Sudden new largest bitcoin address as of 10/25

[tinus42]

Guess: DPR will face a difficult trial. Most likely, it will take at least 12 months to get a verdict, assuming he's not gonna plea guilty.
Fact: FBI HAS some +170k coins  . Valued at about 30 mil USD, they cannot sell them on eBay/MtGox/Bitcoinica. They can keep them (they can invoke some reasons for that) or auction them AFTER the trial. The problem is, while BTC rises in value, the US Govt gets a fuckin' ton of BTC (money is not important). But power it is.

The Dutch police seized 56 Bitcoins this Monday from some hackers who had phished bank account details and had converted the money they stole into Bitcoin. The police immediately sold the Bitcoins and transferred the received euro's to their own account. Can't the FBI do that as well? Or do they have to keep hanging on to them until the trial ends. What if DPR is acquited after let's say 5 years and he would receive his money back. Do they then give him the USD value of the Bitcoins today or the Bitcoins themselves. I guess this is new legal territory.

[SheHadMANHands]

Guess: DPR will face a difficult trial. Most likely, it will take at least 12 months to get a verdict, assuming he's not gonna plea guilty.
Fact: FBI HAS some +170k coins  . Valued at about 30 mil USD, they cannot sell them on eBay/MtGox/Bitcoinica. They can keep them (they can invoke some reasons for that) or auction them AFTER the trial. The problem is, while BTC rises in value, the US Govt gets a fuckin' ton of BTC (money is not important). But power it is.

The Dutch police seized 56 Bitcoins this Monday from some hackers who had phished bank account details and had converted the money they stole into Bitcoin. The police immediately sold the Bitcoins and transferred the received euro's to their own account. Can't the FBI do that as well? Or do they have to keep hanging on to them until the trial ends. What if DPR is acquited after let's say 5 years and he would receive his money back. Do they then give him the USD value of the Bitcoins today or the Bitcoins themselves. I guess this is new legal territory.

I'm no lawyer, but I would think they'd have to hold on to the bitcoins through the trial.  If they confiscated, say, a Shelby GT500 from you and you got off, they'd have to give you the car back, right...  not the cash?

[User705]

Sold how?  To whom?  Which exchange and at what rate?

[PrintMule]

How about releasing a new fork of bitcoin marking that address as invalid? Of course it should be implemented as silently as possible, so no word gets out to cops. It would be a fun "politicalmove" an "exertion of power"

Of course it breaks the whole system, but once, just for this case? 

[User705]

Why bother?  Isn't the fact that the all mighty FBI had to follow bitcoin protocol rules and transfer the coins to their own wallet statement enough?

[mb300sd]

Why bother?  Isn't the fact that the all mighty FBI had to follow bitcoin protocol rules and transfer the coins to their own wallet statement enough?

Not any more of a statement than them having to generate x86 code if they want to run it on most computers out there.

[User705]

Not sure I follow you.  Previous poster wants to "show them" with his misguided plan.  I'm simply pointing out bitcoin already "showed them" so to speak.  That is assuming they didn't brute force the private key.  If they did it would seem silly to bother seizing something of no value.  Unless you think bitcoin has value even if private keys can be brute forced.

[MAbtc]

So what happens if the Feds sell the Bitcoins to J.P. Morgan and they used them for manipulating the Bitcoin markets just like they manipulate the gold and silver markets.

Could this spell the end of Bitcoin?

Just the end of the beginning.

I don't usually write in speculation forum, but here's what I have to say.

Guess: DPR will face a difficult trial. Most likely, it will take at least 12 months to get a verdict, assuming he's not gonna plea guilty.
Fact: FBI HAS some +170k coins  . Valued at about 30 mil USD, they cannot sell them on eBay/MtGox/Bitcoinica. They can keep them (they can invoke some reasons for that) or auction them AFTER the trial. The problem is, while BTC rises in value, the US Govt gets a fuckin' ton of BTC (money is not important). But power it is.

Legally, I see no reason why they can't file for civil forfeiture in parallel to the criminal case. In which case, they don't need to wait to auction them off. Unless of course, Ulbricht can prove an innocent owner defense.

[hlynur]

Why bother?  Isn't the fact that the all mighty FBI had to follow bitcoin protocol rules and transfer the coins to their own wallet statement enough?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

They can't manipulate the market very much with so few coins, and what little they could do would just enrich traders at the FBI's expense.

