Sextortion - more than 4000 BTC cashed

[BTCtester.com]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

[1714891982]

1714891982

[1714891982]

1714891982

[xonar2]

There are ways for those people to cash out without filling any KYC procedures like passport identification.

For example trading them for cash face to face under spot value to find buyers fast, in a location with no CC cameras.

They could also use btc mixers to obfuscate the coins.
In short, that money is permanently lost unless the thieves are exceptionally stupid and try to cash in at legal traders.

[carlfebz2]

This doesnt only limit out on sextortion but also with that common ransomware event where these hackers would ask out btc in exchange of your files and this is why we should really be careful on downloading something in the net in result in getting some malware and this case is no different.

Good thing they had able to trace up that this is a binance deposit address which they can really make a complaints and close that account but that would surely be needing some solid proof before they can take action.Dont expect that hacker had put up kyc on his real name used in his binance account.Pulling 4000 isnt really that hard.

[dothebeats]

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

And that's why Chainalysis is trying to take over the space of forensic blockchain analysis. I have nothing against using their methods to catch criminals and whatnot, but it appears that some of their 'investigations' aren't really connected into some criminal activities. They literally peer into any transaction that they find interesting and connect all the dots, somehow lessening the anonymity of those people involved in the said transaction. Police intelligence divisions aren't really well versed in the said area just yet, but contracting Chainalysis and other blockchain analysis companies for forensic analyses of crimes involving cryptocurrencies isn't really good either.

[DdmrDdmr]

Is there a source to the information provided in the OP? I haven’t seen anything around on the 4K BTCs being cashed.

The provided address has only received 0,93 BTCs historically, being all related TXs dating back to august 2018:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB?page=1
I'm sure that an array of addresses were used, and the above may be a small sample by comparison.

Seems that the 1k ransom was the cue, whatever the currency ($,£, €):
https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/reports/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB?page=1

Note: They seem to have removed the OPs post on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/nhshv3/sextortion_more_than_4000_btc_cashed/)

[20kevin20]

Happened before. I remember reading a similar thread 2 years ago. I personally think these e-mails are as real as the "You Just Won A $8 Million Check" ones are.. ignore them. Especially if you know you don't have any nudes on your gallery. And if you do, then you should've taken this possibility into account from the start anyway.

I would not pay $1k for a picture or video of my naked butt not to be posted online, lol. These guys likely purchase personal info databases and send out e-mails containing personal info in order to further intimidate people. But rather than paying the scammer, you could just file a complaint at the nearest police department instead and wait for them to act.. or perhaps an in-bulk notification towards a 3-letter agency may have even better efects against the scammer.

[odolvlobo]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts.

I know that this is not your focus, but it must be noted that the claim of having a video is lie. It is a common scam that was popular last year.

There is no video. They typically show the victim one of their passwords as evidence of gaining access to the victim's computer. However, they obtain the password from a public database and not by hacking the computer.

The blackmail can be safely ignored.

[zanezane]

It's not that the police doesn't have the resources, it's just that they have a budget and cybercrime is a pretty hefty one in terms of expenses and sometimes the victims don't even report the cases or follow up on the case so they can't make an arrest. Also, I don't think that it is 4k bitcoin, that's a lot of money to pull off in such a short time.

[dkbit98]

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people

Where is the proof or some source link showing that someone actually send total of 4000 Bitcoin for this stupid extortion emails?
I also received same sextortion emails several times before and I don't even have camera connected to my computer.

1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB

That address that is inactive since 2018, it had total of 14 transaction and it received ‎0.93 BTC and not 4000 BTC like you say.

It looks to me that OP is trying to promote his own btctester bitcoin analytics and forensics website with sensational and fake news like this, and that is not a good way to promote anything. 

[swogerino]

He is not the brightest but also not the dumbest because the Binance limit with only email verification is 2 Bitcoin per day withdraw.The address has not received more than one bitcoin but even if it did,the guy using a fake email address can withdraw 2 Bitcoins every day and I think with today price 2 Bitcoin everyday is enough even for the hungriest money criminal in the world.We all know that is difficult to track Bitcoin transactions and this is already been discussed here with 0 people being arrested from the cloud mining scams that we all know about.

[BTCtester.com]

There are ways for those people to cash out without filling any KYC procedures like passport identification.

For example trading them for cash face to face under spot value to find buyers fast, in a location with no CC cameras.

