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94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

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Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#441

Post by ev0lv »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #422
meowface wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC-e undoubtedly had a ton of legitimate users, like yourself, but also a lot of fraudulent users. And most importantly, it was established and operated by its founder as a money laundering scheme. He used it used to launder all of the stolen funds from the Mt. Gox hack (worth several billions, depending on when you measure the value), among other things. BTC-e was a cover to help criminals steal from Bitcoin exchan…

>He used it used to launder all of the stolen funds from the Mt. Gox hack (worth several billions, depending on when you measure the value), among other things. It was not. Coins going in and out of btc-e were labeled making laundering through btc-e difficult at best. >BTC-e was a cover to help criminals steal from Bitcoin exchanges and safely dilute the funds. BTC-e was around longer than those exchanges. The thing…

I can't believe I'm only now hearing of this.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#442

Post by thaumasiotes »

JackFr wrote: post #369
tyxodiwktis wrote: post #340

I worked in the trading dept of a large hedge fund and this could easily be them, or someone like them. They regularly traded several billion in bonds, currencies and short rates each day and just aren't used to those trades posting publicly (outside the exchange). I can see them seeing this Twitter thread, scratching their head and wondering, "what's the big deal?"

In the fixed income, currency and money markets a billion dollars is not a lot of money -- and yet a billion dollars IS ALWAYS a lot of money. I used to work on the repo desk of a primary dealer. One role of the repo desk is that it finances the banks position. We might hold $50 billion of bonds, but $40 billion of that is borrowed with the bonds as collateral. One day because someone had keyed in a start of day posi…

> Had they failed, the bank would have had to go the the Fed, discount window and borrow $1 billion overnight at the discount rate (which would have been substantially more than we were paying in the repo market.) Additionally, it likely would have triggered process audits and incident reports which would have been far worse than the interest.

> because someone had keyed in a start of day position wrong

I know basically nothing about this area, but I'm curious why what appears to be a mistake in data entry needs to be fixed by actually borrowing additional money, as opposed to issuing a correction. If you have the amount of money you're supposed to have, why is it so dire that you published a typo?

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#443

Post by rolltiide »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #218
BluSyn wrote: post #12

I can count maybe 5 people in the crypto space that would have that much BTC, but none of them would be dumb enough to put it all in one wallet. Most likely some large institutional investor decided to re-key their cold storage wallet.

It's probably the DOJ. They raided BTC-e and stole 2 billion during the Ukraine War. BTC-e was the longest running bitcoin exchange and the single most reliable. I had more money than I'd like to admit stolen from me. Their statement was only people who participate in tax evasion use btc-e.

Can you show where the US Government seized this Bitcoin?

What I seem to remember is that they plastered their logo on a website and the servers just launched another frontend under a different url

I saw that they imposed fines

I didn't see that they actually seized any

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#444

Post by cortesoft »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #437
cortesoft wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this instead just show the Realpolitik nature of currency, that it doesn't matter the technical implementation when a government can still just step in and seize the asset using traditional force?

It cannot if you own your own keys. "Not your keys - not your crypto". Of course if you let some other entity to hold your keys, you're basically just using a bank, which has its own benefits, but I was talking about the unique ability to handle your keys, which crypto provides, as opposed to any other electronic money system to date.

Ok, but what if the government says "anyone who accepts a payment from this wallet will have their assets seized"

At some point, someone will want to do something in the real world with this money, and the government can step in there.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#445

Post by rolltiide »

arcticbull wrote: post #83
pavlov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International wire transfers between USD accounts usually cost about $25 regardless of the amount. There's a lot of dollars moving around in the global financial system quickly and affordably, Bitcoin advocates just don't seem to know about it for some reason.

International wires are a bad example because they charge a huge FOREX spread. For a high-ticket transfer, you'd need to use a brokerage for the exchange first, which is also very cheap, but a bit more than $25 ($20 per million at InteractiveBrokers). Then a very cheap domestic wire for the last mile. Or, for small-ticket transfer TransferWise is around 0.85% for the whole exchange.

okay then. domestic wire transfer. we done yet?

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#446

Post by cortesoft »

solotronics wrote: post #421
cortesoft wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this instead just show the Realpolitik nature of currency, that it doesn't matter the technical implementation when a government can still just step in and seize the asset using traditional force?

Yes but the key difference is with cryptocurrency the person that owns the wallet still has to sign the transaction, there is no other way. It's a push model instead of pull. Compare this to traditional banking where a 3rd party (the bank) can aquiesce to a government request without your knowledge or approval.

They could prevent you from spending the coins, though, by threatening anyone who accepts a transfer of the 'seized' coins.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#447

Post by oh_sigh »

bduerst wrote: post #417
LAMike wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every second, the amount of hashes computed on the Bitcoin network is equal to every grain of sand on earth, multiplied by 7. There isn't enough computing power available to 51% attack a chain that comes close to justify the $1 billion dollar "bounty" on this transaction.

Only if the attack is from the outside, which is not a requirement. It's not mutually exclusive. The miners who control the bitcoin network are already centralized on a handful of organizations in China. If they colluded on this attack they would take over >51% of the network because, hey, they already own and operate most of that computing power you're eluding to. Edit: There is also no evidence that the price would…

That would just drop the BTC price to zero, making their rigs and own-held BTC worth absolutely nothing.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#448

Post by oh_sigh »

lawn wrote: post #380
ChrisClark wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite possible, as long as the cost of the current ASICs out there is less than a billion. You can match the current world rate and secretly mine. It would be a combination of buying your own miners and renting hashrate, but mostly it would be renting. Maybe paying a big mine to do it for you. When I saw the initial math, they said 40 days. But that doesn't include the fact that as you buy hash power, it's price…

I did some quick math a while ago on the cost to buy 51% [0]. When I did it the network hashrate was 44,000,000 TH/s and if you could buy enough S9i's to the same low price, it would cost you around $650 million. This is excluding any other infrastructure you'd need and of course the power you'd use to perform the attack. And since I did the calculations the hashrate has -doubled-, making it cost quite a bit more tha…

By the time you could source that many S9is, the hash rate would be higher, requiring you to source more, at which point maybe newer and better chips have come out, raising the hash rate yet again, making your investment worthless.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#449

Post by whatshisface »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #323
xorfish wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't become easier to beat the market when you have more than $100 million. Anyone with a couple $1000 can buy cheap etfs or index funds

Yes but the $100 million guys can afford higher risks with higher returns. The $1000 guys can only play it safe with small returns.

The $1000 guys can afford humongous risks if they're 20 year olds saving for retirement. In fact, if they have a job to live off of, their risk tolerance is going to be far greater than a rich person living off their wealth.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#450

Post by scrumbledober »

jorvi wrote: post #181
graton wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the book, "The Millionaire Next Door". Seems like many of the people who have accumulated wealth tend to be fairly frugal.

Reminds me of a German saying I can't quite remember (something like 'erber, gerber, versterber'). Basically the first rich generation is very frugal because they had to work hard to attain it. The second generation maintains it, not really adding more but not frittering it away either, and the third generation throws it away on ski resorts and fancy cars. That's also one of the few things I do respect about 'old mon…

“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel” - Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum
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