Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 901 posts

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#481

Post by vmception »

> While it is possible that SalesFolk received virtual currency, based on my experience, companies that do offer virtual currency as a payment method or in conjunction with another service often advertise it to attract more business.

Disagree here. I know many institutional funds that accept crypto for investment, solely because the third party fund administrator allows it, who only updated to account for that because so many funds and limited partners wanted that.

You would have no idea how much is happening behind the scenes, with the merchant services pushes being just a small tip of an iceberg with its own success or failures.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#482

Post by peter303 »

300bps wrote: post #263

The hack occurred 5.5 years ago. The Federal statute of limitations on Grand Theft/Larceny is 5 years. Is this why they are charged with Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundring and not charged with the actual theft? Lichtenstein and Morgan are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering If so, this means that (outside tax obligations) they may have gotten away with it essentially by sitting on the money doing not…

Structured transactions dont have an amount threshold. Former Speaker of the House Hastert got jail for sub-threshold transactions.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#483

Post by eftychis »

cobookman wrote: post #454
arcticbull wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like he could have done more to distance himself. Bitcoin's public ledger makes transactions into prosecution futures. This is why it's such a poor choice for revolutionaries and funding the marginalized. You leave a permanent indelible public record in posterity that will in the course of time be de-anonymized, automatically, and traced back to you.

Is it illegal to sell your artwork at an auction, and a criminal happens to be the one to buy it? I honestly don't know. is the onus on an artist or on an "auction house" to vet buyers. If post sale it turns out the money was fraudulent, does the artist need to pay it back? In crypto terms. You the artist simply put a NFT up for auction at OpenSea. You the scammer happened to purchase the artwork on OpenSea. However…

I mean art and other not easily evaluated assets are used for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Auction houses are known to be on the trick -- that is passively mainly/ they don't care and work to "pump" the prices of artwork. But of course law enforcement agencies know about it too.

It shouldn't be illegal: people should be free to buy what they want. But let's not hide behind our noses.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#484

Post by initplus »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #296
fxtentacle wrote: post #4

Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".

> It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". I really don't understand these arguments. The law still applies whether or not you use cryptocurrency. Using cryptocurrency doesn't free someone from the consequences of their actions. Illegal acts are st…

If we have the government to weigh in on which transactions are legitimate or not, why do we need a distributed ledger? Cryptocurrencies are trustless, but if we can trust the government to rule on ownership fairly why do we need a trustless system?

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#485

Post by soared »

vmception wrote: post #481

> While it is possible that SalesFolk received virtual currency, based on my experience, companies that do offer virtual currency as a payment method or in conjunction with another service often advertise it to attract more business. Disagree here. I know many institutional funds that accept crypto for investment, solely because the third party fund administrator allows it, who only updated to account for that becaus…

I was going to disagree, but it turns out you’re right. Home Depot and a few other companies do accept crypto and they are not trying to meme about it.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#486

Post by nobody9999 »

parineum wrote: post #308
tiffanyh wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For non-high profile investigations (investigations that were not in the media before charges), announcing charges typically has a large body of evidence and a lot of confidence in the accusation. Of course innocent until proven guilty applies but the justice department knows that and still brought charges. At the very least, they believe they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt. High profile cases with pub…

>Of course innocent until proven guilty applies but the justice department knows that and still brought charges. At the very least, they believe they've proven beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt.

It's a bit of a nitpick, but the Justice Department (DoJ) hasn't proven anything.

The defendants in question have been charged (and arrested?), but no trial (or plea bargain) has been held. As such, presumably the DoJ has what they believe is sufficient evidence to convict the defendants on the charges brought against them.

However, until a trial (or a plea agreement) is concluded, the DoJ hasn't "proven" anything. Rather, they brought charges against some folks. That's not "proven beyond a reasonable doubt," that's making accusations and bringing the case into the court system.

What the DoJ believes (and/or believes it can prove) is not proof in and of itself.

Re: Feds arrest couple, seize $3.6B in hacked Bitcoin funds

#487

Post by make_it_sure »

boc wrote: post #368
throw8383833jj wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. this is quite bullish for bitcoin. they're showing that bitcoin can't be used for criminal activity, whatever the government decides that should be (usually in favor of the general public). this helps to legitimize bitcoin. Protecting consumers of bitcoin is bullish for bitcoin. helping to prevent fraud in bitcoin is also bullish for bitcoin. All these things increase confidence in bitcoin as a legitimate way of…

It sounds like all the good things for bitcoin here are coming from the power of the central authority to provide confidence, legitimacy, protection, and legal recourse. So why on earth is that a good thing for an asset which is all about the power of decentralized systems?

You nailed it!
Post reply on HN