USA blacklists 2 bitcoin addresses, threatens with secondary sanctions!

[Zin-Zang]

Do they think all people who have Bitcoin would remember which Bitcoin address is blacklisted by government? I doubt majority of user even know about this news.

I guess people need move to private and fungible cryptocurrency (such as Monero where all transaction must use private/fungible feature) if this keep happening.

This is the beginning of their btc address blacklist of censorship,

--snip--

While such attack is possible (and already abused in past for "politics"), in long term that would hurt every Bitcoin including miners as they knew Bitcoin no longer have resistant property and move to private and fungible cryptocurrency,
Additionally, decentralized pool (such as P2Pool) might become popular.

The Miners are the one that insert the transactions into the blockchain,
if a user sent to one of those blacklisted address, all that would happen is it would never arrive and timeout after 72 hours,
giving access back to the original sender. However multiple attempt by that sender , would probably get their address blacklisted too.

Monero won't protect anyone, as even through hidden , it's transactions are still stored on a public blockchain.
Eventually it code will be cracked and all transaction lay bare for the world to see, or the use of it will be outlawed completely as it fails to comply with AML Laws.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/941591/Monero-price-ban-cryptocurrency-clampdown-bad-for-investor-crypto-market
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@anonymint/is-monero-s-or-all-anonymity-broken
https://blockchainreporter.net/2018/11/05/taiwan-bans-anonymous-use-of-crypto-platforms-transactions/

The Public Relations spin will be these btc address belong to Terrorists and organized crime,
as such they will receive no public support against the blacklist, and many holier than thou people will hail it as a moral victory against evil.  
Funny thing is censorship itself is usually the act of evil people.


 

[BitcoinGuruOne]

There is no point in blocking 2 addresses knowing that a person can very well use a mixer, or use a privacy coin like Horizen. Privacy coins are a great example for oppressive governments.  USA is just trying to make Iran look like the Boogeyman. Even if the US requests an extradition, I doubt Iran will accept it. The tension between USA, China, Iran, Russia, North Korea, is all about getting control over the rare-earth element (REE) North Korea is the only country worldwide with so many resources. Other countries are mainly interested to be free from the US politic, central banks, control, etc.

Trump isn't my president, I don't have to follow him, except when he says he catches vaginas with his fingers like the bowling balls   (joking)

What the hell are you talking about, what are you referring to with REE?


I dont understand what is the big deal here, this is a milestone in sorts. Is there something new regards that cryptos are used to bypass sanctions? Which is the single worst properties of cryptos, unfortunately.

[squatter]

Both addresses will soon be forgotten:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C

Some money landed here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/329TGdi3YgYh6oB8ko7BeYEYvB2WCHZVyT
They will blacklist this one, too? This process might be a little to slow. Why not blacklist EVERY address?

The Treasury Department published the addresses because they're putting the compliance burden on Bitcoin services like exchanges. Legally, exchanges need to block and confiscate related funds and notify OFAC. I don't think they intend to publish every address that funds move through:

Like traditional identifiers, these digital currency addresses should assist those in the compliance and digital currency communities in identifying transactions and funds that must be blocked and investigating any connections to these addresses.

[franky1]

Legally, exchanges need to

legally #116

A [asset] transfer in which an entity has an interest is blocked property if the entity is 50% or more owned by a person whose property and interests in property are blocked. This is true even in instances where such a transaction is passing through a [msb] that (1) is operating solely as an intermediary, (2) does not have any direct relationship with the entity (e.g., the entity is a non-account party), and (3) does not know or have reason to know the entity’s ownership or other information demonstrating the blocked status of the entity’s property. In instances where all three conditions are met, notwithstanding the blocked status of the wire transfer, OFAC would not expect the [msb] to research the non-account parties listed in the wire transfer that do not appear on the SDN List and, accordingly, would not pursue an enforcement action against the [msb] for having processed such a transaction.

If a [msb] handling a wire transfer currently has information in its possession leading the [msb] to know or have reason to know that a particular individual or entity involved with or referenced in the wire transfer is subject to blocking, then the [msb] will be held responsible if it does not take appropriate steps to ensure that the wire transfer is blocked.

OFAC expects [msb] to conduct due diligence on their own direct customers (including, for example, their ownership structure) to confirm that those customers are not persons whose property and interests in property are blocked.

With regard to other types of transactions where a [msb] is acting solely as an intermediary and fails to block transactions involving a sanctions target, OFAC will consider the totality of the circumstances surrounding the bank’s processing of the transaction, including the factors listed above, to determine what, if any, enforcement action to take against the bank.

in short
if an exchange sees a btc deposit that under 50% DIRECT taint of coins from those addresses. green flag
if an exchange sees a btc deposit that has 50% taint of coins from those addresses. RED FLAG
if the exchange has information that the person depositing is not the criminal attached to the taint. green flag
if the exchange has information that the person depositing is the criminal attached to the taint. RED flag
if the exchange customer is not the criminal attached to the taint and shows no relationship to the criminal. green flag
if the exchange customer is not the criminal attached to the taint and shows relationship to the criminal. RED flag

if there are any red flags then freeze account
else if 3 green flags (under 50%, customer is not the direct criminal, customer has no direct relationship to criminal) dont block

[pooya87]

is this a joke?
it is funny on different levels though. obviously you can't "blacklist an address". it just created an additional cost for the owner to move the coins through a mixer and be done with it. but that is the obvious part. the funny thing is about the exchanges accepting the coins coming from these addresses which other users are discussing. what they are forgetting is that exchanges under US jurisdiction don't allow anyone from Iran to sign up in their exchange so it doesn't matter if they blacklist them or not. not to mention that they don't sign up there either because why would they? they can't deposit/withdraw fiat and there are other places where they can trade.

in any case i guess US dudes need some beginners training on what bitcoin is and how it works

[Zin-Zang]

is this a joke?
it is funny on different levels though. obviously you can't "blacklist an address". it just created an additional cost for the owner to move the coins through a mixer and be done with it. but that is the obvious part. the funny thing is about the exchanges accepting the coins coming from these addresses which other users are discussing. what they are forgetting is that exchanges under US jurisdiction don't allow anyone from Iran to sign up in their exchange so it doesn't matter if they blacklist them or not. not to mention that they don't sign up there either because why would they? they can't deposit/withdraw fiat and there are other places where they can trade.

in any case i guess US dudes need some beginners training on what bitcoin is and how it works

If the miners decide as a group to blacklist an address by not inserting any transactions into the blockchain that contain it, then it can't make it to a mixer.
Plus it only take 51% of the miners to make a blacklist happen with a PoW coin.

It seems you need the extra classes on how btc works.  

 

FYI:
Imagine you run the company that run an ASIC Warehouse, the government approaches you , and says
"we have a list of known terrorists & criminal btc addresses, and we need you to make certain that you don't enter any transactions related to these address into the blockchain"
1.  You comply and nothing happens to you, (they may even get the utility to give you a cheaper rate on electricity prices).
or
2.  You refuse and they cut the power to your Mining Equipment and place you on trial for aiding and abetting known criminals,
     plus they confiscate all of your fiat as they claim it was ill gotten gain, which makes mounting a legal defense next to impossible,

Which do you choose?
(If you have a family , they will directly suffer if you are thrown in jail and won't be there to provide for them, so what do you choose?)

* In the Beginning, when BTC was truly decentralizes and ran on PCs, No one knew the location of all of the miners (making the above scenario impossible), however now that mining requires warehouses full of ASICS drawing industrial amounts of electricity , tracking their location is as easy as a call to the utility companies .*
Unless someone finds a way to Decentralize BTC mining as it was in the beginning, it's current centralization will lead to global censorship.

[Kakmakr]

Both addresses will soon be forgotten:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C

Some money landed here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/329TGdi3YgYh6oB8ko7BeYEYvB2WCHZVyT
They will blacklist this one, too? This process might be a little to slow. Why not blacklist EVERY address?

Exactly.  How will they trace the coins if they use mixer services and how are they going to stop the money if it goes through the corrupt Banking system? <We have recently seen how Deutsche Bank employees, laundered millions through the Bank.>

Now take that money and push it through Banks in countries where the USA has no jurisdiction or authority and see how difficult it is to stop that money.

