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Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

nytimes.com

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Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#51

Post by 0x3f »

torginus wrote: post #32
paxys wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

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…

By definition the police only ever detect and catch those they are capable of detecting and catching. It's entirely in their interest to let people believe their capabilities are much greater than they really are. That goes double for the companies that sell this technology to the police.

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#52

Post by subscribed »

ericbuildsio wrote: post #40
paxys wrote: post #6

Isn'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

In the case of bitcoin, surely.

Some other coins not so much trackable, and that's the reason some countries don't like them: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/binance-delist-monero-zcash-4...

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#53

Post by 0x3f »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #43
wat10000 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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. Is that actually an issue? I am looking for it but I can't see a downside.

It was at least in theory an issue when they tried to sanction mixers. In fact people would purposely send tainted crypto to well known wallet addresses of celebrities etc. making them technically run afoul of OFAC

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#54

Post by lambda »

hilliardfarmer wrote: post #41
chihuahua wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What a deeply troubling and cynical comment. As far as I know, nowhere in the Bitcoin white paper or the original code base. Does it say anything about what you seem to think it's use cases are. Bitcoin has one main use, digital cash, that can be sent instantly and for free or a very low fee. Edit: I would agree though, that anything other than that is probably a scam.

What? "Instantly and for a very low fee"?

Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction. They've since added hacks on top of the original Bitcoin protocol to get the price back down again, but the original design was not good for low fees.

And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle, that's hardly instant. If you accept a transaction instantly, it's relatively easy for someone to scam you by double spending.

So, no, Bitcoin doesn't make a great digital cash. Maybe a better wire transfer. But the biggest benefit of it is to be unblockable and unrefundable, which makes it great for scames and illegal activity, plus the speculative nature of the pricing, which is great for gambling on.

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#55

Post by MarsIronPI »

torginus wrote: post #32
paxys wrote: post #18

Earlier 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.

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…

Including sending and receiving Monero? (This is a serious question; I don't have a perspective on this yet.)

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#57

Post by MarsIronPI »

paxys wrote: post #33
idontwantthis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The difference is that with cash we don't write the serial number of every bill for every transaction in an easily-accessible central ledger. There's no such thing as an off-the-books Bitcoin transaction, by nature.

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#58

Post by kelseyfrog »

paxys wrote: post #50
kelseyfrog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except none of that happened. It didn't stay anonymous, it just went to Iran.

Did not happen != cannot happen

A lot of things can happen, but what did happen is the coins went to Iran.

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#59

Post by rwmj »

chihuahua wrote: post #35
paxys wrote: post #6

Isn'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.

That's a rather narrow view of crypto's uses. What about subverting democracy by bribing the President?

Re: Binance fired employees who found $1.7B in crypto was sent to Iran

#60

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

lambda wrote: post #54
hilliardfarmer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a deeply troubling and cynical comment. As far as I know, nowhere in the Bitcoin white paper or the original code base. Does it say anything about what you seem to think it's use cases are. Bitcoin has one main use, digital cash, that can be sent instantly and for free or a very low fee. Edit: I would agree though, that anything other than that is probably a scam.

What? "Instantly and for a very low fee"? Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction. They've since added hacks on top of the original Bitcoin protocol to get the price back down again, but the original design was not good for low fees. And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle, that's hardly instant. If you accept a transaction instantly, it's relatively easy for someone to scam you by do…

Pointing at the BTC transaction fee and saying it is super expensive is like pointing at a problematic car model and saying all cars are bad.

There are any number of other popular coins out there that have the same or better liquidity as BTC that charge tiny fractions of the fees. And also settle in seconds.

You're saying Bitcoin like BTC, but the parent commenter was probably referring to the giant ecosystem of coins, that happens to include BTC, but also many other much faster and cheaper options, that are used to globally remit payments every day.

What it's replacing, by the way, Western Union, Wise and the like, is also pretty unblockable and unrefundable.

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