Bitcoin Forum

Separating spouses using Bitcoin to hide wealth from estranged partners during court battles

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/06/03/article-2646995-1E6D4D3F00000578-758_634x408.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2646995/Divorcing-spouses-use-Bitcoin-hide-wealth-estranged-partners-court-battles.html

Yeah, but do could a stash of cash under your bed too if your wife doesn't know about it  :D.

"A number of forums devoted to Bitcoin have been filled with husbands discussing the option of using digital currencies, a London divorce lawyer has claimed."

There's been a few discussions about it on here too.

Yup, if you suspect a divorce is in the air just cash out all you can and move it. That's of course if she was a total bitch, I don't think I'd want my wife to go with empty pockets after years of marriage.

I'm sure you'll change your tune if you were in that situation. Divorces can get pretty messy/bitter very quick.

This is a bit silly considering anyone with access to money can put it anywhere. Gold, silver, cash ect.

It also doesn't mean that you still won't owe your ex-spouse the money from the judgement. I don't really see how bitcoin changes much is that regard.

What would be funny is lots of family law firms accepting bitcoin payments. :P

i don't think i could trust ANYONE with my bitcoin.  even my spouse (electric).  she ain't ever gonna leave.   :D

Bank records and they'll throw you in prison.

Coin ATMs only take like $3K a month.  So this story is likely bullchit

Bank records? If you take a bit out over time and put it in bitcoins nobody will know if you're smart about it. And ATMs are not the only place to buy coins.

And Bitcoin works in the respect that you can keep the money safe and anonymous. There's no IRS audit nor can anyone sieze the funds by force.

thats true

Davincij15 took it a step further and fled the country with his bitcoin...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mr_vu4qFD0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mr_vu4qFD0)

I've been on here for over 2 years and this is the first topic I've seen on this?

Daily Mail, lol

Perhaps if the legal system was fair this would not need to happen

Lurk more haha. There's only been a couple. I probably couldn't find them on a search but there was one in off-topic 2-3 months ago or so.

But a lot of the time, relationships deteriorate very quickly; so it's hard to slowly siphon away money. And the more money that is moved quickly, the harder it can be to obfuscate all those tracks. Also, the amount owed is not necessarily based on traceable assets but also by income (and sometimes by backlogged income) which adds to the trickiness.

Anyhow, the quick and easy solution naturally is to just get a pre-nup.

This isn't unique to bit coin. People hide assets in divorces all the time. Yet another clueless writer trying to point out problems that have nothing to do with bit coin.

It's a nice change reading the comments, men praising bitcoin for this (rather than the usual PONZI SCAM bs). haha.

Anyone else noticing a global crack down on so called shadow banking and anti laundering bills lately?
Seems like they are waking up to the potential threats of bitcoin.

That's true, but an even quicker/easier solution would be to not get married in the first place. Or organise the wedding yourself and use a fake priest and not tell your wife so you're never actually legally married. You can legally change her name the regular way and she'll never know until she wants a divorce, and then you can smugly say "We don't need one. See you later, bitch"  :D.


They need to fearmonger to scare people into paying their taxes. It's easy to get away with paying them if you're smart about it really. If there was no fear most people just wouldn't pay them.

Exactly...if all your liquid assets quickly vanish in the midst of a divorce, you would get slapped with a judgement, and your wages would be garnished.   You would end up having to pay it back anyways, unless you plan on never working another W2 job in your life...

Yeah, you would need to have assets completely hidden from the start. Where you're the only one who knows about them. I guess with some foresight and planning you could do this with bitcoin. But most people don't go in to a marriage hiding a large amount of their wealth from their spouse. You could have a swiss bank account or gold just as easily. But maybe bitcoin has an edge in this regard since you can just keep a paper wallet and no one would be the wiser.

If it deteriorates quickly then you have nothing to worry about. The money you had before marriage are yours anyway and it's not like you become a millionaire in a year. (unless you're dealing with bitcoins :D)

Doing this would only work if your wife or anybody else didnt know about it. If she did then I'm sure you'll get stung somehow.

