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Contrary to a lot of comments here, the only way to use bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) without tracking is to mine it yourself, and even then...
Where did you get it? Purchased/transferred? Where did they get it? What else did the person with that wallet do?
If the answer is "mined", even then, you have to actually do something with it, right? Buy something? Where is that something shipped? At worst you'll have to pay customs on it, and have it actually get through customs. At best, your address is in a database now.
Have it shipped somewhere obscure? Video cameras are everywhere. Have it shipped to someone else's house and steal it off their porch? Again, cameras everywhere.
Not have a physical item? Just a service? That's pretty much the closest you'll get to anonymous money transfer and full usage (along with whatever VPN you prefer).
Cool that was a fun mental exercise. Now everyone tell me why I'm wrong!
By wildzzz 2026-02-242:37 It's great for transactions where moving a large amount of money would be impossible due to KYC laws and smuggling the cash even more so. As long as you can find someone willing to sell you bitcoin and someone else willing to accept it, you're still in business.
> Where did you get it? Purchased/transferred? Where did they get it?
NFTs solved that problem by providing plausible cause of "I got the money from selling this money image for 100,000 USD"
By yesco 2026-02-2417:46 Ah, I finally understand NFTs now
By para_parolu 2026-02-247:211 reply It shipped to a forest, buried and gps location is given. Pretty old scheme when buyer and seller don’t want to meet
By ethbr1 2026-02-254:17 That's called a dead drop.
By VirusNewbie 2026-02-2321:365 reply I mean, I can meet you in an ally, transfer some satoshis from my wallet to yours, you hand me a wad of cash/jewels/MtG/collector funkos and you might not even know my name.
Hmm, doesn't this work equally well with a wad of $10 and $20 notes? I mean, yes, notes could be clandestinely marked. But aren't bitcoins also traceable after the first transaction?
By VirusNewbie 2026-02-2322:481 reply yes but harder to move 10M in cash around from country to country.
I'm assuming I'm purchasing/selling a lot of MtG/Funko here in this example.
By Retric 2026-02-241:32 There’s a large industry for cleaning cash which then makes moving a clean 10M or even 10B in clean cash nearly trivial.
10M might not be as noticeable but crypto being nominally in a country on its own isn’t that useful as you still want to be able to spend it at the end of the day.
By davidwritesbugs 2026-02-247:451 reply But do people actually do this? How would you find someone to give you bitcoin for your gold? Are there online markets? Honest Q
By mikkupikku 2026-02-2322:481 reply Sounds like a setup to get robbed tbqh.
By dpc050505 2026-02-2416:23 My days of contraband in college taught me that the perspective of repeat business kept things quite amicable.
How do you avoid them just putting a bullet in you and just taking your cash without the Bitcoin though? It doesn't seem like a great option.
By DeusExMachina 2026-02-2410:11 The same way you avoid it doing anything else illegal that involves cash.
Crime is risky, but not pure anarchy. It is still based on trust and rules, just not those written in the law.
There are plenty of regular people who interact with criminals, for example drug dealers, without getting murdered or robbed of all the cash they are carrying.
In Argentina, years ago, you could exchange dollars/euros for pesos on the street and get a far better exchange rate than in a bank. It was obviously aimed at tourists, who didn't get robbed, or the whole enterprise would stop.
True, but this does not happen for large transactions, due to being vulnerable to the $5 wrench attack (1)
For big transactions where something of actual value is exchanged, both parties will want an escrow, and this is where a public exchange comes in.
By himata4113 2026-02-2322:331 reply Except that there is a huge trusted network for this. The world does not revolve around americas and europe. Not everyone has issues cashing out millions of crypto from a bank. This has been especially prevelant with countries that host a lot of Russian immigrants ever since the SWIFT ban, the regulation is extremely lax and there is minimal data shared to western institutions.
I have heard from friends who are in these countries observing transactions that go into the millions of dollars that are being cashed out (not even laundered) like it's just another day. Nobody asks questions, nobody cares either and if you bring it up you will likely lose your job in few months or so.
The moment that crypto is cashed out at a bank, no matter how sketchy, a record is created in a ledger. This completely destroys the so-called anonymity of cryptocurrencies.
By VirusNewbie 2026-02-2323:291 reply No it doesn't. If I go to an escrow company, transfer my ten million in bitcoin to their wallet and they put money into the bank, the only paper trail is the escrow company.
Escrow companies open and close all the time for this very reason. People wash money alllll day long with US real estate for this reason.
By himata4113 2026-02-241:11 this was about the $5 wrench not about the tracing of it and sure you can know the origin but you don't know the final destination.
By KellyCriterion 2026-02-258:35 Well, this escrow could also be some lawyer or notary, Id guess?
By Haven880 2026-02-284:36 Originally there is mixer parties. That was taken down massively in the covid years. That is the one that can trackless. Currently the only one that near impossible to track is Monero. But that is actively suppress worldwide. You rarely heard it and any YTber promoting it, usually algo suppressed. Now crypto are even more trackable than bank transfer. I guess cash and maybe diamonds is still king.
