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Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

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Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#311
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I was under the impression that the same wallet can have an arbitrary number of addresses. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address seems to support this idea.

You can have multiple addresses per wallet but BTC is still stored in addresses, not wallets. So if you have some BTC in address A and none in address B then you can't use B to buy anything. If you transfer money from A to B that leaves a record.

But you have no idea if address A and B belong to the same wallet, right? As in, I can create address A, get coins into it, then create addresses B-Z, disburse coins into them, then collect them again? Could I reasonably create enough addresses to create plausible deniability that I actually owned all the coins at all times?

Alternatively, could I use a web wallet to bounce coins around to obfuscate ownership?

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#312
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please clarify how the IRS is missing money.

Bitcoin is in Washington[1]. Washington will try to tax bitcoin if it gets accepted as an asset/currency. Moving the discussed amount of money, means that maybe someone (inside?) the USA has a huge amount of money not taxed. This is something regulatory authorities might want to change, as soon as possible. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/video/can-the-senate-help-to-legiti...

How is this different from the IRS not endorsing the euro?

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#313
post #73

> Someone This is a little misleading. This could be a business etc. A mining pool or exchange transferring from one wallet to another (ie. to cold storage)? You wouldn't want a typo in your address for that amount of cash! I'd probably break it up into a bunch of smaller transactions just to be safe.

Luckily Bitcoin addresses use Base58 encoding [1] and have built-in checksums, so any typo you make likely won't be a valid address. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding

And a transfer to an invalid address just fails?

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It couldn't be them - this was an odd number of bitcoins.

I know humor is forbidden, but I laughed out loud at this anyway. I felt compelled to comment because this is a difficult joke to setup in every day conversation.

Humor isn't forbidden, it's just really risky. If a joke is lame or offensive or obvious or falls flat, you'll be punished.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#315
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is true, Bitcoin is far from a bulletproof preserve of wealth. Gold has other uses if it isn't used as a currency anymore. Bitcoin on the other hand can be made completely useless if some critical flaw is found, or the wealth is too concentrated in a few users and the majority decides to switch to a newer crypto-currency.

I'm pretty sure that if we consider only the industrial uses of gold, and the available supply, it would have a low value. Probably even if we count jewelery as a non-currency use. Almost all the value is because it's shiny, yellow, and traditional. Gold asteroid mining isn't too implausible, either.

> Gold asteroid mining isn't too implausible, either.

More plausible than some hacker news post 'bitcoin 2.0 is here - look it's shinier!', though? Or 'new crypto currency approved by the US govt?' You think people won't reinvent this wheel to death?

Sure, you could also synthesize gold from some nuclear reaction, or mine it from space... You pays your money (and you takes your chances)

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#317

Consider this: They paid $0.00 for the transfer of $150 million dollars. A direct (i.e. not based on third party credit, regulations, etc.) transfer of wealth of this magnitude between two entities usually consists of a heavily guarded, insured, physical shipment of cash or gold. Depending how safely you want to make the transfer, and how far the entities are on the globe, it can cost hundreds of thousands to million…

That is the side I think many in the financial world are realizing and what hits banks the most. It hits the fees. Daily transfer fees, rates, management etc.

It could be beneficial to banks to move money more rapidly and make some coin just like funds they have do with their holdings even though it strikes the core of the business model.

If used right it could be helpful like torrent is to distribution, cheaper, faster ways to move things. It would be nice one day when regular bank transfers don't take 3-5 business days or a fee for same day.

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#318
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/venezuela-receives-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/01/16/germany...

Central banks moving gold reserves is very different from everyday financial transactions because reserves have a special status tied to their physicality. They act as a form of physically controlled collateral. Corporations and individuals generally do not move wealth via physical assets.

False, and trivially easy to demonstrate.

Off the top of my head, I am thinking of ...

- A deep, pervasive culture of gold hoarding and gold wealth transfer for dowries (yes, even in 2013) for Indians.[1]

- Persians/Iranians who have a deep cultural link to carpets as a store of value that can be used in day to day life, but also transported and stored as value.

How about any middle american over the age of 50 who counts his or her "vehicle" as an asset and shops/deals in used cars every 12-18 months. A lot of people think about cars this way.

As for corporations just consider casino counting rooms and exxon tankers full of crude oil.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-17/gold-laden-brides-i...

Re: Someone just made a $147,239,214 Bitcoin transfer

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point stands, but most thefts occur on third party sites/applications where the address of the coins and their private key are stored in a central location. Owners of the bitcoin should transfer their coins to a private wallet. I don't understand how so many sites can't use password hash generation to secure the private keys, or something to keep it more secure. The first link you posted was a site run by an 18…

Sorry to digress a little, but I'm sensitive on age issues :) Pinkie Pie won his first $50k award by creating a 0-day sandbox escape on Chrome, by chaining 10 different vulnerabilities. He was 19 (now almost 21). Two years before, at 17, he released jailbreakme.com, all by himself, which was a 0-day able to jailbreak all iOS models shipped to date by just visiting a website. Age means nothing by itself, but the point…

Outliers exist, this doesn't make them likely, age does matter far far more often than not. Generalizations have value, but they're not expected to always be true.
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