Opinion
Katie Haun admits the majority of ICOs are frauds or scams
“Look, initial coin offerings or ICOs, I'll be the first to tell you, there is a tremendous amount the majority of them are, seem to be, Frauds or scams.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Haun: U.S. government is not actively trying to trap ICO projects
“I do want to dispel the notion that the government is sitting there trying to trap, you know, an ICO project or a cryptocurrency project and saying, aha, we got you. That's just not the case. The fact of the matter is the government doesn't hurt for business w…”
Insight
Haun: Criminals serve as early adopters and beta testers for tech innovations
“I mean, they're the best beta testers of new technologies in many ways. And that's been true, not just of cryptocurrencies, right? That's been true of all kinds of things. If you think of cell phones, if you think of email, social media, the internet, and just…”
Assertion Partly supported
Haun: Blockchain technology itself has never been hacked, unlike crypto exchanges
“And we, blockchain's never been hacked. Some of the cryptocurrency exchanges have been hacked. You know, Mt. Gox, Coincheck more recently, Bitfinex, and others. But the blockchain itself has never yet been hacked.”
Assertion Contradicted
Haun prosecuted Wells Fargo executives for stealing from deceased customers
“When I was a prosecutor, I prosecuted Wells Fargo's executives for taking dead people's accounts and draining them of money. They basically found out who hadn't used their account for, you know, many years, and then they would drain the money to their own pers…”
Assertion Supported
Haun: Moving offshore will not protect crypto startups serving US consumers
“Well, I don't think they should wait, but I think they should have common sense and good judgment, and one of the red flags I see sometimes is, you know, and they'll publicly state, oh, we're moving offshore so that we don't have to comply with these laws that…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Haun: Regulators won't prioritize crypto startups making best-effort compliance attempts
“Just try, and I think that those cases where people are demonstrating best efforts are not going to be the vehicles that the government regulators are going to want to choose.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Haun: DOJ asked her to help shut down Bitcoin in 2012
“So for me, my story was in 2012, I actually was asked by the Justice Department to help shut down and prosecute Bitcoin.”
What-if
Blockchain transparency caught corrupt federal agents who stole Silk Road Bitcoin
“And I'm here to tell you that without it, we never would have caught these guys. In fact, without the blockchain, they would have still been sitting in the federal government today instead of in the federal penitentiary.”
Assertion Partly supported
Darknet Bitcoin transactions dropped from 30% in 2012 to under 1%
“In 2012, 30% of Bitcoin transaction value was associated with dark net markets like Alphabay or Silk Road, but by 2018, that number is down to less than one percent.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Katie Haun concedes Bitcoin's main use is not peer-to-peer payments
“Satoshi's white paper says it's an electronic peer-to-peer cashless system for payments. Right. For payments, and I would grant you that it's right now, it's main use is, it's certainly not that.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Katie Haun says Secret Service lacks resources for $100,000 counterfeiting cases
“The Secret Service in particular is an agency so strapped that I can't tell you how many counterfeiters we could never prosecute. You know, it's such a small fraction of cases that you really have a Secret Service agent. It has to be a mass scale counterfeit. …”
Assertion Supported
Katie Haun notes JPMorgan partnered with Zcash despite Jamie Dimon's comments
“JP Morgan was inking in a huge deal with Zcash. Zcash the privacy coin. So it's not that JP Morgan completely thought cryptocurrency, there was no there. They were doing a partnership with Zcash.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Haun: NFTs will render traditional creator email mailing lists obsolete
“I'm all of a sudden thinking no more mailing lists, right? Like there's no need for that. No need for spam email. Because it allows people to interact, these creators to interact directly with their fans or people who want to use these products and services.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Haun: Undisclosed government enforcement actions against crypto projects are coming
“So I think there are things in the space that we're not yet aware of, the public's not yet aware of, that will be coming.”
Disclosure
DOJ tasked prosecutor Katie Haun with shutting down Bitcoin in 2012
“The first time I ever heard the word Bitcoin was back in 2012 when I was a federal prosecutor at the US Department of Justice. And I heard the word Bitcoin because I was asked to prepare an investigation and a case against it and to help shut it down.”
Opinion
Katie Haun: Shutting down Bitcoin is like shutting down the internet
“This was one of the early misconceptions out there about cryptocurrency, that you could shut something down like Bitcoin. That would be like saying, let's go shut down cash or the internet. Not only not possible, but also not desirable.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Katie Haun: Cryptocurrency's complete anonymity is a myth
“Myths like cryptocurrency is just completely anonymous, so really it's only useful for criminals and money launderers. Now, how do I know that's just a myth? Well, I spent over a decade as a federal prosecutor, and during that time, I put murderers, organized …”
Assertion Partly supported
Secret Service agent Sean Bridges stole 21,000 Bitcoin from Silk Road
“Sean Bridges had also been at that proffer session where Curtis had turned over his password and computer and credentials, and that night, Sean Bridges went home using Curtis Green's computer, username, credentials, and password, and drained Silk Road accounts…”
Assertion Supported
Robert Mueller traced Bitcoin payments to Russian GRU operatives
“In fact, even special counsel Robert Mueller traced Bitcoin payments to Russian GRU operatives in the election interference case.”
Opinion
Katie Haun says most of the 1,600+ cryptocurrencies are untrustworthy
“I think, you know, it's not just governments that could create untrustable cryptocurrency. I think there are a lot of untrustable cryptocurrencies out there right now. Obviously there are over 1600, I think maybe even more, but at 1.1600, and I certainly would…”
Assertion Supported
Katie Haun argues Bitcoin price volatility is lessening over time
“I think now what we're seeing is the price is, the volatility is lessening, and I grant you, there's still a lot of volatility.”
Prediction Held up
Katie Haun predicts several cryptocurrencies will succeed long-term
“I don't think there would only be a couple cryptocurrencies that succeed. I do agree with you that it will not be 1600. I think you might see, I don't want to put a number on it, but I think you'll see several emerge as ones that are going to stick around.”
Prediction Held up
Katie Haun predicts cryptocurrency will not replace major fiat currencies
“I don't think, though, to answer your question, that it's going to replace all of the other currencies. I'm not saying that, oh, it's going to replace the dollar and replace the euro. I actually don't believe that, ah, is likely to happen.”
Katie Haun