Easy as all hell as a professional poker player. Ship it.

Better advice is just not to get married. Especially if you are a remotely intelligent, motivated and successful male. Don't get freerolled gents.

Innit, definitely circumvent the funds in Bitcoin, even during a market slide you simply short and buy back in later. I can imagine that you would have to be very careful as the repercussions could be pretty significant if you are found out.

As soon as there is more mainstream adoption, there will be wives that will be fighting for half of the bitcoin holdings in the divorce.   

If scorned women are willing to go to bad for frequent flyer miles in court, you can bet your ass that they will go for bitcoins too...

That's only if they know about it. If they dont know then they cant get at it and I think thats the point.

Sounds incredibly stupid to begin with, why would you give someone your funds unless that someone helped you in acquiring them (which women rarely do)?

No different than what they've been doing with offshore accounts for decades.

Both spouses should put their private key on their wedding ring.
This way if you want to be naughty and take your ring out, you'll think about it twice due to theft risk ;D

it's always the same, one couple wants meth and the other wants weed.  and yet you can purchase them all on SR.  so i don't see what the harm is in sharing a little BTC..

And if you want to get married, get a pre-nup. A woman/man with good motives won't have a problem signing on - if you are going to be together forever, it will never come into play, so unless she/he intends to marry for money, it will never come up.

Or just cash, or a family member bank account.

So you're saying Bitcoin can save someone from being ass raped by a spouse who wishes to take something she doesn't deserve?

Yet another reason why Bitcoin is awesome.

-B-

The Daily Mail is a spoof newspaper available in the U.K. Really wouldn't take everything they say seriously.


And why would you assume it's a female? In a equal chance, it could be a male.

This is a smart idea.

if you're stashing say $100,000 under your bed, i think your bed would be really big.

Well, frequently wives become ex-wives after scavenging through their husband's computers.  If you are in at least a semi-functional marriage, you would usually discuss where you have money invested, or frequently the debits would come out of a joint account anyway.   So unless you keep your finances completely separate, or you invest money on your own, without your wife ever knowing...there is a good chance she will know about your bitcoins.   If you have 1BTC that is one thing, but if you have 20+...there's a good chance she will want a piece...

This is actually quite amusing and now I know what to do if a divorce ever comes by in my future. Anyone on the forums pull a fast one on there ex wifey ?

if you get married, would you tell the wife that you have bitcoins? you'd be starting off the marriage with some deception there though.

Well thankfully i'm not married yet neither do I have any plans to ain't no body got time for that.

I used to say the same thing, then a brunette bombshell hit me. I still won't share my bit coin with her.  ;D 

she'll tease you with sex and use the vag to get it all out of you.

I'll admit that it makes sense to hide assets in Bitcoin
I never really put much consideration into the implications of using bitcoin for divorce to disguise income since the exchanges would likely need to forefeit this information if requested
That said we live in a time of transitions so this may be a viable option if people do not know what questions to ask.

If I can convince her that a satoshi is the standard unit of bit coin that could work out very well.  8)

My brunette bombshell can have half my coin.
She helped buy them, although she didn't want to get as many as I did.
You all need to find partners that bring home as much (or more) bacon as you do.
Hiding your money from your partner seems pretty lame, or immature to me.
 
What if you get incapacitated?
Don't you have a something in your wills?
Potentially loosing all your coins seems like a bad way to treat your family.
If you can't be open with your spouse, could it be you shouldn't be spouses in the first place?   

Finding a hot chick that is also an earner is tough, so if you have one hang on tight.  Most hot chicks are always bartenders, cocktail waitresses, our cosmetologists...

One things is sure. The author (Amanda Williams) is a regular visitor here.  ;D

She might have seen this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355602.0

(BTW... look at the top comments)

Even if you divorce, you know whether someone will squabble with you over money long before it actually happens.

Good idea. Just claim you lost everything on gambling, then have it stored in a bitcoin address. :D

Not that simple. The authorities are a bit more careful now. If you claim that you have lost everything in gambling, then you will have to show the proof supporting your claim. They will even cross-check the credit card bills.

