Canada Revenue Agency recovers 100 million CAD but zero prosecutions: Why is cryptocurrency enforcement so difficult?

Question

[Crypto World] In the past three years, the Canada Revenue Agency has recovered over 100 million Canadian dollars in taxes just by investigating cryptocurrencies. Sounds impressive, right? But here’s the strange part: since 2020, not a single criminal case has resulted in a successful prosecution.

So, where’s the problem? To put it simply, they “can’t even find the people.” Cryptocurrencies are inherently highly anonymous, making it extremely difficult for the tax authorities to determine “whose money is this” and “whether taxes have been paid.” Their crypto task force has already reviewed over 230 documents, and the estimated figures are even more discouraging—the data suggests that 40% of platform users are completely non-compliant.

Recently, the revenue agency finally obtained a court order allowing them to request data on 2,500 users from Dapper Labs. Even so, law enforcement is still stuck. Of the five criminal investigations started since 2020, four are still unresolved. Why? The cases are too complex, and often involve cross-border issues. If just one step goes wrong, the whole case grinds to a halt.

Ironically, while Canada is busy drafting new stablecoin regulations and has even established a dedicated agency to combat financial crime, this awkward situation of “finding the money but not the people” is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. The money has been recovered, but not a single person has been caught—this enforcement efficiency is certainly a bit questionable.

StablecoinAnxiety · Accepted Answer

Chased after 100 million and still no one went in, hilarious, this is the power of anonymous coins.

100 million CAD with zero prosecutions? Regulators really need to reflect, why is it so hard to catch people?

40% non-compliance... this number just sounds unreal, feels like it’s all in the clouds.

Those 2,500 records from Dapper Labs ended up being useless, once it goes cross-border it all falls apart.

If you want to collect taxes, you have to find the people first—this is always the pain point of Web3.

Didn’t expect Canada to get stuck too, looks like no country in the world has a solution.

GasFeeCrier · Answer

Haha, that's the price of on-chain freedom—the tax authorities can't do anything to you.

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40% non-compliance? How many people would need to pay taxes for it to be considered normal?

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Recovered 100 million but 0 prosecutions, that's some insane efficiency—pretty much like my shorting results.

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Can't find the people, isn't that obvious? That's exactly why everyone loves using crypto.

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They can even get Dapper Labs' data and still can't get it done? These five investigations will take forever to conclude.

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Wait, does this mean people who can't pay taxes are smarter? Or is it that the rich have better lawyers?

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With such strong anonymity, how did they even recover 100 million? Looks like the tax office is really giving it their all.

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Speaking of cross-border issues, it's definitely tough, but it seems even harder that the Canadian government doesn't really take this seriously.

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Four cases still hanging with no results—might as well just cancel the criminal investigations and switch to fines. It's all money anyway.

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I just want to know how those 40% non-compliant users are doing now—are they still happily trading?

0xDreamChaser · Answer

The money was recovered, but not a single person was caught? Isn’t this the ultimate romance of crypto, haha.

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To be honest, the tax authority’s actions are kind of funny—a 40% violation but they can’t find anyone. That’s just the price of decentralization.

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Cross-border matters are always the most troublesome. Four out of five cases get stuck... It’s truly a nightmare for law enforcement agencies.

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Those 2,500 user records from Dapper are useless too. This group switched to new accounts long ago.

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This is absurd. After all this time, still zero prosecutions. Feels like the crypto space is always one step ahead of law enforcement.