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$7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

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Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#21
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

> if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You cannot refuse a BTC transaction. You could return it in a subsequent transaction, and pay the transaction fee, but I would imagine your address would be forever tainted by a number of illicit address/transaction tracking algorithms.

That's an interesting angle to cash out... just start sending to 1,000s of addresses - who's to say which addresses are owned by the criminals, and which are owned by other people?

They'd get less than cashing it all out themselves obviously, but it would take forever to unravel what actually happened (if possible ever)

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#22
post #16
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

Can one even refuse it? If someone just sends tainted coin to my address, am I screwed?

What's wrong with simply returning it? Any "tainted coin tracker" could easily build in a mechanism for detecting that

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#23
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

You can definitely do this with bills... You realize when a bank gets robbed the serial numbers are tracked and confiscated when they show up, and often lead to the theives

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#24
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

> if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You cannot refuse a BTC transaction. You could return it in a subsequent transaction, and pay the transaction fee, but I would imagine your address would be forever tainted by a number of illicit address/transaction tracking algorithms.

[deleted]

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#25
post #16
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

Can one even refuse it? If someone just sends tainted coin to my address, am I screwed?

iirc, a number of wallets allow you to specify which unspent TX outputs you use.

So if you got tainted coin sent to your address, you could avoid using that UTXO in future TXs.

That might protect you from some scrutiny.

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#26
post #18

Is that money trapped in the system? The moment they sell to USD that account is now linked to a real person no?

It's possible to swap into monero without using any KYC exchange, but that requires liquidity. So it could take years.

> swap into monero without using any KYC exchange

How? Links on this being done?

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#27
post #23
post #8

Here’s an interesting question — if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You know it’s stolen and you might worry someone else who you might pay in the future would be able to track down that it’s stolen, so do you ask for “clean” BTC that isn’t linked to known theft? I don’t necessarily know the answer here. This is something that you can’t do with paper bills

You can definitely do this with bills... You realize when a bank gets robbed the serial numbers are tracked and confiscated when they show up, and often lead to the theives

If someone pays you in cash, do you really look up the serial numbers of all the bills you receive?

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#28
post #25
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can one even refuse it? If someone just sends tainted coin to my address, am I screwed?

iirc, a number of wallets allow you to specify which unspent TX outputs you use. So if you got tainted coin sent to your address, you could avoid using that UTXO in future TXs. That might protect you from some scrutiny.

That would work. But then there's also the question if the received transaction counts as taxable income in the jurisdiction of the receiver. If that's the case and if they received a very significant amount they would be forced to sell some of the coins so that they can pay the tax for them.

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#29
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can one even refuse it? If someone just sends tainted coin to my address, am I screwed?

What's wrong with simply returning it? Any "tainted coin tracker" could easily build in a mechanism for detecting that

The simplest answer is that returning it isn't free.

Re: $7.5B In Stolen Bitcoin from 2016 Bitfinex Hack has just been moved

#30
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you receive BTC from one of these addresses as payment for something, do you refuse it? You cannot refuse a BTC transaction. You could return it in a subsequent transaction, and pay the transaction fee, but I would imagine your address would be forever tainted by a number of illicit address/transaction tracking algorithms.

That's an interesting angle to cash out... just start sending to 1,000s of addresses - who's to say which addresses are owned by the criminals, and which are owned by other people? They'd get less than cashing it all out themselves obviously, but it would take forever to unravel what actually happened (if possible ever)

You could use also do that to embarrass/blackmail politicians or other prominent people. Imagine the threat "You either do what I want or I'll send you 1 million dollars" :)
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