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U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

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Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#181

Post by klodolph »

alasdair_ wrote: post #176
klodolph wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can "ask" you for your Bitcoin, but the question is phrased, "Would you rather give us your Bitcoin now, or would you rather spend some time in jail first and give us the Bitcoin later?" It generally requires a court order to get money out of your bank. If it's a Bitcoin wallet, then they can just send the court order to you directly, and put you in jail until you comply (i.e. as many years as it takes). The dif…

>"Would you rather give us your Bitcoin now, or would you rather spend some time in jail first and give us the Bitcoin later?" A billion dollars is an enormous amount of money. The kind of money that could covertly pay an entire prison worth of guards to look the other way for an escape attempt. Of course, you end up on the run for the rest of your life, which doesn't sound especially fun.

You can fantasize about this James Bond stuff all you like, but one schmuck with a Bitcoin wallet probably is not going to pull it off. Bribing people isn’t so easy and reliable that you can wave a fat stack of cash in someone’s face and expect them to take it. People have lives and their careers tied up in their jobs and know that accepting a bribe isn’t a sure thing.

It depends on where you live, sure. But in the US, there’s a fair bit of resistance to bribery.

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#182

Post by gmadsen »

mdoms wrote: post #166
gruez wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of bitcoin is that you can drive across the country "carrying" $1B worth of assets, and if you get pulled over by the cops it won't be found. Try doing that with gold bars or stacks of cash.

Isn't it funny how "the point of bitcoin" seems to change as it proves to be unsuitable for each of the increasingly narrow niches it fills.

if the world doesn't agree on monetary policy, then it seems beneficial to be able to circumvent that

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#183

Post by duxup »

mrits wrote: post #138
duxup wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is $1B in bitcoins enough to manipulate the price more than say ... just $1B in cash, something the government could somewhat easily just have if it wanted to do so? I feel like if they wanted to, they'd already be playing that game. It's not out of the realm of possibility this would give an actor more of an opportunity to do so, but it hardly seems required if the motivation was already there. I think it would alre…

I would think they'd have access to plenty of legit and illegitimate wallets as well. So many people are thinking they are doing anonymous transactions while governments have wallets associated with our facebook profile.

Yeah it seems kinda weird they'd try it with what is a kinda well known wallet... something folks are watching.

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#184

Post by travmatt »

klodolph wrote: post #164
anonAndOn wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the first paragraph you'll see it spelled out: > a federal judge held him in contempt

And if you read a bit farther, you find the reason why it was limited to 18 months: > After losing that appeal, Rawls raised another challenge: the federal statute that allows judges to hold witnesses in contempt for refusing to testify, passed in 1970, states that "in no event shall such confinement exceed eighteen months." This limit does not apply if you are not a witness.

Even if it did, the way we’d find out is a defendant suing the government for their release, and for that case to appeal its way up through the circuits, possibly to the Supreme Court. That appeal process would take years and would probably lose at most of the stages. During this entire time the defendant would be imprisoned.

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#185

Post by shiftpgdn »

klodolph wrote: post #133
ramenmeal wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer, I know very little about bitcoin. If you owe the IRS tax money, they can take the money from your bank account without asking. They just do it. Can the same be done with bitcoin? As far as I know, they aren't able to. If that's the case, there's a difference.

They can "ask" you for your Bitcoin, but the question is phrased, "Would you rather give us your Bitcoin now, or would you rather spend some time in jail first and give us the Bitcoin later?" It generally requires a court order to get money out of your bank. If it's a Bitcoin wallet, then they can just send the court order to you directly, and put you in jail until you comply (i.e. as many years as it takes). The dif…

I thought there was a constitutional ruling that you can not be compelled to remember passwords. Couldn't you just say "I forgot the key?"

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#186

Post by doggosphere »

klodolph wrote: post #171
doggosphere wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is fundamental in that the "property" still exists outside the control of the government. If a trusted source has access to it, they can still move it. If such thing were to happen, and afterwards you complied, then there would be little grounds to hold you for contempt of court.

> If such thing were to happen, and afterwards you complied, then there would be little grounds to hold you for contempt of court. The court system is not a computer program you can fool with clever tricks. If you are facing a court order to surrender money or other assets and try to evade it by moving the money around, you are just going to find yourself in deeper trouble. People have tried it before.

How do you surrender assets you don't have control over?

I'm merely pointing out that the differences are not superficial.

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#187

Post by [deleted] »

aazaa wrote: post #69

I find it extremely amusing that the US government has over the last several years become one of the world's largest traders in bitcoin. It's not quite the path many were predicting back in the early 2010s, but Bitcoin has been full of surprises. If history is any guide, the bitcoin will be auctioned off sooner rather than later.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#188

Post by fedreserved »

Scoundreller wrote: post #17
Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the link I dug out in the above comment "According to an investigation conducted by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, Individual X was the individual who moved the cryptocurrency from Silk Road. According to the investigation, Individual X was able to hack into Silk Road and gain unauthorized and illegal acc…

Sounds like they bought their way out of a prison sentence? I wonder if any of the forfeiture got rebated back to them.

Maybe, the statute of limitations were up on the hacking and theft lf the bitcoins themselves, but they gave up the coins due to civil asset seizure

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#189

Post by StavrosK »

seibelj wrote: post #58
GhostVII wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty impossible to beat the $5 wrench attack (or in the case of the government, 5 years in prison) unless you have anonymity, which Bitcoin does a very bad job of.

Luckily there is Monero https://www.getmonero.org/

I don't know why Monero isn't more widespread. It's anonymous, cheaper than Bitcoin, and faster. Plus, there's xmr.to, which has integration with a bunch of wallets so you can send Monero directly to a Bitcoin address and they'll convert transparently.

Re: U.S. Feds Seized Nearly $1B in Bitcoin from Wallet Linked to Silk Road

#190

Post by vaccinator »

macinjosh wrote: post #175

What happens if the feds memory hole the keys for this wallet effectively destroying the bitcoin? Its just gone forever right? This seems like the best route for the state to supress and destabilize cryptocurrencies. Heck, if the federal gov't were motivated enough they could 'print' money at the Fed, use it to buy bitcoin, and then destroy it! No skin of their backs.

That'd probably make the price of bitcoin to go up but if they would do that they probably could get sued?
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