Can steemit be used for money laundering? An what can we do to prevent it?
So as some of you can tell its a serious question how viable an option is steemit for money laundering.
Possible ways steemit can be used to money launder or be used for malicious means.
Scenario one:
- Hacker hacks exchange send coins to a coin mixers then send coins to steemit.
- Hacker buys power and set up a bunch of farming mules.
- Hacker then post legit looking post or pays users on other end to post.
- Hacker gets paid out while he is slowly powering down and receiving from other accounts.
- Hacker cashes out his/her steem to another exchange for btc and send to coin mixer again.
- Hacker gets his funds and got away with it.
As you can tell its a lot of trouble to go through but this network can be used for bad.
Scenario two:
- Terrorist Wants to plan an attack gets money together not worried about short term.
- Terrorist Has already clean btc wants to hide transfers to people on the other side.
- Terrorist Buys steempower and has people make accounts to farm funds and trend.
- Terrorist Now has started getting funds from other users because the post is trending.
- Terrorist Starts his end game cashing out as he farms it in small amounts and holds funds.
- Terrorist Now has the means an was hidden transferring funds for what ever they needed.
There is plenty of other methods that we have found that can be abused on this network that can have users unknowingly fund terrorist activities or helping hacker get away with what their end goal is. Yes there is the argument that they can do it better ways then this. The issue here is that it's an option that should be discussed.
In your opinion should account tracking be added to the site to say if an account is someone alt account to prevent such things happening on this wonderful network. Last thing anyone want's is to wake up and find out they helped fund a terrorist origination or anything bad in general.
we cant do anythign with cash, bitcoin nor with steem
What do you mean by that if you don't mind me asking?
:)
Most of the really big 'money laundering' is being done by entities like HSBC and the Clinton Foundation. Nobody has been able to stop them as yet. The last thing the steem network needs to be concerned with is 'money laundering'.
There's absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent this.
It doesn't matter whether it's cash, bitcoin, or STEEM. It can be laundered in some form.
Some Bitcoin mixers would exchange your coins for coins from freshly mined blocks at a fee. That's not traceable unless the mixer is ran by the feds.
If anything, Steemit is a lot harder to launder money on, since it's directly linked to your account, on which you'll struggle to build any sort-of reputation or STEEM without people knowing who you are in some form.
I mean everyone would see me transfer coins to @poloniex or @bittrex, if there was some sort-of steemit mixer, it'd be pretty obvious after a while when they start receiving tons of MEMOs.
I would say that money laundering is hard at this stage of steem, there is simply not enough liquid money inside to do it properly, also most users are linked with their irl stuff here. Eitherway I don't mind money laundering, you do the same when you use fiat. I am against terrorists, but you look just at the bad side of people laundering money.
Ps: If you want to launder money use bitcoin <3.
Small issue with the bitcoin laundering is it can be tracked pretty easy sites like shapeshift and the rest are check for outflow addresses. Steemit is what you call a unknowing middle man because you can buy steempower with bitcoin currently. It makes a very viable solution and just because the market isn't high enough now don't mean in the next month or so we won't see an explosion of users an the right conditions to do so.
No account tracking! Besides, there are already way better ways to transfer value from an exchange to a person anonymously.
If you Buy -> Monero,
use Shapeshift -> Dash
use Coinomat.com -> BitcoinDark
use Shapshift -> BTC. You're pretty safe.
And it would take a heck of a lot less time than what you suggested.
Yep there is many ways of getting away with hiding money.
But the question is the community okay with the possibilities of what this network could be used for.
I think most people in this community are comfortable using pens even though you could stab someone with one.
We're also OK with Cash or gold, those can be used for money laundering. Same thing with any type of value movement whatsoever. In fact, steem is probably the most tracked crypto there is since your name can lead back to a reddit or facebook acount.
How would that be done? We have folks with multiple accounts as it is.
OTOH, these scenarios are pretty awful. But there are other scenarios where someone simply doesn't want the state to interfere. The state might call it "laundering", but he's just trying to provide for his family or avoid a pile of fund sucking paperwork/red tape.
At what point does Steemit become a policing agency like Coinbase? Honest question. I really don't know.
That's is the true question indeed. I wonder if there will come a time this site will have to be regulated. Because technically its acting as an exchange even tho the purpose isn't to be one.
What jurisdiction does it fall under?
I'm still currently looking for that info
I signed up to steemit to launder money. Stop that and I'm gone.
My thinking? By the time Steemit grows large enough to conveniently facilitate substantive money laundering, it will also be monitored for such activity by relevant authorities.
I don't feel like it will be an issue. I always feel like hackers are like athletes who take steroids. They are in it for instant gratification and locking money up for 2 years probably doesn't sound good for them since they know they could be locked up before they unlock a decent chunk of the money. Or maybe they think they will never get caught. I'm not sure of the mentality.
Well the whole idea is to keep upvoting accounts to get that money back with a few million you could get decent chucks daily. Say you had 10 accounts an you have enough power to make almost all their posts to trend. That adds up really quickly but that my best guess how they could do it there is always a method no one has thought of.