Addendum: “Web3 security is a mess”

Just a few unpublished notes from my last piece…

Just a few unpublished notes from my last piece…

Money laundering

“The broad generalizations about the use of Bitcoin in illicit finance are significantly overstated. The blockchain ledger on which Bitcoin transactions are recorded is an underutilized forensic tool that can be used more widely by law enforcement and the intelligence community to identify and disrupt illicit activities. Put simply, blockchain analysis is a highly effective crime fighting and intelligence gathering tool.”

This quote is from a 2021 report written by former CIA director Mike Morell titled “An Analysis of Bitcoin’s Use in Illicit Finance” which explains that reports of money laundering and general dark money moving across cryptocurrency ecosystems such as Bitcoin are incorrectly exaggerated. He provides various data points to support this thesis.

In reality, it appears the vast majority of dark money and laundered funds still move across traditional banking systems, as confirmed by Chainalysis, who said illici…