How mining GeistGeld/Tenebrix can get you a prison sentence in the US

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

Lolcust, the creator of the ‘LolCoins’ (GeistGeld and Tenebrix) has explicitly stated that his intention is to open a money laundering service with the 7,700,000 coins he premined in both chains. Perhaps in his country money laundering is a time honored and noble profession, but in most of the civilized world, it is illegal. This post is intended to educate those not familiar with the legal system in the United States, and to explain why mining these chains makes a miner just as guilty as the worst element laundering money with these coins.  I know that there are a fair amount of people in the community who could care less about laws and prison and such. More power to you, good luck in your battles. This post is for those who do care.

Most of the time in US Federal cases involving 2 or more people, the charges brought will be "Conspiracy to commit <insert crime here>". The burden of proof required for a “Conspiracy” variant of a crime is far less than it would be for the “normal” charge. Most Federal drug convictions in the US involve the “Conspiracy” variants, as witness testimony is usually enough for conviction, with absolutely zero physical evidence. Usually the prosecution has to show that a person 1) knew about the conspiracy and 2) benefitted from it. Under the law, every person involved in the conspiracy is equally guilty. The prosecutors for the US Government use this to force snitching and plea deals. It is an extremely effective tool.

Here is how this applies to the current situation: These chains were designed specifically to enable a money laundering operation. This has been stated in many places on an open, public forum, on the very pages that have the download links. It can be reasonably presumed that anyone mining these chains knows about the creator’s intentions, and therefore knows about the conspiracy. Miner gets coins for mining the chain, and thus benefits from the conspiracy. Also, the encrypting part of the mining as well as securing the network would also be seen as furthering the conspiracy.

Under US law, this makes anyone mining these chains as guilty as whoever is laundering money through it. Whether they be an evil drug lord, a Russian mobster, or a terrorist organization. Not a US citizen? Perhaps you will be ignored. Though if a terrorist organization laundered money via these chains and successfully launched an attack…well the CIA is still running its ‘Rendition’ program I believe. Also note that the Feds do not need to catch everyone. Even a dozen or so convictions would justify the money spent and give them their photo ops.

It would also give them all the ammunition they needed to demonize and shut down all other blockchain based cryptocurrencies.

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[rTech]

Even im just BTC miner, i had to say this.. FFS im happy that i live in Europe!

Yankees and their stupid laws! Remember that your coffee is hot when its served... if you dont remember that, you should re-read that warning sign in your mug again and TROLL some more... Isnt it fantastic that other countrys doesnt have to honor US Laws

[Bobnova]

GeistGeld/tenebrix aren't money though.

[johnj]

Some interesting points.

Some things you mentioned though just don't jive with me

1) "It can be assumed every miner is aware of the creators intentions".  No it can't.
2) "It will be used as a tool to demonize and shut down other chains". The pirate bay is alive and well in the US, I think they're a bigger target than a 3-day old cryptocurrency.
3) Also, your post screams of pure scare tactics.  The delivery of your information has no caution or humility behind it, you don't claim any legal background, you don't cite any cases to support your claim.


I'd like to weigh your evidence, but you don't give any.

Provide more info, less rhetoric.

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

Isnt it fantastic that other countrys doesnt have to honor US Laws

No but they do have to honor extradition treaties.

GeistGeld/tenebrix aren't money though.

Neither was E-gold.

Some interesting points.

Some things you mentioned though just don't jive with me

1) "It can be assumed every miner is aware of the creators intentions".  No it can't.
2) "It will be used as a tool to demonize and shut down other chains". The pirate bay is alive and well in the US, I think they're a bigger target than a 3-day old cryptocurrency.
3) Also, your post screams of pure scare tactics.  The delivery of your information has no caution or humility behind it, you don't claim any legal background, you don't cite any cases to support your claim.


I'd like to weigh your evidence, but you don't give any.

Provide more info, less rhetoric.

1) Yes it can. The very pages that provide the links to download the software have the intentions written on them. No jury will believe that you read the rest of the post regarding the software and somehow skipped the lines regarding the laundry part and still downloaded and configured everything correctly. The accused would have to prove they did not know it. If you want to base your freedom on trying to prove a negative like that, go right ahead. Protip: There are a lot of people in the US Federal prison system who thought they could 'prove' they did not know about a conspiracy. 

