/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>55690247
>just wish we would not rely just on cocaine, but also on weapons, oil and gold trade,

The transatlantic cocaine trade is just the seed that will bloom into a thriving criminal circular economy. Remember that XMR enthusiasts the 'Ndrangheta (#1 cocaine importers into Europe) are into waaaaay more shady shit than just coke and narcotics:

>Its main activity is drug trafficking, on which it has a near monopoly in Europe, but it also deals with arms trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, loan sharking, and prostitution. The 'Ndrangheta enjoys a privileged relationship with the main South American cartels, which consider it their most reliable European partner.

>It is capable of heavily influencing local and national politics and infiltrating large sectors of the legal economy. In 2013 they purportedly made €53 billion, according to a study from Demoskopika Research Institute. A US diplomat estimated that the organization's drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering activities accounted for at least three percent of Italy's GDP in 2010.

If they're already using XMR to buy cocaine from narco cartels then there's no reason they wouldn't also start using it for their other dealings as well, providing it proves equally advantageous for them. We're talking multiple BILLIONS of dollars worth of XMR liquidity here. And as far as the recipients are concerned, why cash all that out when you can just turn around and use it to pay for other crime-related goods & services? Why ever exit a truly untraceable payment system? There's nothing prosecutors love more than an incriminating financial paper trail.


So yeah, it starts with cocaine but it will end up with transnational criminal syndicates building strategic XMR reserves.

1BTC!=1BTC
A Bitcoin can be tainted and tracked. You have to be conscious of where your Bitcoin is coming from and going.

>>30402110

>Cartels want a stable money not something that can drop 50% one day and they are left holding the bag.

lol retard, in criminal parlance unpredictability is known as "the cost of doing business"

Shipping cash physically or using traditional banking both carry the risk of seizure yet cartels do it anyway because ultimately its worth it.

Crypto simplifies transactions even further, so the volatility risk is an acceptable trade-off.


>So in reality they are most likely holding USDT and USDC. It would make most logical sense for them.

You realize those funds can literally be frozen at the protocol level, right?

>Centre Freezes Ethereum Address Holding $100K USDC

"Centre, the company that issues the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) has blacklisted an Ethereum address holding $100,000 in USDC in response to a law enforcement request. In the first of its kind, the address had a “blacklist(address investor)” function called on June 16, 2020.

Normally funds held on the Ethereum blockchain are controlled by the address owner, however, in relation to USDC, an address can be blacklisted which restricts them from executing transactions (sending or receiving) through the USDC smart contract. Although technically reversible, Circle’s website warns that blacklisted addresses may be “wholly and permanently unrecoverable."

https://cointelegraph.com/news/centre-freezes-ethereum-address-holding-100k-usdc

>>30366283
>>30385619
That's an incredible video. I just doubled my unspecified holdings.

>>30347218
>What you think actual financial institutions will ever hold some druggie coin? LMAO

If you've ever bothered to read the in-depth SG report prepared by professional analysts they conclude that the majority of Monero's future growth will come from "unlawful activities" i.e. criminal adoption and not from "institiutional investment."

https://research.bloomberg.com/pub/res/d37g1Q1hEhBkiRCu_ruMdMsbc0A

In other words, Monero doesn't even need Wall Street or normies in order to hit 5 figures, organized crime is a $2 trillion per-year business and even just 1-5% of that is enough to eventually send XMR to Mars.

So much for "muh opportunity cost"

>>30258936
but I already profit from international narcotics trade simply by hodling XMR. I really don't need to invest into an evil company that tries to put masses of people on psychedelics.

>>30146025
>Once this supply chain all the way up to the opium farmer is only taking payment in monero, where no more selling for cash is required, then monero price blows sky high.

When you otherwise have to physically move illicit cash around or risk losing it in the banking system, Monero is a glaring no-brainer. Cuts down operating costs and eliminates the possibility of seizure.

>>30141680
>According to that, Monero should have already reached $6497 by now.

Irrational market = tentative timelines. But their core estimation i.e. that criminal adoption and black money influxes will drive future XMR growth is pretty much spot on.

In other words, less likely to be accurate in the short-term, more likely to be accurate in the long-term.

>>30114304
>Cash will always be the king of black market trade.

Cash is actually a major pain in the ass for criminals. Pic related.

>>30064678
>I don't think it'll reach four figures unless there is a massive spike in use amongst the larger crime organizations.

Well it just so happens......

>>30009151
>why are monero's projected so high?

Basically because organized crime is getting into crypto now and will almost certainly adopt Monero as its digital reserve currency.

Considering OC worldwide generates $2 trillion a year its not hard to see where things are headed.

>>29903469
>What are they waiting for? Why not move now

They're still in the "getting comfy with using crypto" phase. Besides, its not like you can roll up to an exchange and buy millions worth of XMR these days without raising some eyebrows. This is why atomic swaps are critical since buying up a shitload of BTC is less likely to be viewed suspiciously. But for the swaps market to work we need sufficient liquidity, which will take time to build.

