Before I got into crypto, I used to just think it's for smart and rich people, and even worse for money laundering (Bitcoin to be precise). But now I see it’s more like a big street with no cameras and everyone running in different directions.
I’m not against freedom, no, I like to be free. I like when no one checks what I buy or when I send money to my cousin without too many steps, but upon reading about the eXch platform, I realized that people who use it for crime take something that could help us and use it to hurt others. Anyways mostly in a bid to create a huge solution you end up creating a huge problem with good intentions.
The German police took it down.
They seized $38 million in crypto and a lot of data from eXch, a crypto exchange know for anornomity. Please note that eXch is not being directly accused of that crime but only creating the environment to help that crime to be possible. Its sad, because this in a way would go against as pushing for decentralization and denying government the rights to step into how financial matters. I see this, that it's also possible that government would be very happy to find such cases of fraud and blow them out of proportion to let the regular citizens stick to centralize exchanges. That's just my opinion.
Anyways, this platform was hiding money, big money for that matter. Money from hacks, scams, from people who don’t care about rules. They said no IDs, no checks, just send and receive. At first, that might sound easy and good, like when you send money to a friend without signing anything, but when you think further, you'd wonder: If no one checks anything, then bad people will be first in line, and guess what, when bad people feel safe, the rest of us don’t.
I remember last year, my friends girlfriend lost part of her savings in a scam. Some link she clicked and boom her wallet was empty. Boy did she cry that day. It wasn’t eXch that took her money, but it did help the bad actors hide it. That's the disturbing part, of course I want tools that make life better, but also not at the same time making criminals relax. Obviously that's a hard balance to find, but I believe that as time goes on and technology advances, geniuses would bring up solutions to help as have the best of both worlds.
I don’t want police watching every move I make, I don’t like it when banks block my money just because the amount looks big, but I also don’t want crypto to be a hiding place for stolen things.
Privacy but I want trust too.
Something that feels open, but not open for crime.
Feel safe, not just free.
I know that eXch made people feel invisible, and many liked that. Some needed that, but I believe that when the wrong people love a thing too much, maybe it’s time to pause and look closer.
Let's not throw it away, but fix it.
Thanks for reading to the end. I'm Ricky, and I enjoy sharing my views. If you appreciate what I do and want to support me, join me as I build a long-term stake on Hive. Give this blog a sweet upvote, and my future self will thank you for it. Best wishes!