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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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero tackles this problem. Coins are fungible and transactions are private. https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/fungibility....

That both does, and doesn't solve this problem. If someone pays for services with stolen assets the ideal scenario is that the criminal is apprehended, the service provider doesn't lose money, and the funds can be returned to their rightful owner. Monero protects the service provider, but doesn't solve the other problems.

I would actually like if there was a place where people could hack each other without repercussions. A fair game where all that matters is technical skill, not laws.

If your security is bad or you want the state to prosecute hackers in your defense, you can keep using traditional banks, Bitcoin, etc. If you want complete freedom and you trust your security, use Monero.

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

#172
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That both does, and doesn't solve this problem. If someone pays for services with stolen assets the ideal scenario is that the criminal is apprehended, the service provider doesn't lose money, and the funds can be returned to their rightful owner. Monero protects the service provider, but doesn't solve the other problems.

It's a curious question for the value proposition of blockchain denominated currencies. There is a real possibility that in the future, all stolen assets will eventually be recovered and returned to their owners. There needn't be any limit to recovery given a universal, traceable, and non-fungible transaction log. Pretty soon payment processors/recipients would start maintaining blacklists of stolen coins which they…

Also interesting: since the total number of Bitcoins is fixed, as more and more coins are used for crime and get blacklisted, the value of remaining coins will become inflated. Given a long enough timeline, there will be too few coins for the currency to remain useful.

(Though to be fair, people simply losing the private keys to their wallet also has the same effect. Not sure which phenomenon would, over time, result in more coin losses.)

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero tackles this problem. Coins are fungible and transactions are private. https://www.getmonero.org/resources/moneropedia/fungibility....

That both does, and doesn't solve this problem. If someone pays for services with stolen assets the ideal scenario is that the criminal is apprehended, the service provider doesn't lose money, and the funds can be returned to their rightful owner. Monero protects the service provider, but doesn't solve the other problems.

That's the price we have to pay in order to stop global surveillance. There should be limits to what authorities can know and do. It shouldn't be possible for them to analyze every transaction that ever occurred.

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

#174
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)

What'd you really do is just send it to a liquidity smart contract and use a function parameter to send it to different wallet(s). These pools pay out big money to alot of different wallets, you'd never be able to track it out the other side.

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

#175
post #148

You see. This is what bitcoin so fascinating... it is absolutely impossible to hide a transaction. So imagine the field day the irs would have with this if everyone used it. They basically would be able to send bills to owners of wallets. And anyone ever caught working with an undesirable would be able to have their funds more or less locked up. So now, we all watch as billions of stolen money moves and we know the m…

I can think of a recent politician who’d take the money and spin it in such a way that half the country would believe it’s not a big deal. That every other politician would do it too if they had any balls... etc.

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

#176
post #148

You see. This is what bitcoin so fascinating... it is absolutely impossible to hide a transaction. So imagine the field day the irs would have with this if everyone used it. They basically would be able to send bills to owners of wallets. And anyone ever caught working with an undesirable would be able to have their funds more or less locked up. So now, we all watch as billions of stolen money moves and we know the m…

I wonder how many bitcoin people understand the history of banking regulations. Banks do not want to be accessory to crimes. They make plenty of money legally. So when the government says we know that you helped someone steal billions of dollars so we are going to shut you down, the banks will quickly offer to track and report and block people.

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

#177
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.

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

Yep, this is referred to as “coin control”

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

#178
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the moment it gets converted to anything real, the owners will be caught Is that how it works? Won't there be, say banking institutions that simply won't keep a record of who converted the bitcoin to money similar to how VPN providers are claiming to not log user's IP addresses?

I'm pretty sure there's no bank in the world that would be willing to make a transaction in the billions and not keep a record of it.

Ye of little faith. Google: HSBC cartel money.

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

#180
post #104
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

what is tracked is outputs and inputs, not addresses. addresses are derived from a public key or a script. when a block is mined, an output is created, outputs can only be spent once. a bitcoin transaction is just a list of existing outputs (inputs) and new outputs to create (outputs). each output is created with a lock script, to spend the output you must provide the unlock script which normally contains at least a…

Would you pay the transaction fee from the returned funds, washing a fraction of it through mining? Or pay for it out of your own utxo, potentially leading to a griefing attack?
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