It's been over half a decade since that stopped mattering, for me.
I've bought goods and services directly with Monero plenty of times. I've paid invoices that the merchant put in Bitcoin, while using a third party to pay in Monero, which the third party then paid in Bitcoin.
Now in the 2020s I can swap Monero directly to SECRET network, a Tindermint/Cosmos blockchain where all smart contract executions are private (such as the amount and quantity of your erc20-style wrapped Monero), allowing further bridging over to the EVM ecosystem for all the liquid DeFi trading activities, and Tornado cash if desired.
and the times when I use KYC to convert it to fiat, I haven't cared either. I like that the OTC desk or exchange doesn't even receive the address I sent from, much more similar to wiring from another bank account, where the receiving bank can't look at all your prior records and balances at the source of money and just has to assume the other place is compliant. it should be obvious that someone with an illicit source of their Monero will need to reintegrate their value into the broader economy first, so that they can account for it properly. with access to the entire DeFi ecosystem now, that is extremely easy.
all crypto users should restore that level of privacy.
> It's been over half a decade since that stopped mattering, for me.
It's certainly going to matter come tax season to businesses which are/will be forced to convert Monero to local fiat.
> I've bought goods and services directly with Monero plenty of times. I've paid invoices that the merchant put in Bitcoin, while using a third party to pay in Monero, which the third party then paid in Bitcoin.
US businesses and persons pay tax in income no matter what asset it was received in, and report capital gains or losses as well upon liquidation into another asset such as fiat
There is nothing unique about crypto or monero in that regard, what did you have in mind?
What are advantages of doing all those steps using Monero instead Fiat?
I understand that you can hide your trances but if you buy legits things, who cares?
> What are advantages of doing all those steps using Monero instead Fiat? I understand that you can hide your trances but if you buy legits things, who cares?
I had a balance of Monero. It was convenient. Online payments are a lot easier when you don't have to fill in a bunch of information, what "steps" were you imagining? I didn't have to go get Monero, I had already accumulated it. Just like the Miners in the article have already accumulated it, just like anybody earning for Monero by providing a service had already accumulated it.
in any case, compared to attempting to pay with fiat, a crypto payment form typically lacks:
- First Name,
- Last name,
- Company Name,
- Street Address,
- City,
- State,
- Postal Code
- [] Is Billing Address the Same or Different.
- Card Number
- Security Code
- Expiration Date
Similar to how convenient Apple Pay is this decade. Crypto users had that last decade, Monero users had that and less leaking of their finances.
Aside from the pared-down user experience, I also like that the merchant isn't storing all that personal information just to process a transaction, but thats just icing on the cake, not really a motivating factor.
Any reading you could recommend on Monero? Beyond wiki, subreddit, etc. Looking for more of an economics angle than cryptography angle, without generic crypto hype.
I have no insightful information to give you with regards to Monero, but to me what you're looking for is a good fit for Marginalia's text-centric search engine [0]. I get interesting results when I'm looking for authentic and elaborate opinions on given subjects outside the beaten path, which seems to be your goal. And especially useful when trying to flee the cesspool of results Google gives you when looking for topics with heavily financial undertones - good effing luck getting to a genuine article speaking of cryptocurrencies, stocks or any topic with financial incentives.
It is easy to sell your Monero for fiat anonymously using a service like localmonero.co
There is also a growing parallel economy where you can buy goods and services directly with your Monero and avoid selling anything for fiat. For example, I have bought domain names using XMR on nja.la.
You provide them accounting from your fake business which accepts only monero payments for digital goods and doesn’t keep access logs?
This is really basic stuff. You will never be caught unless other evidence leads them from the original crime to you.
Unless you fuck up it’s not possible to link incoming Moneroj to any specific source, this means that you can fairly easily hide your money laundering activities even from somebody with full visibility into your business.
You live in some fantasy land if you think you can just say "oh, I just received 100 dollars worth of Monero from 1 million unknown entities, my $100 million is totally legit, fuck off".
Unlike criminal law where you are "innocent until proven guilty", in most AML/KYC situations you are "guilty until proven innocent".
You’re being ridiculous. Nobody is going to look at you twice for selling 1000x$5000 cryptocurrency trading courses a year, or even double that.
I’ve dealt with AML/KYC for cryptocurrency businesses with much higher volumes, nobody ever asked for anything crazy. Just basic accounting, website urls, linkedin profiles.
> You live in some fantasy land if you think you can just say "oh, I just received 100 dollars worth of Monero from 1 million unknown entities, my $100 million is totally legit, fuck off"
I think the only takeaway here is that “323” is too stupid and greedy to survive as a money launderer. Don’t try to cash out $100M in monero at once, live a wonderful life with $5-10M a year.
Legal businesses, receiving much larger individual payments from a limited number of clients.
> It makes a difference because there's more than just you and the KYC exchanges reporting, and it's survivor bias to assume they appear the same.
Exchanges are usually the least of your problems, it’s the banks.
Even very high risk businesses don’t face scrutiny which isn’t easily overcome when all of your incoming payments are anonymous and untraceable. It’s really not hard to create a fake ecommerce business that would be entirely indistinguishable from a real one.
If you watch the other economic activity and internet activity of that e-commerce business, you could deduce how much activity it might be generating. No real e-commerce biz doesn’t have ad spend or other marketing activities, no e-commerce biz doesn’t have a sell rate that is %100, etc. Much like how the irs audits laundromats via their water and power usage. Are they consuming enough water and electricity to justify their revenue?
nobody actually cares enough to bust money laundering if it's not causing publicly visible problems.
White collar law enforcement is an illusion, backed by the occasional example.
There are 13k FBI special agents and most have case loads focused on things like "murder" than some e-commerce website with traffic numbers that don't add up.
A one hour cursory look on public clearnet hacking forums will surface hundreds of felonies by people with poor opsec, Feds scroll past them on a daily basis. It's not what they're after.
And no, the IRS has been trimmed to bones for decades, they probably audit <10 laundromats via water and power analysis a year, the same way Apple built literally two iPhone recycling robots (that do a thousand devices a year) but spend millions on marketing.
> nobody actually cares enough to bust money laundering if it's not causing publicly visible problems.
That's the harsh truth.
Where I live, THC is illegal, and its distribution usually ends with time served.
Interestingly, CBD (more accurately THC-less) stores are everywhere, taking prime locations in city centers, blaring thousands of positive reviews on Google Maps. Their top product is CBD oil (or rather, THC-less cannabis oil). Prices of their products are suspiciously similar to that of their illegal counterparts.
Yet when you pass in front of such stores, there's usually just a single person tending, sometimes with a friend because it gets boring as there's virtually no customer.
It's basically the caffeine pills + decaffeinated coffee product split, where caffeine is illegal.
Following the supply chain would not only find the laundering, but also the distribution and production of a substance considered illegal.
But cops stick to chasing dealers, and the fisc doesn't really chase businesses that seem to pay their taxes.
First, nobody cares that much unless they know you’re guilty.
Second, just obviously spend a little money and time on those things? It’s a minor cost to run shitty ad campaigns.
The business doesn’t need to be good, it just has to look real. Do things a real business would do, except unlike a real business you will have a 100% chance of success.
Because of the "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" part? How does that stop the IRS from telling law enforcement that you've suddenly come into millions of unexplained dollars?
You already have to be in trouble. The cops can have the IRS release your tax returns, the IRS doesn't call the cops(they have their own).
>IRC 6103(i)(1) provides that, pursuant to court order, return information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution of non-tax criminal laws.
