The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees • Hacker News Board

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#101

Post by vageli » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

chinesempire wrote: post #64

minikites wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can also be anonymous if I never speak or leave my house, but that's not really how it works, is it?

No, you can't. Your house has to be registered to someone and you have to declare who lives in it, if it's yours. Anonymity is not about being a private person.

> Your house has to be registered to someone and you have to declare who lives in it, if it's yours.

I don't think this is true in every jurisdiction. You can certainly have a property registered under a corporate entity, and there are jurisdictions in the US that allow for anonymous corporate ownership. Further, I'm not aware of any requirement where you must declare who is residing in a property. I've had family members from abroad reside in my house for over a year without informing any authorities, for example.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#102

Post by erfgh » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

alexpotato wrote: post #96

cletus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. The traditional financial system is far more suitable to people’s needs than Bitcoin is.

Libertarians would argue that this is where insurance comes in. Insurance in this example has two functions: 1. Protecting you from losses 2. Applying standards to Bitcoin exchanges etc to help prevent losses. A good example of this is fire insurance. An insurance company will require a potential customer to have fire alarms, use specific materials etc before they decide to cover that company's building.

Insurance on BTC... I wonder how much would that cost... It would dwarf any transfer fees for sure.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#103

Post by alexpotato » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

ShorsHammer wrote: post #73

jpkoning wrote: post #16

If we both join the bitcoin network, we can exchange $1B for $0.48. If we both join set up accounts at a regular bank like RBC, we can exchange $1B for free. The point I'm making is that fees are not bitcoin's strong point. Any financial network can undercut it. What is unique about bitcoin is that not everyone can get an account at RBC, but anyone can join the more expensive bitcoin network.

Find it incredibly hard to believe they will allow an intra-bank transfer of $1B for free, even just going to another Canadian bank all bets are off and they certainly would want something in return. Do have any proof of this claim or is it extrapolated from the fees for sending $200 to another RBC account?

If I owned bank B and someone was going to send me $1B from bank A, I would pay the fees that bank A was charging the customer.

Source: I've worked in banking and seen this even on the personal level (not at the $1B level of course).

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#104

Post by ravingraven » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

hocuspocus wrote: post #79

ravingraven wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Not charging differently does not mean it is free (which was the original argument). B) The "target" bank can still charge you independently of your bank. E.g. (and I do this kind of transfer very very often so I am 100% sure it is so and I am also 100% sure this is legal): A transfer from Germany to Germany is free. A transfer from Germany to Greece is not as the Greek bank charges a fee.

So the receiving bank applies a fee, but the fact it's in Greece has nothing to do with anything. Don't do business with crappy banks. Plenty of people regularly do cross-border SEPA transfers for free. I do, and I'm not even in the EU/Eurozone.

All banks in Greece charge a fee. The fact that plenty of people do SEPA transfers for free means nothing for the other people (e.g. the whole population of Greece) that can not do SEPA transfers for free.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#105

Post by erfgh » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #71

cletus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. The traditional financial system is far more suitable to people’s needs than Bitcoin is.

>Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. You're not always able to do that with the traditional banking system. Scammers were able to steal millions from corporations using wire transfers, and they weren't able to reverse them.

But at least there is hope.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#106

Post by as300 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #72

ipython wrote: post #39

Unpopular opinion: why do we care so much about making it cheaper for rich people to move money around? Do we think somehow that will “trickle down” to us mere mortals and put western union and their ilk out of business?

Even more unpopular opinion: humans should be as free as capital. Making capital transfers easy while restricting the movement of real people ghettoizes and traps people for corporate convenience and cost savings.

Calling nationalities and cultures that arise from a group of people being forced to live together a "ghettoization" is a bit of a stretch

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#107

Post by ShorsHammer » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #82

ShorsHammer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a 1 in 4 billion chance of fat fingering it. https://learnmeabitcoin.com/guide/checksum The thing to be really aware about is insidious malware that detects valid bitcoin addresses being copied and modifies them in place, sometimes even to the point of including the same first/last alphanumerics to a certain degree. You'd hopefully be using a bootable linux distro and multisig for transferring such amounts.

Doesn't stop you from making a UI error and entering the wrong value in the wrong box.

I'd suggest double checking it in such instances and not doing it drunk at 2am like a wall street trader.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#108

Post by gruez » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #90

gruez wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nor can you reverse a transaction when someone steals your Bitcoins. You're not always able to do that with the traditional banking system. Scammers were able to steal millions from corporations using wire transfers, and they weren't able to reverse them.

Some is still better than none, no?

But reversibility is provided by the intermediary, and isn't a property of the currency itself. For instance, if you're dealing in cash, there's zero reversibility. Likewise, I don't see the difference between a bank reversing a transaction for you, and the marketplace platform reversing the transaction for you.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#109

Post by ravingraven » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #84

ravingraven wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transfer 10 Euro to Greece and let me know how much of it will actually get there.

From a Euro bank account all 10 euro should arrive.

They do not, around 7 Euro will arrive (depending on your bank, but all Greek banks charge a fee). I am a Greek expat in Germany, I do those kinds of transactions very often.

Re: The largest unknown Bitcoin wallet moved nearly $1B for $0.48 in fees

#110

Post by as300 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

hlasdjlfhalwjk wrote: post #26

Ansil849 wrote: post #12

For all of the talk about how Bitcoin is not truly anonymous, this wallet demonstrates otherwise, with the apparent 'anonymity proviso' being that you don't do too much with it, and just let the coins sit.

Bitcoin is pseudonymous. Every member can be uniquely identified but if you are careful not to link your pseudonym (e.g. wallet address) to any personally identifiable information, nobody else can. But this is really hard when it is about money since in general you'd want to spend that money an that's where the link appears. As long as you don't spend the money, there is no information to link.

There are ways around this problem. See: https://local bitcoins.com

Doesn't completely de-anonymize you but it does reduce the set of people who have uniquely identifiable information to 1