“This is the story of the revelation in late 2013 that Bitcoin was, in fact, the opposite of untraceable—that its blockchain would actually allow researchers, tech companies, and law enforcement to trace and identify users with even more transparency than the existing financial system.”
Transactions are public. But wallet ownership is not.
That’s why it’s widely used in cybercrime. You can make a wallet and authorities may know which wallet receibe the money, but it may be imposible to link that wallet with an actual person.
Yeah, but retrieving actual useful currency from that wallet becomes nearly impossible. At that point, the only way, really, is peer-to-peer transaction. And even then, it seems fraught.
Then how do people set up drug empires built around it?
Use your brains.
The same way they do everywhere else… Complex webs of money laundering, but that’s not cheap, or easy.
Or nearly impossible, as evidenced by the litany of small-time vendors who have been operating for years.
On a side note, where are you getting this information from?
You said drug empires, not guy selling 8 balls and 10 packs on a darknet market.
I’m not going to provide sourcing for my throw away comment. Take it, or leave it, doesn’t really matter to me.
Yeah, because those are the ones LE focuses on. So we can agree that players both big and small are able to cash out on cryptocurrency and your initial point is wrong.
Lol, okay. You can just admit you don’t have one.
You got me, I’m just making this shit up. I have never even heard of any of the publicly available blockchain forensics databases, or reviewed any of the ample examples of reporting and analysis on the subject.
If this was some obtuse or obscure subject, I’d take the time to cite sources, but it’s not, it’s extremely well covered, so stop being a lazy twat and look for yourself.
That’s not what I asked about and you know it.
I asked how you know about vendor money laundering techniques, which you failed to provide a source for.
If that’s the case, then you should be able to easily provide a source instead of flailing around like you’re doing now.
You made the claim. You provide the source or you admit you’re making stuff up.