Prosecutors: Bitcoins Make Crimes Easier
And whose fault is the black market?
Law enforcement officials testified on Wednesday that virtual currencies like Bitcoin have opened up new avenues for crime that government has not been able to keep up with.
The most forceful statements came from a prosecutor with the United States attorney's office in Manhattan, Richard B. Zabel, during the second day of hearings about virtual currencies held by New York's top financial regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky.
Mr. Zabel went through a list of six ways in which virtual currencies are more prone to crime than current forms of money transfer, including the ease with which money can be laundered over borders at the click of a mouse.
The testimony of Mr. Zabel and Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, was a blow to Bitcoin advocates who have said that digital money carries no more risk than ordinary money and should not be treated with harsher regulations.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Nowadays the digital world is extremely convenient and plenty of processes online allow us to perform lots of activities almost in no time, monetary activities are among them, additional details related to this. But at the same time we should agree and be aware of the more risks entailed by digital signatures and digital document flow.