By omegadynamics 2026-02-244:45 fund my art project and my sculpture will prove you wrong.
By joe_the_user 2026-02-2322:50 Yeah, crypto as normally managed is one of the most traceable currencies. The block chain is in fact a complete log of transactions. Naturally that means there are no untraceable uses despite your sound-of-one-hand-clapping thought experiment.
Binance is not an American company and sending money to Iran or Palestine or Hamas is something should not be up to Americans to decide, i personally will not accept Americans be the police of the world they did so much horrible things and terrorising Muslims for so many years.
I hope for the day the world will be decoupled from dollar as universal currency. That day countries will free to trade with each other without worrying about some orange head with low IQ.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-02-249:351 reply > Binance is not an American company and sending money to Iran or Palestine or Hamas is something should not be up to Americans to decide, i personally will not accept Americans be the police of the world they did so much horrible things and terrorising Muslims for so many years.
Doesn't matter, tbh. Regardless of the philosophical viewpoint here (which I do agree with), AML and Bank Secrecy type laws exist basically everywhere, and are no joke. They're one of the few things that bank executives go to prison for.
And like, Binance were just convicted of this a few years back. I wouldn't be surprised if the US government tried to shut them down at this point. And if Binance are persona non grata to the US government then they're out of the dollar system which basically cuts them off from almost the entire banking system.
By embedding-shape 2026-02-2411:172 reply > Doesn't matter, tbh.
It does matter, for non-Americans, that America isn't the world police and doesn't dictate laws, norms and how other countries behave. Maybe it used to be relatively fringe to have this point of view, but last few years really vindicated this point of view, and I agree that many countries in the world should continue focusing on decoupling themselves from the US, this particular issue highlights one motivation for doing just so.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-02-2411:581 reply > It does matter, for non-Americans, that America isn't the world police and doesn't dictate laws, norms and how other countries behave. Maybe it used to be relatively fringe to have this point of view, but last few years really vindicated this point of view, and I agree that many countries in the world should continue focusing on decoupling themselves from the US, this particular issue highlights one motivation for doing just so.
All of these (American driven) laws exist in basically every country at this point, and it's gonna be a struggle to remove them. Like, how would you even spin this as a good change?
I personally regard AML laws as problematic as they weaponise the financial system against its citizens with no democratic right of reply, but that doesn't change the fact that these laws exist basically everywhere and aren't going to be repealed.
By embedding-shape 2026-02-2412:451 reply > Like, how would you even spin this as a good change?
I'm not American, why would I want American laws to apply to me? How could you possibly spin that as a negative change?
> but that doesn't change the fact that these laws exist basically everywhere
So you're saying that there is a Maltese law (or whatever jurisdiction Binance actually is right now) that is saying Maltese companies cannot do business dealings with anyone from Iran? That's the important part, not whatever the US laws says.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-02-2416:151 reply There are AML and sanction laws everywhere, yes. However the US sanctions are mostly enforced by not letting the offending banks transact in dollars, which are basically controlled by the US government. Because the US dollar is the world reserve currency, this normally causes banks to comply with this legislation and sanction lists.
America doesn't dictate laws in the way you describe. However if someone is claiming to be an enemy of the state, it is the the federal government's duty to protect itself and it's citizens. This is [one of] the core responsibilities of the government.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-02-2412:03 > America doesn't dictate laws in the way you describe.
In this particular case they do, because they cut banks off from the dollar system if they interact with sanctioned entities. It's probably one of their most effective weapons against their "enemies".
By zeroCalories 2026-02-2411:56 If the U.S decides to not work with, or allow its citizens to work with a company, that should be up to them.
Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto?
Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency that is out of government control until the day it is used for things they don't like, then suddenly "government please control this!"
I thought the #1 use case for crypto was ransomware, followed by shitcoin rug-pulls, and the ability to commit theft without recourse.
Sending money to Iran is just a minor edge case.
That's a rather narrow view of crypto's uses. What about subverting democracy by bribing the President?
Has the lack of crypto ever stopped this from happening? Look up cases of gold bars being found in senators houses, those are actually MUCH less tracable.
Shitcoins and Shitstocks(some SPACs) do allow of a legal way to "give" others money through the transfer of value in a way that is technically legal. This again is not crypto specific though.
So the best part about being bribed with crypto is if one flees to another country to escape the law, one still has the aforementioned bribes. That plus some measure of anonymity.
By ajross 2026-02-241:41 > Has the lack of crypto ever stopped this from happening?
Undeniably yes, given the number of fraud and money laundering convictions achieved over the years.
> cases of gold bars [...] are actually MUCH less tracable.
Laughably false, given the difficulty of liquidating such things without detection. If you have to store your ill-gotten gains in your own home you've lost the opsec battle already.
I think you're just saying gold bars aren't digital information so don't a priori show up in a query somewhere. But the question that actually needs to be asked is "Did Menendez get caught with gold bars in his home?"
