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

Post by derriz » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 7:39 AM UTC

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #493

derriz wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Norbert's Gambit anything but theoretical? It sounds like a guaranteed way to lose money. Given the tick size, crossing the spread with this ETF is going to cost you around 10bp alone. Never mind that this ETF only holds $45m in assets - you're only going to be able to get a very small amount without eating through price levels. On top of all this you have to carry 3 days of currency risk? I'm sure other online di…

Are you in the US? While I've never personally done Norbert's Gambit my understanding is that it's extremely popular for Canadian investors to do if they want to get USD. Might not be vice-versa. The most common use case I'm familiar with is within RRSPs, as there is sometimes a tax advantage to using US-listed ETFs within them. Most brokerages charge 1.5-2% to do currency conversion so it would be a lot better deal…

Post by icebraining » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 7:41 AM UTC

WoahNoun wrote: post #543

proverbialbunny wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably the DOJ. They raided BTC-e and stole 2 billion during the Ukraine War. BTC-e was the longest running bitcoin exchange and the single most reliable. I had more money than I'd like to admit stolen from me. Their statement was only people who participate in tax evasion use btc-e.

You lent that money to a shady organization. Once you lent it, it was no longer your property. You then became a creditor of that organization and your coins became their assets. The organizations assets were seized due to systemic criminal activity and they could no longer repay their debts to their creditors. Just like any other financial institution. Some quote about bitcoin enthusiasts rediscovering the reason fo…

Post by komali2 » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

proverbialbunny wrote: post #605

seganddr wrote: post #545

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If either you or the posters above linked to primary sources it would help a lot. Anyone can make proclamations but where are the references??

That's a good point. The court case is starting in a little over a week, so Alexander Vinnik (the one accused of the MtGox hack, who was a technician working at btc-e) has yet to be found guilty or innocent. >On 25 July 2017, suspected BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik was arrested at the behest of the United States Justice Department while vacationing with his family in Greece.[8][9] Wanted for money laundering by bot…

Post by maitredusoi » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 7:54 AM UTC

lawn wrote: post #96

shorts_theory wrote: post #47

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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).

Post by aiCeivi9 » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 8:19 AM UTC

joshgachnang wrote: post #416

qroshan wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if I were a hedge fund, I can effectively short Bitcoins and spend a piddly amount to build a datacenter to carry a 51% attack. If the attack fails, I can re-purpose my datacenter

Repurpose it how? You'd need ASICs to mount a 51% attack. Using a few quickly googled numbers, you'd need ~56EH/s to double the network and mount a 51% attack. An S9 does 14TH/s, so you'd need ~4 million, at $3k each. So around $12 billion (plus the datacenter, operations, etc). You'd pretty much send BTC to being worth $0...and then you're stuck with $12 billion in useless hardware.