Question on sending crypto

[BINGBONG]

I know there's a ton of crypto posts here but I couldn't find the answer to my question...

Is it best/safest (for both parties) to send a payment:
Straight from exchange (cashapp, coinbase) to Receiving wallet
-or-
From exchange to digital wallet to receiving wallet

...or does it not even matter?

Thanks guys! I appreciate any input.

 

[JDLift]

Allegedly if you go Coinbase -> Source wallet it could give a trail that LE can follow in the event of a bust or they just want to specifically pick on you, and I believe Coinbase in particular is known to be one that will work with LE no questions asked and give up any data they have. Google that a bit.

Personally I always do Coinbase -> Ethereum wallet -> Source wallet because when I first got into this stuff using crypto this was the route everyone said to take as it allegedly makes the transfer untraceable by Coinbase (They only know you sent it to the Ethereum wallet and have no data about where it goes after) and people believe this one additional step is all it takes to evade LE.

But honestly it probably doesn't matter. If police want to arrest you, they'll subpoena evidence from CB and the wallet company/whoever's name their servers are in and come knocking at your door.

 

[marsilie]

The safest thing would be to obtain the cypto from an anonymous peer-to-peer exchange. While that is still potentially traceable, it's much much harder, as there's no central company running an exchange that you gave your ID to. The path would go like:

1. Feds bust a source, see that they received money from BTC address A.
2. They have no idea who owns address A, but they see that it obtained its coins from address B.
3. If they're lucky, address B is identifiable, having been linked to an exchange, and they track down that person and interrogate them over who they were sending money to at address A.

If the owner of address B can't be identified or is from another country, this gets very hard very quickly, and they'd probably give up. Law enforcement really doesn't care about this stuff, so it's probably not necessary, but if you are worried, definitely avoid the centralized exchanges.

 

[Liska]

If you can find an exchange that offers Monero (XMR) that goes a long way towards OPSEC as well.

 

[Swa737]

I’ve always wondered this. I use Coinbase. Maybe I should use a different platform that isn’t centralized..

 

[BINGBONG]

@Swa737 Move funds from CB to separate wallet that doesn't require personal info to use, and send from there (don't use the wallet CB provides).

 

[lil_swole]

@Swa737 Move funds from CB to separate wallet that doesn't require personal info to use, and send from there (don't use the wallet CB provides).

Any advice on good wallet for Android like to keep on my phone

 

[Skipper56]

It's funny this came up as I just came across the attached story, tracing crypto is very possible for LE if you don't take proper precautions BUT, from the article, it sounds like they are only going to do all that work if it's a big bust. BTW, the linked article will make you want to tear some people's arms off, and that's not just the tren talking. One of the few times I'm truly thankful for LE. I definitely would like to learn more about staying anonymous with crypto though.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/tracers-in-the-dark-welcome-to-video-crypto-anonymity-myth/amp