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

$477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 243 posts

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#121

Post by [deleted] »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #70
throwaway9980 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns. Guns are how. Guns are how governments achieve their objectives. There is no crypto scheme, no algorithm, no possible arrangement of private keys and Merkle trees that can escape the reality of men with guns.

> There is no crypto scheme, no algorithm, no possible arrangement of private keys and Merkle trees that can escape the reality of men with guns. On the contrary. It's the only case where maths can defend vs men with guns. Multi sig schemes spread over different people over several continents make the "men with guns" thing very difficult. Or multisig but m-out-of-n, with a dead beat: if after x weeks you don't hear o…

[deleted]

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#122

Post by arcticbull »

thrown_22 wrote: post #39
ceejayoz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're suggesting that SBF is in their jurisdiction, which gives them substantial "do what we say, or else" power.

We could call that problem something fancy like the Byzantine General Problem and try and figure out ways to solve it mathematically.

It's the $5 wrench problem and unless you find a way to land adamantium bones, I suspect math won't help.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#123

Post by pdntspa »

mccorrinall wrote: post #67
saagarjha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think a state’s monopoly on violence is relevant when they’re beating you to steal cryptocurrency from you? Anyone off the street can do the same.

If someone from the street does this there is a force called police which will help you. When the government does this, there is no one who will help you.

Oh man, not in the rich, sunny SoCal city that I live in. Those princesses are still sore about that time we burned down one of their police stations in the BLM protests a few years ago.

Like they refused to show up for a man stalking his ex and trying to break in, during daylight and in full view of everyone in the complex, and they continued to not show until after he murdered her.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#124

Post by thrown_22 »

arcticbull wrote: post #122
thrown_22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could call that problem something fancy like the Byzantine General Problem and try and figure out ways to solve it mathematically.

It's the $5 wrench problem and unless you find a way to land adamantium bones, I suspect math won't help.

>Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts.

It's a solved problem, and has been since the first bitcoin paper. That no one read that and just heard "magic internet gold I can get rich from" is their problem and not mine.

You don't get rich quick off the bitcoin protocol however so we have people run places like FTX: centralize and get the big bucks because they provide convenience. Then act surprised when it goes tits up like every other centralized system.

Same thing with people not encrypting their emails or not using tor as a bridge to the internet. In short: if you're the type of person who doesn't have their own key, yeah, prepare to get wrenched. The rest of us can manage our exposure quite easily.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#125

Post by bboygravity »

binarynate wrote: post #80

Any thoughts on why SBF lied to the Vox reporter about it being a hack? https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-frie... Maybe he just didn't want to have to explain some breaking news to her.

Because he sent millions to Vox. That's why.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#126

Post by arcticbull »

thrown_22 wrote: post #124
arcticbull wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the $5 wrench problem and unless you find a way to land adamantium bones, I suspect math won't help.

>Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts. It's a solved problem, and has been since the first bitcoin paper. That no one read that and just heard "magic internet gold I can get rich from" is their problem and not mine. You don't get rich quick off the bitcoin protocol however so we have people run places like FTX: centralize and get the big bucks because they provide convenience. Then act surprised when it go…

> > Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts.

I never said that, all I said was that this is not the BGP problem, it's the $5 wrench problem.

And it's not a solved problem, governments seize crypto all the time and people get tortured for their keys regularly. Just a few days ago the US picked up 50,000BTC.

All of crypto is a get rich quick scheme, but people want their winnings denominated in fiat which is why exchanges exist. It's hard to reconcile "best performing asset in history!!" with "you can't get rich off bitcoin."

> In short: if you're the type of person who doesn't have their own key, yeah, prepare to get wrenched. The rest of us can manage our exposure quite easily.

You have this completely reversed. If you're the type of person who does have their own keys prepare to get wrenched.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#127

Post by uluyol »

throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #51
ohbtvz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Armed government agents show up to your door asking you for half a billion dollars. You tell them "can't do it, I need this other key that's held by my partner in a different place". What do you think is going to happen next? "Understandable, have a good day" and they go home? Or they hold you in jail until you somehow find a way to comply?

but that's the very purpose of such schemes, to render you unable to comply. if such an event happens in a more or less civilized country, you might eventually get some third party to confirm that you're unable to disclose the key

"Call your friend and convince them to hand over their key if you want out"

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#128

Post by kfarr »

zeven7 wrote: post #61
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #2

interesting, since FTX was headquartered in the bahamas this seems lawful and not unreasonable. though some will argue the government doesn't have the right to do that, I think you sacrifice your protection when you commit fraud. how quickly should the bahamas have announced about the asset seizure? is it common in other countries to not comment about (seizures in) ongoing investigations?

Another interesting angle to this is that the funds were collected in various different currencies, but all of them were converted into ETH. And they weren't converted carefully to make sure they got the full value, no attempt at OTC deals or anything; they were converted in a rush and dumped on the open market. This resulted in pretty clear loss of funds. It seems like a strange way for a government to operate. That…

There are over 100 FTX entities, part of the confusion around jurisdiction is -- which FTX?

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#129

Post by HWR_14 »

yanderekko wrote: post #56
sanxiyn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bahamian government is seizing assets "to protect the interests of clients or customers".

That's just dodging the key question. Obviously the government has some rationale other than that they're taking it because they can. The problem is that they're still taking money that's owned by someone else, even if it's controlled by SBF. I'm sure there are strong international norms if not laws against a sovereign power directing a foreign financial actor to repay some sort of debt by pilfering client deposits,…

I don't think the idea is that the Bahamas will keep the crypto. It took it because it's a safe holder of it. It can get it back at some rate once the lawsuits go through.

Certainly, I would feel more confident getting my money back from a reasonable government than SBF.

Re: $477M FTX ‘hack’ was a Bahamian government asset seizure

#130

Post by thrown_22 »

arcticbull wrote: post #126
thrown_22 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts. It's a solved problem, and has been since the first bitcoin paper. That no one read that and just heard "magic internet gold I can get rich from" is their problem and not mine. You don't get rich quick off the bitcoin protocol however so we have people run places like FTX: centralize and get the big bucks because they provide convenience. Then act surprised when it go…

> > Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts. I never said that, all I said was that this is not the BGP problem, it's the $5 wrench problem. And it's not a solved problem, governments seize crypto all the time and people get tortured for their keys regularly. Just a few days ago the US picked up 50,000BTC. All of crypto is a get rich quick scheme, but people want their winnings denominated in fiat which is wh…

>Every criminal we have caught was stupid, ergo all criminals are stupid.

Sure thing bud.

Post reply on HN