{"id":352,"date":"2018-01-05T19:48:26","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T19:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ielrblog.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2018-01-05T19:48:45","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T19:48:45","slug":"use-digital-currency-evade-u-s-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ielrblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/05\/use-digital-currency-evade-u-s-sanctions\/","title":{"rendered":"Use of Digital Currency to Evade U.S. Sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the last month, the Venezuelan and Russian governments have discussed the use of digital currency to evade U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/03\/technology\/russia-venezuela-virtual-currencies.html\">sanctions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, on December 3, 2017, Nicolas Maduro suggested the idea in a television speech.\u00a0 His plans are to create the Petro, which would be backed by Venezuela&#8217;s commodities (gold, oil, gas and diamond reserves) similar to the way gold has in the past supported the dollar.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Russian government has expressed concern about the potential use of virtual currencies to commit crimes, more recently Russian President Vladimir Putin has indicated a willingness to explore the use of virtual currency to counteract U.S.. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/03\/technology\/russia-venezuela-virtual-currencies.html\">sanctions.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/titles\/10908.html\">book<\/a>, <em>Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies:\u00a0<\/em><span class=\"sub-title-heading\"><em>A Comprehensive Introduction<\/em> by<\/span> <span class=\"sub-title\">Arvind Narayanan, Joseph Bonneau, Edward Felten, Andrew Miller &amp; Steven Goldfeder<strong>,\u00a0<\/strong><\/span> addresses fundamental questions about the pros and cons of using virtual currency. How does virtual currency operate? What\u00a0makes it different? How secure is virtual currency? How anonymous are virtual currency users? What\u00a0applications can we build using\u00a0 virtual currency (i.e., Bitcoin) as a platform? Can cryptocurrencies be regulated? If we were to design a new cryptocurrency today, what would we change? What might the future hold?<\/p>\n<div>One obstacle for users of virtual currency\u00a0 involves ensuring that the payments are made without having to use a third party, such as a government agency.\u00a0 A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online\u00a0payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a\u00a0financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main\u00a0benefits are lost if a trusted third party\u00a0 (i.e., financial regulator) is still required to prevent double-spending.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Some experts have proposed a <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoin.org\/bitcoin.pdf\">solution<\/a> to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jbonneau.com\/doc\/BMCNKF15-IEEESP-bitcoin.pdf\">article<\/a> has mapped the design space for numerous proposed modifications, providing comparative analyses for alternative consensus mechanisms, currency allocation mechanisms, computational\u00a0puzzles, and key management tools.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0The same article surveys anonymity issues in Bitcoin and provides an evaluation framework for analyzing a variety of privacy-enhancing proposal.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In addition, the article provides new insights on what we term disintermediation\u00a0protocols, which absolve the need for trusted intermediaries in an interesting set of applications.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>As governments and other persons seek to evade sanctions regimes and otherwise circumvent international treaties and national laws, governments and stakeholders in those regimes, laws, and treaties will also seek to regulate virtual currency and crack the anonymity in order to implement and enforce the treaties and laws.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last month, the Venezuelan and Russian governments have discussed the use of digital currency to evade U.S. sanctions. In particular, on December 3, 2017, Nicolas Maduro suggested the idea in a television speech.\u00a0 His plans are to create the Petro, which would be backed by Venezuela&#8217;s commodities (gold, oil, gas and diamond reserves) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-data-privacy","7":"category-economic-sanctions","8":"category-transnational-organized-crime-cybercrime-narcotics","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Use of Digital Currency to Evade U.S. Sanctions | IELR Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ielrblog.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/05\/use-digital-currency-evade-u-s-sanctions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Use of Digital Currency to Evade U.S. Sanctions | IELR Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the last month, the Venezuelan and Russian governments have discussed the use of digital currency to evade U.S. sanctions. 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