Michael Calore: We are joined this week once again by WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg. Andy, welcome back to the show.

 Michael Calore: We are joined this week once again by WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg. Andy, welcome back to the show.

Andy Greenberg: Thanks to you both for having me on again.

Michael Calore: It's great to have you back. We're talking about cryptocurrency again on today's show, but it's not really in the way that you might expect. Andy, at the end of last year, you published a book. It's called Tracers in the Dark. It's filled with stories about investigators who have been able to track

 down criminals by studying their cryptocurrency transactions. These are people who operated on the dark web, places like Silk Road, AlphaBay, and Welcome to Video, a site where users shared child sex abuse videos. These criminal enterprises were funded and fueled by cryptocurrency, primarily bitcoin

. Now, since bitcoin has existed, people have been using it to buy and sell all sorts of legal and illegal things online. They may not see that behavior as risky if they're doing something illegal, because they're operating under the assumption that bitcoin transactions are untraceable. Now, that's never really been true, but that belief has persisted anyway. Andy, this myth of anonymity around cryptocurrency is a running theme in your book. How did this myth come to be?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paramount Pictures employed a unique

  Paramount Pictures employed a unique  strategy in releasing “80 for Brady.” While many films have sought to capitalize on higher ticket prices through large-format or 3-D screenings or surge pricing, which films like “The Batman” have tried, Paramount went the other direction on “80 for Brady.” The studio partnered with exhibitors, including the largest chains, to play “80 for Brady” at matinee prices to help lure its largely older audience. (Half of ticket buyers were over the age of 55.) It seemed to work. At a time when comedies have struggled mightily in theaters, “80 for Brady” (with a production budget of $28 million) had one of the best openings for a live-action comedy in years. Discount pricing is to continue for the rest of the film’s run. “Avatar: The Way of Water” slid to third with $10.8 million domestically in its eighth weekend. The film’s No. 1 streak matched the run of 2009′s “Avatar.” In the last four decades, only those two by Cameron and his “Titanic” (19...
Read more