I think this is just political show boating to scare Iran from trying to circumvent the US sanctions with Bitcoin or Crypto currencies. The US should focus more on the corrupt Banks and the monster that they created. 

[aliashraf]

I want to make it clear that no matter how stupid this action would look to us, announcing secondary sanctions against bitcoin addresses, it is an evidence of the war that is coming and bitcoin community is barely prepared for. Well may be not a complete war but certainly a major battle like what Satoshi would probably say.

1- Devs are no more anonymous, they are subject to prosecution by US feds and those bastards are so strong, they had pushed a social democracy like Sweden to fake criminal accusations against Julian Assange not for prosecution but for extradition of him to the masters in the US! The same accusations that they dropped last year, not with good faith but to void his asylum status in Ecuador embassy and let British jurisdiction to prosecute him for not to surrender. It is no joke, we should go underground, period.

2-Bitcoin is pseudonymous hence it is traceable, mixers are trust base, special measures should be taken to help people with anonymity and privacy issues in case they feel being subject to brutal surveillance/censorship/sanction threats/actions.

3- Centralized exchanges are gateways to hell. We need to abandon them once forever.

4- Most of the whales, speculators and high stake gamblers will be pushed out of the ecosystem because they won't choose messing with US feds as a reasonable greedy person, hence both the price and network hashrate will drop even more. We have to be ready for that.

5- Pools are the weakest part of the chain they should be understood as a flaw in bitcoin that needs serious treatment and fix. I've personally done a lot of research and development on this issue but it is not about my work and its details, I'm just saying there exist ways out of pooling situation and it is because the pressure behind this flaw is based on bitcoin's winner-takes-all approach to PoW, which is not the only option.

Bottom line:
True bitcoiners should re-unite and tightening their anonymity policies, be ready for a major battle. Opportunists, speculators, gamblers, ... are free to join Faketoshi Wrong and get scammed and regulated at the same time.

[squatter]

I want to make it clear that no matter how stupid this action would look to us, announcing secondary sanctions against bitcoin addresses, it is an evidence of the war that is coming and bitcoin community is barely prepared for. Well may be not a complete war but certainly a major battle like what Satoshi would probably say.

Maybe, but if anything, it seems more indicative of an incoming war against exchanges and MSBs who don't fully comply with AML/KYC laws.

They didn't announce secondary sanctions against Bitcoin addresses. They just identified addresses associated with individuals they've deemed Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) because the individuals are high volume Bitcoin exchangers and US persons are prohibited from dealing with them. They expect exchanges to block funds tainted by those addresses:

While OFAC routinely provides identifiers for designated persons, today’s action marks the first time OFAC is publicly attributing digital currency addresses to designated individuals.  Like traditional identifiers, these digital currency addresses should assist those in the compliance and digital currency communities in identifying transactions and funds that must be blocked and investigating any connections to these addresses.

[franky1]

5- Pools are the weakest part of the chain they should be understood as a flaw in bitcoin that needs serious treatment and fix.

pools no
a pool is just a stratum address used as a gateway for multiple asics to share work together. pools dont need physical locations.
FARMS on the other hand are fixed.
it takes too long to move such huge amounts of equipment and organise contracts to pre-buy electric at discount(many farms contract for 12 months, to ensure constant supply without brownouts aswell as getting the physical capacitors/cabling to supply the facility sorted)

though you may think that most pools are just 1 farm facility per company tag on the pool pie chart
https://www.blockchain.com/pools
each of them segments are actually more than one facility/farm

if you click on the block tally below the pie chart and then look at details of the blocks made by a particular tagged company/group. you will see that the blocks they mine differ.
some blocks are pure legacy and use a legacy address for their coin reward. some use bech32 addresses for coin reward. meaning although tagged as one group. they show that tits actually diverse facilities that individually choose what/how to mine

that said. getting back to the point. a pool is not a facility locked down to a physical location its just in essence an IP address which a group links to. a company/group could easily make many ip addresses as backup so if an IP is taken down the asics autoswitch to another IP address in seconds.

as for farms(physical facilities of large amount of asics) well thats for them to motivate themselves as to how to protect themselves.

no amount of code will ever stop people pooling effort. even PoS is seeing people pooling their stake together

[aliashraf]

5- Pools are the weakest part of the chain they should be understood as a flaw in bitcoin that needs serious treatment and fix.

pools no
a pool is just a stratum address used as a gateway for multiple asics to share work together. pools dont need physical locations.
FARMS on the other hand are fixed.

