I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#191

Post by anamax » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 4:34 AM UTC

olefoo wrote: post #179

haberman wrote: post #131

The community that for months has been preaching the virtues of the currency nobody can control is suddenly arguing that a middleman should roll back a bunch of free-market transactions. I decided a while ago that arguing against the "bitcoin has no problems" crowd was futile: people are too enamored with the idea to see problems like this until they happen.

There appears to be a real market demand for a currency that is not controlled by a national government, especially one that has the features of cash-like transactions. That bitcoin is lacking as an implementation is immaterial, people want it for whatever reason.

> There appears to be a real market demand for a currency that is not controlled by a national government, especially one that has the features of cash-like transactions. That bitcoin is lacking as an implementation is immaterial, people want it for whatever reason.

"We must do something, {random} is something, therefore we must do {random}" is generally regarded as a fallacy.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#192

Post by jamesaguilar » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 4:52 AM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #152

Tichy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He stole 600+ BTC, though. And now he resents giving back the BitCoins that are supposed to be "rolled back". Not so benevolent in my opinion.

What do you mean, "stole"? He placed a buy order, and was matched to someone selling. How on earth is that "stealing"? You can claim the sell orders were illegitimate, but you can't say the same of his buys, without ascribing to every user the responsibility to never be involved in any trade that anyone could possibly call shady. If I own a grocery store, the onus is not on me to determine whether the person offering…

I dunno. It seems like he understood that the sell order was fraudulent (from his post -- "If there was an attacker in the system . . .," a hypothesis in support of which he calls the very trade he just participated in). Since he had a belief that he was buying hot goods, it seems reasonable to expect him to abstain.

This is the case in physical realms too. For instance, if you buy a stereo for a hugely marked down price out of the back of a guy's car and the cops find out about it, you may get charged. You will certainly have to give it back to the original owner, and if they don't catch the crook, you are the one who is out the money. Even if you don't get caught, you probably wouldn't tell your friends because this is not the sort of thing decent people do.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#193

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:00 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #135

jacques_chester wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not my family, then maybe I could go Robin Hood, steal from the rich and sell cheaply to the poor. Note "for value". If the price is unrealistically cheap, the courts can point out that the buyer should have been suspicious. > I can't imagine that it works that way. I can believe that as a buyer of stolen good without knowing they were stolen, you won't be punished. But you will still have to return the stuff. Y…

Another question: what happens if somebody steals my Porsche and sells it to somebody else, but I still have a set of car keys. One day I notice my Porsche parked on the curb, use my keys to enter it and drive away? Is it then a Schrödinger-Porsche that belongs to both me and the person who bought it off the thief? What if I never even noticed it was stolen? In fact, as the thief, why even bother with stealing? Why n…

This is why cars have pieces of paper called titles (which you are not supposed to keep in the car itself).

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#194

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:04 AM UTC

nkassis wrote: post #137

Tichy wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, what I mean is that if I was 99, I wouldn't care much about being punished for being a thief. I could therefore make a lot of people happy. If not my family, then maybe I could go Robin Hood, steal from the rich and sell cheaply to the poor. I can't imagine that it works that way. I can believe that as a buyer of stolen good without knowing they were stolen, you won't be punished. But you will still have to retu…

SO if I understand this correctly, by buying the coins at ridiculously low prices and the fact that in the post he said it was weird and he tried to take advantage of it. Would he not completely fail the test?

He doesn't know they are stolen. It could have been a legit attempt to panic the market by someone hoping to recover their losses plus some profit in the recovery. It's not illegal to ride along.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#195

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:07 AM UTC

eridius wrote: post #184

jacques_chester wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exception to this rule is a "bona fide purchaser for value without notice". If someone has no reason to believe that property is stolen and buys it, then it's their property now. So sorry. I'm still confused about whether or not bitcoin transactions are traceable. If they have deniability, it might be impossible to prove/disprove that you knew the goods were stolen. Of course, I am neither a lawyer nor a crypto s…

I think it's safe to say that Kevin knew the bitcoins he purchased were not on the up-and-up.

He knew the trades were unusual, but there are also other explanations for weird trades than dumping stolen goods.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#196

Post by mbreese » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:13 AM UTC

jamesaguilar wrote: post #192

redthrowaway wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean, "stole"? He placed a buy order, and was matched to someone selling. How on earth is that "stealing"? You can claim the sell orders were illegitimate, but you can't say the same of his buys, without ascribing to every user the responsibility to never be involved in any trade that anyone could possibly call shady. If I own a grocery store, the onus is not on me to determine whether the person offering…

I dunno. It seems like he understood that the sell order was fraudulent (from his post -- "If there was an attacker in the system . . .," a hypothesis in support of which he calls the very trade he just participated in). Since he had a belief that he was buying hot goods, it seems reasonable to expect him to abstain. This is the case in physical realms too. For instance, if you buy a stereo for a hugely marked down p…

I read it as he was watching a market free fall and was looking to capitalize on it. He had no way of knowing if the sell order was fraudulent. It could have been someone trying to drastically crash the value of BTC, but still a legitimate owner.

