Bitcoin is Used on the Dark Web and that’s a Great Thing

By Vincent Zandri on The Capital

(courtesy Biography)

Engineering great Elon Must was recently interviewed by a podcast round table and he offered up his opinion of Bitcoin.

“I’m neither here or there on Bitcoin,” he said.

Like most of Musk’s comments about the digital currency, he is not so much cryptic as guarded (You’ll recall his recent Tweet about BTC not being his “safe word”…Take another toke, Elon).

I can’t speak for the famous founder of Space X and Tesla, but if I were to wage the mortgage (I rent), I’d say he not only invests in digital currency, he invests a lot. Yet in the podcast he issues a concern that Bitcoin might be used for nefarious reason on the dark web. Fair enough, but people also use good old green backs for nefarious reasons too and have been for ages.

Musk is a renowned risk taker. He’s the one who sold his shares of PayPal, poured every cent into Tesla, then borrowed money to pay his rent (what financial risk taker doesn’t love that story?). It would seem rather odd to me that he wouldn’t recognize the actual bright side to making Bitcoin transactions on the dark web. The digital currency can’t be censored. Transactions are entirely anonymous. They can’t be tracked. There’s no centralized system tracking its every move. So why wouldn’t crooks want to use it on the dark web?

Like I said, cash is also used for illegal activity. It can be laundered and it can be counterfeited. If it’s handlers know how to wash it thoroughly, it can defy trace. There was a reason Obama delivered billions of dollars worth of fiat currency to the Iranians during the failed nuclear deal. The Mullahs had every intention of using that money for their proxy wars and for terrorism. When the money was delivered to them on a private jet, they must have been peeing their robes. Talk about a dark and tangled web some politicians and terrorists live.

But I’m getting ahead of my skis here. Or am I jumping the shark? Perhaps neither (But I am mixing my metaphors).

If there is good news about Bitcoin, it’s that the government can’t confiscate it from you. They can’t take it and use it to pay for some other country’s terrorist adventures, or redistribute it to pay for someone’s defaulted college loan after you did the right thing and paid off your student loan. It can’t be tracked by the IRS, but I strongly suggest you be honest about your transactions with them, or they will come after you. Because that’s what they live for.

There’s no denying that the dark web can be a dangerous if not nefarious place to spend time. But no one should blame Bitcoin for being used as a means of transacting business there. That’s no more the fault of the currency than it is the web itself. It is entirely the fault of the creeps doing the transacting.

Elon Musk is about to send us to the Moon and Mars in one of his rocket ships. My guess is his stash of Bitcoin will also moon pretty damned soon. And when it does, one of the richest men men on several planets (potentially), will be even richer.