Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer • Hacker News Board

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#391

Post by res0nat0r » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:38 AM UTC

rfugger wrote: post #166

res0nat0r wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for me right now bitcoin has zero value. Until I can use the millions in coins to pay off my house, buy a car easily, pay my taxes and go out to eat with them, or hassle free convert them to cash in my bank, it is still funny money.

You could say the same for gold, stocks, or bonds. But at least Bitcoin has the ability to be cheaply, easily, and quickly transferred to anyone else in the world, meaning it has the potential to be useful for paying for your house, car, taxes, food, and be easily converted anywhere, once enough people are using it.

I can relatively easily convert large amounts of gold, stocks or bonds to cash currently unlike bitcoin. Also I don't care about potential use in the near future (20 years? 2 months?).

Unless you provide me a way to realize bitcoin to actual USD in non trivial amounts with the same amount of effort it would take to convert my stocks or bonds, it is as useful a currency for real life as is my current GTA V Online bank account.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#392

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:38 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #146

dragontamer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Pseudonymous is not the same as "anonymous". Lets say the IRS are watching this (and why wouldn't they be?). They now know a multi-million dollar transfer has happened, and are beginning to track it down.

There's no evidence this was an American or in US jurisdiction. Is every country's tax agency going to launch an investigation?

I wouldn't be surprised if multiple investigations were launched. The downside is that they lose a few thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars in employee time. The upside is that they potentially collect millions in taxes.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#393

Post by downandout » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:44 AM UTC

My guess: Bail money for DPR.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#394

Post by reillyse » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

foobarian wrote: post #356

foobarqux wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It is much easier to lose or make illegible a piece of paper or data than it is to lose large heavy gold or to damage the gold to a degree that severely reduces its value.

Actually, you could--you could irradiate the gold to the point where decontamination would cost on the order of the worth of the gold itself.

upvote for mentioning the evil scheming of a Bond villain in a serious conversation as a serious answer :)

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#395

Post by downandout » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 4:59 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #162

If this was an actual transfer of ownership of Bitcoin at all near that value, this would trigger money-transfer reporting requirements under the laws of most countries,[1] especially if this was an international transfer of ownership. I see that all the other comments here are speculating about what exactly happened here, and one astute comment before this one pointed out that the actual owner of the Bitcoin may sti…

If this were a transfer of ownership, it would trigger the reporting requirements of any country that has reporting laws. The odds are overwhelming that it is not a transfer of ownership, but if it is, here are some guesses:

1) The feds have finally cracked wallet(s) used by Silk Road, or he managed to give his keys to someone (he had a bail hearing today - it's an odd coincidence);

2) Drug cartels are now accepting BTC for major payments; or

3) Macau-based junket operators, that provide casino credit to Chinese gamblers because they cannot easily move money out of China, have begun accepting it for payment.

Personally, I think it was just one of the exchanges moving some money internally.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#396

Post by valleyer » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:17 AM UTC

mehwoot wrote: post #324

vinceguidry wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating liquidity with value. The same is true of any foreign currency. I could send $150 million in Russian rubles to my sister, and she wouldn't be able to do jack with it until she finds someone willing to give her dollars for it. With the amount of money involved, getting it all converted at once would be extremely difficult. That doesn't mean that what's transferred doesn't have real value. Just that t…

The same is true of any foreign currency. I could send $150 million in Russian rubles to my sister, and she wouldn't be able to do jack with it until she finds someone willing to give her dollars for it. With the amount of money involved, getting it all converted at once would be extremely difficult. That's exactly the point. If you had $150 million in rubles, you could transfer it for only a nominal fee ($20 for my…

> If you had $150 million in rubles, you could transfer it for only a nominal fee ($20 for my bank, although you can get a lot cheaper if you regularly did transfers like that) to any account in the world that could hold rubles.

I have no counterproof, but I find this hard to believe.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#397

Post by hrjet » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:24 AM UTC

dguaraglia wrote: post #232

jganetsk wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utterly incorrect. They did not transfer a single dollar. For them to turn those Bitcoins into dollars, they will have to pay more than $0.00. Possibly A LOT more. They may not even be able to turn those bitcoins into dollars for a while, and in all likelihood it will not be $150 million dollars.

This is the correct answer. People rave about how "cheap" it is to transfer bitcoin. What about actually buying anything with that 'money'? Sure, you might be able to buy some crap on the internet with bitcoin, but it won't put food in your table anytime soon without you having to pay a good % in fees to convert it to real currency.

How about a Virgin Galactic space flight, which can be bought on the internet with bitcoins?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101220710

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#398

Post by reznite » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:26 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #143

Whoever owns this wallet used it to gamble on https://letsdice.com/ https://blockchain.info/tx/a80f91549f863ccb58603e45a37980e30...

Not necessarily. Anyone with a bitcoin client can sign whatever message they want into the transaction. Just like you can write in anything you want on the memo of a check. It's the same.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#399

Post by trentmb » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:41 AM UTC

hrjet wrote: post #397

dguaraglia wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the correct answer. People rave about how "cheap" it is to transfer bitcoin. What about actually buying anything with that 'money'? Sure, you might be able to buy some crap on the internet with bitcoin, but it won't put food in your table anytime soon without you having to pay a good % in fees to convert it to real currency.

How about a Virgin Galactic space flight, which can be bought on the internet with bitcoins? http://www.cnbc.com/id/101220710

How about you provide a scenario an average person can use? Like, say, County Market accepting bitcoin?

I can't afford a sub-orbital tour in USD, let alone bitcoin. Is there any leading supermarket that accepts bitcoin? Literally allowing me to use bitcoin to put food on the table?

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#400

Post by aagha » Sat, Nov 23, 2013, 5:45 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #384

andrewflnr wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I see where you're going by mentioning reporting requirements. Isn't the point of Bitcoin that those kind of laws are unenforceable?

It might be harder for authorities to monitor bitcoin transactions. But, as the very fact that this HN article exists illustrates, the blockchain is a public record that's available for anyone to monitor, analyze, cross-reference with other sources of data, etc. Particularly for large movements like this, I'm inclined to say that it would be downright foolhardy to assume that BTC transactions are anonymous.

It might be foolhardy to assume that BTC transactions are anonymous, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXTREMELY difficult to figure out who was involved.