They could also use btc mixers to obfuscate the coins.
In short, that money is permanently lost unless the thieves are exceptionally stupid and try to cash in at legal traders.

Theoretically you're right but the most could be caught becasue they do mistakes. They split the amount and move it around for obfuscation. They use mixers, exchange in monero forth and back etc. Successfull scammers have to manage a lot of addresses after a while and then earlier or later they start co-spending some of them. Even if they do it 500 times right one little mistake (co-spending a coin after mixing with coins before mixing) then the house of cards collapse. As said by far the most do earlier or later a mistake and then it's written in stone and cannot be taken out of the blockchain anymore. The reason why the police isn't catching them is because many people don't try it (under the assumption that it's not posssible) and because the police has not enough specialists to follow up.

Btw with mixers. I did recently a check of a Coinjoin Wasabi mixer transaction where people were very carefully and mixed the coins three times in a row. Neverthless I could link more than 20% of the mixers output addresses with the inputs because the users did the mistake to co-spend mixed coins with other coins. 20% might sound not very promising but if  you take into account that a person with 500 transaction can be caught if only one transaction was not carefully enough then it's a number where scammers should start sleeping bad. Even after years all evidences are available in the blockchain and the analytics software (from us btctester or from forensicsone or chainalysis or others) are getting better and better.

The brain of a scammer might think two or three steps but the analytics software use sophisticated heuristics to find all addresses of the scammer and follows all paths of these addresses to see when it goes to an exchange. Mostly there are paths to exchanges because the scammers don't want to go with a hugh amount to an exchange.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

And that's why Chainalysis is trying to take over the space of forensic blockchain analysis. I have nothing against using their methods to catch criminals and whatnot, but it appears that some of their 'investigations' aren't really connected into some criminal activities. They literally peer into any transaction that they find interesting and connect all the dots, somehow lessening the anonymity of those people involved in the said transaction. Police intelligence divisions aren't really well versed in the said area just yet, but contracting Chainalysis and other blockchain analysis companies for forensic analyses of crimes involving cryptocurrencies isn't really good either.

It's all about likelihoods. So the analytics result is never 100% true, it might be 99% likely. And therefore many people will need analytics. E.g. if chainalysis sells their reports to the tax authorities and the tax authority comes to you accusing that you didn't pay all your bitcoin tax then you need to defense yourself if it's not true or only partly true. Then you need as well an expert statement saying the mentioned transactions could be have another meaning because it could be a payjoin transaction and the judge finally has to decide whether or not he'll deide against you if it's only 90% likely that the chainalysis report is saying the truth. The same could happen in criminal cases. I saw a lot of rubbish from analytics.

Is there a source to the information provided in the OP? I haven’t seen anything around on the 4K BTCs being cashed.

The provided address has only received 0,93 BTCs historically, being all related TXs dating back to august 2018:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB?page=1
I'm sure that an array of addresses were used, and the above may be a small sample by comparison.

Seems that the 1k ransom was the cue, whatever the currency ($,£, €):
https://www.bitcoinabuse.com/reports/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB?page=1

Note: They seem to have removed the OPs post on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/nhshv3/sextortion_more_than_4000_btc_cashed/)

This is where the  scammer collected the funds finallly:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1JsACYBoRCYkz7DSgyKurMyibbmHwcHbPd.
The 1GYNGZ... address he used successfully with about 10 victims but there are thousands others all ending up in the 1JsAC.... in total more than 4000 BTC. The scammer followed Satoshis advice not to use always the same address a bit.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[o48o]

Bitcoin days are counted.

What mental gymnastic was this? If someone throws a rock at someone, are the days of the rock counted as well? Let's make gravel illegal while we are at it!

Literally the whole point of permissionless cryptocurrencies are that you can't stop them and it would cost a lot of more to governments to try to legally ban them them then just gain taxes from them.

[virtualdn]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

Bitcoin days are counted.

You don't say. Isn't fiat used for the same purposes? Stop spreading fud around, we have Elon Musk to do that and it's more than enough already. When will people realize that it's all fud and BTC will be just fine?

[BTCtester.com]

He is not the brightest but also not the dumbest because the Binance limit with only email verification is 2 Bitcoin per day withdraw.The address has not received more than one bitcoin but even if it did,the guy using a fake email address can withdraw 2 Bitcoins every day and I think with today price 2 Bitcoin everyday is enough even for the hungriest money criminal in the world.We all know that is difficult to track Bitcoin transactions and this is already been discussed here with 0 people being arrested from the cloud mining scams that we all know about.

