So what will happen to the coins? They'll probably be looking for any excuse to avoid giving billions back to Bitfinex. This will be fascinating.
DOJ says they'll be returned to previous owners.
Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
471–480 of 901 posts
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#472Why would a Russian national with so much BTC to launder, who hasn't touched it in 6 years suddenly perform the action from New York City of all places from within the USA.
I don't know why people assume that Russia is a lawless land where you can just cash out billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency.
Even if that were the case, maybe they rationally decided that the risk of pissing off United States federal authorities was better than pissing off Russian authorities and organized crime.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#473fwiw, it appears one of the named here is a YC Alum: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=il https://www.linkedin.com/in/unrealdutch/
Let's be fair to these individuals and not presume guilt. In the US, it's "innocent until proven guilty". Media is so quick to assume the person is guilty just because of an allegation.
People are still free to have opinions on the case. The purpose of this legal principle is to put the burden of proof on the prosecution, i.e the government can't simply blame you for a crime and force you to dig up evidence of innocence.
People can disagree even if you're found innocent at trial... just look at OJ's case. The government isn't going to prosecute him again, but "OJ did it" is gonna dog him for the rest of his life.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not invested in crypto or really at all interested in it. That said, my mentor seems pretty excited about it and is pretty heavily invested as of the past few months. I advised him to do something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing and distribute it across a wide number of storage mechanisms, physical, digital, and custodial. For instance, in google drive, in drop box, in a bank safety dep…
I don't understand the math but I think I have seen that style of secret management where any 3 of say 10 secrets can access something but no 2 or any 1 secret can do it. It would seem to solve a lot of just organizational problems where "jan is out of the office today" and nobody can do the thing ... but if access is spread out among 10 people ... 3 probably are in the office when needed. Granted I've never seen it…
[deleted]
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#475I was thinking, we know the feds have seized bitcoin and auctioned (laundered) them off later on. Cash often gets seized too.
What happens if a criminal tries to burn cash and is mostly successful in doing so? Do the feds go to the BEP with a claim to get the money reprinted; or, like burned bitcoin, is it gone forever?
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#476Should I expect price drop once feds start to sell it? Or they'll just destroy the keys (keeping the money invested forever).
Previously seized coins have been sold in off-chain auctions, same mechanism as other seized goods. Since these have a known rightful owner, though, they may just be returned.
Those were dark money used in crime. These havent been used in crime, yet.
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
The work of preparing to leave the country is necessarily public in a way that doing crypto stuff might not be. I suspect they were worried that preparing to leave the country would tip their hand - and they could have been caught earlier if they tried it. It just turns out they were caught anyway.
Hmm what work is that? Getting a visa? With that much cash I'd leave first (on a tourist visa) and figure the rest out later..
Americans don't need to apply for a Visa to visit most of the world. They just get one automatically on arrival.
They could have just bought a Vanuatu passport with bitcoin (~$150k), then travelled there for a holiday. Leave the US with the US passport and arrive in Van with the Van passport. CHange their name in Vanuatu, then move to a 3rd country to settle permanently with a new name. Maybe change it one more time and gain citizenship in that third country, and that'd be enough to disappear for regular people.
The spooks will still find you, but without extradition powers...
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
She's also a rapper, and not a very good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIuPPmY9mw
Her delivery reminds me of a CEO being forced by their HR department to "do a rap" in the 2000's to "relate" to their employees.
Strong Leslie Knopes in Parks & Rec's vibes!
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#479So what will happen to the coins? They'll probably be looking for any excuse to avoid giving billions back to Bitfinex. This will be fascinating.
DOJ says they'll be returned to previous owners.
Sure, but what does that mean? Will they return it to Bitfinex to distribute? Will they try to distribute it themselves? How will the accounting for who owns it work given Bitfinex's complex (and probably illegal under US law) token scheme that they implemented to cover up the hack? Will they return amounts calculated based on the value stolen in 2016, or the value of the coins now, a 60x difference? Will they sell the coins and transfer dollars to claimants, or transfer the coins directly?
Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's saying that the law presumes innocence until proven guilty. They don't throw you in jail or take your money until the legal process reaches a judgement, and this is pretty normal and uncontroversial. But you don't have to keep going for drinks with a person who's just been arrested and let out on bail, you can make up your own opinion as you feel. You can say bad things about him before the judge does, you can d…
Disagree. You can make your opinion and you can take your precautions. But unless you were not directly harmed you should not “say bad things about them”, as you put it, just because they are a suspect in a case.
>Disagree. You can make your opinion and you can take your precautions. But unless you were not directly harmed you should not “say bad things about them”, as you put it, just because they are a suspect in a case.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Regardless of whether you "were not directly harmed" I don't see why someone should or shouldn't “say bad things about them."
Why shouldn't I express my opinion? Or are we in "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" territory?
I may be misunderstanding your point. If so, please do correct me. If not, I don't see why I (or anyone else) shouldn't express their opinion WRT anything.
What value that opinion may have can certainly be debated, but why should someone not express their opinion?