71–80 of 96 posts
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This is very confusing and I don't follow
How is cryptocurrency worse than cash for complying with court orders? If cash is no better or worse than cryptocurrency in regards to complying with court orders, then why single out cryptocurrency?
This is an interesting piece, and it highlights one problem I’ve noticed with crypto in general recently, which is that these kinds of investigations are largely being carried out by private entities who build platforms around this type of forensics without any real ability to go after the exchanges that have permitted this laundering. Between this and Bitfinex refusing to submit to an external auditor and other even…
Exactly, now you see. The exchanges are also the enemy. Bisq is a start at trying to make something like Local Bitcoins WITHOUT a central authority. Coins that aren't centralized in a single location can't be stolen in the first place. Hence "Not your keys not your coins". People should take control of your coins, but that's difficult in practice. In this regard, the Bitcoin doesn't actually need new users--it just n…
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How is cryptocurrency worse than cash for complying with court orders? If cash is no better or worse than cryptocurrency in regards to complying with court orders, then why single out cryptocurrency?
Nobody gets paid their salary with cash for a reason...
This is an interesting piece, and it highlights one problem I’ve noticed with crypto in general recently, which is that these kinds of investigations are largely being carried out by private entities who build platforms around this type of forensics without any real ability to go after the exchanges that have permitted this laundering. Between this and Bitfinex refusing to submit to an external auditor and other even…
Exactly, now you see. The exchanges are also the enemy. Bisq is a start at trying to make something like Local Bitcoins WITHOUT a central authority. Coins that aren't centralized in a single location can't be stolen in the first place. Hence "Not your keys not your coins". People should take control of your coins, but that's difficult in practice. In this regard, the Bitcoin doesn't actually need new users--it just n…
It wouldn't be an HN cryptocurrency post without slipping in a reference to your own shitcoin. lol.
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Anonymity in ethereum is rapidly accelerating. Currently the best option is an on-chain mixer [1] for set amounts, but fully anonymous transaction systems are going to launch relatively soon [2]. In two years, ether is virtually certain to be the most anonymous cryptocurrency and dai (dollar stablecoin) to be the most anonymous digital dollar in existence. Anonymous digital dollar has the potential to cause quite a s…
IMO, if Bitcoin had had untraceability, it would be in the exact same regulatory situation it is in today. That would be serious plausible deniability. The mechanisms you're describing also happen to already be crimes. As soon as a system has any legible structure, regulators want to mount up. They don't care about perfect enforcement or even aiming for perfection, but rather just exerting control over most uses. I d…
I'm nearly certain the legal situation is eventually going to deteriorate to a point where if you can't prove the origin of your crypto funds, you can't sell them for external property (ie. not fully decentralized tokens) at all.
This is an interesting piece, and it highlights one problem I’ve noticed with crypto in general recently, which is that these kinds of investigations are largely being carried out by private entities who build platforms around this type of forensics without any real ability to go after the exchanges that have permitted this laundering. Between this and Bitfinex refusing to submit to an external auditor and other even…
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well, when you place cryptocurrency with an exchange, you're giving them the keys, no one's stealing anything.
The same as when you put money in a bank, you're giving them money, no one's stealing anything. Until they don't give it back. That's the important part.
Got your credit card stolen and someone makes fraudulent purchases? Go to the bank and let them know, and they can do a chargeback and perform an investigation for you.
Someone hacks your bank account and takes out all the money? Go to the bank and they will perform an investigation and follow well laid out procedures to try their best to recover the money, as well as work with the police to identify the hacker. Of course there is no guarantee they can recover your money but, they are experts are figuring stuff like this out and have many fail-safes in place to prevent a hacking attempt to happen in the first place.
But with crypto exchanges, not only are some of the basic securities measures not foolproof, more absurd stuff can happen. Several big exchanges had to file for bankruptcy due to getting their coins hacked away. And if you wants a totally nuts crypto exchange story, look up Quadriga.
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Are there any authorities that help track down stuff like this now? If you can pay taxes on it you'd think the police would help investigate a theft.
On one hand, the authorities are mocked for incompetency (see recently: surveillance cameras on the open internet, 26-year-old EMT shot by police raiding the wrong home) and yet we expect them to handle cases like this? This seems like a double standard. Is there a solution?
I don't think it's fair to use extreme examples like that EMT getting killed as a generalization of the incompetence of "authority". In that case, it's more like a couple of trigger-happy police officers severely abused their rights.
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>Wasn’t that whole point of these coins to begin with? The whole point was to have an open system where you dont place trust in or ask permission of someone to use. That still holds up in this scenario.
And governments can’t just print more of it at their whim.
Printing money can be a bad thing if used improperly.
But generally having the government be able to print money in an emergency has many benefits.
Too bad this theft did not affect the founders of Ethereum like the DAO exploit did. Otherwise, they would have found a way to reverse this and get people their money back from the hacker, even if it meant changing the protocol and upgrading existing binaries.
The fact that losses can only be reversed if you’re sufficiently well connected to the developers is a major problem.
I think one of the problems in this space is that people treat their addresses like bank accounts when they should be treating them like cardboard boxes. Sure, you can put your money in it, but you only keep your money so long as nobody finds your box. Therefore, you should make as many cardboard boxes as possible and spread your wealth such that breaking into any individual cardboard box is worthless, and breaking into all of them would take so much time it effectively becomes impossible.
In terms of securing keys, that's also a difficulty, but that's the price you pay for this sort of experience. Any entity that could reverse your losses could also make transactions on your behalf - ruining the point of decentralizing in the first place.