Pools are far more than an IP address, they are service providers, hence centralized.
Farms are inevitable and distributed enough.

As service providerس, neither theoretically, nor practically they couldn't be categorized as anonymous, they are not. With dick heads like trump in power, they are single points of failure. US could easily make a deal with Chinese communist party and impose censorship on "terrorist addresses".

no amount of code will ever stop people pooling effort. even PoS is seeing people pooling their stake together

It is a false argument. Change winner-takes-all approach and you are done with pools, as I said, I have been on it for a while, I don't know why, but I just resist to include links here (why really?) ... anyway you could check the threads I've started by navigating through my profile in case you were interested. check threads started by this user

[endlasuresh]

Bitcoin and alt coins could help terrorists for money transferring therefore I suggest Govt should unable and look another method to utilize Bitcoin. Its decentralized system so hard to find who using bitcoin, etc.

[aliashraf]

Bitcoin and alt coins could help terrorists for money transferring therefore I suggest Govt should unable and look another method to utilize Bitcoin. Its decentralized system so hard to find who using bitcoin, etc.

Terrorism is a fake word invented for the same reason that is now used against anybody who is not US's bitch.

There is no such thing in real world. Nobody calls himself terrorist, some people desperately try to commit attacks against other people for some political agenda they have. They could be called like 'violent Islamic extremists' or something more specific like 'Saudi backed Islamic Fundamentalists".

I think the whole AML thing is an excuse for centralization of power by bankers and corporates behind US gov. Fighting criminals and so-called terrorists should be carried out in the actual battle fields. For instance like billions of dollars worth of weapons have been sold and smuggled to Syria and no single cargo has been seized as long as it was about ISIS or Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremists ad fundamentalists who were fighting Asad and beheading civilians at the same time.

Trump isn't against terrorism, there is no fight against terrorism, they want to re-innovate slavery using technology and financial systems. This is what AML/KYC shit is about and now Iran case is a test bed for next and probably the final wave of aggression against humanity as a whole.

[CryptoGamblingSites]

what its not saying is the 2 exchanges and the 2 randsomware people knew of each other and the exchangers knew they were funding ransomware and didnt report it
they were running an illegal exchange

the 2 published addresses are just posting proof that funds looped through the exchange that originated from the ransomware
to show proof of a financial relationship. but an actual AML crime is about knowing the PEOPLE receiving the funds and exchanging the fiat knew of the crime and still funded the criminals without reporting the criminals.

imagine detroit. street dealing fiat. imagine a dealer walked into walmart to buy gum.. walmart CEO is not liable because although fiat can be traced through its cashiers draw, there also needs to be proof that walmart knew their customer was a drug dealer and helped the drug dealer process a transaction.

what the treasury is not saying but the law requires is that an exchange could end up in trouble if it can be proven that there is a joint relationship and knowledge of a crime. and that the ones knowingly trading with criminals didnt report it. and that they were operating as a money business without a money business licence

its not a blanket ban that anyone touching funds with taint of criminal proceeds. otherwise walmart managers in detroit would get arrested for simply accepting cash payments

Logic

Dont break the law and expect bitcoin to keep you safe....pretty easy for most of society to follow that rule.

The fear mongering in this thread is lol

[aliashraf]

Logic

Dont break the law and expect bitcoin to keep you safe....pretty easy for most of society to follow that rule.

The fear mongering in this thread is lol

Bullshit! Pure garbage.
How could one "break the law" by sending his bitcoins to anybody? It is my asset and I wish to transfer it to another person, so what? I could have bought weed from the peer and feds hate weed? Ok they could hunt my dealer by more than few other ways, why should they stick with ruling over my money? It is my money, for the god sake! Isn't it Orwell 1984?

FYI:
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency/movement invented to defend people against the ruling monetary system that constantly steals money from them by generating money from thin air and taking advantage of it to get even stronger, like exponentially and expanding its surveillance/censorship capabilities. You don't like it? Don't waste your time hanging around here, go watch Fox News or something and join Trump's campaign to make America centralized again.

