Jun. 07, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/07/colonial-pipeline-ransomware-payment-recovered/ In recent news THE FBI has recovered most of the ransomed bitcoin from the colonial pipeline ransomeware attack. This proves that with effective regulatory compliance, that illegaly acquired bitcoin will be extremely difficult for criminals to launder and or exchange for fiat or other crypto currencies. News of this recovery should alleviate any fears of bitcoin being pimrarily used for illicit purposes. not only are Bitcoin transactions far easier to track that fiat transactions, because they are all apart of a public ledger any person or government can easily track all bitcoin trasactions, law enforcement are already in possesion of tools to track illegaly acquired bitcoin real-time. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-treasury-says-can-shrink-7-trillion-tax-gap-by-10-over-next-decade-2021-05-20/ President Biden's has recently proposed reporting requirements for Cryptocurrency exchanges, such that- any deposit or withdrawal of cryptoassets over $10,000 in value will be will reported directly to the regulatory body. What this means is that the minute any illicity acquired bitcoin touches a regulated exchange address, the investigating agency will be immediately notified of this and can swiftly take steps to seize and recover the bitcoin from the exchange and identify the culprit. Criminals in the past have managed to profit in the past immensely by using Bitcoin only because Bitcoin is a very recently developed technology with minimal regulatory requirements when dealing with their exchange. In regards to privacy coins such as "Monero", all that is required is for customers to prove how they acquired the monero through bank statements/buy,sell orders on exchanges/ mining addresses if they wish to sell a large ammount on a regulated exchange. In regards to decetnralized unregulated exchanges, these have very LOW volume making it extremely difficult to attempt to wash a large ammount of cryptocurrency. Criminals are left with very few options to use their stolen coins, because every transaction in exchange for goods/services or fiat can easily be traced back to them.