18th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Blockchain/Bitcoin Illicit Finance
In this Panel, J.C. Boggs (Co-lead, Fintech, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency practice, King & Spalding), Patrick Campos (Chief Strategy Officer, Securrency), Seth Hetlein (Head of Policy & Government Relations, Stellar Development Foundation), and Jackson Mueller (Director, Policy & Government Relations, Securrency) discussed the issues on Blockchain and Illicit Finance. Mueller open the discussion by saying that we need to balance financial privacy with transparency. It was argued that there is going to be lot more innovation because of the fact that this is an open network, however, there is still a lack of regulation, rules, or roads in this new technology. They all agreed upon the fact that we need to find a legal framework to implement this new technology.
It was later discussed that In Europe, the United States, the UK, and Australia are all creating their own crypto assets. They voiced their concerns over how all of this is promoting illicit finance. It was found that
- 1/3 of crypto is used for illicit purposes
- Moving crypto across borders is easy
- Concluded that more innovation means more compliance
- The main illicit uses of this tech are:
- Sales of illicit substances
- Illicit finance
- Blockchain is a powerful tool
It was later discussed that the idea is to regulate the behavior, not the technology. They went on to agreeing that only viewing crypto as a source of illicit promotion is an impoverished view on the subject. They later discussed the topic on transparency vs. privacy. They agreed on how we need to lean more into transparency rather that privacy, however, privacy may be more important in other occasions because privacy means security.