Yeah, he did. Ergo, they aren't very "untraceable" in practice.
By xnx 2026-02-2412:51 Has the scale of bribery ever been as large and as broad before crypto?
By whynotmaybe 2026-02-2320:281 reply For me it was buying a computer from newegg but I confess I'm not playing in the same league.
By whynotmaybe 2026-02-2321:061 reply 1. Get rid of the few mBTC I had left after I realized how bad I'm at crypto trading
2. Fully live the concept of buying something physical from a virtual money I got by mining some now defunct coins.
By alistairSH 2026-02-240:016 reply A Boeing. Straight cash. Naming anirports or other public spaces. The aforementioned shitcoin. What are the others?
By jacquesm 2026-02-240:24 Vanity movie productions for family members. Real estate deals in various places, if necessary you first bulldoze them with the local military.
By paxys 2026-02-242:26 There's a new one - let the president sue you and then settle for tens/hundreds of millions without a fight.
By throwaway85825 2026-02-240:531 reply Boeing has an enormous number of subcontractors. If boeing gets orders they'll make sure the subcontractors are in your district.
By ks2048 2026-02-241:32 A rival UN with $1B entry fee.
By deaux 2026-02-241:31 Teen girls.
By jalapenos 2026-02-2410:58 I think they prefer trafficked underage women, which is all fun and games for the suppliers until they get suicided at the MCC.
Well, you could also use it to buy a pizza and find out it that your pizza cost a billion dollars a few years later.
Literally - this is my friend =(
For him, it was something like a ~$30m pizza at peak. We're asked not to bring it up.
By IncreasePosts 2026-02-243:111 reply If he didn't buy a pizza with it and held the btc, he probably would have just sold it when he could make $1000, or $10000 with it.
By irjustin 2026-02-244:50 While likely true, that's not how our brains work.
By MrToadMan 2026-02-243:29 Conversely, buying pizza with MELANIA has left me with zero regrets.
By fragmede 2026-02-241:42 Sixteen years! If that pizza were still around, it would be dreaming of going to prom, maybe college, figuring out life.
By boplicity 2026-02-2322:23 Money laundering has always been a core feature of cryptocurrency, not an edge case.
When I think about it, I know people that have been involved in all of those areas (always on the wrong non-criminal end). However, I'm not sure I know a single person that has made a regular transaction in some cryptocoin.
By throwaway85825 2026-02-240:54 The currency part of cryptocurrency was always a lie.
By cguess 2026-02-241:14 I did once. Even after setting up a wallet and buying BTC (this was back in the mid-2010s), it still took 15 minutes to pay for two glasses of wine at a cafe. I could have just tossed down €5 and been done with it in 20 seconds.
By inigyou 2026-02-249:14 [dead]
By amelius 2026-02-2322:47 You forgot gambling on crypto exchanges.
By joe_the_user 2026-02-2322:23 Not that snark isn't warranted in this situation but you have to consider that the ability to turn energy into globally accepted (but notably not-actually-untraceable) cash-equivalent is a key piece of the corrupt bitcoin puzzle. It offer opportunities to everyone from third world oligarchs and pariahs to those who happen to be able to tap an electrical grid. Technically, this is indeed "theft without recourse" but you're reply seems to imply this kind is marginal.
Moreover, the chances are the reason Binance nixed the investigation of bitcoin going to Iran is because so much of the bitcoin economy is driven by entities like Iran (google AI say they have 4.5% of global mining plus random search link [1]).
Edit: Iran also wants bitcoin sent to it because bitcoin isn't actually untraceable so getting clean money for dirty matters.
[1] https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/iranian-crypto-activity-geo...
By SergeAx 2026-03-0221:39 You were getting it wrong all this time. The #1 use case for crypto is buying illegal stuff. Mostly drugs, but also weapons and child pornography.
By throwaway85825 2026-02-240:51 Crypto is just temporary regulatory arbitrage. Same as BNPL which is totally not just payday loans.
By numbers_guy 2026-02-2320:341 reply Back in 2011 I remember a lot of people talking about how the Chinese oligarchs were using it to evade currency controls and funnel their wealth out of China.
Yes but we should be reminded that this also allows people to be protected from government overreach.
If you say something the Chinese government does not agree with they can choose to take all your money and control of your company instantly. Not just oligarchs although those are the bigger targets due to the high value.
Even a small business owner could THEORETICALLY have their assets and equity seized for saying something which goes against the current ruling party, and this is not specific to China it could happen in any modern country.
Crypto allow someone to distribute their wealth in a way where they can be free to speak their mind and still protected even if the country which their business is based out of decides to take action against them.
By throw0101a 2026-02-2413:501 reply > Crypto allow someone to distribute their wealth in a way where they can be free to speak their mind and still protected even if the country which their business is based out of decides to take action against them.
