Report: Is Bitcoin Still That Much Of A Threat To Finance?

According to recent research published by Messari, Bitcoin is not the big financial bad guy that some critics will claim. Messari said that they conducted some research in response to a few remarks recently made by the United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

According to further data from Chainalysis and the United Nations on Drugs and Crime revealed that traditional fiat currency is used 800 times more than Bitcoin to launder money via the darknet. 

The UN’s statistics highly contrast with the statements of Steven Mnuchin, who overestimated the issue to the point of describing cryptocurrencies as a national security problem.

“Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, ransomware, illicit drugs, and human trafficking. Many players have attempted to use cryptocurrencies to fund their malignant behavior. This is indeed a national security issue.”

But as reported by CCN, if digital currencies are really that much of an issue, it probably isn’t because of reasons given by Mnuchin. The results of Messari’s research re-confirm what Europol had already found in a recently published report called Why Is Cash Still King?

Europol, the European Union Agency is known for its work in Law Enforcement Cooperation, explains that near enough all criminals use traditional money in their operations and that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren’t all that popular amongst the hackers and scammers of the crypto space.

“Although not all use of cash is criminal, all criminals use cash at some stage in the money laundering process… While the world is looking with concern at the possible misuse of virtual currencies by criminals, this report may seem somewhat unusual in that it is not highlighting a new phenomenon or an emerging risk…money laundering schemes detected by law enforcement are still largely characterized by traditional techniques, in particular, the use of cash.”

The US treasury secretary has recently warned that the Trump administration would pursue “very, very strong” enforcement of existing regulations to prevent unlawful use of cryptocurrencies.