Let's be honest, crypto has a number of special characteristics that makes it eminently attractive to criminals; we've all heard these "benefits" detailed Ad Nauseam. The question is, will its suitability as a convenient facilitator of white collar crime, especially money laundering and fraud, taint and stain it to the point where it never gains general respectability and acceptance in the financial industry?
To be blunt, crypto, with its speed of transfer, built-in anonymity and ability to make an end run around traditionally effective compliance, looks like it was created expressly for the purpose of assisting criminal acts, including tax evasion. It is almost as if someone set out to build a element of value designed to facilitate crime in general, and the criminal world was immediately drawn to its use and abuse on a grand scale. The result is that crypto has gained such an unhealthy reputation among traditional financial players that it could remain in a sort of limbo indefinitely, and some may opine that it belongs there.
If the cryptocurrency industry ever hopes to become mainstream, there must be some reliable way created that will assuage the fears of the compliance world that criminal abuse can be suppressed, and if not, capable of being interdicted in real-time. Until and unless such compliance resource can be placed into the compliance toolbox, to foil those who would pervert crypto for a dark purpose, in my humble opinion it will remain the dangerous stepchild of finance, not really to be trusted by the establishment.
