Cryptocurrency is being used in everything from socks to sex trafficking

Something terrifying occurred to me today.  A strange Instagram page named coinmkt.com started liking all of the pictures with one of my daughters in it. 

I am in no way saying that the coinmkt.com Instagram person is a perverted weirdo or involved in any crime, organized or otherwise, but my eyes were open to the world of cryptocurrencies when I clicked on their profile, and it scared me enough that I blocked them.

Cryptocurrencies are often used to tip fellow internet users or in online games.  It’s a currency traded solely through the internet, and there are dozens and dozens of versions from the bitcoin to the Dogecoin.  Basically, it’s digital money.

It doesn’t sound real, does it?  Fake money traded in fake games and between people in fake internet land.  Well get ready to be freaked out, because it’s huge.  We’re talking a trillion dollar market of eCommerce.  Did I just blow your mind?

The scary thing is that it’s highly unregulated.  Anyone can come up with a cryptocurrency.  Anyone.  People are creating eWallets, ePens, eWatches, eEverything else.  This ‘pretend’ money is being circulated every day from people trading it to make their virtual gaming landscape better to people trading it for drugs, guns, goods, sex, and even people. 

Yes.  People.

One of the biggest draws to cryptocurrency is that there is no invasion by the government.  It’s an easy way for the bad guys to launder MILLIONS of dollars unnoticed, and it’s happening every day!  There are no taxes, no regulations, and no one even has to know that you have your own cryptocurrency. 

It blew my mind.  You get to decide the type of cryptocurrency, what it can be used on, how many units that can be minted in your pretend online land, hide private wealth, and use it to buy and sell humans.

China has banned any business from using any sort of bitcoin.  If one of the leading financial countries in the world has decided to ban it, you know it’s big.

It’s changing so fast that laywers and law makers are struggling to keep up with it.  Ron Paul has stated to CNN that it could “destroy the dollar”.  Paul’s bitcoin, RonPaulcoin is ranked at 47^th most valuable of the more than 70 cryptocurrencies available.

Cryptocurrencies are currently being used by drug dealers, criminals, and sex traffickers in a space known to tech savvy criminals as the “deep web” on sites similar to Silk Road, where drugs such as mushrooms, LSD, and ecstasy could be purchased using digital dollars.  Dealers then would turn around and sell their purchases for paper dollars at a 300% markup. 

It’s a shadow economy that is performing better than paper money, and it can’t be traced!  Bitcoin is being traded on the market for over $30 per share and it’ becoming the world’s best performing currency.

How do you buy them?  Through an online exchange service such as coinmkt.com, the company that liked my Instagram pictures and sent me on this journey down the rabbit hole.  This is where you pay your actual real money for internet money that is stored in your eWallet, which is code for turning your money invisible so you can spend it on anything that takes bitcoins, which is everything from tangible items like shoes to sex with prostitutes, child pornography, or drugs.  Discovery News even found that you could buy guns with bitcoins.

Great for the bad guys, because it’s anonymous, but bad for the good consumers because unlike virtual pay sites like PayPal, you can’t dispute the charge if you never receive the goods.  There is no legislation to protect you from fraud.

By the time the world learns about bitcoins, how to use them, how to buy them, and what you can spend them on, the damage will be done.  All countries are looking into regulating bitcoins because they are being used for sex trafficking, money laundering, drug dealing, murder for hire, and you name it. 

Sites like Silk Road, which has since been shut down, only allow cryptocurrency.   The Baltimore Sun even reported that poachers selling  rhinoceros on the black market are even using bitcoin.  Black market sites like it can pop up and disappear in a heartbeat without anyone knowing who ran them, who sold the goods, or where they came from.  There is no trace.

If you can imagine a bad guy wanting it, you can imagine it’s available with payment in bitcoins.

Even child pornography.  According to the Daily Dot, CNN Money reported that a loophole in the code that powers Bitcoin, which heretofore has used to post jokes, was discovered to contain repellent links to sex sites that included child pornography sites.

The Daily Beast found a hitman network that says it accepts bitcoin to murder for hire.

If you learn something new every day, here’s your education.  Not all cryptocurrency trading is bad.  People are selling houses and cars for bitcoin.  People are running successful legitimate bitcoin businesses, but there is a very large and very dark side to cryptocurrency use, and we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. 

As a Damsel in Defense Independent Pro, I am dedicated to fighting sex trafficking of any kind, and will use it as a platform to spread awareness.  I want everyone to understand the dangers that come with cryptocurrency, and to be aware.