100 sats \ 8 replies \ @taxd OP 6 Aug 2023 \ on: Colombia’s Economic Woes Worsen As Cocaine Prices Plunge meta
The Colombian cartels use Bitcoin when selling cocaine to (at least part of) Europe. Quite understandable, banks will not touch their money and stablecoins can be censored. This use of Bitcoin will increase, I see no real alternative here.
You can see the cocaine price collapse in the asking prices amongst tier-1 sellers on darknet markets. I'm a regular patron there for some of the psychedelic offerings, which are amazing. But it's funny how XMR has never taken a foothold there. Not enough volume or liquidity. One leg of the trade back into fiat almost always involves BTC. And the privacy concerns of BTC are grossly overblown. Kingdom and Versus are two of the fastest growing marketplaces and are bitcoin only. Europes largest (Flugsvamp) I believe was bitcoin only until it gotten taken down. Most sellers elsewhere prefer bitcoin.
- Darknet: mostly BTC
- Ransomware: mostly BTC
- Money laundering: mostly BTC
Where the hell you at Monero? What you say and what I see are two different things.
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I would love to see the data to back that up.
what's that ? you don't have any data on monero ?
isn't that insteresting
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There's plenty @llamabyte.
First go visit the top darkweb marketplaces. I've never ordered from any of them using Monero. Most accept both XMR/BTC, but the volume is heavily BTC, so much so that some have quit supporting XMR. Then look at the darkweb marketplaces that have been shut-down with arrests, and look at what they seize. Hydra was the longest running and was shut-down last year, $25M in BTC seized, a few hundred thousand in XMR. Usually the same story for most seizures.
Look at the top ransomware cases over the last two years. How much Monero do you see being asked for? In fact, I don't know of any major ransomware ransoms that weren't in BTC. If you know of any I'm curious. Getting tens of millions of dollars worth of XMR in a short time period is impossible. Who are you sending the cash to? It's widely unsupported by exchanges. The daily XMR volume averages like $70M a day compared to BTC, which has ubiquitous outlets to buy it globally, an established OTC market, and averages $13B in daily volume. And if you start buying that much XMR, trade friction raises the price, then others start buying too. XMR is useless for ransoms unless it's small-time stuff.
And laundering, see the cases. Mixers are used a lot. ChipMixer was the largest shutdown after $844M in bitcoin ransom was cleaned through there. It accepted most cryptocurrencies, but it was mostly BTC. Bitzlato the exchange is another example, where Binance was a counterparty laundering mostly bitcoin. ADVcash is another example and they're still active with literal drop sites in Eastern Europe. Of course Monero can be used as one leg of the laundering trade (to mix and obfuscate), but this is difficult, expensive, and time consuming, because again the volume and liquidity. The last leg of any laundering trade back into fiat is almost always bitcoin. Usually it's bitcoin mixed with bitcoin, then onto a friendly offshore exchange that has counterparties. Professional laundering avoids Ethereum because of the OFAC compliant blocks, Etherscan's address blacklisting (most dapps use Etherscan API), and the many wallets and dapps that have barred geographic areas under sanctions.
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So in the first comment you say:
Darknet: mostly BTC
Then you say:
Most accept both XMR/BTC,
So your data and claims are off. What we really need is a wikipage that lists all this because you and giaccomo keep talking.
but the volume is heavily BTC...25M in BTC seized, a few hundred thousand in XMR
Do you know why ? Because it's part of monero culture not to keep your f'ing money on exchanges and markets. Every year monero has an exchange run, were the community actively promotes and educates it's users not to do that. If a market or exchange goes bust there is none there to take and no trail.
When LEO seizes a list of on market wallets and associated bitcoin addresses from a darkent market, the investigation continues and they seize even more by following the trail and saying hello to central exchanges/wallets who hold the most bitcoin on behalf of users. When LEO seizes a monero address they go for coffee and donuts.
And if you start buying that much XMR, trade friction raises the price, then others start buying too.
Yes, BTC has first arrival advantage, arguably its one main trick. So does the USD. This is not a good thing in the limit. More to your point, it does make sense to hodl in bitcoin because of the liquity and price fluctuation, but onboarding and actual use for purchases legal or illegal is hands down better with Monero, there are just way fewer steps to get equivalent or better privacy. The routine of the average bitcoiner is like 5 to 6 extra steps and wait times for the same functionality and privacy a Monero user get by default. I'm not shilling Monero, i'm speaking from experience trying to use many different tools. (don't you fucking mention Bisq)
God forbid you do something wrong in a coin join or lightning channel. (what's that? i have to run both a BTC and LN node and coinjoin while using a vpn to be safe, you underestimate my deisire to use this currency to buy used japanese underwear my friend).
ChipMixer was the largest shutdown after $844M in bitcoin ransom was cleaned through there. It accepted most cryptocurrencies, but it was mostly BTC
Because you don't need mixers with monero
, but this is difficult, expensive, and time consuming, because again the volume and liquidity.
not at all, cheaper and easier then BTC, even large transactions are only 1 cent.
I know i'm "arguing from ignorance" but that is by necessity. Estimates of monero daily flow are theorhectical. We don't actually know, and that's by design.
A huge amount of that volume in BTC you are talking about is "washtrading" the thing monero does by default. It's coin joins and payjoins and mixers and whaterver other custodial cope BTC has to employ to try and get similar entropy.
That volume went way up when tether came on the scene, I saw a chart about it recently.
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Also llama, I think I just realized I know you. We've talked before on Twitter spaces?
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But nobody uses Monero! Not even the criminals. Not even the journalists risking their lives on darknet are asking for it. I'm around the space (as an observer) enough to know. I'm just saying, what Monero advocates claim it's doing is different from the reality on the ground I'm watching. Bitcoin is taking a bigger and bigger hold. As an aside, Monero is the only project I respect outside bitcoin. I like Monero people, who generally tend to be pro-bitcoin, smart, pro-freedom, less about mindless speculation.
You're correct that it currently takes an extra 3+ steps to get the privacy you get with Monero by default (although many advancements on the LN look to end that, and the possibility that, with a circular economy, and high data set from global use, bitcoin's privacy spikes naturally).
But if you're trying to convert a lot of Monero into fiat, then it's going to take more steps and time OVERALL. This is the problem. You're going to be doing a gazillion transactions. The bitcoin advantage is as you say, but also because there are off-ramps all over the world.
There's no XMR DEX with any volume or significant asks.
Bisq? I'm active there. No volume.
LocalMonero? If you bought every ask listed you might get $100k of XMR
And it's only more of a desert after these two.
The cartels prefer bitcoin, because their Chinese suppliers for fentanyl precursors only accept that, and in a darker turn for sound money, there's an enormous push to make bitcoin legal tender in Mexico, which is being politically financed by cartels, for obvious reasons.
There's no darknet volume either I'm telling you. The places we find XMR volume are the remaining CEX's offering this forbidden fruit, which defeats the whole purpose of using Monero obviously, and nobody in their right mind would send a bunch of Monero to a CEX from outside it.
I don't know what's going to happen to Monero if the second layer(s) of bitcoin achieve the privacy some devs think it can.
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Indeed, Mexican cartels sell fentanyl in the US for Bitcoin and pay for their precursors in Bitcoin.
If you can give sources for the push to make Bitcoin legal tender in Mexico, please link them. I can understand that the cartels would love that.