The scammer was often above the 2BTC threshold of binance, the deposit address is 1JsACYBoRCYkz7DSgyKurMyibbmHwcHbPd and here binance routed more than 16 BTC from this address into their cold wallet:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/1a8bcc70904a76a09c06a62f9aa2c6ad3e2846bc1898db7a334e69485a87374f

[AGD]

There are ways for those people to cash out without filling any KYC procedures like passport identification.

For example trading them for cash face to face under spot value to find buyers fast, in a location with no CC cameras.

They could also use btc mixers to obfuscate the coins.
In short, that money is permanently lost unless the thieves are exceptionally stupid and try to cash in at legal traders.

Where do you find these people with a suitcase full of cash? Can you trust them not to rob you?
Easy to say you could do that, but in reality you will end up rekt in 9/10 cases.

[adzino]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

You have to be really stupid to fall for those sextortion scams. Lol funny how people get scared and pay up because they did jerk off to some weird shit hahaha. If only they tried googling a little.
And I don't think the scammers would be using some centralized exchange to cash out those funds.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

They can make multiple account and withdraw less than 2 BTC from each account. Simple. And the police do have experts, they just don't fucking care.

[herurist]

This is very difficult to track if the thief is smart, because bitcoin can be monetized by being sold below the spot by finding buyers quickly and this certainly does not require a kyc procedure.
The thing I see from here is actually this old trick in doing extortion and I'm sure the video in question is actually fake and non -existent. even if it is the fault of the victim that they usually go through a video call and do not realize that they are actually in a trap and I have a friend and the same case.
what needs to be underlined is that you have to remain vigilant because these kinds of things are very many and the mode is the same as the intention to blackmail the victims so as to get huge profits.

[7788bitcoin]

He is not the brightest but also not the dumbest because the Binance limit with only email verification is 2 Bitcoin per day withdraw.The address has not received more than one bitcoin but even if it did,the guy using a fake email address can withdraw 2 Bitcoins every day and I think with today price 2 Bitcoin everyday is enough even for the hungriest money criminal in the world.

I do have a verified account but i forgot the fact that there was a twoBTC daily limit and with the increased valuation it is a fairly huge advantage for the scammers to get through but if Binance wanted they can simply provide the log details and the transaction request details as well transaction ID can be provided to the authorities and it is possible we could track those movements.

We all know that is difficult to track Bitcoin transactions and this is already been discussed here with 0 people being arrested from the cloud mining scams that we all know about.

We might not hear about the scammers getting caught right now but in the future they i am still expecting these scammers to be behind the bars in the near future.

[passwordnow]

This is a typical email scam. When our emails has been exploited by these scammers, they're going to send us that message that they've seen us do naughty things online and we've watched some things that we shouldn't watch. And they really are going to extort us and there's an instruction for those newbies how to buy bitcoin. I've received one and I can't remember which website I've signed up for that email but it's scaring those people that lacks of knowledge about this scam.

[20kevin20]

When will people realize that it's all fud and BTC will be just fine?

When Bitcoin will hit $100k and everyone will cry out loud about missing the train the millionth time, lol. And then Bitcoin will drop by $20k and it's gonna "die" again.

People should learn to start reading and looking for legit information themselves rather than be fed up with specific information by billionaires who care exactly 0% about us and how poor or rich we are. This is what happens when you're letting the mainstream media and the rich tell you what and how to think

[temple]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

They would have other options as well and even if there is a limit of 2 BTC per account per day, they could also just create dozens of accounts and circumvent the 2 BTC threshold. As far as I know that is an issue that Binance is now dealing with anyway in regards to an investigation that is taking place for their exchange.
There are other services which don't ask for KYC either. Isn't Shapeshift also without KYC again?

[TimeTeller]

This is a typical email scam. When our emails has been exploited by these scammers, they're going to send us that message that they've seen us do naughty things online and we've watched some things that we shouldn't watch. And they really are going to extort us and there's an instruction for those newbies how to buy bitcoin. I've received one and I can't remember which website I've signed up for that email but it's scaring those people that lacks of knowledge about this scam.

