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

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

#401
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part which confuses me about Bitcoin the most. It's meant to be anonymous, yet with some diligent data mining, it can become pretty clear who's who from their spending patterns by observing the ledger. How is that remotely anonymous?

I think Satoshi wanted to make Bitcoin anonymous, but didn't know how to (and Bitcoin was still a pretty big achievement). Today Monero or maybe ZCash is leading the privacy department and they do offer the anonymity you're after (with some weaknesses of course).

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

#402
post #111

I'd take issue on two points. First, "wallets' don't exist in the Bitcoin protocol. Second, the tool being used is not sophisticated enough to list the inputs and outputs, giving the false impression that something unusual is "unknown." Try this link to get details: https://blockstream.info/tx/4410c8d14ff9f87ceeed1d65cb58e7c7... There are numerous inputs and a single pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) output. The relatively h…

You really misused the term "coin". In Bitcoin protocol you don't "put value" into something named a "coin". "Wallet" is far more widely used and well-defined.

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

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I don't understand how the US can go in and decide BTC-e was a money laundering op and then confiscate bitcoins and put people in jail. Who decides who gets those bitcoins? Surely many other countries have money laundering laws. What makes the US so special that they can go flip a business operating in the Ukraine?

Do you now understand why we need something like Bitcoin? (Even if it's gonna a be a newer version of it in the future, or something even more private etc.)

So that the DOJ can steal it?

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

#404
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It effectively establishes a billion dollar bounty for any party who can rewrite enough blocks to erase it. I don't really agree with that statement. Yes, someone could mount a 51% attack to rewrite that block. However, it would be pretty straightforward to see what was happening (and which nodes were the malicious actors). If that did happen, the possible outcomes would be: 1. The value of bitcoin would fall to ba…

You assume the value of bitcoin is somewhat logical, the Etc 51% attack proves otherwise; in the short term holders would rather sustain the delusion.

Well, it doesn't _prove_ it; it's just a data point.

The Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems are rather different.

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

#405
post #333

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.

I've seen this "lose faith" brought up a few times. What I don't understand, is since this vulnerability still exists, why haven't people lost faith already?

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

#406

This was probably an internal transfer, but if it was payment to someone, something interesting then occurs. It then becomes valuable for the original owner to secretly mine a chain, attempting a 51% attack. They could run the attack secretly for up to 40 days and still make a profit. So you'd really need to wait 40 days before you can be sure this transfer is safe. But it gets scarier, if at the end of the 40 days a…

>It then becomes valuable for the original owner to secretly mine a chain, attempting a 51% attack.

Depends on how able the injured party is to retaliate. In ordinary life, bouncing a check often results in actual or threatened legal action. Disputes between criminal organizations are sometimes settled extrajudicially. So I would not expect the sender to attempt a double-spend if the recipient has the capacity to respond either legally or illegally.

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

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about, it would be the number one reason why.

"What happened to the private keys" is only an interesting question if we know something happened to them at all. For all anyone knows, Satoshi is a government biding its time, aliens, a hacker with a messy apartment, dead and their inheritors don't know what they have, already independently wealthy and doesn't care about their wallet, did it all for the lulz and doesn't care about the wallet. It's apparently not, bu…

Satoshi was probably Hal Finney, who passed away in 2014. The most likely explanation of what happened to the keys is that they weren’t properly safe guarded early in development because no one thought that one day bitcoins would be worth $20,000 a piece. When Finney died their total value was “only” around $45 million.

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

#408

This was probably an internal transfer, but if it was payment to someone, something interesting then occurs. It then becomes valuable for the original owner to secretly mine a chain, attempting a 51% attack. They could run the attack secretly for up to 40 days and still make a profit. So you'd really need to wait 40 days before you can be sure this transfer is safe. But it gets scarier, if at the end of the 40 days a…

Bitcoin would fork if that happened, I’m almost certain. No one would allow 40 days of transactions to be reversed on a technicality.

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the world economy and politics isn't stable your USB key isn't going to buy you something to eat any more than your amex. At least cash can be burnt for warmth.

Nope, you got it wrong. Look at Venezuela. If people can trust people they can trade. With crypto government trust can be replaced.

Crypto is only working in places like Venezuela because other states ARE stable (America). If the whole worlds situation goes to shit then it's just as worthless as fiat.
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