would you accept stolen bitcoins?

[GambitBTC]

Simply put yes

[ljudotina]

Every piece of fiat you have in your household has been stolen in the past. Do you accept it? Yes you do. Now give yourself an answer to your question...would you accept stolen BTC? Hell yeah!

[superresistant]

What's your point anyway ?

[coins101]

I would report them stolen, to the former owner.

[exapted]

Bitcoins stolen somewhere upstream? Bitcoins from a thief for my Game Boy? Sure I would accept. But just as in the cash economy, I wouldn't knowingly accept a thumbdrive of stolen bitcoins directly from the thief. That wouldn't be very wise and the victim might try to recover his/her assets from me.

[busminer]

i will accept some ^) lets see if someone share 19iqzPtS6xYZfiVUKC4qxbYWhTjXDr9Erq

[JFKing]

i will accept some ^) lets see if someone share 19iqzPtS6xYZfiVUKC4qxbYWhTjXDr9Erq

Wake up bro, you're in a dream. 

[IamCANADIAN013]

We already accept stolen money from every day purchases, so yes.

[cp1]

Banks all stole the money from us anyway, so anytime you use the ATM you're receiving stolen goods.

[GambitBTC]

Banks all stole the money from us anyway, so anytime you use the ATM you're receiving stolen goods.

+1

[btc_jumpnrl]

For the most part, I would accept stolen funds in any currency. That said there is a big difference between me having to physically check if its stolen versus a customer being like 'man, i totally broke into this guys car the other day and he had all this cash lying around. what an idiot. so yea its $100 for the 4 rims right?' That's what got those Floridian localbitcoiners in trouble.

The concept of 'dirty money' is just a fallacy created to enable governments to improve their ability to track, find and arrest those who they deem as criminals. It's not always a bad thing, but its not something that needs to be forced on Bitcoin. There's already plenty of features and barriers to minimize the risk of theft. At some point though there has to be some personal accountability.

[Lauda]

Why not. Stolen money will go through your hands many times in your lifetime, without you knowing it.

[GambitBTC]

Why not. Stolen money will go through your handy many times in your lifetime, without you knowing it.

Well put

[Automatic]

Yes. I would, and, yes, I have. I'd obviously prefer not to know, but, some guy offered me huge discount on some BTC I was buying, I asked why, he said they were stolen. My reply was basically "I didn't steal them, and, I'm getting a discount. If I don't buy them, someone else will, so, why can't I get a discount?".

[disclaimer201]

Definitive yes. I hope we can skip the silly tainted coins BS this time around. First time this came up at Gox, they probably froze accounts due to lost/hacked coins on their own exchange. This was years ago already.

[zeroday]

Bitcoin doesn't smell

[DanielVG]

Would you use bills that have been used to snort cocaine?

[Lauda]

Would you use bills that have been used to snort cocaine?

Yes, cocaine is good.

[analau]

Can not stolen bitcoins be coloured? At least for this MtGox thing?
(I understand that more bitcoins will be stolen in the future, so you can't be recolouring everyday, but just for this case?) I know this is stupid, but maybe migrate to a fork without these btcs?

[sebastian]

I Think accepting stolen goods is wrong.

But it seems here that different people define "stole" differently.
I define "stealing" as taking something when not authorized by law to do so.


So confiscating Money is NOT stealing. Its done by the authorities. You voted the authorities in, which means you agreed to their decisions. You agree, everytime in the voting Booth, that if you do X, the authorities have the right to take your Money.
However, if you steal my 50$ bill, and I take it back, its stealing in a double sense. The 50$ bill has been stolen 2 times: One time when you unauthorizedly took it from me, and one time when I unauthorizedly took it back from you.
(If you don't know or have different laws in your country: Its illegal in Sweden to "steal back" anything that was stolen from you, you HAVE to to request assistance through authorities or someone else that Controls the item and isnt affliated with you.)

The correct way of regaining stolen goods is to go through the authorities, that can confiscate the stolen goods from the thief and then give it back to the rightful owner, in this case you.
Another correct way, is if a third-party, arbitirator, Controls the item and gives it back to you. The arbitirator can be anyone not affliated or in close relation with the thief or owner of item, for example a attendant at a lost+found office, a bank which returns stolen Money to you, or anyone else that might handle the stolen goods.

The important thing here is that to be able to give back the item to the rightful owner legally, you should be in "rightful Control" of the item. One thing to get rightful Control of the item can be for example a phone manufacturer remote disable a stolen phone, and its then given in for repair. Then the phone can be returned to the rightful owner by the phone manufacturer.


Whats your definition of "stealing"?





Then we have this thing with fungibility. So if my 50$ bill was stolen, and then the authorities take the thief's TV and sell it on authority auction (same as you do when recover a debt) and earn 50$ on this, and the authorities give back the NEW 50$ bill to me, the thief's bill that he stole from me, is no longer "stolen".
This because of the fungibility, its the value that is important. If the thief's possession's value is reduced by 50$ with authorization of law, it does not matter if its done by taking back the exact same 50$ bill, or if the thief's possession's value is reduced by 50$ in a other way, and recovered to the rightful owner.


So the ljudotina's argument is wrong. Even if every bill has been stoled once in a time, the value of the bill has been recovered to the rightful owner, and that bill is "Clean" again.
Theres is a very few bills that are REALLY stolen and remain stolen.

The only time the exact bills do matter, is when there's been a large bank heist or bank robbery. Then the stolen bills are barred. You can't repay the bank with your own bills if you were found out with stolen bills because the stolen serial # would still be blacklisted. You have to give the exact stolen bills back to the bank. One reason for this is to gather evidence too of the heist.




So a "taint" system WOULD work, but needs ONLY to be applied to large heist and the background of the heist needs to be checked so the owner of the coins are not trying to cheat the system.