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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

#502

Post by moisto »

cortesoft wrote: post #391
lubesGordi wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I don't understand how the US can go in and decide BTC-e was a money laundering op and then confiscate bitcoins and put people in jail. Who decides who gets those bitcoins? Surely many other countries have money laundering laws. What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine?

> What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine? Because no one is able to stop them.

Shut up and sing the song, pal

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

#505

Post by lacampbell »

lubesGordi wrote: post #372
homologate wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/russian-national-and-bi...

Thanks for posting this. I don't understand how the US can go in and decide BTC-e was a money laundering op and then confiscate bitcoins and put people in jail. Who decides who gets those bitcoins? Surely many other countries have money laundering laws. What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine?

What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine?

It looks like the man behind it was arrested while holidaying in Greece - a US ally.

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

#507

Post by lacker »

keymone wrote: post #375
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It effectively establishes a billion dollar bounty for any party who can rewrite enough blocks to erase it. I don't really agree with that statement. Yes, someone could mount a 51% attack to rewrite that block. However, it would be pretty straightforward to see what was happening (and which nodes were the malicious actors). If that did happen, the possible outcomes would be: 1. The value of bitcoin would fall to ba…

the amount of trivialization and conflation irks me 1. "51% attack" is not a thing as in "one has to have 51% of hashpower to perform it". it's just that with 51% of hashpower it becomes relatively cheap to perform such attack. one can throw enough money at the problem and get lucky to perform large reorg with just 10% of hashpower. the lower the number - the more lucky attacker has to get. 2. "rewriting a block" or…

There is a danger of theft, and the risk is to everyone, not just the parties to this big transaction. The risk is this:

1. A malicious syndicate gathers a billion dollars of bitcoin and sends it to themselves

2. In a short period of time, like a few days, the syndicate exchanges that bitcoin for non-bitcoin assets

3. The syndicate spends tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to fork the chain, backing up the ledger, so that they own the billion dollars of bitcoin again

So anyone accepting bitcoin for non-bitcoin assets for the next week or so is at risk. It doesn’t have to be a single transaction, though; this danger occurs whenever the transaction volume on bitcoin gets above the cost of mining.

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

#508

Post by [deleted] »

oh_sigh wrote: post #447
bduerst wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#509

Post by silverhunter »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #383
lubesGordi wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I don't understand how the US can go in and decide BTC-e was a money laundering op and then confiscate bitcoins and put people in jail. Who decides who gets those bitcoins? Surely many other countries have money laundering laws. What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine?

Do you now understand why we need something like Bitcoin? (Even if it's gonna a be a newer version of it in the future, or something even more private etc.)

Bitcoin was most likely created by the government. USA, RUSSIA, CHINA, JPMORGAN'S Chase. Just a way to move us to a cashless society. I am not saying Bitcoins not going to the million dollar mark. Just saying that there is more at play here than we think.

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

#510

Post by silverhunter »

cortesoft wrote: post #446
solotronics wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does the crypto community actually stop people from spending stolen coins? No, they send off alerts but the coins still get used.
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