How Widespread Is Money Laundering in Crypto? - Ep.72

Yaya Fanusie, director of analysis at the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Tom Robinson, chief data officer and cofounder of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, discuss how common money laundering is in crypto, how jihadist groups are using it, and how privacy coins (really Monero) affect their work. (The reason why the dark markets haven't much used Zcash surprised me.) We also discuss bad state actors using cryptocurrency, such as Venezuela's efforts with the metro and North Korea's alleged Bitcoin ransomware attacks, and how, leaving aside bad state actors, central bank cryptocurrencies would compete with decentralized ones. Plus, we discuss what impact OFAC blocked addresses list will have.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Preciate: https://preciate.org

Quantstamp: https://quantstamp.com

Yaya Fanusie: https://twitter.com/SignCurve

Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/csif

Tom Robinson: https://twitter.com/tomrobin   

Elliptic: http://www.elliptic.co

Yaya and Tom's report on Bitcoin laundering: http://www.defenddemocracy.org/content/uploads/documents/MEMO_Bitcoin_Laundering.pdf

New AML regulations on cryptocurrencies in Europe: https://www.elliptic.co/our-thinking/5th-aml-directive-eu-regulation-cryptocurrency

Money laundering in ICOs: https://www.elliptic.co/our-thinking/ico-risk-why-aml-compliance-matters

Yaya's op-ed on the Venezuelan metro in CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-investors-stay-away-venezuelas-petro/

Russia's blockchain plans: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/346476-blockchain-technology-may-give-russia-its-next-sputnik-moment

What jihadists are doing with crypto assets: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/exclusive/international/terrorist-networks-eye-bitcoin-cryptocurrencys-price-rises

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column/private-sector/the-new-frontier-in-terror-fundraising-bitcoin

Yaya's essay on self-policing in CoinDesk: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-community-must-use-blockchain-self-police/