The haul, the second biggest in DOJ history, shows the difficulty of hiding cryptocurrency.
So much for the anonymity of crypto currencies.
Ten years and he couldn’t unload it even when he had billions of theoretical dollars to pay for the most elaborate means possible.
Using techniques that still aren’t clear, the IRS was able to recover the monero funds anyway.
on a “single-board computer” that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn tin stored in a bathroom closet
The main one: the get rich quick schemeNow that the Feds have yet again expertly traced crypto, are there any remaining use cases that the faithful wish to heap upon the non-believers?
Now that the Feds have yet again expertly traced crypto, are there any remaining use cases that the faithful wish to heap upon the non-believers?
For some reason it’s hilarious to me that a hack of a highly-illegal operation was actually prosecuted to this point.
Ha! Looks like one or more race condition bugs in Silk Road’s wallet code.“As an example, on September 19, 2012, Zhong deposited 500 bitcoin into a Silk Road wallet,” prosecutors said.“Less than five seconds after making the initial deposit, Zhong executed five withdrawals of 500 bitcoin in rapid succession—i.e., within the same second—resulting in a net gain of 2,000 bitcoin.”
I would argue that speculation is built into the vast majority of cryptocurrencies due to their extreme deflationary tendencies which lead to boom-and-bust cycles.So, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature, at least from the perspective of their creators.The rampant speculation surrounding cryptocurrencies (i.e., being used as a speculative investment rather than as a currency) has more or less destroyed their ability to grow organically into their relevant use cases IMHO.
The feds seized that cryptocurrency.Since that is the proceeds of criminal activity, it is subject to forfeiture.That stuff is likely to be liquidated and the proceeds will go into the Treasury.For some reason it’s hilarious to me that a hack of a highly-illegal operation was actually prosecuted to this point.
Maybe…So much for the anonymity of crypto currencies.
So much for the anonymity of crypto currencies.
Ten years and he couldn’t unload it even when he had billions of theoretical dollars to pay for the most elaborate means possible.
It was always security through obscurity.As soon as you find out someone’s wallet, you can immediately trace every single transaction they’ve ever made.
Now that the Feds have yet again expertly traced crypto, are there any remaining use cases that the faithful wish to heap upon the non-believers?
I’d like to give this a serious answer, as someone who was an enthusiastic early supporter but not a “believer”, who ended up abandoning cryptocurrencies.
I see cryptographic currencies as a “currency of the gaps”, whose use cases are only the ones that are either under- or not severed by the traditional financial system.
Ideally, this would be in regions of the world where the governments/financial institutions are corrupt, and the local currencies are highly volatile.
Cryptocurrencies are frivolous in most use cases in developed countries with more secure and less energy intensive alternatives (i.e., regular money), which is a criticism I agree with.
The rampant speculation surrounding cryptocurrencies (i.e., being used as a speculative investment rather than as a currency) has more or less destroyed their ability to grow organically into their relevant use cases IMHO.
I wanted to make a snarky comment about crypto being magical and secure, and decentral and untraceable and the usual BS
But in fairness, the heist and technology was 10 years ago.
There has possibly been plenty of improvements since then.
I assume this is where the narrator tells you all “There hasn’t”
First of all – I’m not an expert.But my understanding is it’s not intended to provide perfect privacy.Things can be useful without being perfect (Pizza is not very healthy…but I eat it anyway, because it’s delicious).I would love an article explaining how Monero obfuscates transfer history, I have only ever read that it does so.
For some reason it’s hilarious to me that a hack of a highly-illegal operation was actually prosecuted to this point.
This is 100 percent about asset forfeiture, not because some bulldog at the DOJ refused to give up until justice was served.
Just wanted to let you know, you sounded like you might be developing faith in our criminal justice system or something.
on a “single-board computer” that was submerged under blankets in a popcorn tin stored in a bathroom closet
Too obvious, it should have been stored in a semi-opaque plastic bag at the bottom of the drawer containing all the extraneous cables and other gadgets one doesn’t have an immediate use for but can’t throw away because it might be vital one day.Nobody would think to look there
Because in those kind of nations it’s typically not free to open a foreign currency account, transfers will cost money and may also be monitored or restricted in some manner especially when sending and receiving funds from relatives abroad.Now that the Feds have yet again expertly traced crypto, are there any remaining use cases that the faithful wish to heap upon the non-believers?
I’d like to give this a serious answer, as someone who was an enthusiastic early supporter but not a “believer”, who ended up abandoning cryptocurrencies.
