“(Bitcoin) is a highly speculative asset, which has conducted some funny business and some interesting and totally reprehensible money laundering activity,” Lagarde said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference.
Lagarde did not provide specific examples of money laundering cases but said she understood there had been criminal investigations into illegal activity. She did not elaborate.
I mean, she’s not wrong?
Bitcoin is very popular, but it has been involved in shady dealings in the past. So have fiat currencies, for that matter. Regulation at least has the potential to bring the responsible parties to justice.
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That and it will definitely lend credibility to bitcoin too!
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Why regulation is necessary - a joint operation between the law enforcement organs of several countries lead by the German Koblenz Public Prosecutor’s office has managed to take DarkMarket, the largest dark web marketplace offline. DarkMarket has been reported to have been the home of almost half a million users and over 2 400 sellers of illegal goods – malware, stolen or fake ID cards, drugs and anonymous SIM cards. The marker was also the place where transactions with cryptocurrency worth more than 140 million euro were finalized – out of them, there are more than 4,650 Bitcoin tokens and 12,800 Monero XMR transferred.
This place was entirely powered by cryptos, it seems.
Ooooof. The underbelly of the underbelly!
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Unfortunately cryptos often seem to fund places like this.
That is the nature of it though. With it being decentralized and all… 
Truth me told, sometimes fiats are used for crimes too. Where there are money, there’s criminality. 
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Well, I don’t think that she is wrong about this. Bitcoin has been involved in questionable activities in the past. But if it gets global regulation, I doubt that it will lose its value. People won’t invest in it the way they have been and some other cryptocurrency will take its place.
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Indeed.
You just reminded me of all the bitcoin hacks pre-pandemic. Do you guys remember those? Where they would hack hospital systems and ask for bitcoin? Crazy.
I sure do. There were a lot of shenanigans happening.
RANSOMWARE that’s what they were called. Lol took me a week to remember 