Tate Jarrow: Without digital currencies cybercrime would be much more difficult

Tate Jarrow, a special agent with the US Secret Service (USSS), presented his views on bitcoin and digital currency technology at the 17th annual OpRisk North America conference. He spoke against the digital currency on the grounds that illegitimate activity is its most compelling use case. He said that without cryptocurrencies, "cybercrime would be much more difficult", according to Buy-Side Technology report.

"They want to use anonymous currency that allows them to do transactions, move large amounts of money, without ever being traced. That's why digital currency is very important. It's used for all this bad stuff", he said.

He also pointed the recent instances of illegal services enabled by digital currency, including the now-defunct payment processor Liberty Reserve and black market Silk Road, which he said could not have been facilitated by companies like PayPal.

"Digital currency exists because people want to be outside that system," he added.