It is impossible to hide your fortune in bitcoin within a few months. You need careful planning like setting cash aside monthly and only buy bitcoin from ATMs. There is only so much you can hide, cos you still need cashflow for mortgage and bills.

spouses can also hide cash or gold bars, or other commodities.

So is this going to be another thing the media highlight as a bad use of bitcoin?

Don't worry.. it's the Daily Fail.. the only people who take this 'news'paper seriously, don't have the requisite IQ to use bitcoin.. but they love to be scared on a daily basis with xenophobic stories about bad immigrants stealing all the wealth from their country.
They are about as anti-libertarian as you could get from a newspaper.

Only if the author is a misandrist.

 ;)

Not really, especially if they just add it to the longlist of bad things already passed around.

You realize those things slowly degrade over time, right?

I'm not opposed to giving women money after you've been together for a while, esp if you are the breadwinner, but when I'm moderately wealthy and they are dead broke (they always are), and they aren't motivated to change/study/etc (only shop for shoes), giving them anything past (like half) what I would deem fair would be mind blowing.

You have a problem still that if you don't marry a women you get this common law marriage thing that comes into play after 10 years together or something anyway so you have to get a contract around that as well.

But even if you get a pre-nup, fucking why?  How does it help anything?  You really want some stupid piece of paper?  And don't talk about tax benefits and this hospital garbage.  Not even close to ev on divorce costs, marriage costs, life liquidity, etc.

We're living in the 19th century now?

Perhaps in some jurisdictions, not all.

we need bitchcoin for this  ;D

This is not silly at all - it just add to the list of ways to hide money in case of divorce.

The DailyMail refers to an article of FT.

Bitcoin could be used to hide assets in divorces, warn lawyers
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d1131630-9005-11e3-8029-00144feab7de.html

For the rest, go live in UK and have a taste of the libertarianism :D

http://eticha.dk/news/wp-content/uploads/sharia-uk.jpg

yeah, pretty much. buying gold, silver, or cash takes up a lot of space.. which makes it much more difficult to hide/conceal. with bitcoin, you could have millions of dollars and no physical object to hide.

You would only have to hide the wry smile of smugness from carrying out such an epic circumvention of funds ;)

You do want to make sure you're buying the bitcoin well in advance of any troubles or divorce though.  If you have $100,000 in your bank account and suddenly it's gone and you claim you don't have any other assets, it's not going to work during divorce proceedings.

Heard that some of the Bitcoin ATMs even ask for your ID papers. Won't be a good idea then. Buying Bitcoins through Localbitcoins.com is also a bad idea. The logs can be accessed by the law enforcement authorities.  ;D

i can see a new futuristic rap song about bitcoin... gotta get away from your bitch, gotta get them bitchcoins.

My Father in law is an attorney. They excel at finding that kind of stuff. You could only move currency in small amounts over a period of time.

Hmm.... so you are saying that people should be planning for their divorce at least 1 year in advance.  ;D No probs for me. More than half of my net wealth is stored in Bitcoins. And know what? My wife (or my other family members) don't even know what Bitcoin is.  ;D

But they will find this post, and you are done  ;D

This is an interesting topic. I'm sure there have been many early adopters who have found love after the BTC boom and didn't necessarily disclose all of their BTC details to their spouse. This happens all the time whether it's with BTC, cash, precious metals or diamonds.

If you want to hide it yes, a lot of marriages end so quickly that it would be impossible to do it.

I am divesting from fiat as quickly as I can as well. My wife knows about my bit coin but she doesn't know how much I have.   

What happens if you move it all over to bitcoin, keep it, but say you lost it all at an online bitcoin casino?  Never getting married but that would be my go to play.

You are cheating on your wife with Bitcoin?  Say it isn't so....haha jk

it is not very clever. agree, all those who have money can put them where they want to

Then you run the risk of gambling charges and perjury if they can prove otherwise.

