94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet • Hacker News Board

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#331

Post by war1025 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

tudelo wrote: post #273

merpnderp wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandfather was similar. Died a millionaire while never making more than $30k/year. He just paid for things in cash and made sure to always invest. The only luxury he ever spent was on my grandmothers car. Everything else was on a budget and cheap as could be.

I feel like a life void of luxury is... not preferable.

I have built up a pretty decent surplus of money for my age. It's not because I deprive myself of things. I buy everything I want. I just happen to not want much. It's all about level-setting.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#332

Post by lawn » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #264

Well now that I have a place to ask this question... Could someone explain to me about 51% attacks and if bitcoin is vulnerable to one? Hypothetically, a government decides to put forward enough resources to perform a 51% attack on bitcoin. Is that possible? If not, why? And is this something to actually worry about, or could something be done to combat it?

I wrote a chapter on how cryptocurrencies work and what a 51% is in a hopefully approachable manner[0].

Basically the security assumption in Bitcoin is that at least 50% of miners are honest and work for a profit. A 51% attacker can recreate the latest blocks and remove all transactions from them, effectively the ability to reverse payments.

Hypothetically the government can gain 51% hashrate. For example China could take control of all miners there (currently more than 50%) and use them to attack the chain.

This type of attack can be detected. An extreme type of defense is to change the proof-of-work algorithm, making all existing miners worthless. This has been done several times in Monero for example.

[0]: https://whycryptocurrencies.com/how_do_cryptocurrencies_work...

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#333

Post by burnte » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #264

Well now that I have a place to ask this question... Could someone explain to me about 51% attacks and if bitcoin is vulnerable to one? Hypothetically, a government decides to put forward enough resources to perform a 51% attack on bitcoin. Is that possible? If not, why? And is this something to actually worry about, or could something be done to combat it?

When you control 51% of the nodes you can make them agree to anything and takeover the network. Yes, BTC is vulnerable. A few years ago China has >50% of the nodes for a bit, making people nervous.

The problem there is that then people lose faith in the network, and don't honor transactions, and it collapses in value.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#334

Post by burnte » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

bvandewalle wrote: post #197

camjohnson26 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these were Satoshi coins that would be a huge story since Satoshi’s private keys are presumed lost.

I don't think those private keys are presumed lost. Those Satoshi coins are being kept there deliberately.

There's no way to tell the difference between a purposefully dormant "account" and one that has had the keys lost.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#335

Post by JackFr » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

geggam wrote: post #307

tudelo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do most farmers actually own the land that they work on? I was under the impression that most farming is done by large companies and that there are not many small independent farmers that exist.

When I was working on farms ( 30 yrs ago ) most farmers were still on property they owned. During that time I saw the shift to corporate farms and I dont know that answer as I have found less labor intensive work. Most of the corporate structures I saw were family or a combination of family and friends.

I think many farmers are pretty levered. Whether its mortgage on the land or loans for operating capital, to make a decent return on equity you've got to borrow.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#336

Post by tensor » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

Smithalicious wrote: post #161

compiler-guy wrote: post #81

As far as the fees being so cheap, and every one else guessing about how expensive it would be to do it in a normal banking situation, F. Scott Fitzgerald is relevant: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is…

This post appears to me like two paragraphs of correct and important information, cut in two by a seemingly unrelated quote that summarizes to nothing more than "rich people are evil". People with greater wealth having access to certain services and procedures that normal people don't is unrelated to all rich people supposedly looking down on everyone else.

The irony is that these "they think they are better than us" type posts always to me read with an implicit but unsaid "but really we are better than them." In reality, people are people, and thinking you're better than others is absolutely not something that the rich have a monopoly on. This attitude is rampant in many groups and underlies much of the current hatefulness in the world.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#337

Post by ghaff » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #328

xorfish wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't become easier to beat the market when you have more than $100 million. Anyone with a couple $1000 can buy cheap etfs or index funds

From what I understand, the thing that changes when you have lots of money, is you can act as an investor in individual ventures that are much riskier, but with a much higher potential payoff. If you can drop $1 million without being ruined if it doesn't pan out, you can multiply your money very quickly when things do happen to go your way. In fact, isn't that basically the entire premise behind all the VC funds that…

>isn't that basically the entire premise behind all the VC funds

Which often don't have especially high rates of return.

I don't really disagree with your basic point. At least somewhat higher investments do give you access to a wider variety of financial instruments even if diversified through a third party.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#338

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #146

hirsin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the implications of only buying Wheaties for breakfast? That doesn't scream wealth to me, but I also don't eat breakfast cereals, so have a blind spot.

It was mainly a joke for people familiar with breakfast cereal prices; I consider a box of cereal that is less than ~$2.50 to be a "good deal". I've never, ever seen Wheaties for never on sale.

[deleted]

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#339

Post by antisthenes » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #215

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a myth. Most people are rich because their parents were. Most of the rest is rich because they were/are lawyers or medical doctors. (For the super-rich, business and finance becomes more important. But for your average "middle-class rich", lawyers and doctors just dwarf their numbers. Business also has highly unequal outcomes). As to why this myth persists, I guess it goes well with American puritanical roots.…

Fidelity found that only 12 percent of millionaires inherited at least 10 percent of their net worth-- 88% are self-made. https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/articles/...

And?

You can pay for someone's top university education (~$250k) and pay their food and rent for the first 10 years since they graduate (another ~$240k).

Notice how there's no direct contribution to their net-worth.

Re: 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

#340

Post by tyxodiwktis » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

I worked in the trading dept of a large hedge fund and this could easily be them, or someone like them. They regularly traded several billion in bonds, currencies and short rates each day and just aren't used to those trades posting publicly (outside the exchange). I can see them seeing this Twitter thread, scratching their head and wondering, "what's the big deal?"