In other words, Rome wasn't built in a day and patience is a virtue. The darknet is the ground zero of OC Monero adoption and will propagate out from there.

>>29756128
>monero is great i would say it's a hundred times better engineered than bitcoin. from dev perspective but as investment i'm a 100 times more bullish on bitcoin. because the two is totally unrelated.

If you're not investing based on fundamentals you're not investing, you're essentially gambling.

Its absolutely possible to get filthy rich during this bubble, providing you get in and out in time. But the bubble WILL pop at some point, and that is when fundamentals will become the only thing that matters, just like in the rational, healthy tech sector.

And Monero itself makes a damn good long-term investment considering organized crime is moving into crypto now. Consider this:

1. Worldwide, criminal enterprise generates $2 trillion annually.

2. Monero only needs a $184 billion market cap to be worth $10K

The likelihood of Monero eventually hitting 5 figures is thus reasonably high. And its currently only $200.

>>29524331
>Still doesn't explain why I would want to hold monero?

It keeps you safe from any potential fungibility issues and doesn't require having to acquire an additional set of imperfect mixing skills. There is a reason why darknet veterans dislike Bitcoin and adore Monero.

Also, its poised to become the reserve cryptocurrency of the global shadow economy, major crime syndicates are now starting to move into crypto and they have VERY large revenue streams....just do the math and you'll understand what that means for a coin like Monero.

>Just hold bitcoin and then use the atomic swap to do an anonymized exchange

Why even risk holding Bitcoin when Monero does literally the same thing only without all the privacy and fungibility concerns?

>>29460231
>but if you want widespread adoption

Widespread adoption would be nice but its not essential. As has been mentioned here hundreds of times already, analysts expect most of Monero's future growth to stem from black money influxes i.e. organized crime adoption, not institutional capital or normie adoption.

Globally, organized crime generates $2 trillion annually, Monero only needs a $184 billion market cap to be worth $10K. And we're already seeing major crime syndicates moving into crypto.....

>$1m in cash seized as man arrested over alleged money laundering via cryptocurrency
>February 22, 2021 — 5.58pm

“Police will allege in court the man directed a criminal syndicate to launder money by converting cash into bitcoin on his behalf, totalling $5,479,300,” police said in a statement on Monday.

Detective Superintendent Matt Craft said the group allegedly operates as money launderers for hire and he anticipates further arrests over the next four weeks.

https://www.baka.com.au/national/nsw/1m-in-cash-seized-as-man-arrested-over-alleged-money-laundering-via-cryptocurrency-20210222-p574sb.html

So Bitcoin is still easier for them to use for now but all this kind of stuff will inevitably end up in Monero's corner, just like the darknet black markets.

>>29312826
>honestly that seems pretty bearish. i could see that by 2025 or 2026. am i being too optimistic that it won't take people another decade to figure out that btc is pretty shit for privacy (and other things)?

Well, sure, its difficult to predict anything in a market as irrational as this one. Analysts expect that criminal adoption of Monero is what will primarily drive its growth over the next 10 years, so it really depends on how fast that happens.

But the signs are good, we're already seeing major crime syndicates moving into crypto and given that globally organized crime generates ~$2 trillion a year, when some of that starts to trickle into Monero we should start seeing some serious gains, at which point normie FOMO kicks in and turbocharges the boosters.

All-in-all, Monero is a VERY comfy long-term hold, vice has historically been a highly lucrative sector and Monero is about to become it's reserve cryptocurrency, so strap in.

Criminals will adopt Monero regardless as long as it remains the premier privacy coin.

Of course it will, major crime syndicates are starting to use crypto for money laundering, they'll be pumping billions into Monero. And then there's all the tax evasion and black markets.

Always bet on vice and whatever makes its business easier.

>>29157473
>With all the darknet adoption

Darknet is small potatoes compared to the tax evasion and money laundering sectors, that is where the BIG money is.

>>29059836
>>Outside the darknet or activites related to carding, fraud, or drug trafficking, XMR is literally useless.

You forgot tax evasion and money laundering.

>>29041020
based

whoever said crime doesn't pay was actually retarded

>>28937135
>In other news I found out Satis Group is a fraud founded by a guy that got booted from otehr groups for being shady:

>I still think XMR's useful long term but I don't think Satis Group can be trusted on its (40k by 2030) projection.

The actual paper wasn't authored by the SG founder but by two other analysts that work there.

Furthermore, the SG projections don't require you to trust in THEM, all they're essentially doing is gathering data. doing some math and then drawing certain tentative conclusions, leaving the debate up to us.

And as far as their core reasoning goes, its pretty spot-on: we are in fact seeing criminal adoption of crypto and Monero is thus perfectly placed to start receiving substantial black money influxes in future, which is precisely what SG predict will eventually push XMR to $40K.

>>28849246
>Wasn't this published like a few years ago?

2018.

Irrational market = tentative timelines. But their core estimation i.e. that criminal adoption and black money influxes will drive future XMR growth is pretty much spot on.

In other words, less likely to be accurate in the short-term, more likely to be accurate in the long-term.

Monero. Black markets, tax evasion and money laundering are inevitable.