2). Somehow I think kids sharing the latest Transformers movie is a slightly lower priority than a service enabling terrorist organizations to instantly launder huge amounts of money from anywhere on the planet. I have no idea why you brought up a public tracker anyway. The point I was making is that they could easily use the 'proven' laundering from LolCoins to go after all cryptocurrencies.

3) I could claim to be a Federal judge of 22 years, or a practicing attorney, or an ex-con, would it matter? There is no need for caution or humility in my statements, because I know I am right. I am intimately familiar with the Federal Court system, and a number of cases. If you don't know how to do your own basic legal research into a topic, then you are probably not going to understand what you read anyway. If you are not familiar with the concept of conspiracy in law, then perhaps you should start with Wikipedia and go from there.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)#United_States

It is your freedom, risk it as you see fit. I am simply explaining how a US Attorney can put people away for many years for mining. They try drug cases that are more difficult to prove than this every single day.

[johnj]

Isnt it fantastic that other countrys doesnt have to honor US Laws

No but they do have to honor extradition treaties.

GeistGeld/tenebrix aren't money though.

Neither was E-gold.

Some interesting points.

Some things you mentioned though just don't jive with me

1) "It can be assumed every miner is aware of the creators intentions".  No it can't.
2) "It will be used as a tool to demonize and shut down other chains". The pirate bay is alive and well in the US, I think they're a bigger target than a 3-day old cryptocurrency.
3) Also, your post screams of pure scare tactics.  The delivery of your information has no caution or humility behind it, you don't claim any legal background, you don't cite any cases to support your claim.


I'd like to weigh your evidence, but you don't give any.

Provide more info, less rhetoric.

1) Yes it can. The very pages that provide the links to download the software have the intentions written on them. No jury will believe that you read the rest of the post regarding the software and somehow skipped the lines regarding the laundry part and still downloaded and configured everything correctly. The accused would have to prove they did not know it. If you want to base your freedom on trying to prove a negative like that, go right ahead. Protip: There are a lot of people in the US Federal prison system who thought they could 'prove' they did not know about a conspiracy. 

2). Somehow I think kids sharing the latest Transformers movie is a slightly lower priority than a service enabling terrorist organizations to instantly launder huge amounts of money from anywhere on the planet. I have no idea why you brought up a public tracker anyway. The point I was making is that they could easily use the 'proven' laundering from LolCoins to go after all cryptocurrencies.

3) I could claim to be a Federal judge of 22 years, or a practicing attorney, or an ex-con, would it matter? There is no need for caution or humility in my statements, because I know I am right. I am intimately familiar with the Federal Court system, and a number of cases. If you don't know how to do your own basic legal research into a topic, then you are probably not going to understand what you read anyway. If you are not familiar with the concept of conspiracy in law, then perhaps you should start with Wikipedia and go from there.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(crime)#United_States

It is your freedom, risk it as you see fit. I am simply explaining how a US Attorney can put people away for many years for mining. They try drug cases that are more difficult to prove than this every single day.

... so you don't have anything other than rhetoric.

Okay, thanks for playing.

[Bobnova]

I didn't read it, hell I missed the entire part about 7 million coins being pregenerated!
You assume much. 

Newsflash:  Nobody reads EULAs, either.

[Lolcust]

Ha ha ha haha.

Boy, this is absolutely hillarious. Could you please post this to Twitter or something ? (I can't pwomise a bounty, tho :-P )

[MaGNeT]

I understand the part about "money laundering".
But how do you dry it without wrinkling it.

[maaku]

How could you not suspect a laundering operation? Look how white that labcoat is! ------->

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

... so you don't have anything other than rhetoric.

Okay, thanks for playing.

What I have is the truth. What you have is a lack of understanding. From the wikipedia article I linked, since you seem to lack the basic ability to click and read:

