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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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they received $0 worth of assurance that it would be successful. If it were my $150M I would not want to leave it up to the block chain and hope it works.

They received a mathematical assurance that it would work. The relying nodes, blockchain, miners and priority rules are all well-known and straightforward to account for. If you pay enough fees given your transaction priority, it'll get into a block eventually. If you want it to be mined sooner, you can pay higher fees. And even if it won't be mined, the worst case scenario is that you would keep your Bitcoins and ca…

"They received a mathematical assurance that it would work"

No they did not. Mathematics is about proofs; Bitcoin does not even have the rigorous definitions needed for that.

To put it another way, what you said is the equivalent of saying that Hacker News gives you mathematical guarantees of security because it happens to use TLS.

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Utterly incorrect. They did not transfer a single dollar. For them to turn those Bitcoins into dollars, they will have to pay more than $0.00. Possibly A LOT more. They may not even be able to turn those bitcoins into dollars for a while, and in all likelihood it will not be $150 million dollars.

This is the correct answer. People rave about how "cheap" it is to transfer bitcoin. What about actually buying anything with that 'money'? Sure, you might be able to buy some crap on the internet with bitcoin, but it won't put food in your table anytime soon without you having to pay a good % in fees to convert it to real currency.

To chime in here, one of the largest sites for ordering out in Germany, lieferservice.de, accepts Bitcoin. They have hundreds of participating restaurants.

Here's a picture of the food on our table, paid with Bitcoin:

https://twitter.com/epaga/status/399221499749343232

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

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where I stand, this seems to be true of Bitcoin as well. I've never had any Bitcoins personally, but don't you have to store them in a wallet, which you're either going to have to worry about backing up, keeping secure, etc on your own. Or you're going to have to trust someone else to do it for you.

There is a difference in how the two scale, because one is physical. Adding a BTC to a transaction doesn't really require any additional infrastructure. But once you've packed your first tanker with gold, you kind of have to hire a second boat. Given the way each scales, it seems that BTC transfers are easier, at least at some values.

There is not enough gold in the whole world to fill up a tanker.

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that any given transaction is most likely to be a theft?

I think the point is that the only reason to transfer such a large sum of money is either buying/selling something or stealing. And considering there probably aren't many (if any) things one can buy with that many bitcoins, theft seems to be most likely scenario.

Another option: Perhaps the security of the private key of the old address was in question, so a new address was created with a new, secure private key.

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

#435

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, fas…

Banks don't make money from fees. Banks make money from lending out your deposits with only a fractional reserve.

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

#436
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're added by users of blockchain.info. The actual blockchain does not store any metadata. http://blockchain.info/tags

Interesting! Any idea how the verified tags work? Who verifies what and how there?

Nothing by the looks of things. I tried a few and it looks like the target URL you put in must contain the address somewhere, otherwise it's not verified. I guess it's to stop people flooding spammy names.

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

#437
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're added by users of blockchain.info. The actual blockchain does not store any metadata. http://blockchain.info/tags

Interesting! Any idea how the verified tags work? Who verifies what and how there?

Nothing by the looks of things. I tried a few and it looks like the target URL you put in must contain the address somewhere, otherwise it's not verified. I guess it's to stop people flooding spammy names.

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

#438
Here is my analysis:

Time: 17:30 - 1738

roughly 5pm europe time, past the 9-5 general business hours . If all the parties or just the reciepients are based in europe, between legal and illegal.. I would tap this as illegal. It just doesn't make sense.. for someone doing a legal transfer of this size, after business hours, unless.. senders were based in US.

Going through the direct senders (1 step back), the time with least 1k BTC+ transactions was 0200, 0400, 0500.. while with most big transactions were made around 1300, 1500, 2100 .. suggesting that these transaction were roughly either made from US to Europe, if of legal nature.. or within europe.. suggesting something shady. Very very crudely speaking.

Yeah, everything is possible, and the above is not necessarily true, but it appears so, at least to me.

Amount: 194k bitcoins

Multiple connected accounts who sent to the above address seems to have had 220k+ in total recieved and looking at denomination, it didn't seem like lot of normal people were involved. Besides, with this kind of money involved it is wise to have 10 or less people involved who are highly trusted. This appear so also, with how countable no of bitcoin addresses were used to say "bounce" the trace of that money. Skill wise, these are not normal people.. but given HOW this ended up in public domain, they could have done slightly better.

I get the feeling you get from govt hired people doing such things, no offense.. but somewhere below the elite, but above the average joe. It is also possible that a bigger or equal (more likely) sum was also transferred elsewhere.

Movement seem to have stopped.. due to attention it has already garnered or is it the actual resting place? If it would be illegal, one would have had no problem keeping it in multiple bitcoin wallets in smaller amounts. But if it is someone, with legal force on side.. say govt agency, it would not have problem leaving the bitcoins in such limelight, for a long time, as long as they believe that bitcoin is actually 100% and not 99.9999999% impregnable.

Motive, as discussed slightly above, can be mainly either "convenience of centrality" > or > "hiding a bigger sum" .. well I at least won't be putting my money in BTC for my own reasons. I got that feeling today to use it.. but I resisted.

BTC is genuine, but the currently it seems like a pyramid fraud system which is perfectly legal strictly speaking. More people putting in money in BTC system.. already rich getting richer.. tickle down effect :? Well 150 million.. has really left a lot of questions .. or its nature, motive, ownership, moral, etc. Who would answer? No one.. ironically.. thats a big problem as well a big benefit of BTC. I'm sorry.. lot of things I said above are based on feelings, but to tell you the truth, before today, BTC was in a nutshell somewhat easy to understand.. but 150 million.. is a figure that can give any guy a lot of different vibes, speculative as well as wild goose chase type.

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

#440
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often is there a direct transfer of this size? Fedwire moves about 2.7T/day and I believe it would have cost $0.26 to transfer this amount, assuming that its at the upper end of their sliding scale ($0.08 - $0.26/transfer).

Besides cost there is also risk- a transfer of this size in the light of day would raise a lot of questions- Where did this money come from? Was tax paid? And depending on the reason for the transaction regulators may interfere or freeze the funds.

"Where did this money come from?"

I guess, not from you. Is that the reason to question it?

"Was tax paid?"

What makes you think that this money supposed to be taxed?

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