Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree • Hacker News Board

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#31

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

lucbocahut wrote: post #14

The source of the funds should be a concern for the charities involved in my opinion. I find the recipients a little quick to praise the donor with little being said about how the bitcoins were obtained. Maybe this information was simply not made public, and that would be fine if there was due diligence. However the fact more established institutions did not receive gifts is an eyebrow raiser: it is more likely these…

If someone tells you that they personally dug up some gold in a mountain in Colorado, how exactly would you go about verifying their claim?

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#32

Post by redbeard0x0a » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 10:40 PM UTC

joshumax wrote: post #24

supbitcoin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a question, how can you register a website by being anonymous ? I don't understand, anyone care to explain ? Thanks.

Most domain registrars allow you to add "privacy protection" for a nominal fee, which basically replaces your name under the WHOIS registrant info with theirs instead of yours. While this effectively shields outsiders from discovering who you are, the registrar likely knows the information of the original buyer...

It probably can be handled by a lawyer and/or trust as well. Even if they get past the registrar privacy, they get some business entity or lawyer contact.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#33

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#34

Post by postit » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 10:45 PM UTC

Loosing access to a 69 BTC PK from 2012 still gives me nightmares, but I feel happy for the ones who made enough money to spread good will.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#35

Post by djexns » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 10:48 PM UTC

philsnow wrote: post #3

I wonder if this is somebody really being philanthropic, or if they just control a ton of bitcoin that they can't access (for fear of taxation / Questions Being Asked), so they drop it on charities they're sympathetic to...

I kind of like to think there are people out there that really think and live according to that phrase "because once you have enough money, money doesn't matter". I know I would...

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#36

Post by eganist » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 11:02 PM UTC

> OpenMRS said Pine had contributed software patches to the effort previously.

Philanthropy.com did this person a grave disservice. This drastically narrows the donor pool and is quite in violation of their earlier statement:

> Pine agreed to a phone interview with the Chronicle on the condition that the article include no identifying information.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#37

Post by lucbocahut » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #16

lucbocahut wrote: post #14

The source of the funds should be a concern for the charities involved in my opinion. I find the recipients a little quick to praise the donor with little being said about how the bitcoins were obtained. Maybe this information was simply not made public, and that would be fine if there was due diligence. However the fact more established institutions did not receive gifts is an eyebrow raiser: it is more likely these…

Honest question: why should they care?

Ethics: if the money comes from theft, child pornography or selling crack cocaine (extreme examples, not saying this is the case here), you can hardly say you are making the world a better place.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#38

Post by lambdadmitry » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 11:04 PM UTC

Not sure how to feel about that. Given that bitcoin is a strictly negative-sum game now, all that money came from greater fools in the end (they just don't know it yet). It's somewhat Robin Hood-esque (except that a majority of bag holders will be poor people duped into buying btc) and the morality of it is… complicated.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#39

Post by lucbocahut » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 11:08 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #31

lucbocahut wrote: post #14

The source of the funds should be a concern for the charities involved in my opinion. I find the recipients a little quick to praise the donor with little being said about how the bitcoins were obtained. Maybe this information was simply not made public, and that would be fine if there was due diligence. However the fact more established institutions did not receive gifts is an eyebrow raiser: it is more likely these…

If someone tells you that they personally dug up some gold in a mountain in Colorado, how exactly would you go about verifying their claim?

Mining rights, proper registration and certification of the gold nugget, etc., etc. It’s fairly common in the financial industry to check where funds come from (“know your customer”). It’s done to prevent money laundering and make illicit activity harder.

Re: Pineapple Fund's $56M Giving Spree

#40

Post by markdown » Wed, Feb 28, 2018, 11:11 PM UTC

supbitcoin wrote: post #29

canadianwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hosted by Github pages which only needs an email address and is free so no billing info. Domain requires payment and stuff but you can easily use whois privacy protection. Looks like they use "Whois Guard Protection". In the end they are relying on both whois guard and the domain registrar to keep their anonymity.

Oh thanks! So it means it's not completely anonymous, someone at the registrar can lookup the info if I got this rigth?

They could have registered the domain in the name of a legal entity registered in a state like Wyoming where company directors can remain anon. Basically shielded behind lawyers and shell corporations.