Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I Heard podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm Stacy mrirae Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. Yes, I know it's Saturday, but we're here
Speaker 1: to offer you our listeners a special audio only version
Speaker 1: of a new weekly video series called Crypto I r L.
Speaker 1: That's I r L like in real Life, and it's
Speaker 1: hosted by friends of the show Katie Greifeld and Tim Stenovic.
Speaker 1: This is episode seven of the series. If you want
Speaker 1: the full video experience, head over to Bloomberg dot com,
Speaker 1: slash qt or check it out on YouTube. What cop
Speaker 1: are you? I think I'd be the grizzled veteran with
Speaker 1: a heart of gold, grizzled veteran with the heart of
Speaker 1: a Clint Eastwood type, you know. Yeah, Like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I'm you know, hard on the outside,
Speaker 1: but I just want the best for my colleagues, my rookies,
Speaker 1: such as yourself. I'm a rookie, I think in this situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to think of myself as the good cop. Alright,
Speaker 1: that's pretty vanilla, but it's fine. Good cop, Okay, you
Speaker 1: can be the bad cop. We should probably explain why
Speaker 1: we're talking about cops. The entire episode is about crypto
Speaker 1: and crime. Tim If I can't use my crypto to
Speaker 1: fund activities that other people might think are illegal, what
Speaker 1: are we even doing here? That's the question. Bitcoin has
Speaker 1: been closely associated with crime since pretty much the beginning.
Speaker 1: In the early days, it was the currency of choice
Speaker 1: on the dark wet, used in drug deals and even
Speaker 1: a murder for higher plot. In more recent years, it's
Speaker 1: been what hackers have demanded when they've held pipelines, hospital systems,
Speaker 1: and met packing plants hostage, And then there's been the hacks.
Speaker 1: October two is on track to see more crypto stolen
Speaker 1: and hacks than any other month this year is on
Speaker 1: pace to be a record according to chain analysis. But
Speaker 1: as bitcoin actually good for crime, since all transactions are
Speaker 1: public on the blockchain, everyone can see bitcoin move on
Speaker 1: the blockchain, and governments and other organizations are getting better
Speaker 1: at recovering stolen bitcoin. Plus it's not actually that easy
Speaker 1: to launder bitcoin to turn lots of it into real,
Speaker 1: usable money. This raises an important question. If bitcoin isn't
Speaker 1: good at crime, then how can it live up to
Speaker 1: its promise as a stateless currency that could allow people
Speaker 1: in impressed areas to transact with one another without a
Speaker 1: regulator seeing what they're up to. Tell as at all
Speaker 1: the podcast in February, you wrote that it's time for
Speaker 1: bitcoin to get better at laundering money, and I have
Speaker 1: been thinking about it since then. I pushed to get stuck.
Speaker 1: Did it really made an impression on me? Um? I
Speaker 1: find it a very compelling argument, But lay out your case. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the core arguments that like biitcoiners
Speaker 1: make is that it's like separation of money and state, right,
Speaker 1: and that it's a sort of form of money that
Speaker 1: doesn't rely on the government, it doesn't rely on traditional
Speaker 1: banking system, etcetera. And when I wrote the piece, it
Speaker 1: was if you were calls like during the Canadian trucking
Speaker 1: protests and there was that big convoy and sitting aside
Speaker 1: what one's view of the protest work, which I think
Speaker 1: is like kind of irrelevant to the question. The point is,
Speaker 1: if there's going to be a moment where people needed
Speaker 1: a form of money that could like they could transact
Speaker 1: without censorship, that was it. And it didn't really work
Speaker 1: for that. They were able to like very easily track
Speaker 1: the transactions that were able to like freeze wallets from
Speaker 1: like interacting with banks. So it's like, if bitcoin is
Speaker 1: going to live up to its promise of being a
Speaker 1: means of transaction that is separate from the states, separate
Speaker 1: from the financial institutions, I don't think it's there yet
Speaker 1: in terms of whether it's privacy or obfuscation or things
Speaker 1: like that. So you're essentially saying that if bitcoin is
Speaker 1: to live up to its promise of being this stateless currency,
Speaker 1: yea something that could help and oppressed people, Yeah, then
Speaker 1: it actually needs to be something that would also be
Speaker 1: good for criminals. I think that, Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: the implication because again, like what's what's a criminal in
Speaker 1: one country one city could just be a protest or
Speaker 1: somewhere else. So to some extent, like this distinction is
Speaker 1: going to be very like vagable, like yeah, some places
Speaker 1: like protest is crime, someplace free speeches crime. And so
Speaker 1: the point is that for it to like, yeah, fulfill
Speaker 1: its mission, then on level, there has to be a
Speaker 1: way to transact with it without the state being able
Speaker 1: to say, you got these coins, and now these coins
Speaker 1: if they ever go to an exchange, if they ever
Speaker 1: go to like a fiat off ramp, they'll be frozen.
