Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I performed a napkin calculation about percentage of criminal transactions using $100 bills [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/sergueyz/status/1365040381155491841

Quote: "$100 bill spans 22-23 years with about 20 operations per year, 450 operations in total, 220 for median. We need to calculate probability p that operation is not illicit. p=0.2^(1/220)=0.9927. Probability that operation is illicit is 1-p=0.0073 or 0.73%."

I was answering clearly biased twit about "only 1% of transactions using bitcoin are criminal and 70%-80% of $100 bills are used in criminal transactions". The calculation above is for worst case of 80%. For best case of 70% of transactions are illicit, the probability of single transaction being illicit drops to 0.55% (fifty five hundredths of percent).

Thus, bitcoin carries from one and a third (1.36=1/0.73) to almost twice (1.8=1/0.55) more percentage of illicit transactions than money.




How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: