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

[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/

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[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?