Speaker 1: What is the point then? I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason I've been thinking about this column that you wrote
Speaker 1: for I don't know, eight nine months is that it
Speaker 1: kind of made me think that crime is really subjective.
Speaker 1: Crime to one person, to one government, is not a
Speaker 1: crime to another government. Yeah, right, Like there are all
Speaker 1: there are. There are certain categories of crimes that everyone
Speaker 1: would find to be like absolutely, shouldn't people absolutely, But
Speaker 1: there are other yeah, in different situations, like you know,
Speaker 1: sending someone or selling a copy of the Bible might
Speaker 1: be a crime in some countries, or a different religious
Speaker 1: text or any other sort of like protest or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And so yeah, that's exactly right. Like, how
Speaker 1: would you even begin to conceive of a currency that
Speaker 1: would work for what we would call like legitimate crime
Speaker 1: or legitimate dissidents within a country if it didn't work
Speaker 1: for things that we would consider to be reprehensible. But
Speaker 1: it works to a certain extent, And that's what it
Speaker 1: seems like, at least because we are seeing still ransomware
Speaker 1: attacks that are you know, essentially say pay us x
Speaker 1: bitcoin else. Yeah, although even even ransomware attacks, there's a
Speaker 1: pretty big loss of market share by bigcoin that we've
Speaker 1: seen to like some of the privacy coins, like I
Speaker 1: think like if you look around like Manarrow, which is
Speaker 1: much smaller, less liquid, less market kept point is still
Speaker 1: popular among ransomware in tax and part because of this reason.
Speaker 1: It's like has privacy built into it from like round up. Wait,
Speaker 1: so if you're a criminal and you want to do
Speaker 1: some crime, which is would never never suggest, but I
Speaker 1: do think that it speaks to again like ransomware is
Speaker 1: really bad. So this is not about that. The point
Speaker 1: is like, well, then if if it doesn't work for these,
Speaker 1: then what I like to sort of like freedom, sort
Speaker 1: of like outside the state, outside the financial institutions, use
Speaker 1: cases that it does work for because the point that
Speaker 1: I see is like, Okay, they say it's like no
Speaker 1: one can block a bitcoin transaction, no one can censor it.
Speaker 1: But isn't it a defective form of censorship if an
Speaker 1: entity can say these wallets can no longer move to
Speaker 1: an exchange, And I think that's an important sort of
Speaker 1: set up there that you can do pack and get
Speaker 1: bitcoin in exchange. It's just you can't really do anything
Speaker 1: with the bitcoin that you write, and you know there's
Speaker 1: all kind of like train analysis is getting better and better,
Speaker 1: so it gets it becomes easier to like connect an
Speaker 1: individual to a wallet and so forth, and like law
Speaker 1: enforcements and private software companies are getting like really good
Speaker 1: at this. But if there's a point where it's like
Speaker 1: really hard to disassociate a coin from a human name
Speaker 1: from someone that is known to officials, then you start to,
Speaker 1: I think, lose some of the promise of the currency
Speaker 1: of anything. Really well, that's that's it. It's a whole
Speaker 1: different episode the Philosophy Show to delight. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. I'd love to be back. Beth Busbee from Analysis,
Speaker 1: Sugit Rahman from TRM Labs. It's good to have you
Speaker 1: both here with us. How are you great? Thanks for
Speaker 1: having us. What do you think of the crime scene?
Speaker 1: It's great, very realistic. You know what it's like when
Speaker 1: you investigate a crypto in the digital world. This is
Speaker 1: exactly what it's like. All the coins, the yellow you know,
Speaker 1: we're going for something that's really authentic. So that's some
Speaker 1: good feesback. Um, hey, I want to start with you.
Speaker 1: Just give us an idea of the most shocking crime
Speaker 1: you've ever seen. Committed with crypto. So if I go
Speaker 1: back to my days when I was with the Drug
Speaker 1: Enforcement Administration, um, it was with drug traffickers and anywhere
Speaker 1: from drug trafficking with money laundering using crypto for drug
Speaker 1: cartels or your running the mill, individuals that were down
Speaker 1: on their g parents basement, um, selling drugs on the internet.