Transferring money between people internationally has been around for centuries:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
You transfer X units of value from you to someone else in the network locally, and an equivalent amount is transferred to you in a remote location.
By carshodev 2026-02-2423:31 Yes but this doesn't require trust in others, although you must trust the BTC network/system.
By PearlRiver 2026-02-242:09 I like to live in a world were companies have to follow the law and pay taxes though. Crypto is one step in the direction of Cyberpunk corporations.
How is diversification unique to crypto? They could have bought us dollars or gold or a lot of other things even before Bitcoin. And the day that Trump decides to make Bitcoin illegal, its worldwide value still plummets. Besides which, crypto is not keeping anyone out of physical jail. China does not stop at seizing your bank accounts.
By inigyou 2026-02-249:16 [dead]
By lazyasciiart 2026-02-2320:42 Isn't it just a subset of #3?
By protocolture 2026-02-241:11 I just want to exploit over worked border security by buying semi legal drugs they dont have the capacity to follow up prescriptions for.
By hinkley 2026-02-240:32 I like to amuse myself that if Robert Preston had lived another 20 years that Stephen Colbert or John Oliver would have paid him a heap of money to explain cryptocurrency to us all and it never would have happened.
By jalapenos 2026-02-2410:54 I think you missed buying illegal goods over the internet and making absolutely inane videos and comment about crypto-shit that you spew all over the internet.
By hilliardfarmer 2026-02-2320:064 reply What a deeply troubling and cynical comment.
As far as I know, nowhere in the Bitcoin white paper or the original code base. Does it say anything about what you seem to think it's use cases are.
Bitcoin has one main use, digital cash, that can be sent instantly and for free or a very low fee.
Edit: I would agree though, that anything other than that is probably a scam.
It seems entirely accurate to me, at least in a POSIWID sense.
The original theory of Bitcoin was, as described in the paper, decentralized digital cash. But in practice it was never optimized for what normal people use cash for. As system like that would be something like M-PESA.
Even at the time, cash was declining in usage. In the 18 years since, it has declined a lot more. And for good reason, because what most people want for most things isn't digital cash, but digital money. E.g., debit cards and Venmo.
So pretty naturally Bitcoin has value only for a few niche use cases that are not well served by more effective systems. Various sorts of crime, mostly. Digital cash, sure, but the kind that's transferred in unmarked envelopes slid quietly across the table. The kind that is delivered in a briefcase.
As a side note, it also failed in its goal of being decentralized. The mining power is very concentrated. Much more so than the banking industry, for example. And most users keep their Bitcoin on deposit in centralized services. So it's again basically banking but worse.
Although it was originally intended to be cash it actually now is used as a "store of wealth" It allows people to build up wealth and be able to preserve it from government intervention and inflation. If you have stocks the ownerhsip and registration is controlled by a government and can be taken at any time from you.
Look at china where if you have a large company and take a stand against the government all your equity will be wiped out and you will be either imprisoned or banished to another country.
Cash in a government bank account is the same way, you can wake up one day and all your assets will be seized, your credit cards will stop working.
Bitcoin works because you can technically have your wealth memorized. You can memorize a string of charcters that allow you to bring money with you no matter where you go. NO government or other human can steal it from you (except through torture) but you can also easily not memorize it and instead distribute the keys throughout the world in opposing countries meaning even if you are attacked by one country you still have some wealth kept in another.
A store of wealth is what bitcion allows. True freedom from governments stealing your money because you have ideas which they do not agree with.
This in my mind is the main usage of bitcoin.
Other coins like stablecoins, or the btc lightning network have high value because they make transactions much cheaper as traditional banking systems are complex, error prone, and costly.
By wpietri 2026-03-0421:33 > Although it was originally intended to be cash it actually now is used as a "store of wealth"
It's also terrible at that. Bitcoin is down by something like half off its peak. The odds of me losing money to "government intervention" if I'm not actively criming, are quite low. Certainly well under 50%.
> Bitcoin works because you can technically have your wealth memorized.
If you are having to reach for increasingly absurd fantasy scenarios to justify something that was supposed to have thoroughly quotidian users, maybe you should take that as a sign?
> because you have ideas which they do not agree with
Oh, that's who's using bitcoin the most? Philosophers and the like? I had no idea.
This is not a common man's dream, but one of privilege and wealthy background. The oppressed masses don't need Bitcoin, they have no wealth to "memorize" and jetset around the world.
By throw0101a 2026-02-2413:59 > Although it was originally intended to be cash it actually now is used as a "store of wealth"
For some definition of "actually", given how much it has dropped recently. When he was still a just a candidate, the current Opposition leader in Canada was very excited about Bitcoin:
> As Poilievre campaigned for the Tory leadership on the way to a landslide victory, he spoke positively about decentralized finance and cryptocurrency. At one point, he argued that crypto would allow Canadians to "opt-out" of inflation, which was soaring at the time. And he famously used Bitcoin to purchase a shawarma at a London, Ont., restaurant in March 2022.