If the user knows that he did not do anything that will compromise his identity, then, why be scared of these scam emails?
Sometimes, there are really gullible people that get scared from empty threats of these scammers.
It will only stop if people will not give in to these scammers and just ignore them.
The reason why they are proliferating is that there are people that really do pay them.

[Lanatsa]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

They would have other options as well and even if there is a limit of 2 BTC per account per day, they could also just create dozens of accounts and circumvent the 2 BTC threshold. As far as I know that is an issue that Binance is now dealing with anyway in regards to an investigation that is taking place for their exchange.
There are other services which don't ask for KYC either. Isn't Shapeshift also without KYC again?

Coinswitch.co had recently changed up into KYC instant exchange which Shapeshift had done it more earlier time so I don't expect for some revocation or changes or make out some reversion.

Im not sure that you wont really be banned nor locked account on creating multiple binance account on few devices but if this one isn't detected then cashing out 4000 btc wont really be a problem.

These kind of incidents or aren't something new where people or criminals would be finding out lots of ways for them to scam or extort people for getting some coins.

[dkbit98]

The 1GYNGZ... address he used successfully with about 10 victims but there are thousands others all ending up in the 1JsAC.... in total more than 4000 BTC. The scammer followed Satoshis advice not to use always the same address a bit.

I am really not surprised anymore after year 2020/201 how people can be ultra stupid, not using their brain and not doing any research before trusting anything they hear or read in email or mainstream news.
One guy even commented that his father was very worried about this sextortion email he received, and than his son had to remind him that they don't even have webcam on their computer.
Fear Sells the best, just don't buy it.

[passwordnow]

This is a typical email scam. When our emails has been exploited by these scammers, they're going to send us that message that they've seen us do naughty things online and we've watched some things that we shouldn't watch. And they really are going to extort us and there's an instruction for those newbies how to buy bitcoin. I've received one and I can't remember which website I've signed up for that email but it's scaring those people that lacks of knowledge about this scam.

If the user knows that he did not do anything that will compromise his identity, then, why be scared of these scam emails?
Sometimes, there are really gullible people that get scared from empty threats of these scammers.
It will only stop if people will not give in to these scammers and just ignore them.
The reason why they are proliferating is that there are people that really do pay them.

Yes, there's no need to be scared but we're not all the same in handling situations like this. A user that can easily move is when he reads that email and thinks that it's a legit thing that the scammer actually hacked his/her PC and will likely fall for the scam. It's not sometimes, but most of the time there really are victims that would just pay attention to the instruction of the scammer and will pay for the asked amount. We're not all literate on these situations that's why it's the sad part that these scammers still gets victims.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Fake KYC documents are easily available in the dark net and therefore KYC is not going to resolve this issue. If you ask me, I would say that it is possible to track down the criminal using the Bitcoin address. But it is extremely difficult and I will explain why. In all probability, the hacker had used a fresh Bitcoin address without any transactions to receive the ransom payment. So unless he moves his coins to an exchange or a P2P platform, it is impossible to trace back the identity of the criminal. And the hackers are very innovative nowadays. They usually wait for 1-2 years to cash out their coins.

[avikz]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

It's extremely difficult to track the owner of a particular wallet. Even though it's not impossible. This difficulty in tracing can be amplified through the use of bitcoin mixers. That's the reason why cyber criminals around the world uses cryptocurrency only. Take example from the recent attack on an American pipeline.

There are many ways to cash out such illegally obtained bitcoins. They can use bitcoin mixers to hide the trail of bitcoins and the sell off in any p2p marketplaces. Bot all p2p marketplaces require kyc until you reach a certain volume. There are darknet markets are well. It's unfortunate that bitcoin is actually empowering these miscreants.

[BTCtester.com]

They can make multiple account and withdraw less than 2 BTC from each account. Simple. And the police do have experts, they just don't fucking care.

Yes they could, but even then Binance is monitoring meta data like screen resolution, Operating and browser system and version etc. and would recognize it. In this specific case the scammer did transactions above the 2BTC limit however.

[BTCtester.com]

It's extremely difficult to track the owner of a particular wallet. Even though it's not impossible. This difficulty in tracing can be amplified through the use of bitcoin mixers. That's the reason why cyber criminals around the world uses cryptocurrency only. Take example from the recent attack on an American pipeline.

There are many ways to cash out such illegally obtained bitcoins. They can use bitcoin mixers to hide the trail of bitcoins and the sell off in any p2p marketplaces. Bot all p2p marketplaces require kyc until you reach a certain volume. There are darknet markets are well. It's unfortunate that bitcoin is actually empowering these miscreants.

