What if you bought some of those stolen Mt Gox Bitcoins?

[Edward50]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

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[SecondsOld]

How?  BTC transactions are irreversible.

[Edward50]

How?  BTC transactions are irreversible.

Not really if law enforcement gets involved and you have to go to court. Technically you can be sued if you can convince a jury.

Not really a good thing to be honest if this did happen.

[Littleshop]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

I doubt that this would happen.  The Bitcoins would not have the same address.  They are not the same Bitcoins.

Maybe Bitcoins obtained straight from a stolen source are one thing, but Bitcoins that have transferred MANY times with differing amounts over a year?  What basis would that be?  They do not do that with cash or currency. 

[AnonyMint]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

I doubt that this would happen.  The Bitcoins would not have the same address.  They are not the same Bitcoins.

Maybe Bitcoins obtained straight from a stolen source are one thing, but Bitcoins that have transferred MANY times with differing amounts over a year?  What basis would that be?  They do not do that with cash or currency.  

Naive bullshit or intentionally misleading spin. The chain of ownership is recorded in the blockchain.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.msg5436510#msg5436510

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.msg5415520#msg5415520

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.0

For those who are rationalizing away the chain of ownership (I explained upthread) due to that the lack of physical nature to Bitcoin, you don't have any chance of winning that argument. If it wasn't owned, it wouldn't have value that can be exchanged. Even if we are trading fungible tokens in a pool, the tokens are still owned. Cripes, are you guys totally ingenuous or ignorant.

[AnonyMint]

Ok so you know the address of a stolen bitcoin, now tell me how you plan to identify the person who owns the address?

There is no anonymity in Bitcoin against powerful entities:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=439357.msg5355485#msg5355485

[mysidia]

Ok so you know the address of a stolen bitcoin, now tell me how you plan to identify the person who owns the address?

There is no anonymity in Bitcoin against powerful entities:

There might not be any anonymity,  but that still doesn't help you prove that a specified person owns the private key associated with a newly generated Bitcoin address,  whose only transaction so far was to receive some coins.

Unless the person shows you the private/public key; for all you know,  the Bitcoin address was a DUMMY address, and the coins are essentially destroyed --- since there is no known public/private key pair in existence  that would have the address that the coins were transferred to.

[AnonyMint]

Ok so you know the address of a stolen bitcoin, now tell me how you plan to identify the person who owns the address?

There is no anonymity in Bitcoin against powerful entities:

There might not be any anonymity,  but that still doesn't help you prove that a specified person owns the private key associated with a newly generated Bitcoin address,  whose only transaction so far was to receive some coins.

Unless the person shows you the private/public key; for all you know,  the Bitcoin address was a DUMMY address, and the coins are essentially destroyed --- since there is no known public/private key pair in existence  that would have the address that the coins were transferred to.

Incorrect. You had to transmit your public key to the sender who sent you BTC.

Edit: actually the public key is hashed and not public until you spend. But unless it was sent encrypted to the sender, this could be intercepted. And frankly most of the time you are not obtaining coins from such a covert sender. When you buy on an exchange, the authorities can get this information.

Also once you spend your coins then your public key is revealed. If you can't spend your coins without revealing your identity, then what is your point?

[AnonyMint]

Ok so you know the address of a stolen bitcoin, now tell me how you plan to identify the person who owns the address?

There is no anonymity in Bitcoin against powerful entities:

There might not be any anonymity,  but that still doesn't help you prove that a specified person owns the private key associated with a newly generated Bitcoin address,  whose only transaction so far was to receive some coins.

Unless the person shows you the private/public key; for all you know,  the Bitcoin address was a DUMMY address, and the coins are essentially destroyed --- since there is no known public/private key pair in existence  that would have the address that the coins were transferred to.

Incorrect. You had to transmit your public key to the sender who sent you BTC.

Edit: actually the public key is hashed and not public until you spend. But unless it was sent encrypted to the sender, this could be intercepted. And frankly most of the time you are not obtaining coins from such a covert sender. When you buy on an exchange, the authorities can get this information.

Also once you spend your coins then your public key is revealed. If you can't spend your coins without revealing your identity, then what is your point?

Actually you are correct that I could display my public key in some way that doesn't connect it to my IP, e.g. at software download website, and the sender could send me coin and since the public key is hashed on the blockchain, no one would know I received it except for the sender and myself.

However, as I pointed out, as soon as you spend it, your public key is revealed.

And when you send you spend transaction, that is when your IP address can be correlated.

Also note my understanding is that a decentralized mixer such as CoinJoin would have to reveal your public key to all the parties since they all need to sign. And a centralized mixer would know your public key, so if that service was a honeypot, then it is revealed in that way.

[Peter R]

There is hundreds of years of case law that already settled this question.

In most jurisdictions (Switzerland being an exception) if you purchase stolen unique goods, such as a painting or a sculpture, even if you didn't know that it was stollen and you acted in good faith, the legal title for these goods remains with the original owner. 

This does not apply, however, to non-unique or fungible items like dollar bills or bitcoins.  If your restaurant receives payment in bills that were stolen from a bank robbery, then these bills remain your property provided you received them in good faith (i.e., you weren't in on some sort of money laundering operation).  This applies even if the serial numbers of the stolen bills are known.  If you think about it, a cash economy couldn't function any other way!   

Another note is that, even after a few transactions, you can't really refer to "this bitcoin" or "that bitcoin".   Let's say Alice unknowingly receives a stollen 1 BTC coin.  She then sends that 1 BTC to Bob using the Blockchain.info SharedCoin feature.  Shared coin merges, for example, ten 1 BTC outputs (all from different people) into 1 transaction, and then send those bitcoins out to, say, 10 different addresses.  There is no longer a blockchain record that shows that Alice's address sent 1 BTC to Bob's address.  Instead, Bob's bitcoin has 10% taint with the bitcoin that Alice sent.  Now, if Bob sends 5 mBTC from that coin to pay for a coffee, and then the merchant moves all customer payments for the week to a new address (and thus likely into a single, say, 5 BTC coin) this new coin shares 0.01% taint with the original stolen coin that Alice unknowingly received from MtGox.   

Pretty soon, the taint has diffused throughout the economy!

As an experiment: go to blockchain.info and look-up one of your bitcoin addresses and select the "taint analysis" option. I bet there is taint linking it to hundreds or thousands of other addresses.  There's a good chance that your address has 0.0023% taint of a coin used for something illegal.  Just like a few of the twenty-dollar bills that you'll use this year had at some point in the past been used to pay for marijuana.   

In conclusion:
- If you receive stollen coins in good faith, they become your legal property. 
- After several transactions, a 100% stollen coins get fuzzed-out across numerous coins, each sharing a small amount of taint with the original. 

[AnonyMint]

There is hundreds of years of case law that already settled this question.

In most jurisdictions (Switzerland being an exception) if you purchase stolen unique goods, such as a painting or a sculpture, even if you didn't know that it was stollen and you acted in good faith, the legal title for these goods remains with the original owner.  

This does not apply, however, to non-unique or fungible items like dollar bills or bitcoins.  If your restaurant receives payment in bills that were stolen from a bank robbery, then these bills remain your property provided you received them in good faith (i.e., you weren't in on some sort of money laundering operation).  This applies even if the serial numbers of the stolen bills are known.  If you think about it, a cash economy couldn't function any other way!  

