Bail out the banks to save people's savings yes BUT don't then make the debt public.

In the UK this was done by the government enforcing austerity on the people freezing public service pay and reducing services while the bankers appeared to continue as before. Millions of people were worse off (pay freezes) while the banks appeared to get a free ride. Not a good look for any government or organization.

as for crypto - just so I'm not way off topic, to me until it has wide spread day to day use it's a play thing for investors to have a punt. A bit like expensive art.... but it's nothing to look at

 

It's all gone Pete Tong!

 

The banks took the cash and instead of lending it to people to help stimulate the economy they sat on it and still are. It's the height of hypocrasy that conservative governments believe businesses should be allowed to fail but then help banks out like they did. It's nepotism, politicians and bankers are in each other's pockets. No business should be able to influence a government but here we are, our countries are really run by political party donors.

 

Here are 2 favorite quotes:

If people understood the current banking and monetary system,
there would probably be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
- Henry Ford

"The majority of the ordinary population does not understand what is really happening.
And they don't even understand that they don't understand it!" - Noam Chomsky

The elites are robbing their own people. It is a redistribution from the bottom to the top.
The war is called rich against poor and the rich will probably win.
The money is then in tax havens, thanks to decades of deregulation of the financial system.

 

Irony of ironies, as I hit Agree to BEAT16's message just now I got a phone call from my 'bank' informing me that somebody has tried to make two large payments on my card and the Asian gentleman asked me to confirm my identity... I asked HIM to confirm HIS identity he clicked off...

 

In fact, nothing has changed since the days of the Pharaohs.
The only thing "democracy" has given us is being able to choose who is going to exploit us.

 

the deregulation led us to this mess and it's 1929 again.
robert reich wrote a great piece on the guardian yesterday.

 

Dude, in Asian culture it's SUPER rude to ask someone to confirm their identity. Call him back and apologize.

 

I'll give you my two cents in a few words: Cryptocurrencies help criminals. No matter if we are talking about drug trafficking, weapons, sex slavery, paedophilia or whatever - because it is the safest way for them to do business without any government snooping. Remember: when you earn money with any cryptocurrency, you are doing so because someone's dirty business is also flourishing. Can your scruples bear it? Do you have none? OK, then go ahead, but if you still have a little of a human being inside that greedy body of yours, think twice.

 

@triggerflipper, you got that wrong. It was a scammer who called him, similar to fake Microsoft employees who try to get you to enter your PIN online so they can clear your account.

 

Can you explain to me how money laundering would even work with Crypto? I mean, assuming we aren't talking about mining, then in order to even buy it you have to somehow transfer money to the seller. And that transaction is visible to banks and authorities. Except if you buy it with cash which is not possible everywhere anymore. And even if you do that, what do you then do with the Crypto to 'launder' it - as soon as you sell it and receive money for it, that money is instantly visible, right? I just don't see how it would even work. And also, without a doubt it's used by criminals, but there's plenty of normal people who just see it either as an investment or as a monetary revolution.

 

In theory its a good idea but poor implementation at this point.

Two of its fundamental principles were debunked which ended it for me.
1. supposed to be decentralized - but +25% is in China which also does 70% of the hashing
2. Cant be controlled by governments - but Canadian government froze the wallets of the trucker protestors used for donations.

 

Uh, I'm sorry but my ancestors were from Central Asia, I think I know what I'm talking about.

 

Spoiler: Cybercrime: How money laundering works

Cybercrime: How money laundering works

Cyber criminals are preying on millions of dollars. Banking organization SWIFT has now revealed how money laundering works and why traditional methods are still more common than cryptocurrencies, which are, however, becoming increasingly popular
By Dr. Jakob Jung on September 8, 2020 , 6:20 PM

Despite being considered a haven for cybercrime, cryptocurrencies have played a very minor role in laundering funds obtained through bank hacks . In its "Follow The Money" report last week, SWIFT highlighted the ingenuity of some money laundering tactics seen in the wild recently.

"Identified cases of money laundering through cryptocurrencies remain relatively small compared to the amounts of cash laundered through traditional methods," said SWIFT, the organization that operates the SWIFT interbank messaging system used by nearly all banks around the world to transfer funds across borders.

These traditional methods include the use of money mules, front companies, cash transactions, and the repatriation of investments in other forms of crime such as drug trafficking or human trafficking.

One example on the use of cryptocurrencies cited in the organization's report is the case of a criminal gang that carried out an ATM withdrawal attack. SWIFT says the gang converted the stolen cash into cryptocurrency instead of using the stolen cash to buy and resell expensive products, as most other similar groups do.

Another example is an Eastern European gang that set up its own Bitcoin farm in East Asia. The gang used funds stolen from banks to run the farm, create bitcoins, and then spent the minted bitcoins in Western Europe. When the gang was arrested, authorities found 15,000 bitcoins worth $109 million, two sports cars and $557,000 worth of jewelry in the home of the group's leader, according to SWIFT.