Speaker 1: So those are shocking and the of themselves and like
Speaker 1: how the individuals actually like benefited from it and leveraging
Speaker 1: crypto for that. When I think about drugs and I
Speaker 1: think about bit colin and I think about them both together,
Speaker 1: I think about silk Road, Like is that the sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that we're talking about? Yeah, so kind of both. Right,
Speaker 1: So the very first really play of drugs and crypto
Speaker 1: is silk road. Right, that was one of the most
Speaker 1: innovative spaces for somebody to be like how do I
Speaker 1: get this onto the black market without being detected by
Speaker 1: law enforcement? And then this was the generation of leveraging
Speaker 1: tour and the digital realm of what payment system was,
Speaker 1: which was crypto, and that's what created silk road. So
Speaker 1: for the traditional sense of the digital aspect for drug trafficking, yes,
Speaker 1: that would be what it is. However, um. Any time
Speaker 1: you have a type of crime, you can leverage crypto
Speaker 1: for that. So drug trafficking and the traditional sense where
Speaker 1: you have the actual bulk move of large quos of
Speaker 1: drugs UM individuals can still accept payment with that through
Speaker 1: crypto suggets. Same question was shock and crime using Bicklins.
Speaker 1: They weren't necessarily shocking to me because criminals often go
Speaker 1: where the sort of technology is. But the first time
Speaker 1: I was really struck by how interesting crypto really could
Speaker 1: be was when I read the indictments charging those Russian
Speaker 1: intelligence officers with interfering in the elections in because if
Speaker 1: you read those indictments, you'll see that intelligence officers were
Speaker 1: using crypto to buy servers within the United States to
Speaker 1: try to sort of you know, obscure their tracks and
Speaker 1: use that to basically purchase the infrastructure that they then
Speaker 1: used to launch the hacks into the DNC emails and
Speaker 1: all that. And they even hosted the website that you know,
Speaker 1: sort of hosted all that information through the payment of crypto.
Speaker 1: So when I was in a senior role the Justice Department,
Speaker 1: that's what the first time I realized, Wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: crime is very important, and all the stuff we're doing
Speaker 1: on sort of dark webs really important. But there's a
Speaker 1: for an intelligence component to this, there's a defending democracy
Speaker 1: component to this. But ultimately those individuals were indicted. They
Speaker 1: were indicted, and the allegations are in the indictment right
Speaker 1: and in the in the indictment you see the evidence
Speaker 1: of them using what was it, bitcoin correct various types
Speaker 1: of crypto. So the question, well, we'll keep the question
Speaker 1: a bitcoin for now and then take it out to
Speaker 1: other types of crypto, but does it does that mean
Speaker 1: that it is or is not an effective means to
Speaker 1: essentially commit crime with? So it you know, it can
Speaker 1: be traced, right, And this is something that criminals often
Speaker 1: don't realize, is that the bitcoin network itself is quite
Speaker 1: traceable and folks like my team at r M labs
Speaker 1: bets team of chain analysis have become very good at
Speaker 1: tracing those payments. So it's just dumb criminals at this
Speaker 1: point then, because I feel like at least I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe I spend too much time in my own bubble,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's pretty well known that you
Speaker 1: can track things on the blockchain by now. Well, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people maybe don't realize that the
Speaker 1: other thing is it still takes time. Right, You've got
Speaker 1: technology like mixers and other types of technology that will
Speaker 1: help you sort of you know, mix up the transactions
Speaker 1: a little bit. Um even that capability is something law
Speaker 1: enforcement can see through using the right and the effective tools.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of crime out there and there's
Speaker 1: limited resources for law enforcement. This special audio only episode
Speaker 1: of Crypto I r L will be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Katie Greifeld and Tim Stanovic. If you want
Speaker 1: the full video experience, head to Bloomberg dot com slash qt. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we talked about shock, let's talk about scale because
Speaker 1: when I think about Silk Road, uh, that was a
Speaker 1: long time ago. Where does the state of crime using
Speaker 1: crypto stand right now? So if you look past like
Speaker 1: Silk Road, that was one marketplace. One Silk Road was
Speaker 1: taken down. It kind of like did this whackable type
Speaker 1: of thing where it dispersed and criminals were like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a really ingenious idea in order for me to
Speaker 1: actually do my criminal activities. So you see this mold
Speaker 1: that then is being expanded within that. But if you
Speaker 1: go past just like darkner markets and drug trafficking or
Speaker 1: even UM the aspects of child expectation sites that are
Speaker 1: also being leveraged on that UM. The other type of
Speaker 1: crime is not necessarily financially driven. So we have seen
Speaker 1: individuals that have taken advantage of the Bitcoin blockchain and
Speaker 1: UM have been able to put messaging within the transactions
Speaker 1: so that it's encrypted, and there's blotton nets that then
Speaker 1: crawl the block blockchain in order to decrypt that to
Speaker 1: then infortrate different aspects. So what we saw with US
Speaker 1: was a bunch of crypto dracking that was actually occurring.