Bullshit. Bitcoins are not legal tender.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.msg5416272#msg5416272

What makes you so certain that the nemo dat rule will be applied to bitcoin? Isn't it at least plausible for a court to treat it similar to legal tender or other negotiable instruments?

Why should the government give a competitive currency (that threatens the power of the government) all its power over legal tender?

Duh.

As well most governments have already ruled it is not legal tender and they have been issuing warnings about using the crypto-currencies.

As well it is quite clear from precedents, e.g. gold and silver are fungible money too yet they are treated as property by all national governments in the world today.

Another note is that, even after a few transactions, you can't really refer to "this bitcoin" or "that bitcoin".   Let's say Alice unknowingly receives a stollen 1 BTC coin.  She then sends that 1 BTC to Bob using the Blockchain.info SharedCoin feature.  Shared coin merges, for example, ten 1 BTC outputs (all from different people) into 1 transaction, and then send those bitcoins out to, say, 10 different addresses.  There is no longer a blockchain record that shows that Alice's address sent 1 BTC to Bob's address.  Instead, Bob's bitcoin has 10% taint with the bitcoin that Alice sent.  Now, if Bob sends 5 mBTC from that coin to pay for a coffee, and then the merchant moves all customer payments for the week to a new address (and thus likely into a single, say, 5 BTC coin) this new coin shares 0.01% taint with the original stolen coin that Alice unknowingly received from MtGox.  

Pretty soon, the taint has diffused throughout the economy!

Exactly! It spreads to everyone. And a coin can be stolen more than once, so the percentage of taint in the system is always increasing, and NEVER DECREASING!

As an experiment: go to blockchain.info and look-up one of your bitcoin addresses and select the "taint analysis" option. I bet there is taint linking it to hundreds or thousands of other addresses.  There's a good chance that your address has 0.0023% taint of a coin used for something illegal.  Just like a few of the twenty-dollar bills that you'll use this year had at some point in the past been used to pay for marijuana.    

And in fact tainted money can be confiscated!

http://www.nestmann.com/civil-forfeiture-of-cash-it-could-happen-to-you

In conclusion:
- If you receive stollen coins in good faith, they become your legal property.  
- After several transactions, a 100% stollen coins get fuzzed-out across numerous coins, each sharing a small amount of taint with the original.  

Logic fail!

Are you determined to live in Alice in Wonderland fantasies and be in denial about the potential risks.

[Peter R]

...

AnonyMint, in one sentence, is this your position?

Since taint tends to diffuse, spreading out to more and more coins over time, and since at least some coins were involved in a crime at some point in the past, AnonyMint claims that most bitcoins in circulation would become subject to confiscation.

[AnonyMint]

...

AnonyMint, in one sentence, is this your position?

Since taint tends to diffuse, spreading out to more and more coins over time, and since at least some coins were involved in a crime at some point in the past, AnonyMint claims that most bitcoins in circulation would become subject to confiscation.

Add that the 21 million (final total of) coins can be stolen over and over, thus the percentage of theft on the tainted coins is ALWAYS INCREASING AND NEVER DECREASING. At least not until coins start being confiscated and returned to their owners.

And over time the 21 million coins absolute limit is always decreasing too due to lost keys.

And not only theft. Also criminal activities using coins also makes them subject to confiscation.

http://www.nestmann.com/civil-forfeiture-of-cash-it-could-happen-to-you

[FelixOliver]

WOW... the lack of common sense is truly a sight to behold!

Quite simply, this WOULDN'T happen with cash - so therefore wouldn't happen with Bitcoin

....I don't see the confusion

[hensi]

The stolen coins would be sold all over the world and it would be very difficult to trace down that where have his coins gone. it's not possible to get the stolen coins back.

[AnonyMint]

WOW... the lack of common sense is truly a sight to behold!

Quite simply, this WOULDN'T happen with cash - so therefore wouldn't happen with Bitcoin

....I don't see the confusion

Cash = legal tender.

Gold != legal tender

Gold can be confiscated if you buy it and it was stolen property.

Can't you read my prior post, or are you fucking blind?

Legal tender is given this protection, because the government provides consumer protection against theft, e.g. FDIC insurance, tracking down serial numbers on bills, chargebacks on credit cards, etc.. It is their racket, and so they give it is special status.

[AnonyMint]

The stolen coins would be sold all over the world and it would be very difficult to trace down that where have his coins gone. it's not possible to get the stolen coins back.

Technically ignorant people should STFU. The chain of ownership is in the blockchain. This has already been debated. Go read the links I provided to the other thread on this same topic.

[Peter R]

...

AnonyMint, in one sentence, is this your position?

Since taint tends to diffuse, spreading out to more and more coins over time, and since at least some coins were involved in a crime at some point in the past, AnonyMint claims that most bitcoins in circulation would become subject to confiscation.

Add that the 21 million (final total of) coins can be stolen over and over, thus the percentage of theft on the tainted coins is ALWAYS INCREASING AND NEVER DECREASING. At least not until coins start being confiscated and returned to their owners.

How would you propose they return coins to the victim of a theft if his coins are now distributed as taint across 24,000 other coins?  Say Sally has 1 BTC that has 0.002% taint of a coin that was stolen from Sam.  Would they correlate Sally's human identity with her 1 BTC wallet, find her somehow, and then ask for 0.002% x 1 BTC = 2000 Satoshi's back?  And then they would find the other 23,999 coins and do the same?  And what if Sally was also the victim of a theft at some prior point in time, but the Coin Rescuers hadn't found her coins yet.  She might be upset that you're taking some of her coins, when she was a victim herself.  Do you think you could add an appeal process so that victims waiting for their settlements could defer having a portion of their coins removed?

What would you propose they do if later it's found that this 2000 Satoshi restitution paid to Sam was actually tainted by 10% with a crime from many years ago that was just recently solved?  Would they than go to the Sam, to whom they just return 2000 Satoshis, and confiscate 200 Satoshi's to give to Joanne?

Are you imagining that they automate this in some way?  Are do you imagine that a significant portion of the population is involved with splitting a few pennies off of coins to provide restitution to victims?  You could really cut down on unemployment if you did this all manually.  And since you have people tracking other people down for 2000 Satoshi's  = 1 penny (due to diffused taint), and this process probably costs more than 1 penny, how would you propose we pay for this?  Maybe the Coin Rescuers could also control mining and most of the nodes, and then they can just issue as many bitcoins are necessary to pay their workers to rescue all the pieces of the stolen coins distributed as pennies across the economy.  So you've achieved near 100% employment and everybody can get their stolen coins back.  

And who are they by the way?  And do you think they are watching you through your webcam right now?

[barwizi]

hmmm the gox problem.

0) figure out the exact amount of missing coins and figure out where they went
1) verify which balance include part of the stolen ones
2) Contact persons in possession by finding  actual Identities without infringing on rights....for which said agency is opening it'self wide for a class privacy lawsuit
3) prove that they actually are in my possession
4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs
7) figure out which gox customer exactly owned those particular coins
manage to distribute each and every coin to its owner

quite frankly without trying to confuse each other with technical stuff....it's a non starter.

this all assumes i am in the U.S, now, in my country the U.S has no power, no say in legal matters and definitely not on illegitimate currency. So, what if 45% of the coins are in countries that do not care what Americans do? This exercise (theoretically) would only be useful if it were a national crypto currrecy, not one that is spread over the world, and certainly not in one whose tx are irreversible.