Buying them through MtGox wasn't the same as buying bitcoins out of the back of some guy's car.

What about people who had standing buy orders? They could never had known about the market free-fall and conditions surrounding their eventually accepted orders.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#197

Post by haberman » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:20 AM UTC

danboarder wrote: post #163

haberman wrote: post #131

The community that for months has been preaching the virtues of the currency nobody can control is suddenly arguing that a middleman should roll back a bunch of free-market transactions. I decided a while ago that arguing against the "bitcoin has no problems" crowd was futile: people are too enamored with the idea to see problems like this until they happen.

It's not a BitCoin problem, this entire episode revolves around one exchange (MtGox) and its security problems. Mt Gox Exchange =/= BTC Currency Nasdaq Exchange =/= USD Currency

The market intervention that people are demanding is only possible because Mt Gox is a centralized exchange. Had this been a hack of a pure BitCoin client, it would have been even worse, because the theft would have been irreversible.

If the community wants rollbacks when transactions aren't "fair," what's the point of BitCoin again?

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#198

Post by dkokelley » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:26 AM UTC

jamie_ca wrote: post #185

dkokelley wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I understand bitcoin is that you can't simply sell coins made by adding them to a db record. Perhaps the MtGox system can artificially generate the appearance of those coins, but the actual validation of the transaction by the network would have failed.

I imagine that all BTC available for trade at MtGox are in a MtGox-owned wallet. All trades are just done in their database, and a transaction only hits the bitcoin network when a user wants to withdraw BTC out of the market.

In that case, while adding fake BTC will not let you actually withdraw coins, it would allow one to issue mass sell orders and crash the price for BTC. Then the exploiter could purchase them at their lower valuation.

'Sell' fake coins. Crash the price. Buy 'real' coins. A virtual coin laundering. Fascinating.

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#199

Post by redthrowaway » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:30 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #196

jamesaguilar wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. It seems like he understood that the sell order was fraudulent (from his post -- "If there was an attacker in the system . . .," a hypothesis in support of which he calls the very trade he just participated in). Since he had a belief that he was buying hot goods, it seems reasonable to expect him to abstain. This is the case in physical realms too. For instance, if you buy a stereo for a hugely marked down p…

I read it as he was watching a market free fall and was looking to capitalize on it. He had no way of knowing if the sell order was fraudulent. It could have been someone trying to drastically crash the value of BTC, but still a legitimate owner. Buying them through MtGox wasn't the same as buying bitcoins out of the back of some guy's car. What about people who had standing buy orders? They could never had known abo…

Exactly. If I see the price of Apple drop precipitously, I might think that somebody is manipulating the market, but I'd be a fool not to buy it at $5/share.

Also, what if it wasn't an attack? What if someone with a lot of bitcoins was running a malconfigured script? We've seen flash crashes in the real world caused by automated trading; why would btc be any different?

Re: I'm the guy who bought 259684 Bitcoins for under $3000 yesterday

#200

Post by jamesaguilar » Tue, Jun 21, 2011, 5:31 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #196

jamesaguilar wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. It seems like he understood that the sell order was fraudulent (from his post -- "If there was an attacker in the system . . .," a hypothesis in support of which he calls the very trade he just participated in). Since he had a belief that he was buying hot goods, it seems reasonable to expect him to abstain. This is the case in physical realms too. For instance, if you buy a stereo for a hugely marked down p…

I read it as he was watching a market free fall and was looking to capitalize on it. He had no way of knowing if the sell order was fraudulent. It could have been someone trying to drastically crash the value of BTC, but still a legitimate owner. Buying them through MtGox wasn't the same as buying bitcoins out of the back of some guy's car. What about people who had standing buy orders? They could never had known abo…

> I read it as he was watching a market free fall

Yeah, I think initially there was that. But after he bought he began to suspect there was fraudulent activity. And he still transferred the money out. The problem was not the buying, it is suggesting the MtGox is responsible for providing him with a free lunch now.

> wasn't the same . . .

No, but there was a commonality in that foul play was suspected. The point of the car analogy is not the appropriateness of the forum, because MtGox is unquestionably an appropriate forum. It's about how much evidence you have to suggest that something is amiss.

> What about people who had standing buy orders

We're (I'm) not talking about them.