[2018-11-07] Analysis:US seized nearly 200000 bitcoins to date, 453,000 globally

[gentlemand]

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/07/analysis-the-u-s-has-seized-nearly-200000-bitcoins-to-date-global-confiscations-are-up-to-453000/

An interesting wee bit of research here, though I don't understand why they're including that 200,000 Bulgarian coins which appear to be completely unfounded so far.

Give it a few more years and no doubt we'll all have some seized and paroled dust in our wallets. That's if we don't already.

[hatshepsut93]

It would be curious to know how many coins the criminals have successfully hidden from law enforcement agencies via mixing and encryption, just so we can know if 453,000 coins is a lot of no.
Also, in general this report shows us the importance of privacy - if governments can seize coins of criminals, they can also just as easily start seizing coins of citizens.

[gentlemand]

It would be curious to know how many coins the criminals have successfully hidden from law enforcement agencies via mixing and encryption, just so we can know if 453,000 coins is a lot of no.
Also, in general this report shows us the importance of privacy - if governments can seize coins of criminals, they can also just as easily start seizing coins of citizens.

A lot is my guess.

Just for one example there was the Coincheck hack which was $500,000,000 of XEM. The hacker set up his own wee sale site on the dark web and was selling it for a discount, but not a vast one, as well as numerous exchanges which weren't fast enough to stop him.

All of it was sold and nothing's been heard about it since. I'm not sure if any of it's left in crypto. Similarly there's Bitfinex's 170,000 coins, Bitstamp's 20,000 or so. All of them got away with it so far.

I assume the only time they can seize coins is a Ross Ulbricht type of situation when a live and unencrypted computer/wallet is captured considering it's so easy to bury seeds or private keys.

[buwaytress]

Even if, let's say, that Bulgarian stash were true, they'd surely have used it up in mixers by now. Judging from the popularity of tumblers, keep seeing new ones come up, the world's very happily tumbling it all around now. Then we've got privacy wallets coming out of beta (Just myself saw Wasabi wallet), and then LN channels getting larger... The much discussed perceived fungibility shortfalls of Bitcoin won't be an issue soon.

Worse case scenario if seized coins do fall into final hands of US govt, we'll just wait for them to auction it off to reenter circulation. Silk Road seized funds gave us a few new Bitcoin millionaires that way.

Oh and yeah, the way I've been using and receiving coins, I'd be really surprised if I don't have tainted satoshi...

[Betwrong]

The U.S. government currently owns at least 4,100 BTC but likely not more than 10,000 BTC

Which means if they decided to sell all their coins in one day that wouldn't affect the market at all with the current daily trading volume (702,408 BTC). Interesting. I'm wondering how many individuals hold more BTC, each, than the US government?

On average, the government sold each seized bitcoin for $780

They should have had more trust in Bitcoin's potential, I'd guess.

[1Referee]

On average, the government sold each seized bitcoin for $780

They should have had more trust in Bitcoin's potential, I'd guess.

I'm waiting for the day where governments no longer sell their seized Bitcoins, but keep them to strengthen their reserves. Eventually we'll be there, especially with how Bitcoin keeps gaining legitimacy in the legacy system. They might not be able to keep up with every development in this industry, but they aren't stupid either, they know that something is brewing here.

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Considering that Bitmex manages to deliver top notch research on various subjects within this industry, it would be cool to have them dig into where these Bulgarian coins are, and there if there is even a possibility for them to exist in the first place. Even if they ran their coins through a mixer, there are always trails to pick up on, especially when it concerns that many coins. It's impossible to hide completely.

[KryptoKai]

The US government should start to hoard bitcoins as it s going to be the only way they they can repay the national debt. Some articles say that it will go up by a trillion dollars per year, only bitcoin can save them now

[Kakmakr]

The US government should start to hoard bitcoins as it s going to be the only way they they can repay the national debt. Some articles say that it will go up by a trillion dollars per year, only bitcoin can save them now

They will never do that, because they do not bet on uncertainties. They only invest in things where they control the outcome and those things include the whole FIAT financial system. They have been selling seized Silkroad coins for years now and they do not intend to hoard any of those coins.

Governments makes decision with other people's tax money, so they will not take high risk decisions on money that is needed to pay their own salaries.