311–320 of 369 posts
I find it extremely amusing that the US government has over the last several years become one of the world's largest traders in bitcoin. It's not quite the path many were predicting back in the early 2010s, but Bitcoin has been full of surprises. If history is any guide, the bitcoin will be auctioned off sooner rather than later.
I find it extremely amusing that the US government has over the last several years become one of the world's largest traders in bitcoin. It's not quite the path many were predicting back in the early 2010s, but Bitcoin has been full of surprises. If history is any guide, the bitcoin will be auctioned off sooner rather than later.
Not unless they can prove it was ill-gotten. It has to go through a trial
Quite literally. They file suit against the items themselves, and always win.
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What grounds does a judge have to send the person to jail if they complied with the order to decrypt a wallet? There can be any number of reasons the coin was moved: - hacked by some 3rd party - corruption by officers ( https://news.bitcoin.com/rogue-silk-road-agent-admits-to-ste... ) - partner in crime moved them, with or without consent from suspect.
That seems fishy tho, you'll probably have to prove that, one of the core pruposes of judges is choosing who to believe, there is no such thing as a 100% fact.
Ex: Being in the vicinity of a crime when it takes place may make you a suspect (aka "fishy"), but this alone is not enough to prove guilt.
What is usually the practice for seized money? Donated to charity? Invested in government bonds? New uniforms?
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Do you really think that someone with $1B of Bitcoin could buy their way out of the kinds of serious felony criminal charges mentioned in the linked article through campaign contributions and similar? I doubt it.
IMO the short answer is, yes pardons can seemingly be bought in the Trumpian era of American politics. Whether $1B is enough, I don't necessarily know, but I don't see why the likelihood is something to dismiss out of hand.
Trump tends to pardon the people who will get him into the news cycle, like sadistic war criminals, corrupt or openly racist officials like Blagojevich and Arpaio, or whoever Kim Kardashian told him to.
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The point I'm trying to make: Taking someone's assets vs coercing them to hand over their assets, are not the same thing. You can take my gold, my dollars, my factories, my real estate, all by force. You can take my freedom, you can take my life, by force. You cannot take my Bitcoin by force. You might be able to put me through enough pain for me to give it up. But this is not a guarantee. We have been discussing thi…
> We have been discussing this in the context of being a sneaky cyber criminal with a just law system. If you were assuming that the law was just then you’ve been having a different conversation. I’ve just been assuming that this is the US legal system, nothing more, nothing less. Do not assume that the US legal system is just. The US law system is reasonably competent, has a global reach, and can out-wait you.
As we speak, billions of dollars of illegal drug cartel money sloshes along the international banking system, sometimes enabled by the banks themselves. The powers that be seem very ineffective at stopping them. I think you have too much confidence in the capabilities of these systems.
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No 'lol' because gains/losses on those assets relate to taxation, also, in many regimes you'll have to declare it anyhow.
which you only have to worry about when you have to tap into the rainy day fund, or when the collateral gets liquidated Because you can borrow against it instead of selling and without touching a financial institution, and this gives you liquidity without a tax event Welcome to the 2020s
If your 'rainy day fund' is a stack of bills in a box, sure, but other than that there isn't much you can do with significant amounts of money that isn't going to involve some kind of transparency.
Literally trading those dollars for anything else involves gain/loss.
You're not going to be able to 'borrow against' anything under your mattress, it will have to be in some kind of regulated security, a bank account, or real estate - but it's moot - exchanging one asset for another is on the whole financial neutral.
More pragmatically, if you're 'borrowing against sums' you will be paying interest, there's almost a 100% chance you'll want to declare that against any other form of income for the tax shield.
Again, all of this 'hide your money' stuff is really the domain of tax evaders and likely the #1 flag for tax audits.
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Yes, evading the law would be work. But none of these options are possible if it was an account in a bank.
It does work very similar to valuable assets stored somewhere though, and the law as well as other means and methods are long established.