Definitely faster.  Like practicing my basic strategy and even microbets make it a bit more interesting.

I see something like this as more likely.



Except in place of the $5 wrench, I'd imagine a threat of a harrowingly long mandatory minimum sentence would be the coercion.

If anyone is a government shill, it is anyone urging people to participate in an illegal criminal conspiracy that cannot possibly end well.  Agents provocateurs, anyone?  Not that it's going to happen, or that anyone here is actually a provateur, since the scheme is so transparently idiotic that nobody in a position to do it (the mining pools) would actually do it.  But anyone taking this seriously, rather than joking around about it, has clearly been consuming too many research chemicals from SR.

I think it's good in the same sense Napster going down was good.  It clears the way for a less vulnerable architecture.  While I do not approve of what DPR did, I do in general approve of anonymous marketplaces, whether or not they are used for illegal as well as legal purposes.

So if I somehow pissed off DPR and he had me murdered, that wouldn't be his fault.  It would be the fault of some random other guy.  Okay.  Got it.

With liberty and hitmen for all who piss me off!

How dare dat eebil gummint tell me I can't administer a harmless dose of lead to whoever gets in the way of my profits?

Or WAS DPR's wallet.  There's nothing there now, a ton of dust transactions around 8/25, and before that, I'm not really up on blockchain forensics, but a bunch of transactions that look like they might be some kind of a mix.  Apparently, those coins are at another address now.

It does seem slow to me.  Not sure if that has to do with the provable fairness part of it.  Doesn't appear to be network latency as I get more or less normal ping to it.

By what it doesn't say, that would seem to imply they do not have the decryption keys.

No problem, I just point out these things to be useful.  Don't mind a "bounty" for bugs, though.  Btw, the site is now getting a 502 Bad Gateway.  Not sure whether that's just an ISP thing, it happened just now.

Appears to have cleared up on its own.

Bitcoin may not be a "currency," (although it may be), but it is certainly legally "money" by most relevant definitions.

The criminal complaint claims he made 600K in commissions.  That doesn't mean he still has all that money, though I'd be pretty amazed if he didn't have a lot of it.  He didn't exactly seem to be blowing enormous amounts of money if descriptions of his living arrangements are accurate (i.e. renting a share of an apartment for $1K/month).


They won't drop charges, but when it comes to sentencing, they're a lot more likely to throw the book at you if they know you're hiding a huge amount of money for when you get out.  He would be well advised to consult real legal counsel (other than a public defender) as to how to construct a binding deal on anything reducing sentences/getting charges thrown out in return before he says a word.  It would certainly be idiotic to turn over the keys in return for nothing.

All that means is that it's an attempt crime rather than a completed crime.  It is just as illegal to try to contract for a murder as it is to succeed at contracting for a murder.  The penalties are just less.

That surely hasn't happened in the real world with fiat money, and it seems unlikely to happen with Bitcoin either.  There will always be black markets in any functioning currency.

I guess there's no "Charlies" on this site.

They aren't (they being the U.S. government).  So far, that's just speculation.  They have already gone after lots of fiat sites, especially poker sites and sportsbooks.  So far as I know, no law enforcement has to date gone after any Bitcoin gambling sites.

The real question is what can you do with cash?  While I suppose you can't roll up a Bitcoin and snort cocaine with it, you can buy the cocaine with it.  Just like cash.  I think it is actually worse than cash for illegal purposes because of its non-repudiability, and actually less anonymous than cash for the same reason.  That's partly why it's galling for it to be linked to illegal activity, tax evasion and money laundering when nothing could be further from the truth.

Some have used it for those purposes, but it is actually not particularly well-suited to them.  It is actually better for legal economic activities than many of the fiat alternatives, especially for international trade where it can bypass currency exchanges and act as a universal currency.

If a vendor in Iran wants to sell a rug to someone in France, they can set a BTC price and it can be paid by anyone anywhere.  Neither the buyer nor the vendor have to know anything about the exchange rate or even know what currency the other country uses.

In theory, yes, for reasons explained previously in the thread.  I.e. over half the network rejecting the transaction, and/or hard forking back to before it happened.  In practice, it would be a ridiculous act and 51% of the network just isn't going to do that.

Additionally FinCEN has basically nothing to say about what laws states pass, and each state has its own opinion on the matter.  Further, the DOJ has its own opinion on the matter, and has been very broad about what it claims is prohibited by law.

Until a court has actually said something, nothing anyone says on the subject is anything but opinion.  FinCEN carries a lot of weight when discussing the specific laws and regulations it carries out.  However, outside that domain, their opinion carries no more weight than mine or, for that matter, that of the DOJ or of the states.

It also has nothing to say about what is legal in countries other than the United States, except insofar as the U.S. government can exert considerable pressure to force the banks of other countries to conform to the U.S. view of legality.

I believe that to be the case, and it is referenced in the criminal complaint.

This is from page 6.