Law enforcement use the blockchain to trace cryptocurrency transactions and chase criminals into legitimate exchanges that cooperate with them, facilitating the possibility of recovering stolen funds.
In 2013, North Korea launched missile tests leading to sanctions that restricted money transfers, prompting the country to engage in bank robberies that resulted in successfully stealing 81 million dollars from the Bangladesh bank.
People lost faith in the structure of the financial system and turned to crypto to level the playing field. However, power structures remain the same where those at the top face little repercussions for their actions.
Hackers infiltrated a Russian bank's network and used a database update to change the balances of mule accounts to $1 million, allowing them to withdraw millions of dollars. The hackers also identified which employees had access to manually transfer money and used their logins to steal money from the bank.
Bitcoin is seen as a solution to the centralization of assets brought about by the digitization of capital assets. Its decentralized nature challenges the trend of increasing central influence and control over accounts that has been observed in the last 60 years.