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Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

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Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#31

Post by fragsworth »

shock-value wrote: post #18
josephagoss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop with the privacy scaremongering. A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising services that will largely stop this type of tracking. (coinjoin/zerocoin) A lot of us are investing with the expectation true anonymous transactions eventually happen, because when they do Bitcoin will become even more valuable.

cheez is hardly scaremongering. As it stands truly anonymous and private transactions on Bitcoin are apparently impossible. (I'm not a Bitcoin user so feel free to correct me.) I would say that you are the one who is doing whatever the opposite of scaremongering would be called (hope-mongering?).

> As it stands truly anonymous and private transactions on Bitcoin are apparently impossible.

Not true. There are many, many schemes that can be built into the protocol or on top of it to make transactions anonymous. Rather than hastily choosing one, it's probably better to wait for a really good scheme to surface.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=241.0

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#32

Post by nawitus »

sidko wrote: post #10
chubot wrote: post #6

I haven't been following closely, but could it have been the FBI transferring Silk Road funds to their own address? Given the timing that seems to make sense.

They've always tagged the seized coins either with 'Silkroad seized coins' or 'DPR seized coins' in the past. e.g. https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5G...

Who did the tagging?

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#33

Post by algorias »

gnaritas wrote: post #16
josephagoss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop with the privacy scaremongering. A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising services that will largely stop this type of tracking. (coinjoin/zerocoin) A lot of us are investing with the expectation true anonymous transactions eventually happen, because when they do Bitcoin will become even more valuable.

> A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising Call it what it is, money laundering.

It may be, depending on your definition, but the term "money laundering" has a distinctly criminal connotation. Bitcoin mixing is more analogous to paying for something with cash withdrawn from a bank account rather than making a bank transfer directly.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#34

Post by phaer »

rheide wrote: post #14

I wonder if it ever becomes viable to try to brute-force the private key of such a valuable address, rather than devoting the brute force power to mining. Edit: got curious and found an answer: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2847/how-long-wou... If I understand correctly, it's still not viable even if you tried your brute-forced keys on all addresses in the network.

It might become the lottery of the 21th century. ;)

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#35

Post by maxerickson »

logicallee wrote: post #27
cheez wrote: post #2

This is why I can't take Bitcoin seriously. The privacy implications are insane.

And this is why I can take Bitcoin seriously. Can you imagine if it were really completely anonymous, and someone could be spending a hundred million dollars on, say, a nuclear bomb, without any record, association, or so much as someonel leaving the house and delivering a suitcase full of cash? Imagine if Russia become a failed state or bribeable - you really want to be able to pay off a hundred million dollars to s…

Your examples are more implausible than they are logical.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#36

Post by nwh »

rheide wrote: post #14

I wonder if it ever becomes viable to try to brute-force the private key of such a valuable address, rather than devoting the brute force power to mining. Edit: got curious and found an answer: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/2847/how-long-wou... If I understand correctly, it's still not viable even if you tried your brute-forced keys on all addresses in the network.

That's the entire point of asymmetric crypto, the amount of effort you would need to brute force 2^160 keys is staggering. Even if you made billions of ASIC processors and ran them until the end of time, you probably wouldn't find the funds you were looking for.

This is constantly suggested, and it's always useless. If you could attack keys like this the system would be broken.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#37

Post by nwh »

nawitus wrote: post #32
sidko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've always tagged the seized coins either with 'Silkroad seized coins' or 'DPR seized coins' in the past. e.g. https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5G...

Who did the tagging?

Users of blockchain.info. It's a little obvious, the amounts they transferred are "FBI" when typed on a phone keyboard.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#38

Post by nwh »

ams6110 wrote: post #26
cpach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much easier to crack the box holding the key.

Which is why the key hopefully isn't stored on any system that is remotely accessible.

Given it got broken up into 4000BTC chunks after the box TX, we can assume they are on paper wallets, probably distributed up using secret sharing. That's standard in the Bitcoin world.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#39

Post by fexl »

gnaritas wrote: post #16
josephagoss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop with the privacy scaremongering. A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising services that will largely stop this type of tracking. (coinjoin/zerocoin) A lot of us are investing with the expectation true anonymous transactions eventually happen, because when they do Bitcoin will become even more valuable.

> A lot of work is currently going into trustless mixing/anonymising Call it what it is, money laundering.

The term "money laundering" originally referred to the practice of concealing the movement of funds involved in a crime. Now they've redefined it so that concealing the movement of funds is itself a crime, even if the funds are entirely legitimate and no other crime is involved.

Re: Here’s who probably did that $150 million Bitcoin transaction

#40

Post by qixxiq »

ams6110 wrote: post #26
cpach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much easier to crack the box holding the key.

Which is why the key hopefully isn't stored on any system that is remotely accessible.

I'm not sure people are aware/scared enough of possible physical access. People have been kidnapped / banks robbed / etc for far less than $150MM.
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