Even if the price goes up 100x by the time they sell the coins, and they sell for $2 billion, it will still be about the same effect on the market. They're probably eager to liquidate them ASAP lest they lose out on their millions, but even if the FBI people are Bitcoin bulls they still will only have a very small percentage of the market cap, whether they sell it for 20 million or 20 billion. Their stash cannot grow in value without the market growing by about the same degree. (The error is ceteris paribus assumptions, or "near-field thinking.")

[Minor Miner]

So what happens if the Feds sell the Bitcoins to J.P. Morgan and they used them for manipulating the Bitcoin markets just like they manipulate the gold and silver markets.

Could this spell the end of Bitcoin?

Just the end of the beginning.

I don't usually write in speculation forum, but here's what I have to say.

Guess: DPR will face a difficult trial. Most likely, it will take at least 12 months to get a verdict, assuming he's not gonna plea guilty.
Fact: FBI HAS some +170k coins  . Valued at about 30 mil USD, they cannot sell them on eBay/MtGox/Bitcoinica. They can keep them (they can invoke some reasons for that) or auction them AFTER the trial. The problem is, while BTC rises in value, the US Govt gets a fuckin' ton of BTC (money is not important). But power it is.

Legally, I see no reason why they can't file for civil forfeiture in parallel to the criminal case. In which case, they don't need to wait to auction them off. Unless of course, Ulbricht can prove an innocent owner defense.

they never do this.  they do not care and it is not theirs until they convict.   just go to some of the government auction sites and you will seen range rovers and ferraris that have been RUINED by sitting years waiting for the conviction of the drug dealer that had NO other source of income.
they will auction these as they do gold and silver that is seized.

[Dangolbery]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/

Looks like it's the FBI's address

Now we know what's up. 144k BTC for the FBI.

All your BTC are belong to US.

IF they put all their coins up for sale right now, what would the price drop to?

They could put $3million worth on bitstamp and the price would be $0.01/btc.
They could put $17million worth on mtgox and the price would be $0.01/btc.

So they would completely crash bitcoin.

[derpinheimer]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/

Looks like it's the FBI's address

Now we know what's up. 144k BTC for the FBI.

All your BTC are belong to US.

IF they put all their coins up for sale right now, what would the price drop to?

They could put $3million worth on bitstamp and the price would be $0.01/btc.
They could put $17million worth on mtgox and the price would be $0.01/btc.

So they would completely crash bitcoin.

?Thats bullshit.

A 300k sell is needed to take the price below $0.50 on Gox.

[ronaldlee0917]

Too risky to buy now, we won't know how they would use the seized coins.

[adamstgBit]

Too risky to buy now, we won't know how they would use the seized coins.

Of course we do, inefficiently just like any other funds they receive.

so predictable 

[ErisDiscordia]

The Dutch police seized 56 Bitcoins this Monday from some hackers who had phished bank account details and had converted the money they stole into Bitcoin. The police immediately sold the Bitcoins and transferred the received euro's to their own account.

So the police teach the thieves a lesson by stealing their stolen money 

[Puppet]

The Dutch police seized 56 Bitcoins this Monday from some hackers who had phished bank account details and had converted the money they stole into Bitcoin. The police immediately sold the Bitcoins and transferred the received euro's to their own account.

I read some news reports claiming that, while most of the reports that came out at the same time stated they confiscated the bitcoins which could be converted in to 7700 euro. I think the media that reported the bitcoins had been sold misunderstood, it seems highly unlikely to me. First of all, you dont liquidate seized assets before you get a conviction. Imagine they would not be convicted for whatever reason (procedural error or whatever) and released a year from here, and bitcoin meanwhile surged to $1000. Bit of a problem.

Secondly, there is no obvious way for the police to liquidate these bitcoins so quickly. Are we to believe they already had a verified account at mtgox or btc-e ?

[jl2012]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/25/fbi-says-its-seized-20-million-in-bitcoins-from-ross-ulbricht-alleged-owner-of-silk-road/

Looks like it's the FBI's address

Is this source reliable? It looks pretty childish and unprofessional to send with multiple 324XBT transaction, just to show they are FBI.

[rpietila]

Cool stuff. Readers of this might be interested in how the bitcoins are distributed in general, and what would happen if 200k was sold.

[Raoul Duke]

Lol. The thread had indeed been moved to off-topic. Just speculatin' 

Now I can't find the little grey "Moved..." hyperlink anywhere in General. Some mod really went out of their way to hide that thread without the obvious deletion... Doo-dee-doo-duu-doo-dee-doo-duu...

STFU, moron...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=316855.0