What does the FBI think about Bitcoin, in brief?

Question

Also related: The context of FBI involvement with Bitcoin

The FBI document regarding Bitcoin that was leaked in May 2012 is very long. Is there a brief summary of the most important points somewhere?

Answer 1

The most interesting part of the document isn't that long, as half of the pages explain some terminology and how Bitcoin works.

The main points made are:

• Bitcoin is the world's first decentralised currency, thus it is hard to audit and control it
• Bitcoins can become popular among criminals as they offer a lot of anonymity
• Bitcoins can be used to commit money laundering
• It is very likely that people wanting to steal Bitcoins will target third-party services (such as exchanges), and users' wallets
• It is hard to link user's identity to their Bitcoin address, but can be quite easy when they convert their Bitcoins into a fiat currency

There are also a couple other, smaller points made and it is generally a good read. As a side note, the paper appears to have a small mistake on page 4 - listing Bitcoin's lowest price since the bubble as 4$, whereas it was as low as 2$ at some point.