Bitcoins. Are they a net negative to human society?

Great Debates
76

What an investigator can see is:

  1. 1 million USD goes from my Wells-Fargo account to my Coinbase USD account
  2. 1 million USD is debited from my Coinbase USD account and deposited as 18.85 BTC to my Coinbase BTC wallet.
  3. I sent 18.85 BTC from my Coinbase wallet to a mystery wallet. It’s actually a one-time wallet I created on my PC, stored on a USB drive. But if you don’t tell anybody, then nobody will know. I’ll tell investigators it was a fly-by-night gambling site, and it flew, and I lost everything.
  4. The mystery wallet sends 18.85 BTC to a wallet on ShadyShit.com. Or an orphanage for blind puppies. You pick.
  5. Psych! I’m not that stupid, I won’t send exactly 18.85 BTC. Maybe the feds are onto me, maybe they’re actually running ShadyShit.com. Unlikely, but possible. I’ll break this transaction into amounts that don’t match what I drew from Coinbase.
  6. Having made the transfer, I now remove my temporary private wallet (on a USB) from my computer, smash it with a hammer, put it in a jar of pickle juice, and microwave it on high for 6 weeks. The wallet was already anonymous and untraceable, and now it is simply gone.
  7. If someone’s monitoring the outflow of ShadyShit.com and notices 18.85 going out? Doesn’t matter. Bitcoins don’t have ID or serial numbers. Now, as I said, no way I’m transacting the exact amount I did on Coinbase, simply out of paranoia, but in reality it’s not important.

From what investigators can see, there’s nothing suspicious about any of this. But let’s say I’m not of squeaky clean character, they’ve had their eye on me. Maybe a million bucks tripped a red flag. “We’re curious about that mystery wallet and the 18.85 BTC. Who was the payee and what was that money for?” I answer “I have a serious gambling addiction, I moved it to a sketchy gambling site in the Caymans and they stole it all, please sir won’t you help me catch the bad men who stole my bitcoins?”

They won’t believe me, and they won’t like it, but unless they have side-channel evidence like email (not happening), or my counterparty knows my identity (also not happening), they’ll have to take my word for it.

Clear enough? This was longer than it needed to be, because I tried to make it entertaining and approachable.

You know, the more I think about this, if a person like me can do what I’ve described above, bitcoin probably is a net negative to society.