purchasing crime proceeds at a discount?
curious if anyone here is familiar with this method, and why they failed at reintegration
Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
71–80 of 140 posts
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
T+0 settlement is something blockchain has solved that tradfi has not. Asset tokenization is another big one- getting solved, at least. And inflation hedging. Regulatory def has not caught up but in 10-20 years you individually will definitely have some portion of your financial transactions, whether payments or investments, settling on blockchain.
T+0 settlement is something blockchain has solved that tradfi has not The reason 'tradfi' doesn't offer T+0 has nothing to do with technology (or lack of). It's an intentional policy choice and not due to technical limitations.
The market is choosing T+0
America just moved to T+1 down from T+2. If you want T+0 now instead of a decade or two from now, you have an option
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming we're talking about low-cost chains that can actually be used for high-speed payment (which basically rules out L1 ETH/BTC) * Sending money without paying an obscene amount of settlement fees and having to wait in some cases half a week. International transfers are an absolute UX nightmare for many banking providers. * Being able to secure your account with proper OpsSec, i.e. identity/account management wit…
None of those things require crypto. They are essentially solved problems. The UK banking system has had chip&pin for 20+ years, has had (Europe-wide?) instant payments for at least a decade. Banking numbers in the UK are push not pull, you cannot take someone else's money just because you have their bank number. * Payments require CVV (and have done for almost 30 years) and often additional 2fa verification through…
> Solving the problem for international transfers simply requires greater international cooperation
Right, simply need to solve for world peace, ending all wars and economic sanctions. Kumbaya.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Sending money to dangerous people like Julian Assange. 2. Sending money to relatives in the third world 3. Keeping your savings when the currency of your nation is going through hyperinflation
Point 3 is bad advice, historically it's been the Swiss franks that is the gold standard for saving up in case of hyperinflation.
Getting your money into a crypto coin that tracks a stable currency can in some cases be cheaper and easier than getting your money into that currency.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of those things require crypto. They are essentially solved problems. The UK banking system has had chip&pin for 20+ years, has had (Europe-wide?) instant payments for at least a decade. Banking numbers in the UK are push not pull, you cannot take someone else's money just because you have their bank number. * Payments require CVV (and have done for almost 30 years) and often additional 2fa verification through…
> Solving the problem for international transfers simply requires greater international cooperation Right, simply need to solve for world peace, ending all wars and economic sanctions. Kumbaya.
Well, yes. Otherwise, why would you or anyone, really, be against arbitrary money transfers into (or out of) Iran, or North Korea, or Russia? Yet here we are.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
T+0 settlement is something blockchain has solved that tradfi has not. Asset tokenization is another big one- getting solved, at least. And inflation hedging. Regulatory def has not caught up but in 10-20 years you individually will definitely have some portion of your financial transactions, whether payments or investments, settling on blockchain.
T+0 settlement is something blockchain has solved that tradfi has not The reason 'tradfi' doesn't offer T+0 has nothing to do with technology (or lack of). It's an intentional policy choice and not due to technical limitations.
Policy choice is a good example. If you disagree with the policy choice of traditional finance, you can opt for a system that is more in alignment with you.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Sending money to dangerous people like Julian Assange. 2. Sending money to relatives in the third world 3. Keeping your savings when the currency of your nation is going through hyperinflation
I live in a third world country and nobody uses crypto to send money. The existing remittance system works fine. Crypto's claim in this area is that could be cheaper than remittances in the traditional banking system. But remittance fees using traditional banking are already only 1.5% so we're not talking about saving massive amounts of money in most circumstances. Which is probably why virtually nobody has switched…
Indeed, the fees involved in sending in the vast majority of crypto, certainly Bitcoin and ethereum, are complete non-starters for this use case.
In my opinion, it's a shame, because this is something that crypto could do extremely well. But here we are. I do believe that it will be solved at some point, as long as regulation doesn't make that impossible. It is making it much more difficult for new coins to get started. Obviously that is needed to some extent because we saw all the shit coins over the last several years that ripped people off, but finding a happy medium is essential and challenging.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming we're talking about low-cost chains that can actually be used for high-speed payment (which basically rules out L1 ETH/BTC) * Sending money without paying an obscene amount of settlement fees and having to wait in some cases half a week. International transfers are an absolute UX nightmare for many banking providers. * Being able to secure your account with proper OpsSec, i.e. identity/account management wit…
None of those things require crypto. They are essentially solved problems. The UK banking system has had chip&pin for 20+ years, has had (Europe-wide?) instant payments for at least a decade. Banking numbers in the UK are push not pull, you cannot take someone else's money just because you have their bank number. * Payments require CVV (and have done for almost 30 years) and often additional 2fa verification through…
To give one more counter-point to your "fraud costs are baked in":
Self-custody as is common in crypto isn't really a thing in traditional finance (for most people anyways) - having your money backed 1:1 by cash is an extremely expensive service.
The bank accounts most people have are essentially low-risk lending agreements.
So any kind of cost calculation should factor in the financial gain of lending out your assets.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Yes, you're not allowed to do that under someone else's name, that's what the crime is. >But that's the objection. That's a stupid crime. The only reason anybody wants to do that is that they can't open one under nobody's name, even though there are legitimate and innocent reasons to want to do that. It is far from true that the only reason people falsify identity in transactions is because KYC laws require identi…
Explain why someone would want to open a new empty bank account in someone else's name other than because they couldn't or don't want to open a new empty bank account in their own name. That's the crime we're talking about here. Not committing fraud so you can steal someone else's money, but only lying about your name because you don't want to give your name and the law prohibits you from not giving a name. The probl…
> Explain why someone would want to open a new empty bank account in someone else's name other than because they couldn't or don't want to open a new empty bank account in their own name.
Putting income into someone else’s tax bracket is the obvious use case. You lack imagination or experience with the real world.
Re: Epoch Times CFO charged in $67M crypto money laundering plot
#80I continue to be convinced that the only valid use cases for crypto are scams and money laundering -- chalk up this one to the latter. Can anyone name an application besides those two things that traditional finance doesn't handle better?
Assuming we're talking about low-cost chains that can actually be used for high-speed payment (which basically rules out L1 ETH/BTC) * Sending money without paying an obscene amount of settlement fees and having to wait in some cases half a week. International transfers are an absolute UX nightmare for many banking providers. * Being able to secure your account with proper OpsSec, i.e. identity/account management wit…
Proper OpsSec is a luxury. With crypto: You lose your password, your money is gone. Your password is stolen, your money is gone. A proper solution involves several hardware devices with additional security (iPhone, iPad, Mac, YubiKey with biometrics, a safe with an envelope, etc.). Most people on earth can't handle it.
Credit card fees are high in bank-friendly jurisdictions. Not in most jurisdictions. PayPal only came about because the banking system in the US is so utter crap - that doesn't mean that it's bad as bad elsewhere.
The crappiness of banks is contingent on bad regulation. The crappiness of crypto is inherent in the sub-par technology: adding a constraint (eg permissionlessness) is costly.