[TheAccountant]

Wait, I'll admit I'm late to this game, but it seems to me that a block chain can be corrected (superseded) after it is created.  Is there a point where that cannot happen?

It seems to me that a theft, if proven, could cause the chain to be reinstated without the theft.

[protokol]

The stolen coins would be sold all over the world and it would be very difficult to trace down that where have his coins gone. it's not possible to get the stolen coins back.

Technically ignorant people should STFU. The chain of ownership is in the blockchain. This has already been debated. Go read the links I provided to the other thread on this same topic.

No you should shut the fuck up, I think your technical intelligence is clouding your view.

What you are basically saying, if I'm not mistaken, is that eventually every single bitcoin which has been spent at some point, will be significantly tainted, and so would be tracked down by LE and confiscated.

That is ridiculous, can you imagine how much money this would cost, and how much of a drain it would be on government services? They would need to first get warrants for every single name/postal address (This could easily be over 1m addresses), which is doubtful. Then they would need to send search teams round to everyone's house etc, it's just not feasible.

I accept that if Bitcoin really does take off, and the market cap gets to 10/100/1000x what it is currently, then the cost of such an operation could possibly make more sense, i.e. a $50bn operation to take down a $50tr market. But I think there would be cheaper/easier ways to destroy Bitcoin, I mean a 51% attack would probably be possible in the next couple of years, for less money than what this bitcoin confiscating operation would cost...

[FelixOliver]

Cash = legal tender.

Gold != legal tender

Gold can be confiscated if you buy it and it was stolen property.

Can't you read my prior post, or are you fucking blind?

Legal tender is given this protection, because the government provides consumer protection against theft, e.g. FDIC insurance, tracking down serial numbers on bills, chargebacks on credit cards, etc.. It is their racket, and so they give it is special status.

First walk to wardrobe.. Open bottom drawer... Remove thinking cap... Then Put on head.

This is simple logic, with a dash of common sense sprinkled on top for you.. enjoy...

How many bank robberies have taken place over the past 100 years? ...Store robberies... Brinks truck heists... Casino Heists... There is ALWAYS a % of this "legal-tender" you speak of that is NEVER recovered.

Why do you think that is? (I hope you have your thinking cap on properly) ...Do you think these bills are just dispensed into the realms of the unknown? Of course not, they are spent - laundered etc.

"Legal-tender" or not... If I walk to the store, buy some milk, receive change and it turns of that ONE bill was "stolen" many years, months or days before - do I have an obligation to return this bill? ...does the government have the right to seize this bill?... Of course not!

[SixSignatory]

This has not been settled by law.  It is one of the weaknesses of BTC.  Each USD is basically fungible.  You cant tell if your dollars have been used previously in a crime, so each one is worth the same as the next (except in rare exceptions - like where money serial numbers have been logged, or its been tainted with theft ink from a bank robbery or something)  This fungibility is backed up by centuries of court cases that have held it up.

Bitcoin has no such protection and its easily tracked to any number of crimes.  So it can be a crime to even hold certain bitcoin, and you may not know it, yet.

And now that a huge amount of Mt Gox coin has been stolen, we are all likely fencing a portion of that stolen material every time we trade.

[Coins4life]

Nothing is going to happen. /end of thread

[crazynoggin]

Considering how difficult it would be to trace every single Bitcoin that was stolen and to somehow then find out who owned them at this current time would be litterally impossible. Then even if people were found to be in possession of those Bitcoins, they would have to be in a country that had similar laws to the US. It just isn't financially possible to do this and it likely wont happen, its unfortunate, but stolen Bitcoins are likely gone for good unless the guy or girl who stole them has a change of heart.

[thethingis]

If I exhale, within one year every breath by every other human is likely to contain 14 molecules on average that were exhaled by me. Gimme my air back!

[gog1]

This is pure FUD to discredit bitcoin, until case law or newly enacted law settle this question for good, it's just subject of speculation.  Besides, different jurisdiction can have different laws and treatment.

[E.exchanger]

How the heck can anyone be able to do it one bitcoin transactions are not reversible two they are anonymous.

[Armis]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

I doubt that this would happen.  The Bitcoins would not have the same address.  They are not the same Bitcoins.

Maybe Bitcoins obtained straight from a stolen source are one thing, but Bitcoins that have transferred MANY times with differing amounts over a year?  What basis would that be?  They do not do that with cash or currency. 

sure they do,

the OP is correct if you are able to track, trace, or connect the dots then you are obligated to return the money.

Jewish organizations are collecting gold, money, and many other valuable things that they were able to convince a judge, and or jury that was stolen from their people during their stay at auschwitz concentration camps.   

the blockchain provides a perfect vehicle for that connecting of the dots.

Now let's look at it in a bit of a different way, if I sold my car to you and you gave me counterfeit money which I took to the bank, who subsequently confiscated said fakes funds.  Do you think you are off the hook for my money?  Of course not, regardless of the law, but in this case the law is on my side.   You would also need to do some 'spaning to the coppers.

The very definition of money laundering is taking ill gotten gains and introducing it into legal commerce.  So if you purchased a btc for $40 when the going rate was $80 or $800 there is likely a good reason for it.    The block chain might not be able to tell us the market rate for the coin at that time but you can put together perfect valuations for what the coin was worth at the time of the transfer simply be average all of the coins sold in that block or perhaps the chain of blocks for that hour surrounding that transaction.


being uncooperative only serves to distance yourself from the good of the community, as the community matures it will tend to remember the bad guy with perfect recall

[sbfree]

so far I would have to say it's a yes and no answer. In theory yes you have tainted goods, whether its currency or not does not matter, but  no most of us would not have to give it back or have it confiscated because as time goes by and users move their btc around it will become harder and harder to track.

But if you have a wallet full of stolen/missing btc, and it is traced to you, then that would not be good......

the point.....use your btc more and more.......i know i felt stupid when Apple removed btc wallets from the APP store and I didn't have a wallet on my iphone when I could have had one....but alas there is a remedy for that and so now I have BTC (small amount in case of loss)
on my phone so I can eat.....now to find a restaurant that takes my BTC

[sbfree]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

I doubt that this would happen.  The Bitcoins would not have the same address.  They are not the same Bitcoins.

Maybe Bitcoins obtained straight from a stolen source are one thing, but Bitcoins that have transferred MANY times with differing amounts over a year?  What basis would that be?  They do not do that with cash or currency. 

sure they do,

the OP is correct if you are able to track, trace, or connect the dots then you are obligated to return the money.

Jewish organizations are collecting gold, money, and many other valuable things that they were able to convince a judge, and or jury that was stolen from their people during their stay at auschwitz concentration camps.   

the blockchain provides a perfect vehicle for that connecting of the dots.

Now let's look at it in a bit of a different way, if I sold my car to you and you gave me counterfeit money which I took to the bank, who subsequently confiscated said fakes funds.  Do you think you are off the hook for my money?  Of course not, regardless of the law, but in this case the law is on my side.   You would also need to do some 'spaning to the coppers.

The very definition of money laundering is taking ill gotten gains and introducing it into legal commerce.  So if you purchased a btc for $40 when the going rate was $80 or $800 there is likely a good reason for it.    The block chain might not be able to tell us the market rate for the coin at that time but you can put together perfect valuations for what the coin was worth at the time of the transfer simply be average all of the coins sold in that block or perhaps the chain of blocks for that hour surrounding that transaction.


being uncooperative only serves to distance yourself from the good of the community, as the community matures it will tend to remember the bad guy with perfect recall

Armis, in your example here, unfortunately how it really works is that YOU would be in JAIL, even though you TRULY would be the innocent party.....trust me on this one, I deal with this everyday of my life and know for a fact that you would be dealing with it first, long before the bad guy would have to.