It's not so difficult but the police has no time and the victims think it's not possible so they don't try. Such a scammer is involved in thousands of transactions and only one little mistake and the analytics software will catch him. If not now then somewhere in future. So no scammer can sleep calm. The scammers brain may be think two or three steps deep  in the blockchain but the software finds far deeper connections. Mixers and Monero forth and back might help but the scammers get lost in the high number of addresses to administrate and co-spend coins after mixing with other ones and the house of cards collapses. I was able to link more than 20% of a  Wasabi Coinjoin transaction outputs to their inputs because of this users mistake. And this doesn't mean for 80% it works. It means if the scammer is doing 1000 transactions and fails on one then he will be caught earlier or later if the loss is not too low.

[Miaallen]

Most of these sextortionists do not really have any video to blackmail you with in the first place. They just toy with your emotions and take a cheap advantages of it.

I've received more than 20 of such threats asking me to send Bitcoin or they will share my private videos which I believe they do not have.

And that the transactions have been traced through the wallet to a binance account should have made it easy for the police to arrest the guy if they really want to do it except the court needs additional evidence to compel the Binance to expose the identity of such blackmailer.

[LoyceMobile]

All this could be prevented with a piece of tape on your camera.

[temple]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

They would have other options as well and even if there is a limit of 2 BTC per account per day, they could also just create dozens of accounts and circumvent the 2 BTC threshold. As far as I know that is an issue that Binance is now dealing with anyway in regards to an investigation that is taking place for their exchange.
There are other services which don't ask for KYC either. Isn't Shapeshift also without KYC again?

Coinswitch.co had recently changed up into KYC instant exchange which Shapeshift had done it more earlier time so I don't expect for some revocation or changes or make out some reversion.

Im not sure that you wont really be banned nor locked account on creating multiple binance account on few devices but if this one isn't detected then cashing out 4000 btc wont really be a problem.

These kind of incidents or aren't something new where people or criminals would be finding out lots of ways for them to scam or extort people for getting some coins.

Didn't Shapeshift send out emails a while ago where they let everybody know that they relocated or they could manage to find a place from where they can operate so that they can refrain from KYC? I will read up on that but if you don't want to undergo KYC there are still enough places and options where you can circumvent KYC procedures. When cross-chain transactions are possible there will be no KYC at all one day.

[uneng]

Most of these sextortionists do not really have any video to blackmail you with in the first place. They just toy with your emotions and take a cheap advantages of it.

I've received more than 20 of such threats asking me to send Bitcoin or they will share my private videos which I believe they do not have.

And that the transactions have been traced through the wallet to a binance account should have made it easy for the police to arrest the guy if they really want to do it except the court needs additional evidence to compel the Binance to expose the identity of such blackmailer.

Some time ago I was used to receive at least one of those emails a day, always the same threats, content and claims that they put a virus on the computer which triggered the webcam. The best to do is just to ignore such messages. If the victim gives the blackmailer some kind of attention, the situation may become much more problematic. Another option is to just contact the police, but the person has to expose himself.
Anyway, situations like this are a good warning to let people aware they should be more cautious regards their privacy and to not trust electronic devices to store intimate data or to exhibit themselves in front of these gadgets.

[7788bitcoin]

All this could be prevented with a piece of tape on your camera.

Looks like you are moving around while covering all the camera in your household  . Just make sure that you are not clicking any malware links and visit any shady websites and that will be more than helpful rather than covering with tape and if anyone is able to spend a few hours to lean how to make your digital devices secure and how to check your root about new installation then you are good to go .

If i am in that situation i am not going to spend a dime to save my ass from embarrassment 

[Vishnu.Reang]

All this could be prevented with a piece of tape on your camera.

If the victim had taken these sort of basic precautions, then he wouldn't have landed himself in this situation, right? These sort of blackmail tricks usually occur in third world countries, where the people lack knowledge about how to deal with cyber crime. Even in my area, there were a few instances of such sextortion attempts.

Here is the methodology - the criminals would receive WhatsApp or Facebook contacts through various means. The next step is that the female members of the gang would call the victim (either through video or audio). If the victim is really stupid, then he will think that some unknown female has suddenly become sexually attracted to him and will start sex chat with the gang member. Once the gang receive enough evidence, they will record everything and use the material for extortion and blackmail. In most of the cases, they target married men and this makes sure that the victims in most cases don't file a police complaint.

