Cryptocurrency’s Myth of Anonymity | WIRED

Lauren Goode: Oh, after I purchase one thing with cryptocurrency, like after I go as much as my morning espresso store and I open my MetaMask and I’m like, “Hey, do you guys take BTC or ETH or GoodCoin?”

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: No, I do not do any of that, and I actually have not thought an excessive amount of in regards to the nameless prospects of this, though I do know that is an enormous half of cryptocurrency, proper?

Michael Calore: It is. The prevailing thought is that, for those who use it, folks would not actually know what you are shopping for or how a lot you spent or that you simply even participated in a transaction within the first place, however that’s truly form of a fantasy.

Lauren Goode: Interesting.

Michael Calore: Yes. Do you wish to hear extra about it?

Lauren Goode: I undoubtedly do.

Michael Calore: Then let’s convey on our visitor.

[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]

Michael Calore: Hi, everybody, and welcome to Gadget Lab. I’m Michael Calore. I’m a senior editor at WIRED.

Lauren Goode: And I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior author at WIRED.

Michael Calore: We are joined this week as soon as once more by WIRED senior author Andy Greenberg. Andy, welcome again to the present.

Andy Greenberg: Thanks to you each for having me on once more.

Michael Calore: It’s nice to have you ever again. We’re speaking about cryptocurrency once more on right this moment’s present, nevertheless it’s probably not in the way in which that you simply would possibly count on. Andy, on the finish of final yr, you revealed a ebook. It’s known as Tracers within the Dark. It’s full of tales about investigators who’ve been capable of observe down criminals by finding out their cryptocurrency transactions. These are individuals who operated on the darkish internet, locations like Silk Road, AlphaBay, and Welcome to Video, a website the place customers shared youngster intercourse abuse movies. These prison enterprises have been funded and fueled by cryptocurrency, primarily bitcoin. Now, since bitcoin has existed, folks have been utilizing it to purchase and promote all kinds of authorized and unlawful issues on-line. They could not see that habits as dangerous in the event that they’re doing one thing unlawful, as a result of they’re working beneath the idea that bitcoin transactions are untraceable. Now, that is by no means actually been true, however that perception has continued anyway. Andy, this fantasy of anonymity round cryptocurrency is a working theme in your ebook. How did this fantasy come to be?

Andy Greenberg: Well, I’ve to confess that I’m in some sense an element of it, Mike. I wrote the primary print journal piece about bitcoin in 2011—fortunately, in some sense, not for WIRED journal. I labored at Forbes journal on the time. I coated this world of anonymity and hackers and surveillance, and I came across this new phenomenon. Bitcoin was described to me as a sort of untraceable, nameless digital money for the web. I used to be speaking with some of the primary bitcoin builders, and even Satoshi Nakamoto, this mysterious creator of bitcoin, had written on this e-mail to a cryptography mailing listing that, amongst different issues, contributors could be nameless on this new cryptocurrency world that she or he or whoever they’re was describing. So I wrote this primary piece in 2011, and I did describe on this Forbes piece how this gave the impression to be a sort of untraceable digital money. You might put unmarked payments in a briefcase and ship them throughout the web to anyone with out revealing your id for those who have been cautious, it appears. Of course, I instantly additionally was imagining, simply being the type of reporter I’m, that this was going to unlock a complete world of cash laundering and on-line drug offers and, I do not know, terrorist financing. All of that, in some sense, did come to move over the next years as a result of it did appear … And it wasn’t simply me. Even Satoshi Nakamoto believed that bitcoin and cryptocurrency extra usually, as there grew to become extra flavors of cryptocurrency, had these nameless properties. It was solely, I might say, not less than fast-forward a complete decade, round 2020, that I began to appreciate how fully improper I used to be about this. How not simply I used to be just a little bit improper, however truly 180 totally reverse of right about this—that bitcoin is definitely totally traceable. In truth, it’s a lot simpler to comply with the cash for those who can crack and decipher the blockchain with cryptocurrency than even with conventional finance. It was truly after I began to see the Department of Justice credit score this one firm, Chainalysis, which is a cryptocurrency tracing agency, in a single announcement after one other, I began trying into this world of investigators who had figured this out a lot sooner than me. I noticed that this small group of detectives had discovered to hint cryptocurrency inside legislation enforcements in lots of instances, and had used this to take down one large cybercriminal operation after one other during the last 10 years. That escalating spree of large busts and takedowns is the story of this ebook, Tracers within the Dark.