I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
Seems like they somehow coerced the owner to transfer the bitcoins instead of targeting the wallet itself.
U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
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Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#32I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
That’s certainly an aspect of its marketing, we can see that the reality is quite different. Individual X “agreed” to forfeit the wallet:
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#33Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#34I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
The Feds seized it from "Individual X" who hacked the account, they didn't hack and seize the account directly
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#35I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
>but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure
The government didn't crack the wallet address. They 'compelled' the owner to give it to them. Bitcoin was not designed to evade that type of seizure.
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#36I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
Yes, but they didn't hack into the wallet. They basically found the person who was in-charge of the wallet and forced their hand (read: civil forfeiture) in order to gain access to the bitcoin.
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#37I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
The regular reply to that strength is usually the rubber hose threat. Which is pretty much what happened here it seems with the person who had control of the private key in custody of the government.
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#38I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
It only provides this property when you've secured your keys, preferably in an offline wallet. These were hot wallet funds, so they're vulnerable to both physical and virtual seizure.
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#39This gives the US government a lot of power over bitcoin...
That both gives the government an incentive to let bitcoin thrive (to protect it's holdings), but also an opportunity to substantially manipulate bitcoins market price, possibly down to nearly zero.
Or the keys to these bitcoin will sit idly in a filing cabinet forever...
Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road
#40I'm not the most saavy BTC person, but isn't part of the allure of bitcoin the ability to evade this type of seizure?
Yes and it took the US Gov 8 years to come up with a way to do so with mutual cooperation after knowing the identity of the owner and having a way to communicate with that owner. Very different than any random judge or municipal police freezing anything they want.
Have a stash that people dont know about, no series of shell corporations and foundations required.