All this is true, but have you been in court lately?   Most judges are literally like Dinosaurs...especially ones in Family Court.   They will have a hard time wrapping their head around BTC, and at the end of the day, they won't be able to understand what is going on.   They will just get a fair market value and slap the husband with a judgement.

If your soon to be ex-wife has enough money and is disgruntled enough to hire a forensic accountant, it may be time to waive the white flag.

That is actually one that might work. You can hide a piece of paper or a sd card pretty easily. 

Id she has enough money to hire one she has enough money anyway and doesn't need yours.  :D

She may not need the money, but she will more than likely try to take it anyway.   I have seen ex-wives try to take away cars that ex-husbands need to get to work.   I have seen them claim that they are unable to work, and go back to get alimony extended after their exes made all the payments they were responsible for.   I have seen some serious atrocities and US courts allow them to get away with it...

That is a gender politics issue for sure. The courts are one of the few places they have an advantage right now. Especially in the area of child custody etc. It literally pays to marry someone with character.

You can always do the gamble from a jurisdiction where it's legal, a short vacation trip and some logs are enough to prove that

Do a 50/50 bet with the entire wallet. If you double your money, keep the profit yourself, share the original amount with your ex. If you lose, show the logs to the attorney and she gets 50% of zero.  :D

Even better, marry in Germany where you can do a "church only" marriage: all the show but no legal ties. I have never understood why there is any payments after divorce anyways. The marriage is over and so should be all payments. If you quit your job you don't get a salary for the rest of your life, do you? Everything else is crazy and so are people who accept that sort of enslavement....

I think in one of the Nordic countries the law is such that divorce means, end of marriage, no mutual obligations of any kind. Social security or get a job...and you know what, suddenly men can risk marriage and having children again. Way to go!  :)

All the reasons above and additional ones go to show that marriages are just too much paperwork..lol.   If one parent quits their careers to raise the kids, then I get being owed money, but in court there are so so many scumbags it is not even funny

The feminazi movement in the US would never allow such a logical and sensible system.

Birth rates will regulate that. Places like ours, with feminazi regime, have low birth rates because it is too risky for men.

Places were men have rights, mostly Muslim countries, have high birth rates. So over the course of  a few generations, the "market" will prove what's right.  ;)

Sad only for men who live today, and would like to have families without risking death or enslavement.  :(


The German nationalist party (less than 1% of votes) is the only party with a root cause solution to this problem: parent salary. The government would pay a fixed rate of 1000 EUR/month for a full time parent. Then all this weird alimony shit would go away.

But of course this is not what the mainstream politics and media want, they want kids be raised in expensive daycares and both parents run in the rat race, to work for FIAT and make the system fat  >:( >:( >:(

Even the most useless work serves to inflate the gross domestic product, and that is necessary to counterbalance monetary supply inflation.

The parent salary though would have to be confiscated from other tax payers and encourage having lots of kids. Also the government that provides the funds would most certainly want a more active role in their upbringing. Maybe the kids can spend one weekend a month and half the holidays with the bureaucrats. 

No kidding.   Even the male judges in the US system heavily favor women.   Even druggy women...

ouch I just imagined what the bureaucrats will do with those kids >:-O like the Roman emperors huh?

But seriously fulltime government operated daycares, what role can be more active than that?

yes it would lead to people having more kids that is the whole purpose  ;)

To fully comprehend the insanity of German politics, you have to know that daycares cost EUR 1000 per kid per month ... so it costs the same ... it is all about government wanting to indoctrinate their future slaves  :o

You see some parents may have weird opinions not in sync with public policy - as you can see on this forum  ;D

oh man, this topic is starting to move into /r/mensrights on reddit. i kind of agree though. if i were wealthy before getting into a marriage, i'd definitely ask for a pre-nup.

They are trying the same junk in the US. The funny thing is that the kids generally figure it out for themselves after leaving the indoctrination camps (schools).

People are smarter than the government minders think.

