Could Blockchain Have Protected the Bosses Implicated in the Panama Papers?
A huge cache of internal files of the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca (which specializes in creating shell companies) has been leaked, embarassing multiple world leaders and resulting in calls for their resignation. Could a blockchain-based system have fared better at protecting the privacy of its users? The release of the Panama Papers (11.5 million documents, covering 214K offshore entities, over a 40 year period) is a very big development, no matter how much various world leaders try to downplay it. Governments will act on the information which is now in the public domain,....
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A global scandal has erupted with the release of the Panama Papers implicating world leaders, billionaires, dictators, drug kingpins, famous athletes, and even movie stars. Meanwhile, Bitcoin could be a solution to the wide-scale corruption by providing privacy for the masses and transparency for the mega-rich. The biggest leak in journalistic history,....
Secrecy scandal after secrecy scandal have rocked the financial world since the 2008 financial crisis. In early 2014, the LIBOR scandal uncovered the manipulation of Forex markets. Last week, the Panama Papers detailed the behavior of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which has sold shell companies for the past 40 years so individuals could hide their wealth. Political players, drug dealers, celebrities and athletes have been swept up in the revelations of the Panama Papers. It’s exactly this sort of behavior many blockchainers believe could be averted by the public ledger technology....
Auroracoin suddenly spiked last week, perhaps upon the leak of the Panama Papers. The papers promptly angered Icelanders, who now feel that the nation is suffering yet another 2008. Although Auroracoin has not been an overwhelming success, its market cap has increased three-fold since the Panama Papers leaked. The peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, launched in February 2014, was marketed as an alternative to Bitcoin and the Icelandic krona. The pseudonymous creators said they planned to distribute half of the auroracoins to all 330,000 people in Iceland’s national ID database for free.....
Erik Voorhees, CEO of ShapeShift.io, and Charlie Shrem, Founder of the Bitcoin Foundation, have been named in the Panama Papers Leak. From embezzlement to evading sanctions. The Panama Papers, as they have been dubbed, are 11.5 million leaked documents that contain financial information of more than 214, 488 entities associated with the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The leaked documents illustrate how wealthy individuals, including public officials, have been able to hide their financial information for often, but by no means always, rather nefarious reasons. While the use of tax....
With the recent release of the “Panama Papers,” the activity of the law firm Mossack Fonseca came into the public view in a bold way. In a recent PBS Op-Ed Yale University lecturer Vikram Mansharamani discusses the Papers and the what the future of privacy may look like. Of course, the super rich use a variety of tax loopholes and shields to protect their assets, but with the release of the Panama Papers this revelation somehow seemed a little different. Should one’s access to privacy be defined by their ability to pay for it? There is nothing wrong with privacy unless it leads to....