[cdog]

so far I would have to say it's a yes and no answer. In theory yes you have tainted goods, whether its currency or not does not matter, but  no most of us would not have to give it back or have it confiscated because as time goes by and users move their btc around it will become harder and harder to track.

But if you have a wallet full of stolen/missing btc, and it is traced to you, then that would not be good......

the point.....use your btc more and more.......i know i felt stupid when Apple removed btc wallets from the APP store and I didn't have a wallet on my iphone when I could have had one....but alas there is a remedy for that and so now I have BTC (small amount in case of loss)
on my phone so I can eat.....now to find a restaurant that takes my BTC

Get off that iPhone man. Bitcoin is all Android, all the time.

iPhone is good for checking up on that fiat in your Citibank account, because Apple has taken what can only be called an "Anti-Bitcoin" stance.

[sbfree]

so far I would have to say it's a yes and no answer. In theory yes you have tainted goods, whether its currency or not does not matter, but  no most of us would not have to give it back or have it confiscated because as time goes by and users move their btc around it will become harder and harder to track.

But if you have a wallet full of stolen/missing btc, and it is traced to you, then that would not be good......

the point.....use your btc more and more.......i know i felt stupid when Apple removed btc wallets from the APP store and I didn't have a wallet on my iphone when I could have had one....but alas there is a remedy for that and so now I have BTC (small amount in case of loss)
on my phone so I can eat.....now to find a restaurant that takes my BTC

Get off that iPhone man. Bitcoin is all Android, all the time.

iPhone is good for checking up on that fiat in your Citibank account, because Apple has taken what can only be called an "Anti-Bitcoin" stance.

i know, i know, but i found a work around.....hehehehe.....and i feel good about it because i only use it for good and still get my blockchain wallet....

and Apple wants in on mobile payments is why they are now 100% against BTC.....bad idea on Apple's part.

[sbfree]

thieves, hackers, inside job person/people, and those who knowingly buy stolen anything (hint: large amounts of BTC at discount price) can be held legally liable (aka jail/prison)......there must be intent for there to be a crime.....

because most of U.S. MONEY  has traces of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs we now have to give back our money?? In theory yes, in reality NO.

[Armis]

hmmm the gox problem.

0) figure out the exact amount of missing coins and figure out where they went
1) verify which balance include part of the stolen ones
2) Contact persons in possession by finding  actual Identities without infringing on rights....for which said agency is opening it'self wide for a class privacy lawsuit
3) prove that they actually are in my possession
4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs
7) figure out which gox customer exactly owned those particular coins
manage to distribute each and every coin to its owner

quite frankly without trying to confuse each other with technical stuff....it's a non starter.

this all assumes i am in the U.S, now, in my country the U.S has no power, no say in legal matters and definitely not on illegitimate currency. So, what if 45% of the coins are in countries that do not care what Americans do? This exercise (theoretically) would only be useful if it were a national crypto currrecy, not one that is spread over the world, and certainly not in one whose tx are irreversible.

it doesn't matter if the USA can find the money, and they can, what's important is that the cryptocurrency community find the money for the sanity and security of the cc industry especially btc. 

right now the current true value of btc is about $400, add it the hype it's about $1000, subtract the FUD it's about $600, remove the uncertainty it's down to $500. when the uncertainty turns to certain and that certainty isn't positive then the $500 goes to $300.  If you are unable to trust anyone further that you can throw them you are not going to work with very many people. 

[AnonyMint]

How would you propose they return coins to the victim of a theft if his coins are now distributed as taint across 24,000 other coins?  Say Sally has 1 BTC that has 0.002% taint of a coin that was stolen from Sam.  Would they correlate Sally's human identity with her 1 BTC wallet, find her somehow, and then ask for 0.002% x 1 BTC = 2000 Satoshi's back?  And then they would find the other 23,999 coins and do the same?  And what if Sally was also the victim of a theft at some prior point in time, but the Coin Rescuers hadn't found her coins yet.  She might be upset that you're taking some of her coins, when she was a victim herself.  Do you think you could add an appeal process so that victims waiting for their settlements could defer having a portion of their coins removed?

The authorities could either start as early in the chain as possible where the stolen coin is not very distributed, especially since many Bitcoin investors hold long-term. And these big fish (if Bitcoin goes to $1 million, then BTC100 is worth $100 million) would be the most lucrative to attack as well.

And at some point in the game, the G20 could declare a class action against Bitcoin in the collective public interest. They can mandate a tax on all conversions of Bitcoin to fiat to fund a new global insurance agency, which will be responsible for paying the victims.

Since this would be very popular given so many millions of people will have been stolen from (and told by the callous community of idealists that this was their learning experience and "c'est la vie" you have no recourse), this is the perfect way to begin to institute a world government, i.e. to have a demand for a global entity. You've provided a popular demand for a function that only government can do with its mandate on the use of force, which is the worst possible thing for liberty. It is so clever how this design leverages the Libertarians to help promote global governance. Makes me want to puke. And I am not going to stand idle and watch like a deer in the headlights. I am a real minanarchist-Libertarian (actually a contentionist) not like you mofos.

This is yet another in my long list of reasons to know with relative certainty that Bitcoin was planted by the powers-that-be who have for a long-time stated they intended for us to have a world government, i.e. the powerful group behind the launch of the failed League of Nations.

Bitcoin was well designed to have this outcome, because there are alternative designs for a crypto-currency which don't have this repudiation ex post facto weakness. I will be moving my investment (not from Bitcoin since I wasn't invested in it other than my effort to research it) to one of these superior altcoins soon.

You all can stay in the NWO coin. Have fun.

[AnonyMint]

Here is a set of directions for the G20. I suggest that Wall Street Journal reporter who contacted me, can refer to this post.

hmmm the gox problem.

0) figure out the exact amount of missing coins and figure out where they went

Government directs through public announcements for users to document their stolen BTC, perhaps at a global entity website. Previously filed cases with local authorities can be forwarded.

1) verify which balance include part of the stolen ones

This can be automated. It is all on the blockchain. Mixers (a.k.a. laundries, tumblers, CoinJoin, etc) could simply pollute all outputs on the mixer.

2) Contact persons in possession by finding  actual Identities without infringing on rights....for which said agency is opening it'self wide for a class privacy lawsuit

You have no rights any more as the $150 trillion global debt bubble collapses society into a pancake chaos, because too many people are trying to hide assets from the onerous taxation and confiscation coming. The society will try to tax and claw-back as necessary in order to meet the impossible (bankrupted) obligations of the government. Observe carefully post-2015.

The NSA & GCHQ can correlate your identity (read all my posts in that linked thread).

3) prove that they actually are in my possession

Irrelevant. You are liable because you possessed. The law doesn't require you to still be possession.

4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs

Not necessary. Just confiscate your real assets and auction them to recover the value stolen. Or garnish your wages.

7) figure out which gox customer exactly owned those particular coins
manage to distribute each and every coin to its owner

Already explained in #0 above.

this all assumes i am in the U.S, now, in my country the U.S has no power

Keep dreaming of your Alice in Wonderland fantasy. Meanwhile the G20 has been ramping up their coordination to go after all those Europeans who have been hiding assets abroad. They've got to pay that unpayable $150 trillion debt somehow.

