Earlier quoted context omitted.
Transactions and storage of money are already decentralized, through the traditional finance system that connects at least thousands of banks and payment processors and other financial institutions. So it can't be that. >You could also argue that artists who sell their artworks for huge sums of money are associating themselves to money laundering. Yes, that's why transactions for those huge sums are subject to AML la…
> Transactions and storage of money are already decentralized, through the traditional finance system That's not the case for every country on the planet > Yes, that's why transactions for those huge sums are subject to AML laws. And how do those prevent rich person A from paying rich person B (by buying a painting owned by B for an inflated price) for some illegal service?
It's not helping there either. Countries where the economy is strictly controlled by the government, like North Korea, are mainly using crypto and defi to centralize even more. Their government can use defi to steal from other countries with impunity, evading international laws while continuing to oppress their own citizens and disallowing them from using the internet.
>And how do those prevent rich person A from paying rich person B (by buying a painting owned by B for an inflated price) for some illegal service?
If it were done through a bank (or a law-abiding crypto exchange) they would be required to keep a log of the transaction and the legal identities of the participants, as well as a log of where the money came from and where it's going. The idea is, if buying the painting is just one of the steps to "clean" the money, they'll be able to trace it back to when the money was dirty.