By Susie Violet Ward · Forbes · 17 August 2023
The article argues that bitcoin’s links to crime are widely overstated. Chainalysis found illicit activity accounted for less than 1% of cryptocurrency activity from 2021 to 2023, while the article cites a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimate that money laundering represented about 2 to 5% of global GDP. For comparison, the article cites NatWest’s £264.8 million fine in 2021 for anti-money laundering failures, and the US Justice Department’s use of civil rather than criminal cases against banks after the financial crisis.
Because bitcoin’s ledger is public, transactions can be traced, as when Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein attempted to launder $4.5 billion of stolen bitcoin. The article also cites a US seizure of $3.36 billion in cryptocurrency linked to Silk Road. It notes that Larry Fink had called bitcoin a vehicle for money laundering in 2017, before BlackRock filed for a spot bitcoin ETF in 2023.