[vmception]

Yep. Anybody that is watching funds move across addresses has no idea what they are doing. They rely on assuming that the funds still have the same ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) who is trying to hide, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Anybody that claims they know is just trying to scam a government for a lucrative blockchain analysis contract. Just another crypto entrepreneur aiming to leak fiat out of the system, even while pretending to act like an adversary to crypto users.

The reality is that:

A) the UBO either isn't trying to hide because they can acquire the goods and services they want without laundering (other tokens, governance control of a crypto network, passive income, digital art, using the dirty funds to pump other tokens that they already own with clean money allowing them to derive entrepreneurial or trading genius benefits)

B) the UBO know they can launder whenever they feel like it or get around to it

C) the funds have already changed UBOs to people that were not involved and shouldn't be tracked, because A) and B) already happened onchain or offchain

[takeda]

The thing is that wallet is digital. If I hand you an USB stick with the wallet, that doesn't mean I no longer have it. The USB could be a copy of it and I could still withdraw the money. To be sure that doesn't happen the new owner would need to transfer money to another wallet. Unless there's a high trust that this won't be done.

[vmception]

Yes, crypto can operate in a temporarily trusted environment.

What I was describing here wasn't that, I am referring to onchain transfers in trade for goods and services. (Part C could also be hand to hand trusted transfer of a wallet/private key)

Chain analysis still assumes that its the same owner or related guilty beneficiary all the way to a centralized exchange.