[coolcoinz]

Logic

Dont break the law and expect bitcoin to keep you safe....pretty easy for most of society to follow that rule.

The fear mongering in this thread is lol

Bullshit! Pure garbage.
How could one "break the law" by sending his bitcoins to anybody? It is my asset and I wish to transfer it to another person, so what? I could have bought weed from the peer and feds hate weed? Ok they could hunt my dealer by more than few other ways, why should they stick with ruling over my money? It is my money, for the god sake! Isn't it Orwell 1984?

FYI:
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency/movement invented to defend people against the ruling monetary system that constantly steals money from them by generating money from thin air and taking advantage of it to get even stronger, like exponentially and expanding its surveillance/censorship capabilities. You don't like it? Don't waste your time hanging around here, go watch Fox News or something and join Trump's campaign to make America centralized again.

It looks to me like you haven't been living in a country that doesn't care about your personal freedoms when it comes to fighting organized crime and terrorism.
Imagine a situation where your friends are involved in drug trafficking and you happen to lend money to them, not knowing what they're doing. They were always paying you back with interest, so it looked like a good and safe way to make some money.
If this was happening in the US and they got caught, the agencies would raid your home just like that. They'd break the doors, put you in jail for the night, search your house, take your computers and drives, and you wouldn't see most of it ever again. They'd even steal your money, if there was a chance that you were profiting from their drug business. They can do whatever they want, it's a wild west. If they get a warrant, they can shove an old sock down your throat and you won't be able to prove that it happened.

[franky1]

Bullshit! Pure garbage.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency/movement invented to defend people against the ruling monetary system

funny thing is that i see you complaining about businesses that are FIAT handling
i said in other topics.

if you want decentralisation YOU have to move away from using centralised FIAT services
if you want to not be held back by FIAT based sanctions/regulations. then stop using fiat regulated exchanges

organise a meetup and swap hand to hand with someone in a coffee shop

bitcoin is not sanctioned/regulated by fiat rules. you will not find a single fiat rule in bitcoin code,
the problem is people using FIAT services and then crying when FIAT rules apply

if you dont want the controls of fiat to apply then you need to not use fiat.
organise your local towns bitcoin meetup to discuss getting a local grocery store to accept bitcoin.

detach yourself from FIAT and FIAT rules will be of no concern to you.
didnt you read the regulations it only applies to BANKS and MSB's aka fiat regulated services

solution: dont use an MSB and you wont find funds getting blocked.. simple

[iSparta]

This is an interesting event in the world of cryptocurrency, but the owners of bitcoins at these addresses can easily bypass the restrictions by using decentralized exchanges. Bitcoin was thought for just that. Although for supporters of anonymity it is possible to better use coins like Monero.

[fabiorem]

Werent most of the miners in China?

The chinese government tried to outlaw bitcoin two times, and failed. The miners are still there, operating their machines.

If the US government want to outlaw bitcoin with this "blacklisting" thing, I dont think its gonna work.

And yes, they blacklisting two addresses is a attack against the blockchain, since the money can be easily transferred to another address, and this address can belong to another person. Will they blacklist the other addresses? And if those coins passes through a exchange in another country, will they blacklist this exchange? Will they sanction the other country as well?

Also, the grounds for blacklisting are xenophobic, to say the least. You cant apply xenophobia to the blockchain. Bitcoin is a global, not national currency. It knows no borders. If they want to sanction iranian citizens using their dollars, which they control, fine, but they cant do it with bitcoin. It would defeat the purpose of the project, in the first place, as bitcoin was created to circumvent censorship.

But as the internet becomes more and more censored, and sites such as Reddit (a true cesspool of censorship) becomes more popular, the cuckolds who are the majority of users will just bow down to the almighty power of the modern State, and accept its iron dildo up their asses.

[Sithara007]

This probably means that in case any American citizen transfers his coins to any of these addresses, then he will be investigated. But considering how easy it is to create a Bitcoin wallet, I think that the Iranians will just create a few more fresh wallet addresses and continue their business through those wallets. The FBI won't be able to link the new ones with the two identified wallets.