[BurtW]

Wall Street Journal reporter who contacted me

Congrats, let us know when the article comes out.

[AnonyMint]

Cash = legal tender.

Gold != legal tender

Gold can be confiscated if you buy it and it was stolen property.

Can't you read my prior post, or are you fucking blind?

Legal tender is given this protection, because the government provides consumer protection against theft, e.g. FDIC insurance, tracking down serial numbers on bills, chargebacks on credit cards, etc.. It is their racket, and so they give it is special status.

First walk to wardrobe.. Open bottom drawer... Remove thinking cap... Then Put on head.

This is simple logic, with a dash of common sense sprinkled on top for you.. enjoy...

How many bank robberies have taken place over the past 100 years? ...Store robberies... Brinks truck heists... Casino Heists... There is ALWAYS a % of this "legal-tender" you speak of that is NEVER recovered.

Why do you think that is? (I hope you have your thinking cap on properly) ...Do you think these bills are just dispensed into the realms of the unknown? Of course not, they are spent - laundered etc.

"Legal-tender" or not... If I walk to the store, buy some milk, receive change and it turns of that ONE bill was "stolen" many years, months or days before - do I have an obligation to return this bill? ...does the government have the right to seize this bill?... Of course not!

It has been recovered. You pay taxes for the police, the NSA, the recent $8 trillion QE public backstop on TBTF banks, etc..

People don't keep much of their money in cash, and they feel safe in banks.

Cash doesn't have a ledger like Bitcoin does where everything is tracked precisely.

If Bitcoin will be mass adopted by grandma, then the same peace-of-mind will exist and be provided for by the financial institutions that run this world. Then they will bless Bitcoin.

And if you don't believe they are in control, then I will lend you my tinfoil hat.

[AnonyMint]

Wall Street Journal reporter who contacted me

Congrats, let us know when the article comes out.

I refused to be interviewed. I offered to answer questions anonymously only. I don't want to involved as public figure. I would prefer not to even be making a big noise here, but someone needs to present the other side of the argument against the collective "group think" here. I am merely trying to inform my fellow Libertarians. I hope some of you will join me to something better. The rest of you can get what you deserve.

[AnonyMint]

Maybe you should have (sold BTC above $1000) purchased some gold at the $1150 low, since it has no traceable ledger.

Yet I speculate there will be another dip closer to $1000 after this spring rally. Gold won't blast off until after 2015.

Gold is going to rise WHEN capital realizes that we have a geopolitical problem [after 2015] and there is uncertainly on the horizon as to what monetary system emerges afterwards. This is the real issue – not inflation. Plain and simple, gold reach $875 in 1980 and the Dow 1,000. The Dow has reached almost 17,000 and gold at its peak below $2,000. From a plain numbers game, the Dow was a far better hedge against “inflation” than gold since 1980.

See also:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/02/24/gold-all-lathered-up-but-are-we-ready-to-go/

[Timo Y]

There is no such thing as a stolen bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not property.

It is a ledger with a set of rules. Those rules are determined by consensus and enforced by the protocol. If you choose to take part in the game, you agree to accept the validity of the rules, and any future changes to the rules as determined by consensus.

With bitcoin, the rule is unambiguous: Whoever validly signs the transaction, "owns" the bitcoin.  

You cannot claim to be a legal "owner" of some bitcoin if you do not have the ability to sign (ie. knowledge of private key) because the bitcoin clients/developers/businesses never made such a promise, implicitly or explicitly, and the above rule was clear from the start.

Just because around 2010 everyone started behaving as if it was property doesn't make it property.  The mtgox victims never actually owned any bitcoins. At best, they owned bitcoin IOUs. It's sad that they were misled by mtgox's marketing and that we failed to educate them better about the above.

If you think this is all just theoretical musings,  remember this:

Any bitcoin can be "dispropriated " by consensus.  Not by the government, not by the legal system, not by the police, but only by the protocol itself.

This has already happened twice. Once after the generation bug in 2010 and once after the forking event in 2012.

if bitcoin were property in any legal sense those protocol changes would have been Illegal! which would be absurd because they were commited by the very owners of that property, ie the collective of all miners and users.

PS. I don't want to condone antisocial behaviour like the mtgox heists, but the solution should come from the protocol itself, eg. in the form of multisig and timelocked transaction. It should not come from wrongly treating bitcoins as property.

Tl;Dr code is law

[awesomeami]

There is hundreds of years of case law that already settled this question.

In most jurisdictions (Switzerland being an exception) if you purchase stolen unique goods, such as a painting or a sculpture, even if you didn't know that it was stollen and you acted in good faith, the legal title for these goods remains with the original owner.  

This does not apply, however, to non-unique or fungible items like dollar bills or bitcoins.  If your restaurant receives payment in bills that were stolen from a bank robbery, then these bills remain your property provided you received them in good faith (i.e., you weren't in on some sort of money laundering operation).  This applies even if the serial numbers of the stolen bills are known.  If you think about it, a cash economy couldn't function any other way!  

Another note is that, even after a few transactions, you can't really refer to "this bitcoin" or "that bitcoin".   Let's say Alice unknowingly receives a stollen 1 BTC coin.  She then sends that 1 BTC to Bob using the Blockchain.info SharedCoin feature.  Shared coin merges, for example, ten 1 BTC outputs (all from different people) into 1 transaction, and then send those bitcoins out to, say, 10 different addresses.  There is no longer a blockchain record that shows that Alice's address sent 1 BTC to Bob's address.  Instead, Bob's bitcoin has 10% taint with the bitcoin that Alice sent.  Now, if Bob sends 5 mBTC from that coin to pay for a coffee, and then the merchant moves all customer payments for the week to a new address (and thus likely into a single, say, 5 BTC coin) this new coin shares 0.01% taint with the original stolen coin that Alice unknowingly received from MtGox.  

Pretty soon, the taint has diffused throughout the economy!

As an experiment: go to blockchain.info and look-up one of your bitcoin addresses and select the "taint analysis" option. I bet there is taint linking it to hundreds or thousands of other addresses.  There's a good chance that your address has 0.0023% taint of a coin used for something illegal.  Just like a few of the twenty-dollar bills that you'll use this year had at some point in the past been used to pay for marijuana.    

In conclusion:
- If you receive stollen coins in good faith, they become your legal property.  
- After several transactions, a 100% stollen coins get fuzzed-out across numerous coins, each sharing a small amount of taint with the original.  

exactly - like here:
https://blockchain.info/tx/e4abb15310348edc606e597effc81697bfce4b6de7598347f17c2befd4febf3b
https://blockchain.info/address/13HEd5ignWCm5kUnzDkQUzbWWaSh51VVmn

1. if i tell u who owns what adr on left side - how u tell me who owns right side adr.? after 5x this?
2. if 1BTC coming from adr1 on left side (output) - which adr. did recieve it on right side (spent?)
u can follow it:
https://blockchain.info/address/13HEd5ignWCm5kUnzDkQUzbWWaSh51VVmn
https://blockchain.info/address/1Cyz2wm2Q2EyaoQsD3KvBCABbGwDS6DGAo
https://blockchain.info/address/15cFvmatzfdyT8QTCq1L1ixbhgcRaea7GC
and if this happens hundreds times in 2 years???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

[awesomeami]

There is no such thing as a stolen bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not property.

