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

The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 243 posts

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#81

Post by from »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #78
from wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back to Bitcoin is unnecessary but possible. You go from Monero to cash, wire transfer, or gift cards through a variety of unlicensed conversion services that advertise themselves all over the Internet.

> but possible. You go from Monero to cash, wire transfer, or gift cards through a variety of unlicensed conversion services that advertise themselves all over the Internet. Those are probably run by the FBI. It seems like a no brained for the government to try to run such services given the wealth of information they would provide.

Having unexplained assets is not a crime and won't be at least in the US because of the constitution, worst case they could be subject to civil forfeiture. Assuming you did everything else right (full disk encryption, Tor on public wifi/LTE router that you alternate routinely, not using Google, etc) the anonymity of Monero means the government would have a very difficult time tying whatever you bought with the Monero to your actual criminal activity. Of course if you are involved in meatspace crime like drugs then maybe if you use these services they put you under surveillance and eventually find you with drugs in the trunk of your car.

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#82

Post by wesapien »

jancsika wrote: post #38
phyzome wrote: post #19

Say it with me: "Bitcoin is not, and never was, anonymous."

So what? It's still decentralized and waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes secure.

Can you be specific on what are you alluding to?

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#83

Post by acdha »

caminante wrote: post #62
dragonwriter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you supposed to turn fraudulently obtained btc into dollars without doing that? That’s the neat thing… You don’t.

But AFAIK, you can launder cryptos, right? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler#

You can, but this is the kind of thing which is very easy to get wrong in ways which are significant legal risks on their own.

For example, if you were some random cryptobro buying personal quantities of drugs in 2015 there’s some risk but the FBI probably isn’t going to spend time on something that small. If you do anything which reveals funds going to or from a tumbler, however, the risk isn’t just KYC but also questions like who else used that tumbler - if you were participating at the same time the North Koreans or a big ransomware ring were laundering something, that traffic might be a lot more likely to get analyzed and in the worst case scenario some agents show up trying to get you to convince them that you were unwitting small fry and not hiding more. Lying to them is a federal crime, too, so even if you nothing other than tumble coins for ideological reasons you’d want to be very careful about what you say – and think about how hard it could be to prove you didn’t know the other parties in a transaction.

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#84

Post by antibasilisk »

caminante wrote: post #57
antibasilisk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to contend with a terrible conversion rate.

"terrible"? We're talking about 1e9 orders of magnitude, here. I'll take that fraction.

I've never seen a conversion rate that good on BTC-cash

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#85

Post by marksmith2996 »

funstuff007 wrote: post #66
noduerme wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you trade in and out for cash, in person with a counterparty, from a self-hosted wallet that you never use to send or receive from any other wallet that's connected to an exchange... then yes. The use case for this is mainly moving money over borders.

except that person(s) you gave and received the cash from know who you are.

only if they're still alive

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#86

Post by rvba »

from wrote: post #73
ucha wrote: post #32

The statute of limitation for wire fraud is 5 years. How did he get charged under that statute when he stole funds from Silk Road in 2012? Did they charge him for converting BCH into BTC in 2017? I tried to look up the case but couldn't find anything that shed a light on that.

Plea hearing is fun reading: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.58... > So, Mr. Zhong, the statute of limitations for the crime you're charged with in the information is five years. Accordingly, you could argue that the time to prosecute you for this crime has passed, and that the crime is now time barred; you can no longer be prosecuted. Have you discussed this with Mr. Bachner? > THE DEFENDAN…

> THE COURT: All right. I find that Mr. Zhong has knowingly and voluntarily waived both venue as well as any argument here that the crime charged in the information is time barred.

How does this even work?

So can the defendant "knowingly and voluntarily" give up their right to defend via Constitution?

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#87

Post by paulpauper »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #16
paulpauper wrote: post #4

Zhong was caught because he made basic operational security errors, like address reuse (which is how he was caught by linking fraud wallet to exchange wallet) , static IP, using a KYC exchange in 2017 to convert BCH into BTC, etc. Not because Bitcoin was cracked. After being caught, Zhong voluntarily relinquished his passwords to encrypted wallets and other bitcoin, not that the crypto was cracked. I wonder how the f…

> he was caught by linking fraud wallet to exchange wallet How are you supposed to turn fraudulently obtained btc into dollars without doing that?

by simply using a third wallet that does not link the two? HIs mistake was a rookie move that could have been avoided but he got lazy. Lazy criminals make law enforcement's job easier.

https://twitter.com/Rarest2012/status/1646211056782524442

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#88

Post by ETH_start »

from wrote: post #59
user3939382 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something something tornado cash?

It's a felony to use Tornado Cash now. And the government interprets sanctions law extraterritorially so you're not safe in other countries either.

The sanctions are being challenged in court. A federal agency prohibiting use of what is nothing but software is totally unconstitutional, and amounts to a total abrogation of internet freedom, done without any public process like legislation.

It also amounts to a general criminalization of financial privacy.

So hopefully the legal challenge succeeds.

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#89

Post by dsr_ »

from wrote: post #81
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but possible. You go from Monero to cash, wire transfer, or gift cards through a variety of unlicensed conversion services that advertise themselves all over the Internet. Those are probably run by the FBI. It seems like a no brained for the government to try to run such services given the wealth of information they would provide.

Having unexplained assets is not a crime and won't be at least in the US because of the constitution, worst case they could be subject to civil forfeiture. Assuming you did everything else right (full disk encryption, Tor on public wifi/LTE router that you alternate routinely, not using Google, etc) the anonymity of Monero means the government would have a very difficult time tying whatever you bought with the Monero…

Parallel construction: if you do enough crime-adjacent things, the likelihood that you are also engaged in crime makes you interesting to law enforcement.

Re: The U.S. cracked a $3.4B crypto heist and Bitcoin’s anonymity

#90

Post by dsr_ »

wesapien wrote: post #82
jancsika wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? It's still decentralized and waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes waits ten minutes secure.

Can you be specific on what are you alluding to?

I took it to be a reference to slow transaction rates.
Post reply on HN