Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

thinkdifferent.ly

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 47 posts

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#31

Post by illegalsmile »

praxeologist wrote: post #26
aeturnum wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would argue that items with uses other than exchange medium generally have some intrinsic value. A dollar has no intrinsic value, but a dollar bill can be used as kindling. Even if no one values it, you can drink water, etc.

Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper". Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

I was just listening to let's talk bitcoin and it was mentioned that gold has intrinsic value whereas bitcoin doesn't and how people viewed it. Ultimately nothing was resolved and to the outsider listening in it seems that a conversation about intrinsic value is a conversation about semantics at best and philosophical rhetoric at worst. Ultimately, the whole idea of intrinsic value is a waste of time and adds nothing to the conversation for bitcoin or gold.

Maybe the only things that have intrinsic values are the atoms that make up our world and us as without them we have nothing and don't exist. So I guess on that point gold... fuck.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#32

Post by adriand »

praxeologist wrote: post #26
aeturnum wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would argue that items with uses other than exchange medium generally have some intrinsic value. A dollar has no intrinsic value, but a dollar bill can be used as kindling. Even if no one values it, you can drink water, etc.

Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper". Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

> Nothing has intrinsic value.

I think what you are actually saying is that "intrinsic value" is actually meaningless.

If "intrinsic value" is actually a meaningful statement about something (even if you believe that nothing has that quality), then I think we can indeed find things that have it, which disproves your statement in the first place.

The first definition of "value" that I found is "the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something." Note that this is by definition subjective - i.e. "value" is a perceived quality. More specifically, it is a quality perceived by humans.

Therefore I propose a definition of "intrinsic value": something that all entities to whom "value" has meaning universally believe has that quality. For example, oxygen.

One could argue that there are entities to whom "value" is meaningful but that do not value either of those things, such as aliens who do not need either substance. However, since we are not aware of any such entities, it doesn't prove this wrong.

On the other hand, I suppose a person who is deliberately trying to asphyxiate themselves may not value oxygen after all. Perhaps this disproves my own point...

Either way, it's an interesting debate.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#33

Post by praxeologist »

dasil003 wrote: post #28
praxeologist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper". Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

So intrinsic value is a myth. Now we are getting philosophical.

>Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. Neither is value in words and doctrines, it is reflected in human conduct. It is not what a man or groups of men say about value that counts, but how they act. --Ludwig von Mises

A 'price' is a historical datum of an exchange. I valued my thing at X of your things, probably in terms of monetary units; you likewise valued my things in some sort of agreeable way that we voluntarily made an exchange.

"Intrinsic value" implies, "People will like this shit no matter what." Real value is subjective and only created by acting human beings.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#34

Post by swalsh »

krisdol wrote: post #11
minimax wrote: post #8

One great thing about bit coin is that all the metadata is available to everyone. You would be hard pressed to make a fancy chart like this with fiat currency.

just a minor nitpick, but bitcoin is also fiat currency.

I wonder how many people knew what a fiat currency was before bitcoin... actually wait.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22fiat%20currency%22

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#35

Post by praxeologist »

illegalsmile wrote: post #31
praxeologist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper". Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

I was just listening to let's talk bitcoin and it was mentioned that gold has intrinsic value whereas bitcoin doesn't and how people viewed it. Ultimately nothing was resolved and to the outsider listening in it seems that a conversation about intrinsic value is a conversation about semantics at best and philosophical rhetoric at worst. Ultimately, the whole idea of intrinsic value is a waste of time and adds nothing…

Nothing has intrinsic value. I think what the presenters you are talking about are trying to say is that gold has some utility while bitcoin has none. Bitcoin has utility in that it is an incorruptible ledger of transactions, that transactions can take place outside of the legal purview of various states, etc.

Bitcoin has no utility absent the present state of affairs where people believe in statism and government agents actively forbid money besides their fiat regime's. Some Austrian economists fail to see why bitcoin really is money, but it is because it has utility in this manner I mentioned.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#36

Post by [deleted] »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

So the '324 is FBI on phone handset' comment, is this the FBI transferring $40M from Silk Road wallets to some other wallet? Or is it something else? Also one wonders what is done with the 'evidence' after the case. I could imagine the FBI simply deleting the wallets but does anyone know their actual policy?

[deleted]

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#38

Post by alanctgardner2 »

Does anyone gain anything from these graph visualisations? The first few times I saw one I was impressed, but this one is so huge and nondescript, I think it's impossible to take much away from it. They're kind of like info graphics; you see a few that make sense, but many more are just jumping on the bandwagon.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#39

Post by wmf »

sp332 wrote: post #30
wmf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An exchange is an auction, but I'm sure there's some regulatory capture here that won't allow the government to use any existing exchange. There may be a business opportunity here.

"Regulatory capture" means the regulators are working with the regulated organization instead of controlling it.

Yes, that's what I meant. I suspect some government contractors have convinced the government that everything (e.g. selling seized property) needs to be done by specialized government contractors rather than normal businesses or by the government itself.

Re: Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist

#40

Post by praxeologist »

adriand wrote: post #32
praxeologist wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper". Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

> Nothing has intrinsic value. I think what you are actually saying is that "intrinsic value" is actually meaningless. If "intrinsic value" is actually a meaningful statement about something (even if you believe that nothing has that quality), then I think we can indeed find things that have it, which disproves your statement in the first place. The first definition of "value" that I found is "the regard that somethi…

>I think what you are actually saying is that "intrinsic value" is actually meaningless.

No, I mean exactly what I said. Nothing has intrinsic value, ever.

>Therefore I propose a definition of "intrinsic value": something that all entities to whom "value" has meaning universally believe has that quality. For example, oxygen.

If I already have many lifetimes' worth of oxygen for my breathing apparatus, I might have no interest in and place no value upon your stock of oxygen.

Maybe the beings in question are some sort of alien life form that live in volcanos and breathe nitrous oxide. The type of error you are making is similar to calling air "superabundant" and then conflating that with "unlimited".

Post reply on HN