Hello fellow bitcoiners,
I need your help today…
My wife, author as well as working in the politic field, came to me yesterday and for the first time, started a conversation about bitcoin with me by herself. ( I was kinda surprised I have to admit…)
She told me she wants to know more about bitcoin in the soecific aspect of « anti money laundering » and asked me what are, if any, the features of the bitcoin protocol that enables anti money laundering… For political campaign purposes she wants to be more aware of this aspect… which is great because it means the topic of bitcoin gets into the political sphere on all levels, even local.
My issue is that, my overall knowledge of bitcoin doesn’t really reach her expectations and I can barely find convincing arguments why bitcoin is a weapon against money laundering…
Would anyone help me pitching the case of bitcoin to her, to convince her and her political clients, for the sake of all of us…
Thank you friends !
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 29 Jan 2024
Devs are not doing anything actively to fight money laundering (ML), but they are also actively not doing something to make ML easier.
Let me explain.
If they wanted, they could have implemented Monero or Mimblewimble-level tools to hide our transactions. But they didn't, because (i) that's hard to change Bitcoin and (ii) it would be a losing battle. The government agencies are very happy with the way things are now, with the proper tools, they are very much able to track illicit transactions. They count on the fact that at some point, someone will fuck up and reveal their identity. Look at all the stolen Bitcoin that got recovered over the years. However, if Bitcoin were to become more private, these agencies would have much more incentive to go after Bitcoin. They don't, so as not to push Bitcoin to become private. It's a nice equilibrium we got there.
Crime happens mostly on Monero now, not on Bitcoin.
Monero and Bitcoin Lite (which implemented Mimblewimble) got banned on several exchanges. Bitcoin didn't, because it is rather a gift than a threat in fighting crime.
H/T for this theory to Antonopoulos, from a talk he gave a few years back in Seoul
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @AJ1992 29 Jan 2024
If you transact in a way where your wallet cannot be traced back to you, you're using a freshly.generated send and change address, you're protected behind a no log VPN, and you're sending to someone that has all the features listed above as well, it is VERY VERY POSSIBLE to transact with true anonymity. However, people usually tend to fuck up somewhere. That's how the feds in the past have been able to recover stolen Bitcoin.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Anonymous_Hodler OP 29 Jan 2024
Ok but that doesn t really answer how bitcoin devs are fighting against money laundering..!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @harrr 29 Jan 2024
Bitcoin is a permissionless system, AML is about removing permission. Bitcoin and AML are fundamentally incompatible.
Think about cash, cash doesn't have AML features. Bitcoin doesn't want to be worse than cash.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AJ1992 29 Jan 2024
I don't really think they are honestly. It's moreso the feds learning how Bitcoin works and having a dedicated department fixed on it. That's part of the bad that comes with Bitcoin is it's creator WANTED it to be completely anonymous and didn't really care about the possible repercussions or crimes that could be committed.
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