• Russia claims they received cryptocurrency.

    Okay, so which currency and which transactions? Crypto has a public ledger, so it should be easily verifiable if these transactions happened.

    But obviously, such evidence has not been provided.

    Even the claim that they were fleeing to Ukraine is dubious, as a “hero’s welcome” would not fall well with the western public (eroding the support they need is not a winning strategy), and the road they were supposedly arrested on leads to Belarus, not Ukraine.

    The Russian narrative does not logically add up, and there’s no actual evidence at all. Meanwhile, the west preemptively warned the FSB that an attack was imminent (which you wouldn’t do if you want the attack to succeed) and named the group behind it, which was backed by evidence (as said group published videos that only they could have taken).

    Please keep an open mind. Ask yourself “which is more likely” and make sure the claims you believe are backed with evidence.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      Okay, so which currency and which transactions? Crypto has a public ledger, so it should be easily verifiable if these transactions happened.

      I’m not sure what you mean by this? Crypto is used specifically because it is difficult to trace transactions, so I doubt there is a clear public record of the transactions, it wouldn’t be used for the vast majority of drug sales if it were so easily traceable.

      • The difficulty comes from figuring out who owns which address/wallet. But transactions are entirely public.

        See https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/getting-started/crypto-education/what-is-the-bitcoin-blockchain for a simple explanation. Anyone can trace any bitcoin/cryptocoin or whatever from address to address. But that doesn’t tell you who owns the addresses (which is where the drug users come in).

        Once you figure out who owns specific address, you can trace every one of their transactions. It’s part of crypto being a public, decentralised network.

        • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          That sounds…completely the opposite of the bullshit of what I’ve heard from cryptobros lol. But thanks for the info, though I’m still not sure how crypto can be used to smuggle drugs if it is all as public as this article claims it is.

          • Shinhoshi@lemmygrad.ml
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            9 months ago

            It’s public but if your country doesn’t regulate cryptocurrencies heavily, you might be able to use it to anonymously move money. Sure it’s public, but you don’t know who 0xdeadbeef2537494946 is