Reply to post: Re: Please enlighten me.

Vietnam bans Bitcoin as payment for anything

MonkeyCee

Re: Please enlighten me.

" I can not imagine a single reason why someone would want to use anonymous fund transfers"

Bitcoin is not inherently anonymous. Monero is (by design), and you can use various forms of transactions (tumblers, transferring balance between exchanges) to mask your activities with various amounts of success, but it's not inherently hidden.

You might notice that for the various ransomware stories, even non-tech journalists can work out how much money has arrived at a particular wallet, hence the reporting on exactly how much has been extorted.

As for usage, for all the whining about various aspects of it, I have yet to be conned or left out of pocket by a BTC transaction. As compared to about 5% of sales using credit cards or Paypal. It's pretty much the same as cash in terms of cashflow, so is preferable to people paying on account. So from my perspective as a seller it's *more* safe than anything other than cash in hand. Even bank transfers can be pulled back in certain circumstances. If you sell services then you have almost no protection against chargebacks.

I would advise being very careful about where the thought that "is used for illegal activity" line of reasoning takes you. Criminals use many otherwise legitimate things, but we don't criminalise them unless they are used in a crime. Dollars, euros or pounds are used for more criminal activity than all crypto combined. Oh, and finding the actual beneficiary of a bank account when they have made an effort to obscure it is often harder than finding a crypto wallet, and will have greater legal protections.

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