When the Justice Department announced in February that it had seized bitcoin worth $3.6 billion, it was more than just the largest recovery of alleged crime proceeds in U.S. history. It was the biggest signal yet that cryptocurrency, once seen as attractive to criminals for its supposed shield of anonymity, may not be so crime-friendly after all.
There are different types of cryptocurrency; the most commonly traded, including bitcoin, is digital money that is not backed by any government. It exists on a decentralized network of computers based on technology called blockchain and protected by unbreakable codes. “When you look at what is actually involved in a transaction, you’re looking at the use of what’s called a public key or a wallet, and that’s a string of letters and numbers,” she added, but “that isn’t purely anonymous.”
“Most crimes involve money,” he said."They involve some type of effort to scheme or defraud individuals or make a profit on illegal activity. So our job is to follow and trace those financial flows no matter what the underlying crime is and to hold those people accountable.”