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Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

businessinsider.com

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Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#71

Post by LeonM »

chx wrote: post #67
LeonM wrote: post #48

My take on this is that they probably were insolvent for a long time already due to previous hacks/theft. The CEO just decided to lie about the supposedly 137M in funds 'safely' stored on his laptop. This is also what happened at MtGox, except that at MtGox they 'lost' wel over a million BTC. Edit: relevant listening: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/9/

> at MtGox they 'lost' wel over a million BTC. The initial report was 850 000 lost BTC which later was brought down to 650 000. Scroll to the end of https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140320-btc-announce.pdf

Before/after the 850k/650k hack there were numerous other hacks, the total number of stolen BTC is still not clear, new proof of other hacks is still being discovered.

Apparently Karpeles also found a 'forgotten' wallet of 200k BTC, which he still seems to own. It's a mess.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#72

Post by ceejayoz »

xutopia wrote: post #68

This is BS... the money cannot be "gone"... what do they mean by that? There is a public ledger. We would know and can trace where this money went to. Do they mean the wallet was not on the laptop instead?

If the keys are lost, the money is for all intents and purposes gone.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#73

Post by glitch003 »

samfisher83 wrote: post #61
blancheneige wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

blockchain != exchanges holding your private keys

My point is even if someone has your password there are legal routes where you can go recover your money. The bank will then do that. The blockchain is distributed. Who do you go complain to?

That's the whole point of the blockchain. Your money is sovereign. There is nobody to call when it gets stolen, but this also means that no government or bank or agency can take your money or prevent you from being paid (see Visa/Mastercard vs Wikileaks etc)

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#75

Post by Scoundreller »

xutopia wrote: post #68

This is BS... the money cannot be "gone"... what do they mean by that? There is a public ledger. We would know and can trace where this money went to. Do they mean the wallet was not on the laptop instead?

Nobody has been able to identify any cold wallets with any significant deposits.

This should have been easily found by analyzing user deposits and withdrawals, but so far, nada.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#76

Post by roywiggins »

Animats wrote: post #65

One real problem with cryptocurrencies: the information you need to determine that someone has the key to a blockchain address gives you the power to withdraw funds from that address. You can't just demand that a third party auditor have copies of all the keys. (Yeah, dual-sig, split keys, etc. Theoretically possible, not done in practice much.)

There are actually whole cryptographic schemes people have written to prove you have control over the money you say you do.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7277865

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#77

Post by jessaustin »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #54
maxander wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps blockchains’ lasting impact will be as an overused plot device in future period pieces set in the early 21st century.

And making blockchain to SQL Server migration consultants wealthy too.

We would have believed postgres, but that's just far-fetched.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#78

Post by deepsun »

ceejayoz wrote: post #72
xutopia wrote: post #68

This is BS... the money cannot be "gone"... what do they mean by that? There is a public ledger. We would know and can trace where this money went to. Do they mean the wallet was not on the laptop instead?

If the keys are lost, the money is for all intents and purposes gone.

But you can still track history of any coin existed.

If somebody know wallet ids of money before they were stolen, you can trace transactions to see what wallet ids they are in now.

If they say "stolen", it means that they found transactions when money were transferred from victim's wallet. And if they know transactions, then they know source and destination wallet ids.

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#79

Post by deepsun »

Scoundreller wrote: post #75
xutopia wrote: post #68

This is BS... the money cannot be "gone"... what do they mean by that? There is a public ledger. We would know and can trace where this money went to. Do they mean the wallet was not on the laptop instead?

Nobody has been able to identify any cold wallets with any significant deposits. This should have been easily found by analyzing user deposits and withdrawals, but so far, nada.

Then it's not "stolen", it's "never existed".

Re: Experts cracked laptop of crypto CEO who died with $137M, but the money was gone

#80

Post by jessaustin »

godelski wrote: post #36
whoisjuan wrote: post #16

This guy is alive (or dead, but not due to Crohn's Disease complications, as stated initially). This is not a conspiracy theory anymore. It's clear there's a massive fraud behind all these events.

You can still commit fraud and die of Crohn's Disease. I'd still call this a conspiracy theory (I'll also say that "conspiracy theory" doesn't mean untrue, though we tend to use it as a substitute for "crack pot"). But to quote Sagan "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I do agree with this part: > It's clear there's a massive fraud But that doesn't mean he's alive or that there was a coverup in his…

Which claim is "extraordinary"? That some humans pretend to die before their actual deaths? That some humans are greedy? I got a bridge I'll sell you real cheap...
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