like every technology has its positive and negative side, the same way it is a negative side of bitcoin use. Sad but true! Cipher trace can track transactions but not the owners!
That's what Ciphertrace is all about, "trying" to track everything specially Bitcoin addresses. But can they actually do it and uncover the criminal behind those addresses? Could be if criminals don't know how to hide their track. But the problem is that criminals are also above intelligence from the usual crypto enthusiast. It's dark markets, what do you expect criminals are going to used? Fiat? This is just part and parcel of crypto. IMHO.
Not everything sold in dark markets (online markets on internet= darknet) is illegal because some drugs are legal in one country and illegal in others (cryptos make an easy payment.)
Illegal things also vary from tax evasion, money laundering, buying weapons to criminal offenses.
As for why BTC is common in dark markets? its value is increasing, not privacy.
One of the dark activities is hacking, many hackers use Monero currency.
You know those logical reasoning questions all these international organisations now ask as part of psychometric testing before you go to job interviews?
Where they give you statements:
- all drugs sold in darkmarkets are paid for with crypto.
- all darkmarkets selling drugs only accept crypto.
Logical assumptions that cannot be derived include:
- all crypto is used to buy drugs
- all people buying drugs on darkmarkets use crypto.
See how we can all play this game happily?
It is simple, digital related drug transactions are using cryptocurrency while physical and actual drug related transactions uses fiat currency. Sometimes statistics doesn't show the full story it's really where you are looking at and it is really obvious if we are talking about online related drug transactions the most prefered payment will be cryptocurrencies as like cash you won't be linked to any of your credit cards, Paypal accounts, or you won't even need to have a fake identity in Western Union. They are making it look like crypto is a tool for the illicit activity which isn't.
Well, that's true. Since the government has no access on anyone bitcoin so it is a good opportunity to those drug traffickers to transact using bitcoin. As long as bitcoin can't be trace by the government it there where always a drug trade using this. This is very common on the dark web I remember when I watching the short clip on youtube regarding a story of the Silk Road the anonymous marketplace that can trade anything illegal on the dark web. Indeed, bitcoin will remain anonymous and the transactions are non-traceable.
Ciphertrace did make some achievements on tracing some addresses but generally speaking these are very very very very small achievement.
I agree on the fact that its dumb to think that criminals arent that intelligent not to mind their own tracks.For sure that their main priority and it keeps harder
for those trackers specially when using up crypto.
I wouldnt be surprised if we would able to hear out similar words all over again as the years passed towards Crypto. They didnt even consider on how rampant fiat money is being used to this area. lol
We dont have any option but just to ignore about this stuff.Even if we do tend to give out reason its still pointless.
I am impressed with all of the people who are involved in crypto. From those who developed it, hackers, the trackers aka Ciphertrace and even the criminals. All are very intelligent people working on some pretty hefty technology. It will be interesting when they find middle ground but there will always be the yin to the yang
Tracking only comes to a certain point, and I'm still sure enough that Ciphertrace doesn't have the technology to link a certain personality to a transaction or even to a bitcoin address alone. They are also pushing for KYC on mixers, so that's one interesting part to the formula on how would they achieve complete monitoring of people's spending. Anyhow, everything is encroaching towards crypto, especially the efforts of the government to take full control. It's amazing how tech advancements were made on this area of crypto, but it's also worrying to say the least.
Looks like the article is just putting the blame on cryptocurrencies on the growth of transactions in the dark web. But I don't think it's right to blame cryptocurrencies for it since they are just the assets being traded and not the drug itself being sold. I know it makes the transaction a lot faster but how do you supposed this drugs are being sent internationally? Of course logistics are also involved with this trade and one way to counter this market is tightening their customs on the imports happening. Let's not put the blame on crypto as even if they ban all of them I doubt the online drug trade would stop because of it.
In this case. those people in power can use cryptocurrency as a scapegoat for their failure to minimize the drug trade. Maybe these people should learn that illegal drug trade did not start when cryptocurrency came into being. This menace of the society has had been there decades ago. Of course, as part of our human nature, it can be easy to pinpoint something so that we can escape responsibility for our failure. Killing Bitcoin will never kill the illicit drug trade...
I agree with you that the article paints crypto in a negative light being associated with drug trade but honestly I think it's intention was more so to show that with blockchain we are able to positively track the movement on drugs. Using technology as adanced as Ciphertrace's.
Its a long road down really and its also a call for concern for anyone who is concerned about the growth of the crypto market. Today we have heard about several news and how crypto especially bitcoin have been used for series of unholy activities by people who prefers much more to operate in the shadows. The research study no matter how damaging it might be does not remove the fact that there are real elements of truth in it and its on every other person to try within its own limit to push the agenda that irrespective of this damaging news, there are also some good deeds that can be pointed on to have risen from the use of bitcoin.
The real question here is that is it really fair to attribute the illegal actions of individuals to the currency, on the means of transaction that they are using? Absolutely not.
If there was no BTC, the drug trade would still exist. And it's quite hypocritical to talk about the increasing volume of transactions when fiat far outweighs any other asset class in illict transaction volume, such as money laundering etc., yet we don't ever talk about it.
The article makes it seem like that the growth in crypto adoption is purely resulting from the increased use of the dark web as a marketplace for drugs, which is not only misleading but untrue completely. This last bear market brought in a lot more institutional adoption, including investment banks, as well as commercial adoption of BTC for online purchases (just look at the amount of e-sports sites in particular that started to accept BTC).
This is the main reason of why some governments will not legalize crypto because it might ruin their country and put their people into risk. Even there is strict crypto regulation exist but still the bad guys can able to penetrate the market and bypass the regulation like the scam projects that are still able to stole from the people inspite of existing regulation.
This is actually the pervading mindset of the government as far as cryptocurrency and illicit drugs are concerned. However, we have to be fair that even without the cryptocurrency people can still buy drugs on the street and in 70s where drug trades really started to take root in our society there had been no cryptocurrency yet that time. In fact, I would say that compared to fiat the use of cryptocurrency can now be easier to trace because there are that transactions in the blockchain anybody can open and analyze whereas with fiat there is no such thing (except if there are banking records involved). Drug enforcement agencies have to level up their capabilities and skills so they can be at par with the development of cryptocurrency and the increasing skills of drug producers and traders.
This is a genuine reason why most of the people don't want BTC and cryptocurrencies to rise as a mainstream method of adoption. Whatever you may say there are a lot of benefits that cryptocurrencies provide to these dark net maniacs. Moreover the sad fact is that governments have always used this as a great excuse to keep a hold on cryptocurrencies. However, the truth is these things would never stop even if BTC becomes legal or becomes legal. Whatever may be the statutory call on BTC these activities will never clamp down now because dark net is actually traceable.