Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
art-is-crime.com
Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
1–10 of 65 posts
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#2I don’t believe him. It sounds to me like he played the usual scheme, having people pay for his NFTs to inflate their value- while sending the funds back.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#3Well that's a sensationalist title and hyperbole filled article.
Art is not illegal. Money laundering is.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#4I don’t believe him. It sounds to me like he played the usual scheme, having people pay for his NFTs to inflate their value- while sending the funds back.
Why would you assume this ?
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#5I get that this blog is one sided because it's literally from one of the sides, but not providing any details of the allegations seems sketchy, and makes me wonder what other important details he is omitting. Are we to assume that because this guy has a blog, he must not be guilty?
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#6Whether or not you suspect he is guilty, according to the timeline, the police seized his property without justification delivered to him or his lawyer, which appears to be required by law. If you are ok with that for a suspected guilty person, I hope you aren't ever wrongly accused.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#7I haven't read the entirety of the page, but I think I got the main points. The artist claims he's in the clear because he paid taxes on his income he made by selling NFT artpieces created by him.
However, he gives no indication (as far as I can tell) that he has any kind of information on his customers. Does he have invoices? Did he collect name, address, and phone number for each customer? Did he make a reasonable effort to see if his customers were not obvious crooks? He published transactions from various crypto chains, but that doesn't prove anything except that crypto transactions have taken place.
The author rants extensively about how corrupt and illegal the government's actions are, but he provides no evidence that he conducted his business in a serious and professional way. He feels like his actions should be legal, but it's not obvious that he hasn't inadvertently facilitated money laundering. After all, if he's a popular NFT artists then people with illicitly gained crypto could easily have been trading his NFT art to launder their money.
I think it's pretty likely that much of last year's NFT bubble was the result of scammers/fraudsters/ponzi operators looking to obscure the source of their new wealth, and this guy happened to be a big beneficiary of it.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#8Reminds me of all the US cops just seizing cash and forcing a lawsuit for it to be returned.
However, it's an inherent risk with crypto if the law requires all your income to be explicable. i.e.
>> The decision to arrest stated that I was receiving money from Coinbase, and therefore it is impossible to trace the source of funds
It's not clear if he knew who his counterparties were? (natural persons, not accounts)
I see the comment thread is going to be people just assuming guilt or innocence based on a cursory reading of this, which is going to be a mess.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#9I don’t believe him. It sounds to me like he played the usual scheme, having people pay for his NFTs to inflate their value- while sending the funds back.
Why would you assume this ?
Even though he says he’s obtained documents stating what he was accused of, he doesn’t say what that is.
Re: Art is crime [NFT artist funds seized]
#10I don’t believe him. It sounds to me like he played the usual scheme, having people pay for his NFTs to inflate their value- while sending the funds back.
It's not money laundering and I don't think it breaks any laws.