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Comment by raziel2701 | Hacker News Reader

Is that money trapped in the system? The moment they sell to USD that account is now linked to a real person no?

It's more difficult, but not impossible I think:

On the Bitcoin side you can "wash" it by mixing it with other coins, or deposit/withdraw it through multiple exchanges.

Then on the output side, you can get rid of it through shell companies or through less reputable sites, or into countries that won't extradite criminals.

So - it's definitely harder than normal, but I think you could find a way.

Its pretty easy to from a tech perspective to tumble and swap coins or use a combination of both. Not only that but you can swap into different blockchains which have fully anonymous layers. So tracing a path is completely impossible. But there is one significant problem, tumbling and swapping 7.5 Billion is hard to do without creating huge market waves and that will be noticed. So you would spread it over 3-4 years and use a variety of swap/tumblers and it can be done. Eventually you have to cash it out and some off ramps might raise some flags.

It's possible to swap into monero without using any KYC exchange, but that requires liquidity. So it could take years.

> swap into monero without using any KYC exchange

How? Links on this being done?

Atomic swaps were possible way before Uniswap and the DeFi craze. Liquidity is another issue for 7.5bn though.

Isn't Uniswap doing a swap within the same chain?

Indeed. Alts should be wrapped so that they become swap-able with Uniswap. In that sense, Atomic swaps are superior since you have zero counter-party risk. Who guessed Bitcoin tech is superior to that of Ethereum?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't wrapping require KYC? So how could this be used to convert the BTC to Monero?

Afaik, it's the custodian who requires KYC. The trading happens without. This might become a problem for custodians who now have a bunch of illegal coins. It'll be interesting to see how this will unfold.

Wrapping and KYC are orthogonal, although maybe most of the current implementations require KYC, no idea.

Cross chain atomic swaps are something else entirely. Typically they involve using timelocked multisig transactions that reveal a new part of a secret in each output, allowing both parties to redeem or both deposits to be refunded.

https://bisq.network/markets/?currency=xmr_btc

https://comit.network/

https://github.com/comit-network/xmr-btc-swap

There was a story not long ago a out someone paying a very high ETH amount for a simple ethereum transaction. Apparently with the right technical combination it is possible to guarantee that your miner will receive the mining fee. This makes it a good option for laundering.

I wonder if they could somehow collect interest off it anonymously. I read about certain coins offering staking, but not sure how it works and if it's possible to collect interest without revealing your identity.

No one is going to pay you interest unless they can use your deposit while they are doing so (loaning it out to others at a higher interest rate)

Decentralized exchanges would be able to do all of the above.

It isn’t and that’s not what people would do.

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