It is a ledger with a set of rules. Those rules are determined by consensus and enforced by the protocol. If you choose to take part in the game, you agree to accept the validity of the rules, and any future changes to the rules as determined by consensus.

With bitcoin, the rule is unambiguous: Whoever validly signs the transaction, "owns" the bitcoin.  

You cannot claim to be a legal "owner" of some bitcoin if you do not have the ability to sign (ie. knowledge of private key) because the bitcoin clients/developers/businesses never made such a promise, implicitly or explicitly, and the above rule was clear from the start.

Just because around 2010 everyone started behaving as if it was property doesn't make it property.  The mtgox victims never actually owned any bitcoins. At best, they owned bitcoin IOUs. It's sad that they were misled by mtgox's marketing and that we failed to educate them better about the above.

If you think this is all just theoretical musings,  remember this:

Any bitcoin can be "dispropriated " by consensus.  Not by the government, not by the legal system, not by the police, but only by the protocol itself.

This has already happened twice. Once after the generation bug in 2010 and once after the forking event in 2012.

if bitcoin were property in any legal sense those protocol changes would have been Illegal! which would be absurd because they were commited by the very owners of that property, ie the collective of all miners and users.

PS. I don't want to condone antisocial behaviour like the mtgox heists, but the solution should come from the protocol itself, eg. in the form of multisig and timelocked transaction. It should not come from wrongly treating bitcoins as property.

Tl;Dr code is law

code is law - going to my sig

[AnonyMint]

There is no such thing as a stolen bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not property.

It is a ledger with a set of rules. Those rules are determined by consensus and enforced by the protocol. If you choose to take part in the game, you agree to accept the validity of the rules, and any future changes to the rules as determined by consensus.

With bitcoin, the rule is unambiguous: Whoever validly signs the transaction, "owns" the bitcoin.  

You cannot claim to be a legal "owner" of some bitcoin if you do not have the ability to sign (ie. knowledge of private key) because the bitcoin clients/developers/businesses never made such a promise, implicitly or explicitly, and the above rule was clear from the start.

Just because around 2010 everyone started behaving as if it was property doesn't make it property.  The mtgox victims never actually owned any bitcoins. At best, they owned bitcoin IOUs. It's sad that they were misled by mtgox's marketing and that we failed to educate them better about the above.

If you think this is all just theoretical musings,  remember this:

Indeed the above is all theoretical bullshit that won't help you in reality. The law is the law. The will and power of society is what wins because BITCOIN IS NOT ANONYMOUS. And Mt.Gox's Terms of Service was (as I documented in a linked post in an upthread post) they were acting as an agent with YOUR bitcoin property.

Any bitcoin can be "dispropriated " by consensus.  Not by the government, not by the legal system, not by the police, but only by the protocol itself.

Irrelevant, the law can confiscate other real property and/or garnish wages, because BITCOIN IS NOT ANONYMOUS.

Notwithstanding that the consensus is already controlled by a few mining pools, which can easily be expropriated by the government either overtly or covertly.

if bitcoin were property in any legal sense those protocol changes would have been Illegal!

No. They would have gone to a judge for a fair ruling, if there was enough incentive, but apparently not enough people were harmed wrongly in order to bring it to court.

PS. I don't want to condone antisocial behaviour like the mtgox heists, but the solution should come from the protocol itself, eg. in the form of multisig and timelocked transaction. It should not come from wrongly treating bitcoins as property.

I agree one of the solutions is decentralized exchange, but this won't stop all the theft and criminal activities that are tainting Bitcoin in ever increasing proportions.

Only will be true with rock solid, widespread anonymity. And Bitcoin will NEVER have that!  Never.

Tl;Dr code is law

It could be, with rock solid, widespread anonymity. But Bitcoin doesn't have this and NEVER will.

Tl;Dr Repudiation is always possible if there is not rock solid, widespread anonymity.

Tl;Dr Code is law iff the identities of the participants can not be discovered.

[barwizi]

There is no such thing as a stolen bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not property.

It is a ledger with a set of rules. Those rules are determined by consensus and enforced by the protocol. If you choose to take part in the game, you agree to accept the validity of the rules, and any future changes to the rules as determined by consensus.

With bitcoin, the rule is unambiguous: Whoever validly signs the transaction, "owns" the bitcoin.  

You cannot claim to be a legal "owner" of some bitcoin if you do not have the ability to sign (ie. knowledge of private key) because the bitcoin clients/developers/businesses never made such a promise, implicitly or explicitly, and the above rule was clear from the start.

Just because around 2010 everyone started behaving as if it was property doesn't make it property.  The mtgox victims never actually owned any bitcoins. At best, they owned bitcoin IOUs. It's sad that they were misled by mtgox's marketing and that we failed to educate them better about the above.

If you think this is all just theoretical musings,  remember this:

Indeed the above is all theoretical bullshit that won't help you in reality. The law is the law. The will and power of society is what wins because BITCOIN IS NOT ANONYMOUS. And Mt.Gox's Terms of Service was (as I documented in a linked post in an upthread post) they were acting as an agent with YOUR bitcoin property.

Any bitcoin can be "dispropriated " by consensus.  Not by the government, not by the legal system, not by the police, but only by the protocol itself.

Irrelevant, the law can confiscate other real property and/or garnish wages, because BITCOIN IS NOT ANONYMOUS.

Notwithstanding that the consensus is already controlled by a few mining pools, which can easily be expropriated by the government either overtly or covertly.

if bitcoin were property in any legal sense those protocol changes would have been Illegal!

No. They would have gone to a judge for a fair ruling, if there was enough incentive, but apparently not enough people were harmed wrongly in order to bring it to court.

PS. I don't want to condone antisocial behaviour like the mtgox heists, but the solution should come from the protocol itself, eg. in the form of multisig and timelocked transaction. It should not come from wrongly treating bitcoins as property.

I agree one of the solutions is decentralized exchange, but this won't stop all the theft and criminal activities that are tainting Bitcoin in ever increasing proportions.

Only will be true with rock solid, widespread anonymity. And Bitcoin will NEVER have that!  Never.

Tl;Dr code is law

It could be, with rock solid, widespread anonymity. But Bitcoin doesn't have this and NEVER will.

Tl;Dr Repudiation is always possible if there is not rock solid, widespread anonymity.

Tl;Dr Code is law iff the identities of the participants can not be discovered.

Irrelevant, the law can confiscate other real property and/or garnish wages, because BITCOIN IS NOT ANONYMOUS.

Irrelevant, the law has to establish a case for bitcoin, which means accepting it as legal tender, which then means, law starts then. Which will nevr happen.

Notwithstanding that the consensus is already controlled by a few mining pools, which can easily be expropriated by the government either overtly or covertly.

Unless D.O.D comes up with a new really good ASIC, then manages to overtake the network before we can notice and react. Which falls to consensus yet again, ant dev will just roll back, switch algos place some new checkpoints and we'll continue, right where we left off. They can hold their "bitcoins" which we either invalidate, or they become worthless because the community that gives them value, has moved on.

No. They would have gone to a judge for a fair ruling, if there was enough incentive, but apparently not enough people were harmed wrongly in order to bring it to court.

The only "property" a government can effect is that which can be verified by a ledger they control. So judge rules in their favour at block 300000.....just where do you think the next community consensus hard fork is going to start?

