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The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

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Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#191

Post by Ar-Curunir »

Ansil849 wrote: post #30
minikites wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can also be anonymous if I never speak or leave my house, but that's not really how it works, is it?

In this case, it seems to be exactly how it works. Someone is opting to 'never speak or leave the house', and can afford to do so.

Maybe it applies to very specific "Bitcoin as store-of-value" use cases, but it definitely doesn't apply to any use case you'd actually want for electronic cash.

Also, even the fact that we're discussing the existence of this transaction implies that Bitcoin is not anonymous.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#192

Post by bufferoverflow »

vmception wrote: post #24
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the cost if I'm with HSBC in Hong-Kong and you're with Chase in USA, say?

$50 if both using the same currency. $50 + a few basis point spread if using a different currency, but you don't know exactly what that spread will be from the sending bank and what the spread will be at the receiving bank, so you can lose anywhere from .001% to 4% with major currencies.

It's never .001%. I've done so many international transactions with currency conversion (one of the most liquid pairs - USR-EUR). On the best day a bank will get that 3% difference. I've been using TransferWise in the last year, it's definitely better, but still over 1%.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#193

Post by RL_Quine »

Drip33 wrote: post #173
RL_Quine wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The basic idea is that signer can choose a ECDSA nonce (k) that they know, and leak the private key. If I choose a known nonce for my signature, I can recover the private key from the published transaction instantly. With some ECDSA magic, you can even produce a nonce that is only recoverable with another key that you hold. So a hardware wallet for example can backdoor transactions to leak the seed through the…

That requires some sort of malware (or similar) installed on the device/software creating the transactions which has access to the private key to leak it via some predetermined way and is different from what I thought you were saying that a pre-signed transaction could directly send funds to an unwanted address without you knowing by inspecting the signed transaction itself before broadcasting it. Regardless, whateve…

Oh no, inspecting the transaction means you know where the money goes, absolutely. There's just no assurance that it's all you need to be safe. Given the amount of absurdity going on in this industry you have to be very sure of things like hardware wallets. It would take zero effort to replace a Bitcoin hardware wallet with one that is backdoored, so it's a very real threat to many companies, if they know it or not.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#194

Post by notahacker »

hocuspocus wrote: post #174
Karunamon wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That strikes me as more of an implementation detail. Day-to-day cryptocurrency use still requires a level of technical sophistication my grandma isn't comfortable with.

It is. So why don't remittance services do it behind the scenes?

Because the converting currency X to crypto to currency Y is certainly not going to be cheaper or less volatile than a remittance service's existing forex setup which skips the middle bit, and it introduces a risky counterparty in the form of crypto exchanges.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#195

Post by parliament32 »

andrewzah wrote: post #147
gonehome wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting bitcoin story I read somewhere was about a Ukrainian living in the Russian controlled portion of the country getting out with his wealth intact. The border was controlled by corrupt Russian guards that would steal things of value. You could pass the border occasionally to visit family on the other side, but it was risky to take anything. He put all his wealth into bitcoin, memorized his wallet se…

That's one use for btc that I hadn't thought of. Neat! However one still has to be careful to somehow fund a cold wallet without linking your ID via the transactions. I.e. to use an exchange like binance or coinbase, I have to link my US ID. So if a government actor were after me, they could easily find out about my cold wallet by viewing my transactions, no?. I guess I could -not- divulge the seed words, but that's…

localbitcoins. It's like craigslist: you find people you meet up with, give them cash, they transfer you the BTC (through escrow). No KYC, no shenanigans, you just need to be willing to pay their few-percentage-point fees.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#196

Post by londons_explore »

erfgh wrote: post #102
alexpotato wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians would argue that this is where insurance comes in. Insurance in this example has two functions: 1. Protecting you from losses 2. Applying standards to Bitcoin exchanges etc to help prevent losses. A good example of this is fire insurance. An insurance company will require a potential customer to have fire alarms, use specific materials etc before they decide to cover that company's building.

Insurance on BTC... I wonder how much would that cost... It would dwarf any transfer fees for sure.

"You must keep at least one part of a multi-signature key with us for the insurance to be valid".

Then the insurance is really cheap... Either the insurance companies systems stay secure and there are no losses, or the insurance company is breached, and they claim bankruptcy...

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#197

Post by parliament32 »

gruez wrote: post #71
cletus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. The traditional financial system is far more suitable to people’s needs than Bitcoin is.

>Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. You're not always able to do that with the traditional banking system. Scammers were able to steal millions from corporations using wire transfers, and they weren't able to reverse them.

Exactly, you can't officially reverse wires. You can ask your bank nicely, and they can ask the receiving bank nicely, and if the money's still there, it may or may not be transferred back. But there is no official mechanism for reversing wires, and if the other side withdraws/spends the money before you start the process you're SOL.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#198

Post by parliament32 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #165
hh3k0 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just as screwed if you make a typo in your bank transaction, though.

lol no you're not. call them up and they'll fix it.

If you wire the money to the wrong account? No, you're SOL unless the receiving bank and receiving account decides to reverse the transaction, which is fairly rare.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#199

Post by londons_explore »

vmception wrote: post #53
greenshackle2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine there are also fees involved to turn $1B worth of bitcoins to local currency.

There are, there is also a parallel global economy that allows for obtaining goods, services and investing in private equity or other assets directly using bitcoin, so those conversion fees are not an issue for the bitcoin owner. To counter the easiest rebuttal, there probably are only about $1bn worth of things to buy using bitcoin any given day, most of which are other new digital assets that would not be a great i…

Even a $1M order has more than 1-2% slippage in my experience... $1B will probably have much more.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#200

Post by jeltz »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #192
vmception wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$50 if both using the same currency. $50 + a few basis point spread if using a different currency, but you don't know exactly what that spread will be from the sending bank and what the spread will be at the receiving bank, so you can lose anywhere from .001% to 4% with major currencies.

It's never .001%. I've done so many international transactions with currency conversion (one of the most liquid pairs - USR-EUR). On the best day a bank will get that 3% difference. I've been using TransferWise in the last year, it's definitely better, but still over 1%.

I usually get between 0.5% and 1% spread at my bank and my company is tiny so these are list rates.
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