* Nov 2023: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cryptocurrency-political-co...
> In 2022, when Pierre Poilievre was a Conservative leadership candidate, he said he’d make Canada the crypto capital of the world. According to him, the Bank of Canada was “ruining” the Canadian dollar, printing money and ramping up inflation to fund COVID-19 relief. His solution? Give Canadians crypto as an alternative currency.
* Apr 2025: https://macleans.ca/politics/who-stands-to-win-in-poilievres...
Given the noise that was made about inflation at the time and the (alleged) devaluation of the CAD, I'm curious to know what the inflation rate equivalent would be now (Feb 2026) if Bitcoin is used as the monetary base.
By maest 2026-02-2322:05 POSIWID = the Purpose Of the System Is What It Does.
By natpalmer1776 2026-02-2320:163 reply Men of principles often mistake the experience and observations of others for cynicism when it does not align with said principles.
This applies to a great deal, not just bitcoin.
By toomuchtodo 2026-02-2320:34 Relevant citations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality
"We must take the world as it is and not as we would like it to be." - Maurice Allais
By hilliardfarmer 2026-02-256:01 Thank you, had to ready this 3 times but wow, well said!!!
By slopinthebag 2026-02-242:25 So the USD as well?
By datatrashfire 2026-02-2321:371 reply the problem is as a means of cash it’s inferior to existing systems in pretty much every dimension. more expensive, slower, more risk, higher volatility. the cash story for crypto is not good.
This is incorrect, bitcoin is slower and more expensive, but bitcoin should not be used as cash, coins like stablecoins which direclty track US dollars or altcoins with lower fees should be used, the lightning network also is useful for transactions.
Bitcoin CAN be used as a store of wealth and the slowness actually makes it better as the slowness is part of the same process that makes it safer, harder to hack/takeover, and gives it value.
You should not look at all crypto as one thing.
What? "Instantly and for a very low fee"?
Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction. They've since added hacks on top of the original Bitcoin protocol to get the price back down again, but the original design was not good for low fees.
And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle, that's hardly instant. If you accept a transaction instantly, it's relatively easy for someone to scam you by double spending.
So, no, Bitcoin doesn't make a great digital cash. Maybe a better wire transfer. But the biggest benefit of it is to be unblockable and unrefundable, which makes it great for scames and illegal activity, plus the speculative nature of the pricing, which is great for gambling on.
Bitcoin via the Lightning Network is near cost-free and instant. And it's not a hack, it's just a network of payment channels.
By singpolyma3 2026-02-2323:201 reply I've never seen $100 for a normal sized transaction that seems rather hyperbolic.
By SOLAR_FIELDS 2026-02-2320:241 reply Pointing at the BTC transaction fee and saying it is super expensive is like pointing at a problematic car model and saying all cars are bad.
There are any number of other popular coins out there that have the same or better liquidity as BTC that charge tiny fractions of the fees. And also settle in seconds.
You're saying Bitcoin like BTC, but the parent commenter was probably referring to the giant ecosystem of coins, that happens to include BTC, but also many other much faster and cheaper options, that are used to globally remit payments every day.
What it's replacing, by the way, Western Union, Wise and the like, is also pretty unblockable and unrefundable.
By whynotmaybe 2026-02-2320:291 reply >And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle >Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction
So it's cheaper to use Paypal ?
It's also the #1 use case for $100 US dollar bills. Most US $100 bills, in fact, are not even in the US.[a][b]
US $100 bills are the currency of choice for small-time crooks and evildoers around the world.
They are also the currency of choice for big-time crooks and evildoers. Briefcases of US $100 bills have long been used for illicit payments, as depicted in numerous books and movies.
Just because crooks and evildoers use US $100 bills doesn't mean they are not useful and valuable to honest people too.
What Binance did was wrong, no doubt, but Binance ≠ crypto.
--
[a] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/oct/innocent-...
[b] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/12/177051690/most...
By crazygringo 2026-02-2322:103 reply There's a major distinction, however, in that it's a heck of a lot harder to safely and reliably lug briefcases or suitcases full of $100 bills from Chicago to Tehran, than it is to click and transfer some Bitcoin. Which is the whole point.
Yeah, crypto is a safer, more reliable alternative for many use cases, including those that are fundamentally honest. For instance, if you're an honest person trapped as a citizen in a despotic authoritarian state that doesn't respect your property rights, crypto may be the safest, most reliable alternative for storing and transferring your hard-earned savings.
Ironically, crypto has developed something significantly better for these use cases called stablecoin, which isn't really decentralized.
By hephaes7us 2026-02-243:41 A currency peg is a double-edged sword in and of itself, to say nothing of the risk brought into the equation by having to trust a stablecoin issuer.
By jazzyjackson 2026-02-241:141 reply Yes, mostly they are distributed via pallets out the back of C130s
(Definitely in Iraq and Afghanistan, I don't know if there's any back channel deals at the moment paying off Iranians in 100$ bills but I wouldn't be surprised if we were nudging for regime change by funding revolutionaries)
By crazygringo 2026-02-2415:211 reply Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's limited exclusively to countries the US is currently invading...