Speaker 1: So rather than just seeing the transaction that was occurring
Speaker 1: on a financial aspect, this is now being deployed for
Speaker 1: a cyber component as well. Makes something we noticed just
Speaker 1: the a few weeks ago is ices is trying to
Speaker 1: raise funds through the use of n f t s,
Speaker 1: completely novel application of the technology. The technology is amazing,
Speaker 1: it's great, but illicit actors can also use it in
Speaker 1: novel ways that are actually pretty concerning. How are they
Speaker 1: trying to do that? So basically, you know, you create
Speaker 1: sort of an n f T and use that as
Speaker 1: a means of collecting funds, and so our team at
Speaker 1: TRM was able to identify that in advance and essentially
Speaker 1: notify you know, law enforcement and has since been taken down.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like, uh, you know, they had actually
Speaker 1: mobilized the n f T yet they were basically doing
Speaker 1: the preparatory work. I assume those n f T s weren't.
Speaker 1: Like I wish you you bring up Actually my next question,
Speaker 1: which is like I actually just don't get how isis
Speaker 1: would do this with an n f T, Like, explain
Speaker 1: how this would work. Well, essentially, you would, you know,
Speaker 1: send funds to that n f T, right, you would
Speaker 1: use that digital representation to store value and and I
Speaker 1: mean so that n f T would be not associated
Speaker 1: officially with a terrorist organization. Correct. You wouldn't realize that
Speaker 1: at the time that you were setting it, though people
Speaker 1: in the know would know to send and it would
Speaker 1: evade detection. So you're essentially setting up a bank account
Speaker 1: that is unlinked to any entity in order to raise
Speaker 1: funds for terrorists. Right. Essentially would be receiving funds in
Speaker 1: a digital manner that's not tied to any particular KYC
Speaker 1: information right now your customer, no, your customer, and you
Speaker 1: would then use that and sort of move it off,
Speaker 1: you know, move it to other chains or other areas
Speaker 1: and then try to turn it into cash. So to
Speaker 1: that point, I feel like ISIS wouldn't have been using
Speaker 1: n f t s. I don't know three four years ago.
Speaker 1: I know you both have been involved in the space
Speaker 1: for a long time, Beth, I know that you've been
Speaker 1: looking at, you know, elicit activities using crypto since we've
Speaker 1: touched on some of this, But tell me how the
Speaker 1: use case has evolved since then? Has it gotten more creative?
Speaker 1: How has it changed? Oh, it's definitely more creative. So
Speaker 1: I like to always think back, like back in the
Speaker 1: good old days with bitclin, because it's no longer the
Speaker 1: good old days, where like the technology has advanced and
Speaker 1: all of these different aspects of cryptocurrency have popped up.
Speaker 1: So you have n f t is, you now have
Speaker 1: all of the defy tokens that are available and the
Speaker 1: platforms that are operating in that manner that it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep up with all of that. So not only
Speaker 1: are you having individuals that are still in the bitcoin realm,
Speaker 1: but they are now transitioning into the DeFi space. And um,
Speaker 1: there's so many advancements with that with blockchains on top
Speaker 1: of other blockchains and UM just being able to understand
Speaker 1: what that technology represents as well as how criminals are
Speaker 1: using that technology for what it does not necessarily represent, right,
Speaker 1: And to me, that's the evolution that will always continue.
