ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees has published a whole new blog post refuting accusations from the Wall Street Journal surrounding a multi-million dollar money laundering network operating in the ShapeShift exchange. As previously reported by Unhashed, Switzerland-based digital foreign currency exchange ShapeShift has been charged with being one the main platforms used for $88.6 million in illicit funds being funneled through various cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. Yesterday, October 1st, Voorhees released your web site post saying that the WSJ worked alongside ShapeShift to prepare the piece under false pretenses and also the reporters omitted relevant information surrounding the story.
“Overall, your article contains factual inaccuracies, omits significant more knowledge about how ShapeShift operates, and reflects important misunderstanding strategies blockchain transactions work,” said Voorhees.
The WSJ article titled “How Dirty Money Disappears Towards the Black Hole of Cryptocurrency” begins by saying that “A North Korean agent, a stolen-credit-card peddler as well as the mastermind of an $80 million Ponzi scheme possessed a common problem. They have to launder their dirty money. They found a regular solution in ShapeShift.”
Based for an analysis of transactions from ShapeShift’s publicly visible blockchain data throughout two years, the WSJ concludes that at the least $9 million continues to be funneled through the ShapeShift platform. This great article largely attributes this to negligence by ShapeShift and suggests the company’s anonymous user is the reason creating a simple means for criminals to conduct illicit activity. Voorhees is the case that only might possibly be the conclusions drawn by way of the WSJ incorrect, but data of their exchanges that take user information show similar figures.
“The WSJ reporters reached trying to us months ago needing friendly assistance with a piece with regard to the crypto industry as a rule,” writes Voorhees. “For a duration of five months, there we were open and accommodating with their questions when in contrast they misrepresented their intentions until very recently. Sizeable number of things I communicated using them over the past months, they included as opposed to a single statement from those lengthy discussions, preferring instead include things like out-of-context remarks I’d made elsewhere.”
Voorhees suggests that the way in which $9 million figure were true, it may well only be the reason for .15 percent of ShapeShift’s exchange volume on the described period. He also claims that ShapeShift incorporates a strong record of adhering to law enforcement agencies throughout the world, in addition to partnering with some other exchanges in an almost daily basis, to acquire and block criminal activity. Many suspicious addresses happen to have been blocked at the platform, and ShapeShift has complied in blocking entire countries use international sanctions lists. “There is absolutely no mention of 1 of this with the WSJ article,” Vorhees notes.
“Unlike most other exchanges, ShapeShift can be described as crypto-to-crypto, non-custodial platform. We do not take custody of user funds, but instead swap our very own assets for theirs, during a set price. We don’t touch fiat currency, so users cannot swap their dollars/euros/yen for your Bitcoin/Ethereum/Dogecoin. Not a single dollar, euro, or yen has a lot laundered through ShapeShift. It can’t be done.”
Voorhees argues which the hit piece developed by the WSJ is undoubtedly an attack around the unique model manufactured to respect user privacy which ShapeShift prides itself on. ShapeShift is currently one financial company on the earth that publishes all transactions that go through the platform, which Voorhees clearly shows was ironically designed to tarnish the company’s reputation on the article:
“Blockchains and cryptocurrency represent the latest, fast-evolving technology and industry. For people who are not real experts, it is typically confusing. And also the WSJ reporters seem to have gotten confused about how our platform functions. According to our own research into the transactions cited through the article, the WSJ erroneously attributed vast sums of allegedly illicit transactions to ShapeShift techniques exhibits a profound failure to know how blockchains, more often than not, and our body in particular, go a long way.”
Voorhees concludes by on the grounds that the accusations that is generated by the WSJ both are false and absurd, further adding that article is “emblematic to a media industry that cares more details on clickbait sensationalism than it does about enhancing the financial state of mankind.”
“We are going to push forward, and we’d suggest the WSJ change their title being more accurate and objective, ‘Not as much as two tenths one percent of ShapeShift’s business is likely to be illicit.’”