By YetAnotherNick 2026-02-241:44 It's not hard even for Iran to trade gold and oil in USD.
> The Wall Street Journal reported, saying the hidden conduit enabled Tehran to receive up to $8.4 billion last year.
> Just because criminals and evildoers use US $100 bills doesn't mean they are not useful and valuable to honest people too.
Like all of the ATMs near a dispensary that was always out of cash because 20 individual $20 bills runs out a lot faster than 4 $100 bills. Until dispensaries became legal, it was rare for me to see an ATM with anything other than $20s. Now, I see $20, $50, $100 dispensing machines regularly.
By michaelt 2026-02-240:23 > Now, I see $20, $50, $100 dispensing machines regularly.
There's also been a lot of inflation.
If you held a $50 bill in 1997, or a $20 bill in 1978, then you held a note worth more than a $100 bill today.
By m463 2026-02-240:20 I knew someone who ran an exchange house (like the kind you find in airports)
He said that euros are very popular because there are 500 euro bills.
I guess they stopped making them.
By cyberax 2026-02-2323:34 A briefcase of $100 notes is just around 1 million. That's like a tip you give to a waiter these days in the world of crypto.
At the scale of cryptocrime, you'd be looking at trucks filled with $100 notes.
By garrettgarcia 2026-02-2319:421 reply It's clearly not untrackable. It's never been untrackable. That's how they know it went to Iran.
Only because in this case they used a centralized exchange. The amount of actual circulation to countries like Iran and North Korea is likely many orders of magnitude higher that what is knowable.
I know some pretty sharp folks who fork for various police departments chasing illicit crypto related activity. The amount of stuff they can track including timing of transactions, entry and exit points, etc, and so over a long period of time means that most of the traditional anyonmization methods like tumblers simply do not work. Eventually someone, somewhere makes a mistake and the transactions and wallets can be traced.
If you have dirty money to hide, it's much better to hide it in a bank in Panama, or fill a sports bag with gold bars and fly it out on your private jet than use crypto.
Anything you can do from your bedroom, police can track from theirs.
By 0x3f 2026-02-2320:17 By definition the police only ever detect and catch those they are capable of detecting and catching. It's entirely in their interest to let people believe their capabilities are much greater than they really are. That goes double for the companies that sell this technology to the police.
I am working to track and trace and time transactions and while this is possible when and if you know the identity of at least one participant it’s quite another thing when no identity is known at all. Criminals know that so it’s notoriously hard to pull off. Thanks to Daleware secrecy and lax Super PAC rules to disclose sources of funds it’s not going to get easier.
So either your friends are genius saucers or they have effective government intelligence that would be highly appreciated. I’d be interested.
You are spot on regarding the bedroom though. Exporting physical USD is far more lucrative, by the shipload, often by Chinese Money Laundering Organisations, for free.
By MarsIronPI 2026-02-2320:20 Including sending and receiving Monero? (This is a serious question; I don't have a perspective on this yet.)
By dylan604 2026-02-2322:08 > Anything you can do from your bedroom, police can track from theirs.
This is why I have tape covering my webcam and music blaring. Oh, wait, that's not what you meant.
Bitcoin is traceable by design. That's how a public ledger works. It is merely pseudonymous. But it leaves complete public money trail. If your Bitcoin ever associate with your real identity, which they tend to do when you actually use them, your anonymity is gone.
There is a reason why Monero exists.
The ledger is traceable, the coin is not. Not all transactions have to happen on the blockchain. In fact very few do.
If I put $80m worth of BTC in my hardware wallet and physically hand it to you in exchange for a truck full of black market rockets, who is going to trace it?
By ozgrakkurt 2026-02-2319:54 I don’t understand the point of this. It is no different than traditional finance.
People do and did transfer drug money before and they will keep transferring drug money. I don’t see what blockchain has to do with that.
On the other hand, I use blockchain personally for completely legal purposes and find it very useful.
Easy to do international transfers, easy to buy different currencies even if local government is trying to make it hard. Also I have more trust in it compared to countries that I live in or travel to.
Another big aspect of it is no hidden costs and borderline scamming behavior I get from credit card companies or banks when doing international spending or transfers. This is not even about the insane prices, the feeling of getting scammed is even worse.
Also it is literally governments reason of existence to preserve order and catch criminals. Banning everything used by criminals is insanely stupid.
Same idea with cryptography, same with internet, same with cash.
By idontwantthis 2026-02-2319:503 reply Every single transaction is public information. If you carry a wallet into Iran, and it's coins are used through 20 different transactions to purchase weapons, all of those can be traced back to their origin.
That's like saying every currency note is traceable because it has a serial number. If someone hands you a dollar today can you trace it starting from where it was printed to everything it was used for until it eventually got into your hands?