Speaker 1: UM and being able to understand how it's being leveraged
Speaker 1: is one of the most um interesting things for the
Speaker 1: evolution of what cryptocurrency is. Is it kind of easy
Speaker 1: to make money as a criminal using crypto? I would
Speaker 1: say there are ways to take advantage of the systems,
Speaker 1: for sure. So you have platforms now where you can
Speaker 1: stake funds, right, and you can stake that with criminal funds,
Speaker 1: and so like you actually are earning money and interest
Speaker 1: on all of these different things that are actually illicitly earned.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if what you heard from Joe Wisenthal makes
Speaker 1: sense that this stuff in order for it to actually
Speaker 1: serve its promise as stateless currency and help people who
Speaker 1: are oppressed, it has to become better at crime. Because
Speaker 1: what you guys do trm at at analysis, Like you
Speaker 1: track this stuff something that we know can be tracked now,
Speaker 1: but people have this idea that it was untrackable. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think privacy is very important, right, and so you know,
Speaker 1: at t RAN, for example, we don't touch personal sensitive data.
Speaker 1: It's all the blockchain information is publicly available. It's on
Speaker 1: a public blockchain and you can trace it over time,
Speaker 1: which is what Joe was saying, is why it's not
Speaker 1: good for crime. Right. But you know, just because something
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily good for crime doesn't mean that it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a bad thing. Right, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: positive use cases for for crypto generally, or for distributed
Speaker 1: ledger technology, which is what all of the stuff is
Speaker 1: based on. That. You know, often people are are overlooking, right,
Speaker 1: I mean think about you know, the last time you
Speaker 1: try to send funds. So if you've got relatives and
Speaker 1: other parts of the world, you know, in the traditional
Speaker 1: banking system, it takes days. There's fees everywhere, and it
Speaker 1: takes forever, costs a lot of money, and it cost
Speaker 1: a lot of money. And with crypto and you need
Speaker 1: a bank account on both sides, if you were a criminal,
Speaker 1: would you use crypto or would you put the cash
Speaker 1: in a suitcase and sort of try to travel around
Speaker 1: that way? So can I give you my honest answers?
Speaker 1: I am not a criminal, This is a brain exercise,
Speaker 1: though it requires us to suspend reality. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: cash is still king when it comes to illicit activity. Right.
Speaker 1: Crypto is certainly a means of doing illegal things, but
Speaker 1: there are aspects that are more traceable. But there are
Speaker 1: aspects that make it more obfuscatable, like mixers and other
Speaker 1: kinds of technology. So you know, I certainly wouldn't be
Speaker 1: in the business of advice criminals and what to do
Speaker 1: or what not to do. This special audio only episode
Speaker 1: of Crypto I r L will be right back with
Speaker 1: more from Katie Greifeld and to Centevic. If you want
Speaker 1: the full video experience, head to Bloomberg dot com slash
Speaker 1: qt That students talked a lot about state actors, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering in your work if you have any data
Speaker 1: that shows to what extent the crime is being committed
Speaker 1: by state sponsored actors versus by rogue individuals with no
Speaker 1: connection to a state. Yeah. So what we were able
Speaker 1: to identify is that UM for nation state actors there,
Speaker 1: it's over four million dollars that we have been able
Speaker 1: to tie to UM North Korea, for instance. Right, However,
Speaker 1: if you look at just individual Elica actors within that um,
Speaker 1: although the hacks are very large, so six hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars at a time for a hack, right, it makes
Speaker 1: and grabs attention for headlines. However, what is not being um,
Speaker 1: look at our individuals that are still soliciting um elicit me,
Speaker 1: but they're doing it in a larger, smaller scale, but
Speaker 1: a higher transaction, right, so that actually supersedes the amount
Speaker 1: that's actually being moved on the list of scale for that.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting and I swear I'm just curious. So
Speaker 1: if you were committing a crime, it sounds like just
Speaker 1: a series of smaller transactions makes a lot more sense
Speaker 1: in any type of movement for financial means that that
Speaker 1: is the best way, right so um being so in
Speaker 1: a traditional financial aspect, right, there's reporting requirements in order
Speaker 1: to transactions that hit a banking system, right and so
Speaker 1: um and those are the suspicious activity reports that financial
Speaker 1: institutions and money service businesses are actually supposed to report.
