Mainstream media want us to believe that Bitcoin is mostly used by criminals, pedophiles and terrorists. Thousands of articles are already written to support this narrative. This FUD gives governments a reason to regulate cryptocurrencies even more strictly, every ban or regulation comes with the argument that it is necessary to counter things like money laundering and terrorism. Bitcoin don’t care about regulation and will eventually expose who the real bad actors are.
When you use Bitcoin for crime you might leave your fingerprint forever
Only dumb criminals use Bitcoin
Using Bitcoin for crime is the most stupid thing you can do, fiat cash or privacy coins like Monero serve much better for this purpose. Yes, a Bitcoin address is a private and originally not linked to the identity of the owner, but since the blockchain is public every transaction can be traced back all the way to the genesis block.
Once an address can be linked to an identity because an exchange with KYC is used or used devices are seized the entire payment history of this person can be investigated and the entire criminal network can be identified. These traces will exist as long as the BTC network exist and you never know what kind of analytic tools there will be in the future to expose your crime. This makes the use of Bitcoin for crime extremely risky, if just cash is used there will be no traces.
Bitcoin can stop the biggest crimes on earth
When Bitcoin becomes the monetary standard it will restrict money creation out of thin air because people can now exit by dumping their fiat and storing their wealth in Bitcoin. This will devalue the currency and make even more people switch over to preserve their wealth. When a central bank goes over a certain limit they take the risk to push their currency into this negative spiral. This means that central banks will be restricted through the competition of Bitcoin.
Also banks will have to behave better in a world with Bitcoin as the monetary standard because the blockchain is public. Their balance sheet can be investigated and when they hide it it will be seen as suspicious. People will use only transparent banks and money created through fractional reserve will be valued lower by the market because the risk is higher. This will make fractional reserve banking less easy if not impossible.
When governments can’t just make some new money it will be much harder to go to long lasting and useless wars because now they have to fund it with a scarce budget, so they have to sacrifice other spending for it. Less people will be murdered.
When printing of money is restricted actually counterfeiting is restricted (when the government does it they call it different, but every dollar created will devalue the existing dollars thus is theft of value of the existing holders). Less value can be stolen from the people through inflation. This form of theft will greatly decrease.
Fractional reserve banking will be much harder. This means that people will not have their money stolen anymore when they go to the bank to receive their money while the bank doesn’t have it because they loaned it out. Fractional reserve banking also increases the money supply and thus devalues the money held by everyone else. Another major form of theft that will decrease significantly.
Conclusion:
I think that it will be a hard job for murderers on the street to kill more people than are killed in useless wars and it will be a hard job for thieves on the streets to steal more money than is stolen through inflation and fractional reserve banking. Politicians and bankers that blame Bitcoin for being a tool for criminals expose themselves for being not officially but actually criminals using the tools of the flawed financial system for murder and theft to satisfy their own greed and lust for power. Bitcoin will destroy their tools and that is why they feel threatened and speak up.
By the way, almost every big bank is caught for money laundering at least one time………..
Disclaimer
This is no financial advice, just my view on the market.
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You changed my mind! A good review point
I love the facts when the banks launder more money for criminals and Bitcoin are terrible laundering tools for criminals...
I mean a lot of people can barely use dirty bitcoins before getting rejected(they need to be "cleaned" which only big holders can do in auctions)
LOL well said, when will people finally realise what we have missed out in time to come....Well, it seems like you and I are still in, we will have good stories to tell our children and grandchildren about this in our private history times.
As you said BTC won´t make the crime worse, it will catch some dumb criminals.
I think the main problem with BTC is how threatening it is for the "old system" and they want to stop it (delay it) as much as they can. If they weren't worried about their own S they wouldn't ban/restrict BTC, they would use and explore the qualities it presents to stop crime and develop new methods to make the world a better/safer place.
are you a bitcoin maximalist?
The media is trying to demonise crypto, it will not work!
Bitcoin is for freedom and transparency, we got it right it's a nice read. And thanks for the tips at the end of your article, will try some of them i haven't used before.
I think that those of us who really believe in the technology should not worry about the price. And its also because of the fear that price will drop, and the fact that we go in with the mindset of "investing" and earning money that disappoints us the most.
While some are viewed as investments like stocks and some cryptocurrencies are viewed as currency, those of us "investing" in the currency should try not to sell. The very point of a currency is a medium of exchange, not to earn money. The value will eventually go up, mechanisms and systems will come in place to use these mediums of exchange in the future, and price will stabilise with that. Isn't that what we want with cryptocurrency? Or just blindly waiting for the price to go up and sell and repeat? @michiel what do you think sir?
Thanks for the post, michiel.
I hope you don't mind if I test out some sentiment analysis on your post. This is an experimental bot running on posts that have exceptional positivity or negativity. The goal is to iterate towards a bot that gives content creators and curators actionable and useful information.
Your post was selected because it is in the 99th percentile for negativity.Your post had an average negative sentiment of -0.162, an average positive sentiment of 0.054, and an average normalized sentiment of -0.11
The most positive sentence in your post had a normalized positivity score of 0.231:
"Thousands of articles are already written to support this narrative."
The most negative sentence in your post had a normalized negativity score of -0.599:
"LEAVE A COMMENT!"
This comment is very strange :D
To be sure of that, I gave a full upvote for the article :D:D
Yeah its tough to make a comment generated by a bot that doesn't seem out of place, but its a challenge I'm interested in taking on. Any thoughts on how to make comments like this more useful would be appreciated.
Love it man @michiel outstanding your article
I'm new to your blog. I like your post. Thank you for sharing with us.
Nice post. I just upvoted you.
I agree with you. Bitcoin for trades & investors. Not for Crime
people who can't understand this post, doesn't understand the fundamental hash functions and provenance that blockchain utilises. Haters, please invest some money in online lectures and get educated!
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Hrm... Crime, morality, and Ethics are all separate issues.
You can follow the law and still be unethical and you can break the law to be moral when the law is unjust.
Also everyone is a criminal in the USA, they just haven't found the one of the massive amounts of laws you violated. Even that nice old lady. Did you whistle that song without attribution? Did you walk across the street without waiting for the signal? Did you watch a pirated song on YouTube? Did you forget to report that sales tax on that item you bought on eBay?
Yep, you're a criminal.*
*This is not legal advice and you should follow the law. Even though you probably are a criminal if someone looked into it.
Nice post
Plz upvote for my posts @haytham1982