Another case in which cryptocurrency was used to launder stolen bank funds includes the Lazarus Group, a group of hackers operating for the benefit of the North Korean government. According to SWIFT, the group stole money from banks, converted it into cryptocurrency, transported the cryptocurrency assets through various exchanges to hide their origin, and then converted the cryptocurrency back into fiat currency and had it sent to North Korea.

But that's not all. According to SWIFT, there have also been "some cases" of hackers using stolen bank funds to buy prepaid cryptocurrency cards and load them with funds. These are real debit cards that can store cryptocurrency instead of real (fiat) money, and these cards can be used at special ATMs to withdraw cryptocurrency back into fiat currency, or they can be used for real-world card transactions.

SWIFT stated that several financial platforms in Europe and the United Kingdom have been used to load prepaid cards with bitcoin, which were then used to purchase jewelry, cars and property with stolen funds. According to SWIFT, however, these are only marginal cases when compared to the number of incidents and volume of stolen funds laundered using traditional methods.

Nevertheless, SWIFT believes that the use of cryptocurrency to launder stolen bank funds will increase in the future. Among the favorable factors is the growing number of altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies) that have recently entered the market with a focus on ensuring complete transaction anonymity. In addition, it is increasingly observed that criminals are also using services such as Mixer and Tumbler, which disguise the source of cryptocurrency transactions by mixing stolen/laundered funds with large amounts of other legitimate transactions.
In addition, SWIFT also warns of the emergence of online marketplaces on the darknet and elsewhere that allow users to sign up with nothing but an email address - hiding their identity - and then purchase high-value products, land, and real estate assets such as expensive watches, jewelry, gold bullion, artwork, luxury penthouses, and tropical islands worldwide.

These three factors provide increased anonymity for criminal groups that can never be achieved with traditional methods like money mules and front companies, and the reason SWIFT believes more groups will eventually use cryptocurrencies to launder stolen bank funds.

Nevertheless, SWIFT says that most stolen bank funds are still laundered using proven techniques. The stolen funds typically originate from (1) attacks on a bank's money transfer system or (2) attacks on a bank's ATM systems and related infrastructure.

These funds are typically laundered using a variety of techniques, including money mules, front companies, cash transactions, and investments back into other forms of crime. Some groups may rely on one technique, while others may combine multiple techniques.
Over time, these techniques have evolved. Some of these techniques include:

The broad use of different categories of money mules. These include money mules that willingly take funds into their accounts and then forward them to a criminal, money mules that use fake IDs to open accounts in the name of hacking groups, money mules that collect money from disbursed ATMs, and money mules that reship items purchased with the stolen funds.

Increased focus on recruiting money mules from the ranks of young adults seeking to fund higher education and adults who have recently become unemployed.

The use of legitimate job advertisements to recruit money mules, sometimes in Western countries, with many of these individuals unknowingly working for front companies set up by criminal gangs.

Some criminal gangs sell access to hacked bank accounts, which are then used to launder money without the owner's knowledge.
In other cases, some gangs set up legitimate bank accounts to be used as recipients for stolen funds, sometimes months before a hack, to give the accounts more legitimacy.

Where banks have a know-your-customer (KYC) policy and exercise due diligence in setting up new accounts, some criminal groups recruited insiders into financial institutions to circumvent or subvert this process.

Some gangs also used front companies established in foreign territories to evade international sanctions.
Most front companies are often established in jurisdictions known for strict bank secrecy laws or poor enforcement of money laundering regulations (such as the East Asian region).

Gangs dealing in cash stolen from ATMs usually prefer to deal in cash transactions where they can buy expensive products to resell later.
Casinos are also becoming an excellent vehicle for money laundering, as crooks buy betting chips with the stolen funds and then exchange them back into fiat currency to receive a check with the casino's name representing a legitimate transaction/source of funds.

www.zdnet.de/88382560/cybercrime-so-funktioniert-die-geldwaesche/

 

Cryptocurrencies may aid criminals right now but only because they aren't policed properly. When the authorities really turn their attention to it and bring in rules it may actually be more transparant than fiat is because there's always a trail to follow.

 

The ABC of CBDCs

What is a CBDC?
A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a country's digital form of fiat currency that is also a claim on the central bank. Instead of printing money, the central bank issues electronic coins or accounts backed by the full faith and credit of the government.

But don't digital currencies already exist?
There are already thousands of digital currencies, commonly referred to as cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the best known fully decentralized cryptocurrency. Another type of cryptocurrency is stablecoins, whose value is pegged to an asset or fiat currency like the dollar.