I see cryptographic currencies as a “currency of the gaps”, whose use cases are only the ones that are either under- or not severed by the traditional financial system.
Ideally, this would be in regions of the world where the governments/financial institutions are corrupt, and the local currencies are highly volatile.
Cryptocurrencies are frivolous in most use cases in developed countries with more secure and less energy intensive alternatives (i.e., regular money), which is a criticism I agree with.
The rampant speculation surrounding cryptocurrencies (i.e., being used as a speculative investment rather than as a currency) has more or less destroyed their ability to grow organically into their relevant use cases IMHO.
I’m still not convinced.
Given your use case, I don’t see why anyone who has access to the technology and mechanism to transfer or convert local fiat currency to crypto wouldn’t simply choose to covert to the US Dollar or Swiss Franc through forex trading, or some gold-backed ETFs to hedge against inflation.Why bother with the speculative nature of crypto at all when other (better?) options exist?
So federal prosecutors haven’t actually recovered anything but some files on a computer.These articles always talk about the dollar value of these things, but how could the government possibly cash this in without immediately tanking the value? (Not that I would consider that a bad thing.)
“single-board computer”
So a Raspberry Pi then?
So federal prosecutors haven’t actually recovered anything but some files on a computer.These articles always talk about the dollar value of these things, but how could the government possibly cash this in without immediately tanking the value? (Not that I would consider that a bad thing.)
So federal prosecutors haven’t actually recovered anything but some files on a computer.
These articles always talk about the dollar value of these things, but how could the government possibly cash this in without immediately tanking the value? (Not that I would consider that a bad thing.)
I still find it quite staggering and quite ridiculous that a method for transferring an asset in a cryptographically secure way doesn’t include a method for not transferring it without cryptographically secure authorisation and authentication.There is a distributed crypto hashed agreement that someone stole the asset from you.Madness.On top of all the other madness with crypto coins, that’s the one that completely baffles me.
Because in those kind of nations it’s typically not free to open a foreign currency account, transfers will cost money and may also be monitored or restricted in some manner especially when sending and receiving funds from relatives abroad.Now that the Feds have yet again expertly traced crypto, are there any remaining use cases that the faithful wish to heap upon the non-believers?
I’d like to give this a serious answer, as someone who was an enthusiastic early supporter but not a “believer”, who ended up abandoning cryptocurrencies.
I see cryptographic currencies as a “currency of the gaps”, whose use cases are only the ones that are either under- or not severed by the traditional financial system.
Ideally, this would be in regions of the world where the governments/financial institutions are corrupt, and the local currencies are highly volatile.
Cryptocurrencies are frivolous in most use cases in developed countries with more secure and less energy intensive alternatives (i.e., regular money), which is a criticism I agree with.
The rampant speculation surrounding cryptocurrencies (i.e., being used as a speculative investment rather than as a currency) has more or less destroyed their ability to grow organically into their relevant use cases IMHO.
I’m still not convinced.
Given your use case, I don’t see why anyone who has access to the technology and mechanism to transfer or convert local fiat currency to crypto wouldn’t simply choose to covert to the US Dollar or Swiss Franc through forex trading, or some gold-backed ETFs to hedge against inflation.Why bother with the speculative nature of crypto at all when other (better?) options exist?
It’s one of the very, very few use cases where it sort of makes sense.It’s worth remembering that there are still places where >50% of the population don’t actually have a bank account.
What makes that use case super, super niche is that these prospective users have to not only live in such a place but also have the means to actually interact with [whatever] cryptocurrency framework.The greater use case by far is accepting illicit payments, usually from victims of some sort of scam/ransomware/blackmail operation.
So federal prosecutors haven’t actually recovered anything but some files on a computer.
These articles always talk about the dollar value of these things, but how could the government possibly cash this in without immediately tanking the value? (Not that I would consider that a bad thing.)
They can’t.It would be freaking hilarious if they dumped a few billion dollars on an exchange and tried to cash out.It would take a long time anyway (usually it has to park in a stablecoin for quite a while before converting to cash), but there’s a fair chance it would flash crash bitcoin by quite a bit if they actually found an exchange that could do it, and it wasn’t stolen from the exchange (or BY the exchange doing a rug pull) first.It’s good to remember that the valuation of all crypto is pretty much fictional at this point.
In other words.DO EET
It baffles me that someone who had committed a fraud of that magnitude remained in the USA..
