Crypto and blockchain technology provide many benefits.
They provide a means for people to hedge against inflation, invest in leveraged assets, and achieve some degree of freedom when it comes to finances.
However, crypto has a much darker side that not many people talk about.
Money laundering.
Owning and transacting with crypto is supposed to be untrackable and anonymous. This makes this new form of money perfect for money laundering schemes.
According to recent reports from an on-chain sleuth, a top Bitcoin address has now been connected to a massive $265M money laundering scheme.
According to a recent tweet from @zachxbt, a crypto rug pull survivor who became an on-chain detective, a Bitcoin address became one of the top BTC holders after receiving 9999.99 Bitcoin from Binance in 2018.
This address, 1EU2pMence1UfifCco2UHJCdoqorAtpT7, according to @zachxbt, "suddenly" started laundering money through multiple blockchai mixers, in recent months, with a total laundered sum of $256 million.
Commenter, @0xmillie_eth entered the conversation, wondering aloud why the on-chain detective used the word "laundering". "Were the funds gained illicitly?"
Responding, @zachxbt mentioned that it was likely a laundering scheme because these funds were spread out across smaller deposits to avoid detection.
Not only that, @zachxbt stated that using a Bitcoin mixer to jumble up its transaction history and make transactions harder to track was too similar to so many "hacks".
"Using CEX as a mixer would be much better at that size if the source is not dirty," the sleuth said.
While the entire situation looks slightly sketchy, other commenters have also pointed out that we may never know for sure, if this $256 million scheme was indeed a laundering scheme or something else entirely.
That's the thing.
In blockchain and crypto, it is hard to track the individuals who perform certain transactions, unless they are publicly known addresses.
However, what we CAN track, is their transaction history.
Data from Blockchair.com shows that address 1EU2pMence1UfifCco2UHJCdoqorAtpT7 has performed a total of 39 transactions (most of them being chunks of bigger transactions, received from 2018 until date).
In its 5-year existence, this address has also received a total of 54.999.98 $BTC, worth $1.25 billion at the time of writing
What is interesting, however, is how this address is now empty.
It currently holds 0.00080546 $BTC, after sending 9,999 BTC to several smaller addresses in a single day, on Friday 25 August.
This address emptied its account in less than a day, over 10 consecutive transactions.
From this, it isn't hard to figure out why @zachxbt believes this to be an elaborate money laundering scheme.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.