The Hermit Kingdom, which intelligence agencies say was behind the $1.5 billion Bybit hack, faces “offramping” challenges due to the size of its hauls.
Something I have been pondering is why when going after Bitcoin from crimes (ransom or stolen) they don’t just declare the individual “coins” stemming from illegal proceedings and that when they show up the “coins” will be confiscated and the holders investigated for money laundering. They have a serial number of sorts, right?
It should decrease the trade value of the “coins”, might even have the added benefit of scaring people of from the scam currencies. Ay, there might be the rub, for in this modern world of ours suppressing financial “innovations” is treated as worse than scams.
the other two answers are correct, but also they totally do. In particular, the blockchain analysis companies alert companies using their services to the transaction touching tainted coins. This is variably effective, of course.
But also, there are plenty of non-US/EU exchanges that don’t give a hoot and once tainted coins hit an exchange they’re washed because these exchanges are very good at having pretend KYC/AML.
I was somehow under the impression that the main wild cat money to real money exchange was to USD, on account of the media about such exchanges. The rest followed.
Unfortunately, the coins are hard to track. They get exchanged for other cryptocurrencies and mixed in with other large wallets so noone can tell where the coins originally came from.
Bitcoins aren’t really discrete individual units like that. Imagine you send me 0.1 bitcoin and my mom sends me 0.1 bitcoin and I then send 0.1 bitcoin to Alice (ignore transaction fees and such). It’s not really a meaningful question whether the sum Alice received was the fraction of a “coin” I received from you, from my mom or some specific mixture of both. The blockchain just records increases and decreases of a wallet’s balance.
It’s not really a meaningful question whether the sum Alice received was the fraction of a “coin” I received from you
Ish. If you received a million CSAM’n’heroin bucks, and you give 10 bucks to Alice, there’s a transaction history that now links Alice’s wallet to CSAM’n’heroin which can indeed be a problem for Alice, because cautious exchanges might now freeze her assets until she can offer some proof that she’s not doing anything bad.
There’s a bitcoin wallet attack that uses this trick that was mentioned recently, maybe here, maybe on web3igjg. You can argue the bitcoins aren’t the same, but in practise no-one cares.
There’s a bitcoin wallet attack that uses this trick that was mentioned recently, maybe here
It was here, but also it is an older trick, it just isnt crippling the ecosystem as some exchanges simply dont care. It prob fucks up peoples lives quite badly however.
Yep, agencies do track blood money on the chains and place sanctions accordingly. It’s just a little more complicated than checking “was this specific coin used in one of these crimes” and laundering is still possible through a rogue exchange or P2P/sneakernet transactions to parties that don’t care about the sanctions.
Something I have been pondering is why when going after Bitcoin from crimes (ransom or stolen) they don’t just declare the individual “coins” stemming from illegal proceedings and that when they show up the “coins” will be confiscated and the holders investigated for money laundering. They have a serial number of sorts, right?
It should decrease the trade value of the “coins”, might even have the added benefit of scaring people of from the scam currencies. Ay, there might be the rub, for in this modern world of ours suppressing financial “innovations” is treated as worse than scams.
the other two answers are correct, but also they totally do. In particular, the blockchain analysis companies alert companies using their services to the transaction touching tainted coins. This is variably effective, of course.
But also, there are plenty of non-US/EU exchanges that don’t give a hoot and once tainted coins hit an exchange they’re washed because these exchanges are very good at having pretend KYC/AML.
Ok, that makes sense.
I was somehow under the impression that the main wild cat money to real money exchange was to USD, on account of the media about such exchanges. The rest followed.
Unfortunately, the coins are hard to track. They get exchanged for other cryptocurrencies and mixed in with other large wallets so noone can tell where the coins originally came from.
Bitcoins aren’t really discrete individual units like that. Imagine you send me 0.1 bitcoin and my mom sends me 0.1 bitcoin and I then send 0.1 bitcoin to Alice (ignore transaction fees and such). It’s not really a meaningful question whether the sum Alice received was the fraction of a “coin” I received from you, from my mom or some specific mixture of both. The blockchain just records increases and decreases of a wallet’s balance.
Ish. If you received a million CSAM’n’heroin bucks, and you give 10 bucks to Alice, there’s a transaction history that now links Alice’s wallet to CSAM’n’heroin which can indeed be a problem for Alice, because cautious exchanges might now freeze her assets until she can offer some proof that she’s not doing anything bad.
There’s a bitcoin wallet attack that uses this trick that was mentioned recently, maybe here, maybe on web3igjg. You can argue the bitcoins aren’t the same, but in practise no-one cares.
eta: this is apparently called a “dust attack” and I first heard about it here: https://awful.systems/post/3463061
Merely interacting with a sanctioned wallet is enough to get or treated with suspicion, let alone receiving funds. Pecunia certainly olets these days.
It was here, but also it is an older trick, it just isnt crippling the ecosystem as some exchanges simply dont care. It prob fucks up peoples lives quite badly however.
Yep, agencies do track blood money on the chains and place sanctions accordingly. It’s just a little more complicated than checking “was this specific coin used in one of these crimes” and laundering is still possible through a rogue exchange or P2P/sneakernet transactions to parties that don’t care about the sanctions.