In December last year, reports suggested Japan had seen over 6,000 money laundering cases that involved cryptocurrency in the first nine months of the year.
Well, the trend continued. In the last three months of 2018, financial regulators received another 1,000-plus cryptocurrency related cases, taking the yearly total to 7,096 cases, the Japan Times reports .
This is of course a dramatic increase over the 669 cases reported between April and December 2017. However, in 2017, Japan introduced regulations making it easier to report cryptocurrency-based money laundering cases. Which may go someway to explaining the large increase.
It’s also worth noting that these 7,096 cases represent only 1.6 percent of the total number of money laundering cases reported in the same period. While the number of reported cases did see a huge increase, in the grand scheme of things they only represent a small subset of the 417,465 on going financial money laundering investigations.
Indeed, when talking in absolute global figures the amount of cryptocurrency being used to launder dirty money sounds large. Previous reports have suggested that over $2.5 billion was laundered using Bitcoin and “ cryptocurrency tumblers .”
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Lil Pump now accepts Bitcoin on his merch store (but will he dump it?)
In a move that’s sure to make some Bitcoin hodlers happy, Columbian-American rapper, Lil Pump, is now accepting the cryptocurrency as a payment method on his online merch store .
He’s a millionaire that doesn’t know how to read , but it hasn’t stopped him from offering customers the opportunity to pay either “on chain,” or “off chain” through the Lightning Network.
While news of the integration is making headlines, it’s unclear when the Harverd Dropout officially started accepting the cryptocurrency. The Bitcoin payment integration seems pretty slick actually.
Esskeetit and take a look.
Shopping is pretty simple, pick out what piece of merch you want, add it to your basket as normal, and head to the checkout. All sounds Gucci so far.
When you go to pay, you fill out your delivery address as normal, and then select your payment option – in this case, Bitcoin.
When you select Bitcoin you’re presented with the option of paying from a conventional wallet or through a Lightning Network channel. Selecting one of these choices generates an address and a QR code that you scan to pay for the merchandise. Just as you would if you were sending Bitcoin to anyone, or anything , else.
It’s so easy it’s elementary , you certainly won’t break your wrist .
Indeed, while the integration may seem simple enough, it remains to be seen whether Lil Pump fans will take advantage of this payment option.
Also, given that Bitcoin transactions can’t be reversed I’m left wondering what happens if you request a refund or return an order? Presumably a human at the other end will have to send the funds back to you manually. It’s also unclear in this case if the BTC amount or the USD equivalent would be honored.
Hopefully he’s not going to change his name to Lil Pump ‘n’ dump and run away with all his fan’s money. I mean, it’s not like a rapper would ever do that .
The jury is still out on Bitcoin and commerce, though. While there always seems to be news of firms starting to accept Bitcoin as a payment method, usage of these channels has remained low .
Earlier this year, a Canadian town integrated a Bitcoin payment option to let its residents pay taxes with the cryptocurrency. Yet one British firm, that added a Bitcoin payment option four years ago, is still waiting for someone to actually use it .
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Prince Charles on Bitcoin: ‘It’s a very interesting development’
A Twitter user posted a video of them asking the heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, what he thought of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and blockchain yesterday.
The Prince’s response? “Oh yes, it’s a very interesting development.”
The Tweeter caught Prince Charles in Berlin, where he’s currently on a royal visit.
The Prince of Wales can be seen initially dismissing the Tweeter’s questions, but seems to gather himself when the word “blockchain” is mentioned.
If that’s not a royal seal of approval, I don’t know what is. The tweet has already been liked over 1,900 times and retweeted nearly 500 times. If you sell now, you’re a fool.
One other enterprising Twitter user even took it upon themselves to embed the tweet on the blockchain, forever.
The user uploaded the tweet and its URL to Dragonchain, a web app that claims to timestamp tweets to blockchains such as Ethereum. The tweet can be viewed on the blockchain here .
Prince Charles and Camilla arrived in Germany this week to commence a four-day visit which The Telegraph reports is an attempt to “extend the hand of friendship over Brexit.”
Indeed, it’s not the first time blockchain and Brexit have been mentioned in the same article.
Blockchain has, on numerous occasions, been touted as a possible fix to the Brexit border woes known as the Irish Backstop . While technology might help, it certainly won’t be the sole remedy for what is a very complex problem .
Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .
