Bitcoin is a Cult

Post by Iv » Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC

daturkel wrote: post #7

Iv wrote: post #3

Bitcoin is a tool for tax evasion and money exchange on criminal assets. It turns out that also some geeks like to use it to bypass banks incompetence on international funds transfers but tax evasion is the use that drives BTC's value. The cult is just a small visible part of it but is a pretty minor aspect of it. BTC would exist without the cultists as long as Russian or Saudi assets need to be transfered without to…

Do you have any sources for your claim that Bitcoin is used for large Russian/Saudi assets? It seems like the volume of BTC traded for illicit purposes is large in aggregate, but I'm not sure I've seen evidence of individual transfers being big. There are many ways that bad or unscrupulous actors can transfer money now that are actually less risky than Bitcoin.

Look at the BTC price fluctuations when another round of sanctions is added on Russia, when Cyprus cracked down on tax evaders or wduring the Saudi corruption crackdown. Everytime it peaks.

Post by Iv » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 1:04 AM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #19

Iv wrote: post #3

Bitcoin is a tool for tax evasion and money exchange on criminal assets. It turns out that also some geeks like to use it to bypass banks incompetence on international funds transfers but tax evasion is the use that drives BTC's value. The cult is just a small visible part of it but is a pretty minor aspect of it. BTC would exist without the cultists as long as Russian or Saudi assets need to be transfered without to…

That’s media sensationalism. BTC is not remotely anonymous and is useless as a tax evasion mechanism. Your money still has to go through someone to turn into BTC, and that’s the same as any other money laundering operation. Once their books are audited, your “safe haven” is worth nothing.

The only transaction that is going to appear is currency->BTC. After that, there are many efficient ways of obfuscating a BTC->BTC transcation. There are legitimate uses of BTC, so nothing necessarily suspicious.

However, if you want to receive bribes, you just create a new wallet, you receive the bribes in BTC and either change them somehow in dollars or pay a premium to receive some services directly paid in btc (I am sure many people would be happy to receive BTC payment at a 30% discount).

Tax evasion works the same: you receive some payments that you do not declare in BTC. It works exactly the same way people use cash to evade taxes, except that here you don't have to transport luggages full of banknotes.

Another feature of BTC is that it can't be seized. Cash, gold, paintings, they all can be. BTCs are much easier to protect.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult