If you buy Bitcoin or most crypto from KYC places like Coinbase, the currency is VERY TRACEABLE. It's a public blockchain, so if they know who you are, and what coin they give you, then they have a full trail of what you did with it from there. It's not like cash at all in that sense. You might want to update you understanding of crypto because it's not private at all unless you get it anonymously, and that that ship has sailed for most of the West. Even if you get it anonymously, if you spend it it can be backtracked to the wallet you're holding it in. A lot of the "silk road" people got tracked and sent to prison.
Initially it was easy to mine and you could trade with just a logon account, but that changed a while ago where you need KYC in NA, but I don't know how it is around the world. I imagine there is some country out there that lets you buy/sell without it, but I haven't looked :)
Except you can easily launder bitcoin, if I trade bitcoin for cash and then bitcoin again and then some other crypto and blah blah blah, it's not hard to do as long as the bitcoin you start with arent stolen or something.
What's to stop me from going on craigslist or local bitcoins and trading bitcoin and cash? How are you going to track that?
The open ledger prevents widescale criminal activity and fraud, not so much a problem for regular people.
Well assuming they can't track your account on those sites (ip, email), or a phone connection connecting the theoretical buyer to the seller "burner" that's truly unlinked to car/store), you still have the crypto owner got it from somewhere and then would likely be able to describe you to authorities if you made a face to face transaction. And the more shifty you are, the more likely the person would be suspicious and attentive.
And then wherever you spend the crypto could be tracked and potentially glean information back to you from that side because a retailer would have cameras or people they interacted with, etc.
But yes, I'm sure it's possible, just a lot less likely now than say 10 years ago.
If you buy Bitcoin or most crypto from KYC places like Coinbase, the currency is VERY TRACEABLE. It's a public blockchain, so if they know who you are, and what coin they give you, then they have a full trail of what you did with it from there. It's not like cash at all in that sense. You might want to update you understanding of crypto because it's not private at all unless you get it anonymously, and that that ship has sailed for most of the West. Even if you get it anonymously, if you spend it it can be backtracked to the wallet you're holding it in. A lot of the "silk road" people got tracked and sent to prison.
where do you get crypto without going through KYC?
Initially it was easy to mine and you could trade with just a logon account, but that changed a while ago where you need KYC in NA, but I don't know how it is around the world. I imagine there is some country out there that lets you buy/sell without it, but I haven't looked :)
Except you can easily launder bitcoin, if I trade bitcoin for cash and then bitcoin again and then some other crypto and blah blah blah, it's not hard to do as long as the bitcoin you start with arent stolen or something.
What's to stop me from going on craigslist or local bitcoins and trading bitcoin and cash? How are you going to track that?
The open ledger prevents widescale criminal activity and fraud, not so much a problem for regular people.
Well assuming they can't track your account on those sites (ip, email), or a phone connection connecting the theoretical buyer to the seller "burner" that's truly unlinked to car/store), you still have the crypto owner got it from somewhere and then would likely be able to describe you to authorities if you made a face to face transaction. And the more shifty you are, the more likely the person would be suspicious and attentive.
And then wherever you spend the crypto could be tracked and potentially glean information back to you from that side because a retailer would have cameras or people they interacted with, etc.
But yes, I'm sure it's possible, just a lot less likely now than say 10 years ago.
How is that different from cash?
When did I assert that Cash was untraceable?