The conspirators can be guilty even if they do not know the identity of the other members of the conspiracy. See United States v. Monroe, 73 F.3d 129 (7th Cir. 1995), aff'd., 124 F.3d 206 (7th Cir. 1997).
California criminal law is somewhat representative of other jurisdictions. A punishable conspiracy exists when at least two people form an agreement to commit a crime, and at least one of them does some act in furtherance to committing the crime. Each person is punishable in the same manner and to the same extent as is provided for the punishment of the crime itself.
One example of this is The Han Twins Murder Conspiracy case, where one twin sister attempted to hire two youths to have her twin sister killed.
One important feature of a conspiracy charge is that it relieves prosecutors of the need to prove the particular roles of conspirators. If two persons plot to kill another (and this can be proven), and the victim is indeed killed as a result of the actions of either conspirator, it is not necessary to prove with specificity which of the conspirators actually pulled the trigger. (Otherwise, both conspirators could conceivably handle the gun—leaving two sets of fingerprints—and then demand acquittals for both, based on the fact that the prosecutor would be unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, which of the two conspirators was the triggerman). A conspiracy conviction requires proof that a) the conspirators did indeed conspire to commit the crime, and b) the crime was committed by an individual involved in the conspiracy. Proof of which individual it was is usually not necessary.
It is also an option for prosecutors, when bringing conspiracy charges, to decline to indict all members of the conspiracy (though their existence may be mentioned in an indictment). Such unindicted co-conspirators are commonly found when the identities or whereabouts of members of a conspiracy are unknown; or when the prosecution is only concerned with a particular individual among the conspirators. This is common when the target of the indictment is an elected official or an organized crime leader; and the co-conspirators are persons of little or no public importance. More famously, President Richard Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by the Watergate special prosecutor, in an event leading up to his eventual resignation.

Of course I doubt any amount of posting will satisfy you. There is enough there to prove my point, and I am not your paralegal/secretary/bitch. Go use Google and look it up if you care past trolling.

I didn't read it, hell I missed the entire part about 7 million coins being pregenerated!
You assume much. 

Newsflash:  Nobody reads EULAs, either.

Newsflash: you are still liable for the EULA, whether or not you read it. Ignorance is not a defense under the law.

Ha ha ha haha.

Boy, this is absolutely hillarious. Could you please post this to Twitter or something ? (I can't pwomise a bounty, tho :-P )

No bounty, thx. I don't want to install a client and help further your continuing criminal enterprise. Thx, tho.

I understand the part about "money laundering".
But how do you dry it without wrinkling it.

With Bounty, of course 

[Lolcust]

No bounty, thx. I don't want to install a client and help further your continuing criminal enterprise. Thx, tho.

Awesome!

Do provide link here so I can put it on the website in some section or other

I understand the part about "money laundering".
But how do you dry it without wrinkling it.

With Bounty, of course  

Nah, with people like you I don't even need to post bounties. Enough of you (allegedly) American attorneys-at-lol e-lawyering poetically about woeful nature of my humble projects and exact cases that allegedly might be relevant, and I will have all the PR I could ever need, for 0 GG/TBX/BTC/USD/JPY  

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

P.P.S.:

All I intend to do, essentially, is exchange old, worn "postage stamps"  for new ones I happened to get from a factory early on before it closed its doors to me and became public property  ,  and a small fee in the form of a few extra stamps  .

Whether that makes all the owners of all the postage stamps manufactured by the same factory conspirators, is, quite frankly, not up to internet-based attorneys at lol to decide 

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

WoW gold != proper money or else we wouldn't need blockchain based cryptocurencies at all. If it were so superior you would be laundering money with it instead of Lolcoins.

Nice scam with your chains btw, if either one goes to .01 btc your net worth would be about 77,000 btc. I imagine one could live nicely for quite some time in Belarus for that. Hell, one could live nicely in America for that much.

[Lolcust]

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

WoW gold != proper money or else we wouldn't need blockchain based cryptocurencies at all.

Care to actually support that argument ?

What is "proper" money and how is it different from improper ?

I can store value in WoW gold, convert them to other forms of value storage, barter and trade with them... looks like monies to me.

If it were so superior you would be laundering money with it instead of Lolcoins.

I would if I could, but I'm Belorussian and WoW is a mite problematic from here, besides, there already are sophisticated WoW-centric money laundries, and competition would be tough.

Nice scam with your chains btw, if either one goes to .01 btc your net worth would be about 77,000 btc. I imagine one could live nicely for quite some time in Belarus for that. Hell, one could live nicely in America for that much.

Quite frankly, bullshit since I won't be able to sell them off.

Of course, if their value goes to 0.01 btc AND actual governments start accepting Tenebrix as legal tender (lol), things will change  

P.S.:

Where is the link to your tweet ?

[nelisky]

What I have is the truth.

Scary, really scary... What was the name of that  religion you are preaching again?

[Lolcust]

What I have is the truth.

Scary, really scary... What was the name of that  religion you are preaching again?

He seems to be an attorney at lol.

