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How to launder Bitcoins

blog.oleganza.com

51–60 of 85 posts

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#51

I'm starting to get sick of these Bitcoin posts.

Yeah I can actually understand where you are coming from. I spend a lot of time with Bitcoin but never come to HN for Bitcoin information, I prefer my HN being startups and programming/algorithm stuff.

I think one of the reasons Bitcoin is becoming more popular on HN is that a lot of us are interested in fun/challenging tech ways to make a decent living or even make a million bucks.

At the moment Bitcoin is making a bunch of nerds millionaires and we are all interested in making sure Bitcoin overcomes all the hurdles ahead.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#52

The issue with money laundering in the real world isn't the technical difficulty. It's easy as pie to launder cash if you ignore the laws surrounding it. I'd imagine that if Bitcon becomes prevalent, governments would ask you to "voluntarily" declare your "salary" wallet. And then if they spotted any sort of suspicious laundering-like activity happening from that wallet, they would very quickly obtain warrants and sh…

How would that help? You declare your "salary" wallet, your salary flows from your day job. You run your underworld schemes in another wallet, and ne'r the two do meet.

How do you propose to spend money from your underworld wallet to buy real things - say to buy a car - without revealing your identity to the merchant? And once your identity is out in the open, how do you propose to evade the undisclosed income investigation that will be inevitably follow.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#53
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that help? You declare your "salary" wallet, your salary flows from your day job. You run your underworld schemes in another wallet, and ne'r the two do meet.

How do you propose to spend money from your underworld wallet to buy real things - say to buy a car - without revealing your identity to the merchant? And once your identity is out in the open, how do you propose to evade the undisclosed income investigation that will be inevitably follow.

It depends on how much your underground wallet holds. There was that guy who was successful for many years, laundering dollar bills in person.

If you buy a BMW, your identity will be noted and the transaction recorded. If you buy a bagel sandwich, the clerk will forget about you by noon the next day. So if it's small potatoes, you could be fine.

If you have a ton of cash to move, you are right- in person becomes a bad option. That's when you go back to the basics- you launder the money, like every big-time criminal in history.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#54
That is not what structuring is at all. Structuring is conducting transactions in a way that will avoid triggering reporting requirements. If the legislation in your country requires financial services providers to report any cash transaction greater than or equal to say, $10,000, and you go and deposit $9500 five times with the sole purpose being to avoid these reporting requirements, then you are in breach of structuring laws. That's it. It has nothing to do with the legality or otherwise of the source of your money.

Also, money laundering is not about forbidding buying bad things. In fact, it's entirely the opposite. It's about buying legal things to hide the proceeds of crime.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#55
post #17

I'm starting to get sick of these Bitcoin posts.

Get used to it. This now is a bigger part of the tech world than NodeJS and friends.

I'm on fat0wl's train out of here. Previously I gave you guys the respect of honest antagonism. The quackery of bitcoin is so obviously ludicrous I can no longer justify my time spent pointing it out.

People throwing money around does not make a thing important.

Don't you dare say no one warned you when the whole thing comes crashing down.

And yes, fine, whatever, you can say "toldya so" all you like when Bitcoin fulfills your fantastic greed and you lot join the 1% of your new capitalist utopia. Real moral high ground you'll have, then.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#56
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that help? You declare your "salary" wallet, your salary flows from your day job. You run your underworld schemes in another wallet, and ne'r the two do meet.

How do you propose to spend money from your underworld wallet to buy real things - say to buy a car - without revealing your identity to the merchant? And once your identity is out in the open, how do you propose to evade the undisclosed income investigation that will be inevitably follow.

Same way the mafia does it: with a front.

"Oh, sure, some guy came in and placed a huge catering order. $10,000 worth of food. Paid in BTC. I never saw him again."

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unknown money coming from other sources into local economy These centers actually exist even today. I personally know places where you can buy dollars using the local currency for something like a 10% discount on the market rate. They are obviously very shady and aren't used by anyone close to being respectable. If you use them and are big enough to matter, expect to be screwed over by law enforcement pretty much the…

"I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here." This, is where I stopped reading.

This is where the comma should be in that sentence. (nowhere)

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#58
post #54

That is not what structuring is at all. Structuring is conducting transactions in a way that will avoid triggering reporting requirements. If the legislation in your country requires financial services providers to report any cash transaction greater than or equal to say, $10,000, and you go and deposit $9500 five times with the sole purpose being to avoid these reporting requirements, then you are in breach of struc…

Structuring laws are pretty shitty there have been plenty of examples of people being screwed over by the government w/o legal due process for just conducting legitimate businesses that happen to receive a lot of cash payments from customers. Just one recent one...

http://overlawyered.com/2013/09/institute-justice-tackles-st...

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I believe printing money is actually a good thing. But let's not get into an economics argument here." This, is where I stopped reading.

This is where the comma should be in that sentence. (nowhere)

Very useless pov. Thanks for sharing. Nothing is more irritating in the middle of a good conversation than someone who rebuts by nitpicking grammar.

Re: How to launder Bitcoins

#60

The issue with money laundering in the real world isn't the technical difficulty. It's easy as pie to launder cash if you ignore the laws surrounding it. I'd imagine that if Bitcon becomes prevalent, governments would ask you to "voluntarily" declare your "salary" wallet. And then if they spotted any sort of suspicious laundering-like activity happening from that wallet, they would very quickly obtain warrants and sh…

Government would still have to set up a center of "approving" unknown money coming from other sources into local economy. These centers, as you can expect, will be massively bribed by everyone who needs to launder their tainted coins. Also, governments will be much more limited in power when they can't print their money at will and do any "deficit spending".

So is this like in reality or a fantasy?
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