https://archive.today/t2pG6
Please understand that circumventing copyright makes it more difficult for journalists to make a living.
They should learn to code.
Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
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Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clearly not untrackable. It's never been untrackable. That's how they know it went to Iran.
Only because in this case they used a centralized exchange. The amount of actual circulation to countries like Iran and North Korea is likely many orders of magnitude higher that what is knowable.
I know some pretty sharp folks who fork for various police departments chasing illicit crypto related activity. The amount of stuff they can track including timing of transactions, entry and exit points, etc, and so over a long period of time means that most of the traditional anyonmization methods like tumblers simply do not work. Eventually someone, somewhere makes a mistake and the transactions and wallets can be traced.
If you have dirty money to hide, it's much better to hide it in a bank in Panama, or fill a sports bag with gold bars and fly it out on your private jet than use crypto.
Anything you can do from your bedroom, police can track from theirs.
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only because in this case they used a centralized exchange. The amount of actual circulation to countries like Iran and North Korea is likely many orders of magnitude higher that what is knowable.
Every single transaction is public information. If you carry a wallet into Iran, and it's coins are used through 20 different transactions to purchase weapons, all of those can be traced back to their origin.
That's like saying every currency note is traceable because it has a serial number. If someone hands you a dollar today can you trace it starting from where it was printed to everything it was used for until it eventually got into your hands?
Yeah you can look up bitcoin wallet IDs on the ledger, but you can also generate an unlimited number of wallets, and pass coins in any combination through any number of mixers and tumblers, and exchange it between multiple currencies (some of them truly untrackable). If people or organizations want to stay anonymous in the crypto ecosystem they can very easily do so.
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#34Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
I'd argue the #1 use case is ransomware and scamming, but this has to be a close second. Honestly the journey from "The blockchain is the future, everyone must see that" to where we are now really feels like the one we're taking with 'AI'.
In the end it will still exist, but the use case is going to be so much less inspiring than people want to believe, outside of medical and fundamental research at least.
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#35Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
I thought the #1 use case for crypto was ransomware, followed by shitcoin rug-pulls, and the ability to commit theft without recourse.
Sending money to Iran is just a minor edge case.
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#36Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
Can't anyone basically sanction entire wallets, and mark them, and make some legislation that any transaction involving coins originating from those wallets be rejected by all payment processors and exchanges in regulated markets? I mean, they obviously can, but probably they have elected not to do so. But if crypto becomes a tool in the hands of enemy nation states, such regulation can't be soo far off. Though that…
You can't track individual coins, so you'd have to "taint" entire wallets. Using a mixer would taint the mixer and every wallet it sent to. I'd think this would end up tainting almost everything before too long.
Bitcoin also doesn't require the receiver to authorize a transaction, so if you had control of a tainted wallet, you could taint other wallets at will, wielding it like a weapon.
Doesn't seem feasible. Not that this always stops legislators.
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#37Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
Can't anyone basically sanction entire wallets, and mark them, and make some legislation that any transaction involving coins originating from those wallets be rejected by all payment processors and exchanges in regulated markets? I mean, they obviously can, but probably they have elected not to do so. But if crypto becomes a tool in the hands of enemy nation states, such regulation can't be soo far off. Though that…
OFAC already sanctions crypto wallets. https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/594
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#38Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#39Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
you mean its not used for the Paul brothers latest meme coin rug pulls?
Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran
#40Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto? Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
Could someone explain to me where the myth of "crypto = untrackable" comes from, and why it's still being perpetuated?
Storing a record of every single transaction on a publicly accessible blockchain sounds trackable by design