Cryptocurrencies run on distributed ledger technology, which means that multiple devices around the world, not a central hub, constantly verify the accuracy of the transaction. However, this is different from a central bank issuing a digital currency.

www.atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/

 

I had quite extensive experience trading cryptocurrencies and investing in nft. However, now I have started to understand defi and the new dynasets system, which sounds very ambitious. I think that if you like to experiment and are ready for risks, then you can read more about SingularityDAO first. In the future, if you have such a desire, you will be able to invest in dynamic tokens that will be beneficial for you to change your token from usdc to dynBTC, as an example. Read more about this on medium if you want to understand the subject.

 

Wildfire in crypto finance land: customer money frozen and hedge funds insolvent

Lending platforms and other financial service providers in the cryptocurrency scene seem to be keeling over in rows right now. One hedge fund bankruptcy in particular is hitting many.

07/05/2022 From Axel Kannenberg

The number of crypto service providers floundering after the price slide of the past weeks continues to rise: the latest example is the Singapore-based credit platform Vauld, which has blocked all withdrawals, deposits as well as trading since Monday. Since June 12, a massive amount of capital has been withdrawn by users, Vauld announced - a total of over 197 million US dollars. On the aforementioned date, the Celsius lending platform had stopped withdrawals, arguably causing panic in the market.
Vauld has now brought financial and legal advice on board to explore all options, such as restructuring, it said. It was announced back in June that Vauld was firing 30 percent of its workforce.

Hedge fund drags others into the abyss

Last Friday, crypto broker Voyager Digital also froze customer funds as well as trading on its platform. At the end of June, the company had had to report a missed payment from crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital for 15,250 bitcoin as well as 350 million units of the stablecoin UDC - the equivalent of over 600 million euros at present.

For its part, Three Arrows filed for bankruptcy last week. The hedge fund from Singapore had apparently provided itself with massive loans in order to speculate leveraged on cryptocurrency movements. However, it was probably no longer able to service the liabilities when the market situation became more uncomfortable. And that, in addition to Voyager Digital, has also put Genesis Trading, Blockfi, and Babel Finance, among others, in trouble. Three Arrows is said to have managed the equivalent of about $10 billion in the interim.

Genesis Trading, a market maker and lender, is reported to be digesting losses of several hundred million U.S. dollars due to defaulting payments from Three Arrows as well as deposits in Babel Finance. In turn, the lending platform Babel Finance had already put a halt on withdrawals in mid-June; what happens next for the company remains to be seen.

Blockfi saved, Celsius continues to flounder

Loan service Blockfi has been rescued by a massive cash injection from Sam Bankman-Fried and his exchange FTX. The deal includes a $400 million loan and an option to buy Blockfi for $240 million, according to chief executive Zac Prince. According to reports, Blockfi's enterprise value was estimated at around $5 billion just a year ago.

And customers of the Celsius financial platform have already been unable to access their money for three weeks. Celsius is a platform where users can store cryptocurrency on a wallet and earn interest on it. As the trade service The Block reported, citing insiders, FTX is said to have been interested in a rescue deal here as well. After looking at the balance sheets with a hole of 2 billion U.S. dollars, however, one had refrained from it. Neither party wanted to comment on reports that the major US bank Goldmann Sachs was interested in taking over Celsius.
In turn, customer funds in the "bitcoin revenue accounts" at the Berlin-based startup Nuri are also attached to Celsius. If there is an insolvency at Celsius, the loss will probably fall on the Nuri customers - there is no deposit insurance and Nuri will not step in either, according to its own risk notices.

It's crypto in Kaltland

The shockwave currently sweeping through the crypto industry began with the stablecoin TerraUSD, which imploded in early May. Tens of billions of US dollars in market capitalization were lost in the process. Authorities in South Korea are already investigating the matter against operator Terraform Labs, and the U.S. financial regulator SEC has also reportedly already demanded the handover of documents.

Whether the crypto market crisis will bring down more companies remains to be seen. In any case, the year-to-date performance of many coins has been less than encouraging. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has lost almost 60 percent of its value, Ether has even lost more than 70 percent. The decline has accelerated especially in recent weeks, when Bitcoin & Co. were caught in the downward pull of a generally bad mood on the financial markets. Despite the recent massive losses, Bitcoin has increased in value significantly over the past decade. Currently, the Bitcoin price is just below 20,000 US dollars, Ether is trading at just over 1000 US dollars.

The reasons for the high price losses in recent months are partly influenced by the return of the interest rate. Around the world, many central banks are raising their key interest rates to cope with high inflation. As a result, interest rates are rising at a historically high pace in the capital markets. Risky investments, which include crypto stocks, are burdened by the development because they do not yield any current income.

www.heise.de/news/Flaechenbrand-im-Kryptofinanzland-Kundengeld-gesperrt-und-Hedgefonds-insolvent-7163080.html