It could be, with rock solid, widespread anonymity. But Bitcoin doesn't have this and NEVER will.

I would not be surprised if new protocols and measures are introduced along with chain size reduction.

[Vitamin]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

This is utter bullshit.  The person who stole it is responsible for all losses under US law.

For example, say I steal your credit card and buy a $2000 flat screen from Best Buy, but on my way home I get into an accident and the TV is destroyed.  Once the the FBI catches me, it's MY responsibility to fork over the $2000 not Best Buy's.

[Littleshop]

WOW... the lack of common sense is truly a sight to behold!

Quite simply, this WOULDN'T happen with cash - so therefore wouldn't happen with Bitcoin

....I don't see the confusion

Cash = legal tender.

Gold != legal tender

Gold can be confiscated if you buy it and it was stolen property.

Can't you read my prior post, or are you fucking blind?

Legal tender is given this protection, because the government provides consumer protection against theft, e.g. FDIC insurance, tracking down serial numbers on bills, chargebacks on credit cards, etc.. It is their racket, and so they give it is special status.

Since most gold gets melted and recombined over and over, and there is a lot of gold theft, is most gold subject to confiscation now as most gold contains some part that was stolen at some point?

[AnonyMint]

Irrelevant, the law has to establish a case for bitcoin, which means accepting it as legal tender, which then means, law starts then. Which will nevr happen.

The underlined quoted text is unadulterated nonsense.

Notwithstanding that the consensus is already controlled by a few mining pools, which can easily be expropriated by the government either overtly or covertly.

Unless D.O.D comes up with a new really good ASIC, then manages to overtake the network before we can notice and react. Which falls to consensus yet again, ant dev will just roll back, switch algos place some new checkpoints and we'll continue, right where we left off. They can hold their "bitcoins" which we either invalidate, or they become worthless because the community that gives them value, has moved on.

Hahaha what naive fool you are. I won't even bother to explain. 

Continue on in bliss boiling frog.

... rest of your nonsense not worth responding to...

I would not be surprised if new protocols and measures are introduced along with chain size reduction.

Hahaha, yeah the Bitcoin community is going to accept adding required strong anonymity to Bitcoin and the huge risk in change of legal status.

Just try. 

You will learn what inertia and vested interests are.

[AnonyMint]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

This is utter bullshit.  The person who stole it is responsible for all losses under US law.

For example, say I steal your credit card and buy a $2000 flat screen from Best Buy, but on my way home I get into an accident and the TV is destroyed.  Once the the FBI catches me, it's MY responsibility to fork over the $2000 not Best Buy's.

Incorrect.

I guess you missed the relevant discussion.

Failure to understand Bitcoin will indeed cost investors billions. 744,408 BTC stolen (nearly 7% of total mined coins to date) and some people seem to be cheering like this is a good thing because they don’t like (long despised) MtGox. This is far far from over.  Where did those stolen coins go? Well check your wallet because they were likely fed back to the markets. If you have been buying bitcoins on any exchange chances are you have some of the stolen loot yourself. These stolen coins can be traced back to their true owner in a direct chain of title thanks to the block chain. If you don’t think this matters you don’t understand the legal system and the principle of Nemo dat quod non habet .

Under both American and English law the original owner of stolen property can demand ownership be returned to him if he can prove a chain of title (something the blockchain conveniently provides). The only recourse for an innocent buyer of stolen goods (and only in some jurisdictions) is to argue the exchange it was bought from had an implied warranty and he can try to sue the exchange after returning the coins to the true owner. MtGox is insolvent good luck there. BTC-e is run by anonymous folks think they will stick around in the face of massive lawsuits?

But cheer up there is still a chance most MtGox victims will get their coins back. The threat of massive unending lawsuits targeting innocent bitcoin buyers is an existential one for bitcoin. The 10-15 early adopters stand (by far) to lose the most if bitcoin goes down in flames. They might actually decide to buy out MtGox for the 744,408 bitcoins (an amount grossly exceeding the worth of the company) not because they are altruistic people, but because the chain of lawsuits that would follow if they don't act may hurt their holdings more than the loss of 744,408 bitcoins. It’s a lot of money, however, so its likely a difficult call for them. Regardless expect all future exchanges to require both rigorous identity checks prior to buying and selling as well as fine print stating that anyone who supplies coins to a market is ultimately responsible in the event those coins are determined to be “black” or stolen goods in the future.

Still think there is no need for truly anonymous cryptocurrency?

[AnonyMint]

WOW... the lack of common sense is truly a sight to behold!

Quite simply, this WOULDN'T happen with cash - so therefore wouldn't happen with Bitcoin

....I don't see the confusion

Cash = legal tender.

Gold != legal tender

Gold can be confiscated if you buy it and it was stolen property.

Can't you read my prior post, or are you fucking blind?

Legal tender is given this protection, because the government provides consumer protection against theft, e.g. FDIC insurance, tracking down serial numbers on bills, chargebacks on credit cards, etc.. It is their racket, and so they give it is special status.

Since most gold gets melted and recombined over and over, and there is a lot of gold theft, is most gold subject to confiscation now as most gold contains some part that was stolen at some point?

Thanks for reaffirming my point that anonymity and untraceability are required if you want to avoid the law of Nemo dat quod non habet.

Gold, paintings, diamonds, etc can be confiscated when it can be proven that yours originated as stolen property.

With Bitcoin this is incredibly easy (for powerful entities such as the NSA + GCHQ) to prove because of the ledger which tracks the chain of ownership, and the lack of reliable anonymity against powerful entities. With gold it is not easy to prove.

[flower1024]

This thread is comedy gold.

How to even proof that coins are stolen? We cant proof this even for mtgox

[AnonyMint]

This thread is comedy gold.

How to even proof that coins are stolen? We cant proof this even for mtgox

Duh, like this.

Mt.Gox's coins are either lost (key), stolen, confiscated, or embezzled by Mark & Co.. We await the investigations.

[BitcoinAutist]

4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs

Not necessary. Just confiscate your real assets and auction them to recover the value stolen. Or garnish your wages.

So you are actually saying that they have no way to access the bitcoins? And if they are going after the rich bitcoiners, lets say with 100 million$ in BTC, who have most of their assets in bitcoins what are they going to do? Throw people in jail? That surely solves the debt-issue. Just throw people with assets, that the government can't access, to jail and wait for the economy to bloom.

Also, why should people outside the US be afraid of US debt? Obviously the collapsing of US economy would have implications on the whole world, but I doubt anyone would be coming after my bitcoins.

[AnonyMint]

4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs

Not necessary. Just confiscate your real assets and auction them to recover the value stolen. Or garnish your wages.

So you are actually saying that they have no way to access the bitcoins?

I have not written that. I have instead cited the following link numerous times:

http://www.nestmann.com/could-the-government-force-you-to-tell-your-deepest-darkest-secrets

And if they are going after the rich bitcoiners, lets say with 100 million$ in BTC, who have most of their assets in bitcoins what are they going to do? Throw people in jail?

No they can compel them to give their private keys. Or they can simply declare those coins illegal and anyone who receives those coins in future, has committed a crime.

Btw, waterboarding is very effective.

That surely solves the debt-issue. Just throw people with assets, that the government can't access, to jail and wait for the economy to bloom.

The government will get the assets. You highly underestimate the power of torture. Imagine being thrown in maximum security SuperMax prison dungeon with a cell smaller than a bathroom and you never see the light of day nor talk with anyone. Many commit suicide.

