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.
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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/