It would just be another shitty hump and dump alt coin.  ;D

Exactly. If you're hiding a significant amount of gold, silver, cash etc. you not only have a space issue (look up how much space/weight 1 million in gold/cash takes up), there is a higher possibility of loss given the options for storage when trying to conceal from the court. Bitcoin solves this issue, but I don't know how you would get by the review of financial documents by the court.

This is for good reason, the courts in the US have a financial incentive to favor them because of the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998. The states get from the federal government about 10% of whatever they collect in child support, and because men generally make more than women for a variety of reasons, women usually end up getting the children so the state makes more money. Even if custody of the child is shared equally and hence both parties have equal expenses, courts will often order child support simply because it makes them/the state money from federal kickbacks.

http://www.answerisland.com/child-support-kickbacks.html

That is interesting. As always follow the money.

yes, many countries tried to avoid that problems causing by BTC through banning BTC such as China and India. I think BTC has more advantages. It is just the beginning of this new technology. People pay more attention to the drawbacks.

This is off topic from the thread title but it seems like everyone has gone there so I will too:  I do believe I learned in law school that alimony is on the downswing.  I think too many people realize it's very flawed.  Something as big as alimony will take years to get rid of or reduce but I think it's going in the right direction.

No one is banning it. China is just trying to make it harder to acquire. They will not give up power easily.

It might be flawed, but is there an alternative solution?
How would you make sure the kid gets what he needs from a parent who's not around?

Alimony and palimony has nothing to do with child support. Alimony is a welfare entitlement program to steal income for the state and the poorer spouse after a divorce.

It requires the assumption that one spouse is less capable of looking after themselves and in return for the privilege of marrying their worthless asses the other spouse owes them a living.

Correct, it is akin to paying a prostitute to have sex with someone else, repeatedly, for years to life.

They should really warn the children of these dangers!

It is a transfer of wealth from men to women.  The government has the incentive since consumer spending from women is an economic driver in capitalism.  Despite men making more money than women - almost all the consumer spending (well over 70% if I recall) is from women.

Most men, when they make money, spend it on investments which are taxed at lesser rates (capital gains) and this is only taxed when it's converted into $Fiat.  Women on the other hand prefer to spend their money on luxuries (shoes and purses) which employs people in the service industry (income taxes) and the product is taxed several times (value added and then hidden manufacturing taxes and commercial taxes on the business which sells said products).

The Government, while people claim its' malevolent, is technically only looking out for its' best interests - namely taxation revenue.  There's more tax when a man's paycheque is handed to a woman than there is from a bachelor male who either doesn't spend money or spends on capital investments.

Government should be looking out for the people's best interest. Not their own.

How can anyone ban the Bitcoin? As long as the TOR Browser / VPNs are available, people will be able to buy and sell Bitcoins. There is nothing that the government can do about it. At best, they can prevent the conversion of Bitcoin to fiat.

I guess the only thing they can really do is make it harder - thus less new people getting in.
And make people afraid, fearing to do something illegal.

Exactly. An out right ban would be really tough to do with all the big money rolling into bit coin now. Government listens to big money.

If the other spouse can prove that BTC or other assets were purchased (like cash withdrawals, transfers to exchanges) then the spouse that tries this could be held in contempt of court.

IMO this is not a good idea. 

Right. BTC must be bought with cash only and with cash you didn't withdraw for that specifically. So it's hard to buy a lot of btc.

Wow.  I was wondering where he ran off to....haven't seen him on in the longest time.

He seems happier :P

Even if it was an early adopter that could hide their purchase you would still be taking a huge risk.

So in one of the threads i saw somebody worrying whether making money off of Bitcoin is ethical or not. Meanwhile here people are trying to figure out how to hide wealth from their spouses.  :-\

Different people having different opinions? How strange...

I would not say that this thread is about how to hide money from their soon-to-be spouses, it is more about the question of could it be done.

Really tricky, I never thought of it.

What if the being divorced knows about it, can he prove it in the court during the judgement ?

Divorce is tricky and has tricky rules of evidence.

If the wife makes an accusation that is shaky but does have a little evidence the judge will likely want to see proof to the contrary.

The same is true when you try to cash your BTC back into fiat.