Speaker 1: So if you're underneath that threshold, like you're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to be reported on as easily ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for funds that are going on a specifics
Speaker 1: you know, in all seriousness, um, all this talk of
Speaker 1: state actors kind of has me thinking about whether or
Speaker 1: not all of this is actually a good development or not.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering, you know, North Korea recently launched a
Speaker 1: missile over Japan and said, you know, shock ways throughout
Speaker 1: the world, and they do this every once in a while.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering, student, if you think North Korea would
Speaker 1: be as powerful as it is today and as much
Speaker 1: of a menace to the rest of the world if
Speaker 1: there was no such thing as crypto. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you can strip the crypto conversation out of that, because
Speaker 1: North Korea has been engaging in this kind of maligned
Speaker 1: cyber activity for years. They tried to steal I think
Speaker 1: it was a billion dollars from the Bank of Bangladesh
Speaker 1: a few years ago, but basically hacking into the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve New York's account that the Bank of Bangladesh was
Speaker 1: using and siphon that money out. Nothing to do with crypto, right,
Speaker 1: it was just a cyber hack. So crypto certainly makes it,
Speaker 1: you know, a more interesting conversation because there are certain
Speaker 1: things that nation state actors can do that they couldn't
Speaker 1: do more, you know, as easily in a in a
Speaker 1: pure kind of analog world, do you guys like crypto?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you see, you guys look at the
Speaker 1: worst side of crypto when you zoom out from that?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you see this is a net positive
Speaker 1: or what are your feelings? All Right, It's definitely a
Speaker 1: net positive. Like it's innovation at its finest, and it's
Speaker 1: really fascinating to be able to watch um being able
Speaker 1: to step back and see that individuals that maybe in
Speaker 1: underprivileged areas that have access to financial means through crypto
Speaker 1: is fantastic. And just being able to leverage that in
Speaker 1: a way that makes it where almost everybody can be
Speaker 1: on the same playing field, to me, is one of
Speaker 1: the most rewarding things within this space. Would you agree
Speaker 1: with Stugent that we have to strip crypto out of
Speaker 1: the conversation there, because even if there were no crypto,
Speaker 1: these sanctioned countries would still be able to access funds
Speaker 1: to fund whatever they're doing. Yeah, And like, I would
Speaker 1: actually say that the crypto aspect is actually a positive
Speaker 1: thing with it. And I say that because it is
Speaker 1: trans parent for us to be able to actually track
Speaker 1: those funds and actually see what is going on within
Speaker 1: those different countries, which is, if you took the crypto
Speaker 1: out of it, like completely, we would lose insight into
Speaker 1: what's actually going on and we wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: tie that back to US. Does it stugent undermine American
Speaker 1: foreign policy at all? So look, that's a really interesting question. Obviously,
Speaker 1: certain countries are trying to use crypto to kind of
Speaker 1: evade the international, you know, global financial system, which is
Speaker 1: very much US led, or at least led by kind
Speaker 1: of Western countries and Western values. But here's an interesting
Speaker 1: kind of other side to it. You talk about stable coins, right,
Speaker 1: which are basically tied to the US dollar. I could
Speaker 1: see a world in which if there was more expansion
Speaker 1: of stable coins, that actually promotes the growth of the
Speaker 1: US dollar into areas where it maybe doesn't exist now. So,
Speaker 1: you know, crypto again cuts both ways. You've got to
Speaker 1: really understand it and then you can make good policy.
Speaker 1: Who's your favorite TV cop? Like, who do you model
Speaker 1: yourself after? Well? I, uh, I was not a cop.
Speaker 1: I was a pro secuter. So if you watch Law
Speaker 1: and Order, yes I always identified with the lawyers, but
Speaker 1: I did like the guys in Law and Order. You
Speaker 1: gotta be honest it's for you. Yeah, it's a risk
Speaker 1: Harte Days character. I like a lot Olivia Benson there
Speaker 1: is Yeah, Beth, what about you so mine? It's not
Speaker 1: a TV show, but it would be clarice from the
Speaker 1: silence of the Lambs. Yeah, do you identify with their Yeah?
Speaker 1: So my whole dream job right was to actually be
Speaker 1: a profiler, and that's what I wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: then I got sidetracked with Crypto. So here I am Raman,
Speaker 1: Beth Bisbee. Good to see you guys. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's it kind of seems like you're ready for a
Speaker 1: life of crime. I don't know. After listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: we mapped a pretty good blueprint, but not using bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Maybe ma Narrow definitely a mixer and I would keep
Speaker 1: it under ten grants. I thought you were a grizzled
Speaker 1: old cop with the heart of gold. Things change. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to see these episodes of Crypto I r
Speaker 1: L in video. Check them out on Bloomberg Quicktake at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, slash qt, or find Katie and Tim
Speaker 1: Over on YouTube. This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast
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