Bitcoin: the Cryptoanarchists’ Answer to Cash

Kowalski’s private investigators and lawyers contacted Binance soon after the theft, before Ng converted all the funds, and Youtu`s recent blog post repeatedly asked Binance to permanently freeze Ng’s accounts, their written communications show. The hackers used virtual private networks to obscure their devices’ locations, the records show. Drug-related deaths rose by two-thirds between 2018 and 2020, figures from Russia’s state anti-drug committee show. A State Department spokesman declined to comment on Hydra and Binance. State Department. Hillmann told Reuters Binance had taken more action against Russian money launderers than any other crypto exchange, citing a ban it imposed on three Russian digital currency platforms that were sanctioned by the United States. German operation to seize Hydra’s servers, the Drug Enforcement Administration, which supported the investigation, said the marketplace’s services "threaten the safety and health of communities far and wide." The DEA referred Reuters to the Justice Department for further comment. Poloniex didn’t respond to a request for comment. During a 2020 video call with staff, a recording of which Reuters reviewed, Zhao said privacy was part of people’s "financial freedom." He didn’t mention Monero, but said Binance had funded other privacy coin projects.

9, 2020: "Will do what we can to assist." But when Eterbase emailed Binance’s support centre, a Binance team member said they could not share any account data without a law enforcement request, according to communications between the two firms seen by Reuters. Eterbase, the Bratislava-based exchange hacked by the North Koreans, sought Binance’s help, too. North Korea and Cuba are in a similar situation. There are many reasons that this particular investment strategy is so appealing, learning how to trade Bitcoin is easy compared to other options, and the profits can be substantial in a short amount of time. Not only is Binance the biggest crypto exchange in the world, but they offer a plethora of features and opportunities other exchanges don’t (the ability to short crypto, earn with crypto, buy stocks with crypto, get crypto loans, become a liquidity provider and so on). Three other ransomwares - NETWALKER, REvil and Darkside - are what's known as RaaS (Ransomware-as-a-Service), which means they offer anyone who spread their malware 10 to 25 percent of the payout. Here commissions start as high as 0.20 percent (with less than $10,000 in 30-day trading volume) and run as low as free, if you’re a maker with $20 million in volume in the 30 prior days.

So how much would it cost you to buy $10,000 of a given cryptocurrency at each level, assuming you were a taker using Advanced Trading? You can become an expert within some weeks after using this product. Additionally, it can be used for reaching to new segment of people. If blockchain technology is to be adopted globally, it should be able to handle much more data, and at faster speeds, so that more people can use the network without it becoming too slow or expensive to use. It isn’t possible to contact users through the forum so Reuters was unable to reach these people for comment. On several darknet forums that Reuters reviewed, over 20 users wrote about buying Monero on Binance to purchase illegal drugs. In June, 2021, the agency wrote to Binance requesting information and saying the funds were stolen by "anonymous attackers united under the Lazarus hacking group." Binance replied that it could not identify accounts connected to the hack. "XMR is essential to anyone buying drugs on the Dark web," wrote one user on the forum Dread, referring to Monero’s ticker symbol. The system’s anonymity made it easy to buy drugs on the darknet, Alexandra said.

According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Hydra increased the availability of drugs in Russia and drove a surge in demand for stimulants, such as methamphetamine and mephedrone. Alexandra, a 24-year-old office manager in Moscow, started buying mephedrone and ketamine on Hydra in 2019 to help cope with her bipolar disorder. Several friends who used Hydra told her Binance was the safest way to pay dealers, Alexandra told Reuters, speaking on condition she be identified only with her first name. The records, reviewed by Reuters, showed the only personal information Binance held on the account holders was their email addresses, many of which were based on misspelt well-known names, such as "bejaminfranklin," the American founding father, and "garathbale," the Welsh soccer player. This helps in controlling the mistreatment of personal information. Some of them used fake personal information to open Binance accounts, she said, but she uploaded a copy of her passport. Investigators hired by Kowalski traced most of his bitcoin through a series of wallets to six Binance accounts, where the coins were exchanged for Monero, according to testimony and blockchain analysis reports filed as part of an ongoing civil complaint Kowalski submitted last year against Binance in Miami-Dade County, Florida.