Yeah you can look up bitcoin wallet IDs on the ledger, but you can also generate an unlimited number of wallets, and pass coins in any combination through any number of mixers and tumblers, and exchange it between multiple currencies (some of them truly untrackable). If people or organizations want to stay anonymous in the crypto ecosystem they can very easily do so.
By arcanemachiner 2026-02-2319:54 Well, that depends on which cryptocurrency is used, doesn't it?
By cammikebrown 2026-02-2319:55 Not if they used Monero
By ericbuildsio 2026-02-2320:045 reply Could someone explain to me where the myth of "crypto = untrackable" comes from, and why it's still being perpetuated?
Storing a record of every single transaction on a publicly accessible blockchain sounds trackable by design
By subscribed 2026-02-2320:192 reply In the case of bitcoin, surely.
Some other coins not so much trackable, and that's the reason some countries don't like them: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/binance-delist-monero-zcash-4...
Also not true in the case of bitcoin. If I want to transfer money to you I don't have to do it on the chain. I can send you the private key of my wallet in whatever way I want and now you have the bitcoin, zero tracking.
By Jyaif 2026-02-244:43 That's not transferring the bitcoin, that's giving potentially temporary shared access to the bitcoin.
The other party then needs to transfer the bitcoin to make sure the original party doesn't use it.
By ericbuildsio 2026-02-2320:52 Fascinating, I didn't know that Zcash / Monero worked that way. Thanks!
I think it’s part of the Origin Story.
Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto almost 20 years ago. There are a number of wallets that people believe belong to Satoshi (have they proven they belong to SN?)
Yet the identification of Satoshi has eluded a global hunt to identify him. Maybe law enforcement has not been involved, but the mystery definitely suggests that BitCoin can help mask identity.
By 47282847 2026-02-2320:51 The wallets attributed to Satoshi have not seen any coin movement so it only shows that one can publish code pseudonymously, not that one can use BTC anonymously.
Bitcoin ist pseudonymous. If you never attach your real identity to your Bitcoin you remain pseudonymous. Now that's a very big if and why states heavily try to enforce KYC for exchanges.
The reality is a lot more messy. Different chains have different properties. Things like CoinJoins for Bitcoin or TornadoCash for Ethereum exist which aim to break the money trail. Mixers are a thing which are a trusted entity doing the same on a "trust me bro" basis.
Monero seeks to be untracable by design using zero knowledge proofs and ring signatures over multiple possible sources for every transaction.
Even with standard Bitcoin it's more complicated. One time change addresses make tracking harder. Say I send you 1 BTC in a transaction. Now you want to spend 0.5 of these Bitcoin. However with Bitcoin you can only ever use an incoming transaction in full. Every transaction has a number of inputs (a previous incoming transaction) that it spends and a number of outputs. An output can only be unspent or spent. The amount of the outputs must match the amount of inputs. So what you do is you use that input of 1 BTC and create two output of 0.5 BTC each. One is to the recipient address and one is to an address of your own (the change address). If you create a new change address for every transaction nobody but the recipient can know which output belongs to the recipient and which is your change address.
In reality that is a weak defense and there are many usage patterns (e.g. one output being a round number and the other one not) that can give away which one the change address is.
By ericbuildsio 2026-02-2323:09 First time I've heard of a change address - that's clever and I see how it obfuscates the flow of cryptocurrency, but it ultimately still seems traceable
By _alternator_ 2026-02-2320:31 The truth is there are some currencies that are by design untrackable—monero and zcash, for example, which use privacy preserving techniques to avoid tracking. (IMO zcash is a better implementation than monero, but shrug.)
Bitcoin and ethereum and most other crypto currencies are absolutely traceable in the sense that anyone can see who you send your money to. And all of the implementations have the core challenge of getting back to fiat—at some point, you withdraw cash or otherwise pay a real person to do something for you. There’s no way around that.
By XorNot 2026-02-2321:03 It's the overconfidence of 90s kids who knew how to program the VCR and use the modem.
By carshodev 2026-02-2321:46 Unblockable yes, untrackable no. Also portable is the main ability of crypto.
The reason that this could be found out is because every transaction is recorded so it can be linked back through the chain once it hits another exchange that is KYC'd.
If I have a gold watch and I wear it through the airport go to turkey melt it down and give it to an iranian, then buy a fake watch and return home noone will every know that this transaction took place.
This would be 100% impossible to track in any reasonable manner. If I went to an exchange transfered bitcoin to a person then they spent this bitcoin in a way that linked it to their identity this would provide a full audit trail that would link me to that person. Also this audit trail could NEVER be removed or altered.
There are ways to use bitcoin in an untracable manner just like gold, you can have a cold wallet and transfer the keys to someone else. The cold wallet password could be only memorized and thus have no physical trace and no transaction record could take place whatsoever, but this is the OPPOSITE of what an exchange does.
Also cash and bank systems are not as resistant, they can fail, be hacked, be altered, people can use shell companies and fake identities.
