Re:In praise of cash
by iopq on Friday March 03, 2017 @04:02PM
(#13786521)
Using a tumbler is not against the law. For one thing, you can't launder bitcoins because bitcoins are a commodity, not considered money.
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Many money laundering techniques use a commodity in the process, that doesn't make it not money laundering.
Just because using a tumbler itself is not against the law, if you use it to hide the source of income, it is still money laundering.
You can't get around financial laws by using property instead of currency. "A payment made using virtual currency is subject to information reporting to the same extent as any other payment made in property."
https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/irs-virtual-currency-guidan...
Yeah, but then it's hard to prove that you were money laundering in the first place.
Not today it isn't, but it's not a very far leap for the law to make if it becomes a widespread problem.
Apparently "gold laundering" is a thing in some jurisdictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_laundering