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How a 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin’s Anonymity (www.wired.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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"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."

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[–] 64 points 2 years ago (20 children)

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.

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  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    but it may be imposible to link that wallet with an actual person.

    Impossible using the blockchain itself, but not as impossible when you add more traditional investigative techniques to the mix.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Provided that the exchanges are cooperating (voluntarily or by law).

    Why do you think NK and other "impenetrable" countries are so fond of it? It provides them with the means to monetize something otherwise pretty useless: their relative independence and the resulting potential for secrecy.

    They are turning into new-age Swiss banks, keeping anyone's private ledgers private. For a hefty sum.

    And one does not need a strong currency to achieve that: other cryptocurrencies are also perfectly usable.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    People don't need an exchange either. Someone can create a physical paper wallet with no copy of its keys and who ever holds it owns it.

    Organized crime has existed for a while, the boss rarely gets their hands dirty and the grunt isn’t involved and in the know enough about the bigger crime to be charged too harshly if their part in it was discovered.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    The point of the exchange in that context is to have a separate ledger. That is, to hide parts of the information, so that it is then impossible to relate information otherwise public.

    You cannot do that with a paper wallet. A wallet (cryptographic material) and a ledger (a collection of transfers - the blockchain being an example of one) are totally unrelated.

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    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.

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  • [+] -6 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    Yeah, but retrieving actual useful currency from that wallet becomes nearly impossible.

    Then how do people set up drug empires built around it?

    Use your brains.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    The same way they do everywhere else.... Complex webs of money laundering, but that's not cheap, or easy.

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  • [+] -9 points 2 years ago* (10 children)

    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?

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago* (9 children)

    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.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago* (8 children)

    You said drug empires, not guy selling 8 balls and 10 packs on a darknet market.

    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.

    I’m not going to provide sourcing

    Lol, okay. You can just admit you don't have one.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (6 children)

    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.

    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.

    it’s extremely well covered

    If that's the case, then you should be able to easily provide a source instead of flailing around like you're doing now.

    so stop being a lazy twat and look for yourself.

    You made the claim. You provide the source or you admit you're making stuff up.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (5 children)

    Are you actually asking someone to prove that large darknet market drug dealers use money laundering to safely access their profits?

    It sounds like what you really want is someone to explain to you how it's done successfully...if you're that desperate to learn, take it to Dread and off Lemmy.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I'm asking for a source for their information.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    I just gave you a primary source for that...and a lot more...

    Dread

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  • [–] -3 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Are you going to link to a specific post, or just the whole forum and pretend that satisfies the criteria of 'source'?

    Hey guys! I found a source for everything! It's called Google. Just cite it at the end of all your papers.

    Why is it so difficult for you people to admit you make stuff up without a source? Lol.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    You're something special.

    Okay kid, if this was all about you wanting to feel like you won an argument because people are declining to act as your personal Spotify Crime Explained playlist generator, then you win.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And it becomes much, much easier to track down and remove anonymity the moment real currency transactions are made. Because of KYC requirements, the only way to stay anonymous with crypto is to keep your crypto transactions entirely outside of the real world. Once your digital anonymous currency interacts with real money you've not anchored your wallet to your identity.

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