Also I did not write only about an attack on millionaires. I also suggested everyone could be forced to pay collectively with a tax on all Bitcoin exchange to/from fiat.

Also, why should people outside the US be afraid of US debt? Obviously the collapsing of US economy would have implications on the whole world, but I doubt anyone would be coming after my bitcoins.

The $150 trillion debt is all major countries. There are no exceptions.

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/11855-total-debt-to-gdp.html#axzz2iu5C4Y4Z
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg3902083#msg3902083

[AnonyMint]

To the person that wrote I have anger mgmt issues (and then deleted his post) for telling that neophyte upthread to "STFU", it is because I got tired of repeating myself over and over again politely (in other threads also not just this one), only to find an endless stream of idiotic comments that never ceases.

I am generally not angry at people. I am smiling most of time  

[BitcoinAutist]

4) gain access to my wallet
5) try to break my password, 215 characters
6) separate stolen from legitimate inputs

Not necessary. Just confiscate your real assets and auction them to recover the value stolen. Or garnish your wages.

So you are actually saying that they have no way to access the bitcoins?

I have not written that. I have instead cited the following link numerous times:

Well I can see that you are very good in citing links. So are you then saying that they have a way to crack 215 character password or..?

Btw, waterboarding is very effective.

Oh okay, so the US government is just going to waterboard the private keys out of anyone not willing to give them? I'm sure everyone is going to be just fine with that.

The government will get the assets. You highly underestimate the power of torture.

No I don't, but I think you higly overestimate the willingness of government to just start torturing people for interwebs money. People would just get the fuck out of the US if they started to torture their own citizens for trivial reasons like this. Or is every government around the world in on this "lets torture the shit out of people for bitcoins"-campaign?

[AnonyMint]

Btw, waterboarding is very effective.

Oh okay, so the US government is just going to waterboard the private keys out of anyone not willing to give them? I'm sure everyone is going to be just fine with that.

The government will get the assets. You highly underestimate the power of torture.

No I don't, but I think you higly overestimate the willingness of government to just start torturing people for interwebs money. People would just get the fuck out of the US if they started to torture their own citizens for trivial reasons like this. Or is every government around the world in on this "lets torture the shit out of people for bitcoins"-campaign?

The Mad Max outcome is coming globally 2016ish. It is underway on schedule.

$150 trillion global debt, wrap your mind around the implications of that.

They won't waterboard Bitcoin paupers, they will just do something such as tax them to pay for the cost of restitution insurance.

SuperMax isolation (i.e. effectively torture) could be used for Bitcoin $millionaires who refuse to play nice with the gubrmint.

See this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.msg5460181#msg5460181
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=491181.msg5460285#msg5460285

[conspirosphere.tk]

Maybe you should have (sold BTC above $1000) purchased some gold at the $1150 low, since it has no traceable ledger.

no, but in my country (and i think in the US too) if you can't prove how you got something (or even how you got the funds to acquire it), it can be confiscated so even gold is not so intrinsecally safe in the NWO. But you have a point, so adding a layer of anonimity and untraceability to btc or just evolving to a specially designed cryptocoin sounds like a good idea.

btw, quote from:
http://www.centralbank.ie/publicinformation/Documents/EBA%20Warning%20on%20Virtual%20Currencies.pdf
formerly here:
http://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/15971/EBA+Warning+on+Virtual+Currencies.pdf

law enforcement agencies may decide to close exchange platforms and prevent you from accessing or using any funds that the platforms may be holding for you

[freebit13]

Wow, someone has a lot of 'internet time' on their hands...

I think you are making one major assumption here: that your public address can be linked to your ip when you make a payment... what if you use tor? What if coins are tumbled, using tor... could you still trace them... beyond the shadow of a doubt?

[fluidjax]

Incorrect. You had to transmit your public key to the sender who sent you BTC.

This guy claims a deep technical understanding and argues why Bitcoin is doomed to fail and yet demonstartes his total ignorance by clearly not understanding the basics of Bitcoin... What a muppet... Ignored.


There are many things that will need to be settled in court before any cases can be finalised.
among other things..
Is Bitcoin property? Under English law I doubt it, therefore it cant even be stolen, just like you cant steal (Theft Act) electricity.
What jursidiction is relevant? The blockchain is everywhere, and you cant be sure where a transaction was made.
Bitcoin may only be psuedo anonymous, but law requires beyond reasonable doubt, which is a significant burden of proof, so proof of ownsership may be mostly impossible once coin has been moved from an address linked to a KYC check.


Its all a serious minefield for the lawyers (though im sure they'll love that)
Bitcoin specific convictions are a long way off, and a good defense lawyer will run rings around any prosecutions.

[HorseCoin]

why not just buy Starbux stock.  He obviously drinks a LOT of those

[AnonyMint]

Wow, someone has a lot of 'internet time' on their hands...

I think you are making one major assumption here: that your public address can be linked to your ip when you make a payment... what if you use tor? What if coins are tumbled, using tor... could you still trace them... beyond the shadow of a doubt?

Why don't you try reading the two threads more carefully, since I refuted that point at least 3 or 4 times already.

Sigh    

Incorrect. You had to transmit your public key to the sender who sent you BTC.

This guy claims a deep technical understanding and argues why Bitcoin is doomed to fail and yet demonstartes his total ignorance by clearly not understand the basics of Bitcoin... What a muppet... Ignored.

Quoting me out-of-context by eliding much of the quoted post (and pretending not to read my post that followed it), and then using that liar-method to claim I didn't understand something, is the epitome of beta-male chest thumping.

[AnonyMint]

Signing off now.

[freebit13]

Wow, someone has a lot of 'internet time' on their hands...

I think you are making one major assumption here: that your public address can be linked to your ip when you make a payment... what if you use tor? What if coins are tumbled, using tor... could you still trace them... beyond the shadow of a doubt?

Why don't you try reading the two threads more carefully, since I refuted that point at least 3 or 4 times already.

Sigh    

Because your posts start with "imagine that..." and go on to "with that they can and will..." and I have more important things to do with my time... Sigh    

[gollum]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

Stolen money circulate in the economy, why should bitcoin behave differently?
As long as you did the trade in good faith you should keep your bitcoins even if they were stolen by the seller.
The thief should be punished, not you.

[soy]

The stolen coins would be sold all over the world and it would be very difficult to trace down that where have his coins gone. it's not possible to get the stolen coins back.

Unless the 744408 btc + 2000 btc, were stolen by a single entity.  If a botnet theft then those coins would sent to how many addresses?  I think there's a problem for the thief of what to do with all those bitcoins.  How many bank accounts would the thief need to cash out inconspicuously?  Unless they were stolen by some huge shady gambling group with a propensity for breaking legs of anyone discomforting it.  If if was some genius kid from Silicone Valley he likely chatted about an early exploit getting a few coins.  Why hasn't a sizable reward been offered for the return of the coins?  A reward could tempt a confederate of the thief to give him up.

[bitvestor]

Sorry if this was discussed, but in USA if you buy stolen property and you are caught with it you have to return it to the original owner at your loss.

Now, lets say someone did steal the Mt Gox. Bitcoins, and then you bought some of them unknowingly.

If they could trace back through the blockchain that those bitcoins were indeed stolen Mt. Gox. coins, wouldn't they be able to take them back from you?

Did you find the hacker who stole Mt Gox bitcoins? How much is he selling them for?