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Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

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Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#101

Post by lottin »

vmception wrote: post #99
lottin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the real world? No, you can't buy a house or a yacht with crypto. You can't even buy groceries or pay at a restaurant or at a petrol station.

I’m saying two things: 1) These arent problems for ransomware hackers because they arent goals for ransomware hackers 2) even if these were goals for ransomware hackers these aren't problems either It requires a special hubris to really think people that earn crypto want fiat. Just like people assume people that use Monero want clean bitcoin, its an absurdity that doesnt even consider that many just want and keep Mon…

Right, this makes a lot sense.

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#102

Post by tome »

baby wrote: post #98
tome wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, it's very interesting if they were seized after having been transferred to a different wallet. That is going to reduce trust in Bitcoin considerably. It will be difficult to be sure that the coins you just bought are not subject to seizure by the authorities.

It’s well-known that money transfers are public in bitcoin and on/off ramp via virtual asset service providers like coinbase requires kyc and is subject to aml/ctf (anti money laundering and counter terrorism financing)

Yes, for the dollars coming in and out. It's news to me that the same applies to the bitcoin coming in and out!

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#103

Post by spoonjim »

TameAntelope wrote: post #40
spoonjim wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not, but it sets the precedent that the FBI will seize bitcoin without any kind of due process when it is able to recover proceeds from a criminal transaction . This jeopardizes the use of Bitcoin as a currency for cross-border criminal transactions which is a large if not majority share of its use case. So it’s easy to see why its value went down — fewer criminals will want to use it.

Hell yeah they will, honestly it's about time we did some more aggressive offensive security operations. But what does crypto have to do with criminals? Criminals just need to up their op sec game, they know that. BTC dropping is only related insofar as this stupid correlation is getting pushed hard in the media right now.

> But what does crypto have to do with criminals?

Criminals are basically the only group making widespread use of Bitcoin as a currency rather than as an asset class.

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#104

Post by mrkramer »

tpl wrote: post #47
mrkramer wrote: post #15

I hope they start seizing Ethereum because it would show how not decentralized and not secure proof of stake system is.

Excuse my ignorance but, how would it show that? Gaining credentials to a wallet does not appear to me to show that the Ethereum proof of stake system is not secure.

Read this what I wrote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27237700

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#105

Post by jtbayly »

tome wrote: post #102
baby wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s well-known that money transfers are public in bitcoin and on/off ramp via virtual asset service providers like coinbase requires kyc and is subject to aml/ctf (anti money laundering and counter terrorism financing)

Yes, for the dollars coming in and out. It's news to me that the same applies to the bitcoin coming in and out!

Why wouldn't it? It's a case of holding stolen goods. You don't get to keep them.

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#106

Post by captn3m0 »

vmception wrote: post #99
lottin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the real world? No, you can't buy a house or a yacht with crypto. You can't even buy groceries or pay at a restaurant or at a petrol station.

I’m saying two things: 1) These arent problems for ransomware hackers because they arent goals for ransomware hackers 2) even if these were goals for ransomware hackers these aren't problems either It requires a special hubris to really think people that earn crypto want fiat. Just like people assume people that use Monero want clean bitcoin, its an absurdity that doesnt even consider that many just want and keep Mon…

But this won’t be a 100% closed ecosystem still right? You pay rent to your landlord in crypto, and they pay their employee in crypto, but somewhere there will be someone exchanging it for Fiat down the chain. And that’s invisible risk (unlike say, transacting in cash with your landlord knowing it can’t be traced).

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#107

Post by vmception »

captn3m0 wrote: post #106
vmception wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m saying two things: 1) These arent problems for ransomware hackers because they arent goals for ransomware hackers 2) even if these were goals for ransomware hackers these aren't problems either It requires a special hubris to really think people that earn crypto want fiat. Just like people assume people that use Monero want clean bitcoin, its an absurdity that doesnt even consider that many just want and keep Mon…

But this won’t be a 100% closed ecosystem still right? You pay rent to your landlord in crypto, and they pay their employee in crypto, but somewhere there will be someone exchanging it for Fiat down the chain. And that’s invisible risk (unlike say, transacting in cash with your landlord knowing it can’t be traced).

Then launder all your crypto because you dont know if someone thinks you are a hacker from 20 transactions ago trying to cash out

This of course makes your legal actions indistinguishable from hackers laundering their own crypto, shifting the methods away from probable cause to completely benign

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#108

Post by mmaunder »

Taek wrote: post #62
walexander wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most plausible theory I've heard is that the attackers used a BTC tumbler that was a honeypot controlled by feds. But who knows, maybe the FBI has a quantum computer we don't know about.

Seems unlikely that the FBI sitting on a way to break ECDSA would use it to recover $2 million. Much more likely that there was a tumbler or exchange that they were able to link to the attacker and use to seize funds. Maybe they even have backdoors in some popular crypto wallets.

Might cost more than $2MM in compute, but could be worth it to demonstrate capability.

Re: Bitcoin extends losses after U.S. seizes most of Colonial ransom

#109

Post by tome »

jtbayly wrote: post #105
tome wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, for the dollars coming in and out. It's news to me that the same applies to the bitcoin coming in and out!

Why wouldn't it? It's a case of holding stolen goods. You don't get to keep them.

No reason, I just didn't realise this was something the authorities did in practice.
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