Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#151

Post by Crito » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 7:46 PM UTC

oijaf888 wrote: post #112

kordless wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't disclose if you are under a gag order. If Mark was running a fractional reserve because the coins were seized, and they got hit with the transaction mailability issue, that could set the stage for what we're seeing today. I agree Occam's Razor applies here. That said, we still don't know a lot about what happened.

Would a gag order from a US court apply to a Frenchman in Japan?

In theory, or in reality? There could be explicit, implied, or even naively assumed 'underhanded compliance encouragement' going on.

I wouldn't put my money on explicit, but if it was, it wouldn't be the first time.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#152

Post by azinman2 » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

the_watcher wrote: post #60

chevreuil wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit new to bitcoins, but is it technically possible for the bitcoins community as a whole to make a blacklist of bitcoins addresses and "ban" the stolen bitcoins ? Such blacklist would daunt robbers and enforce public trust in bitcoins.

Well, the supply of BTC is finite, so simply excluding stolen BTC's has some additional problems. May be better than not addressing it, but while BTC provides a mechanism for following them through the transaction chain, it's not that simple to ID what addresses contain "stolen" BTC. What if the thieves are able to launder them through unwitting proxies? For example, steal a bunch of BTC, sell them on another exchang…

Are coins able to be differentiated from a wallet?

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#153

Post by ozi » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 7:56 PM UTC

saraid216 wrote: post #149

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Reddit and 4Chan can't haul you off to prison nor freeze your bank accounts.

I think I'd rather be hauled off to prison than be the target of such ire.

Lol.. you've clearly never been to jail, much less prison.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#154

Post by oskarth » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

Here's what I would do if I stole 750k Bitcoins.

1. Split the wallet up into as many wallets as possible. Preferably by transferring them through a couple hundred compromised (but not emptied) accounts.

2. Sell each individual wallet of say, 100-1000 BTC, on the black market. Make sure the transaction happens outside the transaction chain (i.e. either in real life or using other wallets with some kind of alternative trust system).

3. Be prepared to lose 5-20% of the value, in exchange for turning the money "white".

If the money was stolen and the people who took it aren't stupid, I don't see how someone is ever going to find it.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#155

Post by Atroxide » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

JTon wrote: post #139

erichurkman wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have written a check that runs periodically to check that the sum of all wallets equals their total BTC according to their ledgers. You have to write that process anyway, it shouldn't matter too much if it has to examine 100 wallets or 10,000 wallets.

I wouldn't want to be the guy tracing and debugging that process. Not saying it can't be done, but the extra complexity might do more harm than good

I am pretty sure the extra complexity would still outweigh the benefit of losing 500k bc at one time.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#156

Post by bdevine » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:17 PM UTC

oskarth wrote: post #154

Here's what I would do if I stole 750k Bitcoins. 1. Split the wallet up into as many wallets as possible. Preferably by transferring them through a couple hundred compromised (but not emptied) accounts. 2. Sell each individual wallet of say, 100-1000 BTC, on the black market. Make sure the transaction happens outside the transaction chain (i.e. either in real life or using other wallets with some kind of alternative…

Of course, the more wallets you create and sell, the higher the probability that at least one of their buyers is stupid.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#157

Post by Bootvis » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:21 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #115

Bootvis wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if I steal a Bitcoin and exchange it directly to USD. If the coin is banned later my counterparty, who acted in good faith, is left with an empty bag.

In that case, it's like any other stolen good. If you accept stolen property, you don't hold title to it, whether or not your intentions were honest.

I think that would depend on jurisdiction but I don't think reclaiming would be workable in this scenario.

Imagine this: I exploit malleability and deposit directly in my BTC-e account, exchange to LTC etc, etc on dozens of exchange and finally to USD. I cash out to cash and disappear. I of course gave my final stop false information. So now my last victim gets a claim, if this last victim happens to be an exchange and it is forced to pay up and the amount is somewhat significant that exchange is now insolvent. Whose problem is that? The exchange declares bankruptcy and their customers get a haircut.

This won't happen, it does more harm than good.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#158

Post by pbreit » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:22 PM UTC

chevreuil wrote: post #48

deweller wrote: post #28

In November of 2011 Mt. Gox demonstrated control of 500k BTC. I followed the 500,000 BTC for a bit beginning at https://blockchain.info/tx/b269bf1b82dae8a61f7f91dbf7a9d807e... . The coins move around and small amounts are sent away, but the majority ends up back in Mt. Gox's main (hot) wallet. This repeats a few times until the majority is paid back to the main Mt.Gox address. Here is the transaction where it starts…

I'm a bit new to bitcoins, but is it technically possible for the bitcoins community as a whole to make a blacklist of bitcoins addresses and "ban" the stolen bitcoins ? Such blacklist would daunt robbers and enforce public trust in bitcoins.

Making arbitrary decisions to ban bitcoins seems fundamentally antithetical to the whole exercise.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#159

Post by junto » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

Whilst the numbers quoted in US dollar terms are quite staggering, I would be interested to know what the actual losses are based on the initial investment dollar amount.

I'm guessing many of these coins were mined or bought before the astronomical price rises.

Of course I understand that that is irrelevant to people who have perceived millions of USD, but interesting nevertheless.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the 750k Bitcoins lost by Mt. Gox?

#160

Post by danudey » Fri, Feb 28, 2014, 8:52 PM UTC

sbierwagen wrote: post #127

mars wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's common practice to anonymize bitcoins. google 'bitcoin tumbling service'.

Tumbling only works if you're a small fraction of the total. If you put $300 million into a tumbler that only has $1 million of other volume, then it's pretty easy to track you.

Sure, but you don't tumble it all at once. Other commenters showed that these BTC were split up into ~1000 BTC chunks. Each of those could send randomly to different tumblers and anonymize all of their activities to send to a new set of addresses which people aren't tracking, and then from there gradually pull it out of various exchanges to various banks and accounts.