[syzygyhack]

> I do however have an issue with the incredibly high rate of money laundering etc that flows through crypto.

Incredibly high relative to what exactly? The total exchange volume of the cryptocurrency industry? Can you show some figures to back that assertion? OR are you talking relative to the global economy? In that case, it's not even a drop in the bucket.

Clearly the Tornado Cash team should have simply started a bank instead, then they would only need pay a fine and carry on.

[bilekas]

Incredibly high rate of money laundering in relation to the entire flow of cyrpto.

You should know comparing traditional fiat against crypto doesn't make sense.. But I guess I'm the one who's ignorant.

There is a good paper overviewing a lot here : https://www.unive.it/pag/fileadmin/user_upload/dipartimenti/...

It's more of an essay but all all stats are referenced.

Also another good read : https://ciphertrace.com/q3-2018-cryptocurrency-anti-money-la...

You simply can't argue that money laundering isn't rampant on cypto currencies.

Also just another clarification from your earlier comment :

> Your vitriol against Tornado is misplaced, though not surprising given the general ignorance regarding the blockchain industry on HN.

Blockchain != Crypto

[syzygyhack]

> You simply can't argue that money laundering isn't rampant on cypto currencies.

Actually, I can quite easily argue that. Neither of your sources give evidence or numbers that justify your assertion.

In fact, less than 1% of transactions are shown to be illicit activity, and the majority of that is scams, not money laundering. Here's a report from your 2018 source, CipherTrace, only using more recent data: https://ciphertrace.com/2020-year-end-cryptocurrency-crime-a...

I quote:

> Cryptocurrency, with its similar characteristics, may likewise struggle to ever completely shake its bad reputation, despite illicit transactions making up less than 0.5% of Bitcoin’s yearly volume in 2020.

A more important clarification, which is precisely the reason I used blockchain instead:

Crypto != cryptocurrency.

You conflate the two several times across this thread, they are not the same.

With that aside, I'll ask again. Can you show some figures that back your assertion that there is a "high rate of money laundering flowing through crypto[currency]"? I would assume not, given that the very firms actively working with regulators and monitoring this activity disagree with that assertion.

Here's a nice, sourced writeup for you so that you can spread accurate information and not assumption construed as fact in the future: https://blog.coinbase.com/fact-check-crypto-is-increasingly-...