That they were foolish for holding onto Bitcoin itself. That's not what it's being used for.

Here in the West there's basically no barriers for someone like me sending $10k or $10 million wherever, for whatever. Just ensure I pay any taxes on investment profits, and don't fund terrorists or drug cartels. Many countries are far more strict. E.g., Argentinians can only move $300 a month out of the country legally, as I understand it. If they want to purchase real estate in Canada or Australia as a hedge against inflation, for example, that can be very hard even if they have the funds.

Getting around capital controls seems to be a niche for Bitcoin. I can think of few other ways to simply send $10,000 from Argentina to Nigeria in one hour, reliably and securely. Assuming people can exchange Bitcoin for cash or similar on both ends, it can be near-ideal for certain pairings compared to the legal and traditional financial system.

> Getting around capital controls seems to be a niche for Bitcoin

Q: If you pitch up in, say, Canada or Australia, and offer to buy a chunk of expensive real estate and pay with Bitcoin, who is selling?

Q2: ... or do you have to convert to AUD/CAD first, and if so, which bank(s) can you rely on to not worry about KYC?

Q3: ... or do you have to actually travel to Canada or Australia first, in order to open a regular bank account first, in order to have somewhere to move your Bitcoin to, in order to have local currency, in order to be able to pay the local seller?

I do know that people have transacted real estate in Bitcoin in Canada before, mostly as a gimmick, but no reason you couldn't do that legally on the Canadian end. But I assume one would convert to CAD. What's the problem with KYC on the Canadian bank end? Canada has no such controls and wouldn't care that the money was laundered out of Argentina.

Even if you had to do that, laundering the funds into Canada unfortunately does not seem it would be difficult in practice, given the apparent scale of money-laundering associated with the Vancouver housing market. And you do not have to be physically present to acquire property in Canada.

> laundering the funds into Canada unfortunately does not seem it would be difficult in practice

Is this true only if you're sufficiently under the radar, or does it still hold true no matter how big/famous/wanted a criminal you are?

EDIT: see

https://www.step.org/industry-news/canadian-citizens-challen...

and

https://www.fintrac-canafe.gc.ca/guidance-directives/client-...

??

Of course some people get caught. (Though some of what I'm describing wouldn't be considered illegal under Canadian law in the first place. You can just buy property with BTC here if you have BTC.) Still, it's a huge problem:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cullen-commi...

https://globalnews.ca/news/7593419/bc-casinos-too-dangerous-...

Western Union operates all over the world, you can send money instantly and the fees are lower than Bitcoin's network fees for transactions.