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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

#31
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

And keep a list of all serial numbers of stolen money to check against.

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

#32

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

I wonder if they could somehow collect interest off it anonymously. I read about certain coins offering staking, but not sure how it works and if it's possible to collect interest without revealing your identity.

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

#34
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

Every so often a moron shows up trying to sell the idea of colored coins... it is almost as if they've never heard of "fungibility".

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

#35
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)

This is essentially what a tumbler does

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

#36
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)

They could just setup their own Bitcoin tumbler

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

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And keep a list of all serial numbers of stolen money to check against.

This sounds like an use case for blockchain.

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

#39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but I might deposit that money in the bank, and the bank could check those serial numbers.

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

#40
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This isn't so far fetched. Cash registers already have Internet connections and can be outfitted with cameras to record all bills going in, except maybe those inserted in a stack. And ATMs might already be recording serial numbers of dispensed bills. Essentially they might/could do with currency what they do with license plates, which is track where everything goes and at what times.
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