Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

decrypt.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 369 posts

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

#241

Post by McAtNite »

Damorian wrote: post #236
thekuanysh wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have to add “Chinese”?

Anecdote, but I once ran a blog for many years. Country breakdown for traffic was roughly 30% China, 30% Russia, and 30% US. Almost 100% of requests out of China and Russia were hacking attempts, I assume mostly by bots. They've earned a reputation and there's nothing wrong pointing it out. If you operate a website, unless China and Russia are part of your market/audience, I'd suggest blocking them altogether.

Just wanted to second this. I ran several public Linux servers at a major university. China and Russia based IPs we’re constantly trying to brute force all of our servers. It got the point where we would just apply a geoblock just in case one finally managed to get through.

I’m all for avoiding nationalistic dog whistles when discussing things, but both China and Russia have rightfully earned their places as bad actors on the internet.

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

#242

Post by glofish »

koonsolo wrote: post #223
jpkoning wrote: post #16

If we both join the bitcoin network, we can exchange $1B for $0.48. If we both join set up accounts at a regular bank like RBC, we can exchange $1B for free. The point I'm making is that fees are not bitcoin's strong point. Any financial network can undercut it. What is unique about bitcoin is that not everyone can get an account at RBC, but anyone can join the more expensive bitcoin network.

You don't seem to know much about banking and large sums of money in practice. Let me give you an example which I know exists: EU airliner buys an airplane at Boeing. How do you transfer the money? This is how they do it today: They are at Boeing where the transfer needs to go through. The money needs to be transferred then and there. So airliner calls their bank to transfer the money. But there is a 9 hour differenc…

What you describe is the process of buying a laptop on Ebay.

When you buy a plane, perhaps you have already payed months ahead, perhaps you'll pay five years later, perhaps you pay on a monthly basis, perhaps you don't pay at all but transfer the rights do to something

it is all contractual obligations, sometimes money does not even trade hands

etc.

the idea that you would need to wait for a bank to open to transfer money while watching the timezones is completely unrealistic

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

#243

Post by jdironman »

beaner wrote: post #182
thekuanysh wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have to add “Chinese”?

Who cares? It could be anything. Random descriptions add flavor. Bitcoin is also popular in China anyway.

I want to say, apt username.

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

#244

Post by joshstrange »

Damorian wrote: post #236
thekuanysh wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have to add “Chinese”?

Anecdote, but I once ran a blog for many years. Country breakdown for traffic was roughly 30% China, 30% Russia, and 30% US. Almost 100% of requests out of China and Russia were hacking attempts, I assume mostly by bots. They've earned a reputation and there's nothing wrong pointing it out. If you operate a website, unless China and Russia are part of your market/audience, I'd suggest blocking them altogether.

I'll third this. Every single IP that I have geo-located that has attempted to get into one of my home servers/routers is coming from China. I didn't go as far as blocking all of China because I was sure that some point down the line it would cause some other random issue and I would have long forgotten blocking Chinese IP's. If I remember correctly I used fail2ban or similar software to blacklist IP's after X failed attempts. That plus moving all services to non-standard ports (save for 80/443).

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

#245

Post by DangerousPie »

soared wrote: post #47
DangerousPie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any government that taxes money transfers. At least in any country I have lived in you can move around your money as much as you like without any taxes. Now if you're trying to avoid income tax or something like that that's a different question, but then using Bitcoin doesn't magically make that disappear either.

In the us you would get taxed https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

You get taxed for the gift, not for the transaction. You'd have to pay the same taxes if you used BTC.

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

#246

Post by zarkov99 »

grubles wrote: post #25
jpkoning wrote: post #16

If we both join the bitcoin network, we can exchange $1B for $0.48. If we both join set up accounts at a regular bank like RBC, we can exchange $1B for free. The point I'm making is that fees are not bitcoin's strong point. Any financial network can undercut it. What is unique about bitcoin is that not everyone can get an account at RBC, but anyone can join the more expensive bitcoin network.

Well the point is with Bitcoin you don't have to trust RBC to not freeze and/or abscond with your $1B.

True, but you also have no recourse if the transaction was fradulent, done under duress or an error.

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

#247

Post by qeternity »

as300 wrote: post #106
_jal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more unpopular opinion: humans should be as free as capital. Making capital transfers easy while restricting the movement of real people ghettoizes and traps people for corporate convenience and cost savings.

Calling nationalities and cultures that arise from a group of people being forced to live together a "ghettoization" is a bit of a stretch

That's literally the meaning of the word...the negative connotations came afterwards.

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

#248

Post by komali2 »

tossmeout wrote: post #239
MathCodeLove wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Chinese, I also care. That comment is an example of subtle racism. Image the following comment: "You better buy a good bike lock, else you're at risk of having it stolen by a black man." A comment like the one above would spark near universal outrage at the commenter, and with good reason. It's racist, and the original comment here is the same. Unnecessarily racist.

You're incorrect. Chinese is a nationality, not a race, which means this isn't racism. An accurate description would be that this is stereotyping on the basis of nationality. As such, a more accurate comparison than "black man stealing a bike" would be to something like a "Nigerian scammer," which is an archetype I don't think most of us have a problem with. Other examples I never see complaints about: "Russian hacke…

> Chinese is a nationality, not a race,

This isn't really true on it's own, and besides, isn't even a good faith interpretation. In an America where rural Asian-ethnicity people are facing discrimination because of covid being called "Chinese Virus," I think it's bold to claim that the concept of China as a country and Chinese as a racial heritage are not conflated.

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

#249

Post by staplers »

erfgh wrote: post #99
grubles wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the point is with Bitcoin you don't have to trust RBC to not freeze and/or abscond with your $1B.

You do have to trust yourself to have 100% flawless security because one slip and you lose that $1B to a Chinese hacker with no hope of ever getting it back.

This happens all the time with wire transfers. It's no different. Banks don't care.

Example: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/2018/05/24/central-florida...

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

#250

Post by jayparth »

tossmeout wrote: post #239
MathCodeLove wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Chinese, I also care. That comment is an example of subtle racism. Image the following comment: "You better buy a good bike lock, else you're at risk of having it stolen by a black man." A comment like the one above would spark near universal outrage at the commenter, and with good reason. It's racist, and the original comment here is the same. Unnecessarily racist.

You're incorrect. Chinese is a nationality, not a race, which means this isn't racism. An accurate description would be that this is stereotyping on the basis of nationality. As such, a more accurate comparison than "black man stealing a bike" would be to something like a "Nigerian scammer," which is an archetype I don't think most of us have a problem with. Other examples I never see complaints about: "Russian hacke…

I think most of us agree that stereotyping and prejudices are not desirable, regardless if it's by nationality, race, sex, gender, etc.
Post reply on HN