Some cryptos like monero try and hide the transaction path but even this crypto has some vulnerabilities making linking it to people possible in some cases.
By bigstrat2003 2026-02-2321:132 reply The #1 use case for crypto is that it's anonymous like cash. And yes, this enables people to use it for crime... just like they use cash. The unavoidable cost of freedom has always been that some people will misuse it. Personally, I would rather have freedom even if it gets misused than not have freedom even if it means crime is over.
By throw0101a 2026-02-2321:26 > The #1 use case for crypto is that it's anonymous like cash. And yes, this enables people to use it for crime... just like they use cash.
Not quite like cash: collecting and transferring US$1.7B in cash—actual physical paper—is probably more logistically challenging than BTC.
I understand the argument for freedom, but depending on the scale/dosage many things that could be fine in small quantities aren't as good in large ones.
I'll bet $100 that the percentage of crypto used for crime is higher than the percentage of cash used for crime.
By fluoridation 2026-02-2322:56 Mmh... What do you mean by percentage? Over the amount transacted per day, or over the total supply?
By wat10000 2026-02-2319:54 It seems to me that the people who want the unblockable currency out of government control are not the same people who want to block money transfers to countries like Iran.
By moralestapia 2026-02-2320:44 What's funny is that Bitcoin/Ethereum are now the most tracked ledgers on the planet. If I wanted to do some shady value exchange it would be my last choice.
By expedition32 2026-02-2321:29 Money laundering is only good when our people are doing it.
By slopinthebag 2026-02-242:26 Yes it's the #1 use case, in the same sense that the #1 use case of a free and open internet is criminal activity.
By jacobjjacob 2026-02-2321:211 reply It’s 100% trackable. It’s anonymous but there are many datapoints that could be used to deanonymize if the transaction parties are not extremely careful
By carshodev 2026-02-2322:06 Exchanges are not anonymous at all though. They are directly linked to your identity as required by US law, but physical btc can be traded anonymously as its technically just a string of letters and numbers. You could transact with it through just telling someone this string if you trust them enough.
By mvdtnz 2026-02-2410:13 Certainly in the top 5 along with child pornography, illegal gambling, drug pedalling and ransomware.
Can't anyone basically sanction entire wallets, and mark them, and make some legislation that any transaction involving coins originating from those wallets be rejected by all payment processors and exchanges in regulated markets?
I mean, they obviously can, but probably they have elected not to do so. But if crypto becomes a tool in the hands of enemy nation states, such regulation can't be soo far off.
Though that would create a secondary market for these 'tainted' coins, and would probably have far-reaching consequences into the crypto ecosystem.
By wmf 2026-02-2320:01 OFAC already sanctions crypto wallets. https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/594
You can't track individual coins, so you'd have to "taint" entire wallets. Using a mixer would taint the mixer and every wallet it sent to. I'd think this would end up tainting almost everything before too long.
Bitcoin also doesn't require the receiver to authorize a transaction, so if you had control of a tainted wallet, you could taint other wallets at will, wielding it like a weapon.
Doesn't seem feasible. Not that this always stops legislators.
By StopDisinfo910 2026-02-2320:072 reply > Using a mixer would taint the mixer and every wallet it sent to. I'd think this would end up tainting almost everything before too long.
Is that actually an issue? I am looking for it but I can't see a downside.
By 0x3f 2026-02-2320:19 It was at least in theory an issue when they tried to sanction mixers. In fact people would purposely send tainted crypto to well known wallet addresses of celebrities etc. making them technically run afoul of OFAC
Depends on your goal. If you want to keep the system going while blocking "dirty" money, it's not going to work. If you want to use that as a stealth method of banning the whole system, then full steam ahead.
By fredgrott 2026-02-2320:02 you mean its not used for the Paul brothers latest meme coin rug pulls?
> Everyone wants an untrackable unblockable currency
What are you talking about? Crypto is defined by its trackability (immutable, permission-less, verifiable ledger of every transaction in history). Please refrain from commenting on things you're unfamiliar with.
By dmantis 2026-02-242:22 That's not universally true, there is a class of privacy coins whose txs are not (at least in theory) traceable.
I'd argue that's actually a more anarchist original view and transparent ledger is a bug of the first implementation, not a feature, and creates problem of the original money people are trying to solve (i.e. have electronic money without a government overreach, US using modern banking system as a political pressure tool, etc)
By wnevets 2026-02-2320:32 > Isn't this like the #1 use case for crypto?
What is even the point of crypto if you can't commit crimes with it?
By dpedu 2026-02-2321:03 Not just the #1 use case, the only use case. Real money is better in every scenario other than crime.
By EA-3167 2026-02-2319:57 I'd argue the #1 use case is ransomware and scamming, but this has to be a close second. Honestly the journey from "The blockchain is the future, everyone must see that" to where we are now really feels like the one we're taking with 'AI'.
In the end it will still exist, but the use case is going to be so much less inspiring than people want to believe, outside of medical and fundamental research at least.