Attorney at lol is not a religion per se, but it might be considered a spiritual state akin to meditation

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

WoW gold != proper money or else we wouldn't need blockchain based cryptocurencies at all.

Care to actually support that argument ?

What is "proper" money and how is it different from improper ?

I can store value in WoW gold, convert them to other forms of value storage, barter and trade with them... looks like monies to me.

You can also do the same with baseball cards, Magic the Gathering cards, postage stamps, etc. Does not make them 'proper' money. Also, I doubt any form of 'proper' money is controlled by a single private corporation. You brought the 'proper money' argument in and how WoW gold is more like it than LolCoins. By your subsequent arguments cryptocurrencies are just as much 'proper money' as WoW gold is, since I can store value in them, exchange them for other forms of storage, barter and trade with them, etc. So which is it?

Quite frankly, bullshit since I won't be able to sell them off.

Not at once. You can't cash out 77,000 btc at MtGox right now even if you wanted to, let alone exchange all your Lolcoins for btc. 50 or 100 btc worth here and there will never be noticed though, and is still enough for you live comfortably in your Eastern European paradise.

Scary, really scary... What was the name of that  religion you are preaching again?

It is called the United States Code. The law of my land. Truth > willful misunderstanding. Most people don't get that until the gavel falls at the end of their day in court.

[Lolcust]

P.S.:
Having said that, how did those year-and-something old WoW-gold money laundering cases go, any arrests so far ;-P ? (do note that WoW gold has more in common with "proper money" than Tenebrix or Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency" of this general type)

WoW gold != proper money or else we wouldn't need blockchain based cryptocurencies at all.

Care to actually support that argument ?

What is "proper" money and how is it different from improper ?

I can store value in WoW gold, convert them to other forms of value storage, barter and trade with them... looks like monies to me.

You can also do the same with baseball cards, Magic the Gathering cards, postage stamps, etc. Does not make them 'proper' money.

Antique postage stamps would make decent money, very deflationary too, and quite a chore to counterfeit. And they have a proper formal issuer (usually, at least)

In fact, antique stamps are a huge market

Also, I doubt any form of 'proper' money is controlled by a single private corporation

Ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha

US Fed reserve is not a governmental organization proper, IIRC.

Try again.

You brought the 'proper money' argument in and how WoW gold is more like it than LolCoins. By your subsequent arguments cryptocurrencies are just as much 'proper money' as WoW gold is, since I can store value in them, exchange them for other forms of storage, barter and trade with them, etc. So which is it?

Per definition I use, "proper" money must have a formal issuer, which is true for WoW gold but not for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are   abstractions formed by exotic math and more akin to distributed database service than anything else. The BTC specifically is also a bit like antique postage stamps (finite amount, incounterfeitable, amount is bound to decrease)

But REALLY be "proper money", something has to be recognized as legal tender and have a "guaranteed" value (which e-gold did) at least in some country, however shitty and remote it might be.

Money laundering X-coins is thus at most, a metaphor, since they are not legal tender and have neither a formal issuer nor any guaranteed value, and are best described as an exotic "mathematical memorabilia" built upon a complicated distributed database service.

Not at once. You can't cash out 77,000 btc at MtGox right now even if you wanted to, let alone exchange all your Lolcoins for btc. 50 or 100 btc worth here and there will never be noticed though, and is still enough for you live comfortably in your Eastern European paradise.

Last time I checked, block explorers do not have a capacity to "forget x coins here and there".

It is called the United States Code. The law of my land. Truth > willful misunderstanding. Most people don't get that until the gavel falls at the end of their day in court.

I see you are still waxing poetic.

Please show me the tweet link, mister e-lawyer

[Lupus_Yonderboy]

Cryptocurrencies are   abstractions formed by exotic math and more akin to distributed database service than anything else.

That argument (and a large bribe) might work in your court system. It most assuredly will not fly the US Federal Courts. While this might cause the Courts to legally recognize blockchain based cryptocurrencies as currencies, the downsides to that recognition far outweigh any upsides. The US has a host of laws dealing with money, and a case such as this would be a very good excuse for them to get cryptocurrencies regulated without actually passing any new laws.

Last time I checked, block explorers do not have a capacity to "forget x coins here and there".

If you cannot launder 50 or 100 bitcoins worth of currency from yourself to yourself, you a bad money launderer indeed.

Please show me the tweet link, mister e-lawyer

What tweet? What are you on about?

[Bobnova]

EULAs have been struck down in courts, in part because nobody reads them.