Everyone is in need of money and so do criminals.  So, what do they prefer? There is a widespread opinion that cryptocurrencies is widely used for criminal activities and that it is not safe to use crypto; however, it just looks like criminals use more of Fiat than cryptocurrency.

Pomp Shared: “Only 0.15% of all crypto transactions are for illicit purposes, which proves criminals prefer fiat currencies.”

Community Response:  The overall point is probably valid. Bitcoin is an open ledger. But I don’t know how we can know what transactions are used for illicit purposes. How can we possibly know?

How would you know that?  Doubt criminals would participate in a survey. And, they are not going to reveal the truth about whether they are using crypto or fiat.

Very interesting and definitely a positive outlook to make crypto look bright; however, how these statistics were derived? How would anyone know? The source of the statistic should be made clear.

Let’s be honest about it. It does not make sense to do the social media thing and saying a half truth, or half misrepresentation. Most ML/fraud occurs via fiat, because most money is transacted through fiat. Reason is that it is so low for crypto and the volume of crypto are dwarfed by fiat. It is important to be honest.

Not how data proof works? If fiat is vastly dominant, assume it is for both illegal and legal. To create a comparison show: Legit v illegal ($ and %) on crypto compared to that of fiat, followed by an analysis of only illegal spend on crypto v fiat ($ or a%) over 5yr v fiat.

Feels like that’s not something you figure out until years down the line, if ever.  Fiat is untraceable. BTC is traceable. Big difference and primary reason being it is preferred for illicit transactions. Legacy institutions and the governments want you to believe the opposite is true. Ask yourself why this is the case?

People are putting “illicit purpose” in the memo so we can have statistics like this.  Almost comedic this statistic. Here’s mine, there’s a 0% chance this is accurate.

Drug cartels use precious metals more and more. Easy way to launder money.

The real metric is what percentage of all illicit transactions are via crypto. Still doesn’t prove anything.  I don’t believe these numbers. It’s more likely they conceal the transactions better since 2019.

Buying a $133M house sounds pretty elicit, was it factored in?

Every time I hear that argument, I’m like really criminals love that fiat and fiat has been used by criminals for ever.  So, miss me with that argument.

Is this a representation of your own crypto transactions? Can’t see how else you’d be able to come to this conclusion.

That is true, bitcoin is way more traceable than cash.  So, which crypto has the most criminal transactions? And, thus most popular for illicit purposes.

Why would you use Bitcoin to do crime?  It’s open-source and every transaction is visible on the blockchain. Most criminals use cash.

If I was a dealer and sold 50k worth of drugs and the next day only had 40k, I’d prefer fiat too.

Only 0.000015% of all transactions are crypto transactions, which proves people prefer fiat currencies rather than digital – my little fiat ponies!

Simple reason is fiat is untraceable.  It’s because people were less educated about crypto back then. This percentage will only go down with time.  Hard for criminals to cash out from crypto. Would be easily caught.  Fiat by the criminals to the criminals for the criminals.  Not buying this, seems like it includes trading volume as a ‘transaction’.

Does this include the Satoshi coins? How do we know they are not the Chinese Govt, Pomp? Doesn’t that worry you?