Even I have received video calls from unknown numbers in my WhatsApp account. I was careful enough to reject the call and block the number from which the call was being made.

[Botnake]

How about putting the source of the story, I like to check the full details.

4000 is too big, I check the address used and it's just less than 1 btc, so where are the others going?

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB

[acener]

If they know how to clean their coins I don't think that they would be discovered at all just look at how many cryptocurrency scammer is around the internet,
And I think only few of them got arrested there are so many ways to clean up their track,
And even if they had a transaction on Binance how would they even know if the account information is real and even the IP address that has been used to access the account isn't from public space?
I hope that those criminals would get caught but it would really be so hard with just a little information.

[Swordsoffreedom]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts.

I have been blackmailed like this a long time ago, embezzling money by making such threats online is nothing new. They somehow managed to find a password I was using and tried to blackmail me with it. But I did not hesitate to tell them that you can do whatever you want, I don't care. I refuse to do any kind of mutual. Even though they were mailing me over and over again, I just simply ignored it. At one point they stopped threatening.

[BTCtester.com]

How about putting the source of the story, I like to check the full details.

4000 is too big, I check the address used and it's just less than 1 btc, so where are the others going?

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB

Somewhere in the middle of this page I found the BTC addresss and email:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/sextortion-scam-uses-recipients-hacked-passwords/

Here you see that the scammer consolidated the 11 successful frauds on the 1GYN.. address into address 1JsACYBoRCYkz7DSgyKurMyibbmHwcHbPd which received more than 4000 BTC in thousands of previous transactions. Thescammer used many different addresses.
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/9d7208192348171c9beb1bede3b7f610ab1811c464fb9cb57891a9f4ad647a9e

[nebuch]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

[Sithara007]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

Not here in India. May be in some of the developed nations the police department has the resources to track down the blackmailers and recover the amount. But here, there are too many similar cases and the cops are either not interested in resolving them, or they don't have the manpower and equipment to do that. Also, in many cases the calls are being made from another country and that complicates everything. Unless some powerful individual is involved, the law enforcement authorities don't bother to link up with the officials in other country to gather the information.

[peter0425]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

can be recover by Bitcoin address? no there is no chance mate.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

or maybe there is also Inside job? who knows right?

[pawanjain]

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

Or may be the police doesn't bother about the money lost. In most scenarios, such cases are handled by the cyber crime department.
The cyber crime department are often too busy handling cases which include thousands of dollars and are less bothered about cases where low amount of money is lost.

Another reason is that sometimes the police are not able to do much in cases where cryptocurrencies are involved.

Due to these reasons the scammers get away with such scams easily and end up collecting huge sums of money.

[BTCtester.com]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

This is the good part for the victims. There is no hurry to catch the scammer immediately when cashing out. The blockchain data are written in stome and the analysis can even be done in years from now. A little mistake in one of 1000 transactions and the house of cards collapse for the scammer.

[Sithara007]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

This is the good part for the victims. There is no hurry to catch the scammer immediately when cashing out. The blockchain data are written in stome and the analysis can even be done in years from now. A little mistake in one of 1000 transactions and the house of cards collapse for the scammer.

If someone pulls out a scam such as this one, then we can assume that he won't be stupid enough to leave some link to his identity that can be traced. The Bitcoin wallets that are used for this extortion purpose will remain inactive for many years. And even after that, the coins will be moved using a Bitcoin mixer or will be converted to altcoins or fiat using P2P platforms which doesn't require KYC information. It is still possible to trace the perpetrators, but that is going to take a lot of effort and the law enforcement authorities won't be interested unless some high profile narcotic or terrorist linkage is there.

[temple]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

This is the good part for the victims. There is no hurry to catch the scammer immediately when cashing out. The blockchain data are written in stome and the analysis can even be done in years from now. A little mistake in one of 1000 transactions and the house of cards collapse for the scammer.

If someone pulls out a scam such as this one, then we can assume that he won't be stupid enough to leave some link to his identity that can be traced. The Bitcoin wallets that are used for this extortion purpose will remain inactive for many years. And even after that, the coins will be moved using a Bitcoin mixer or will be converted to altcoins or fiat using P2P platforms which doesn't require KYC information. It is still possible to trace the perpetrators, but that is going to take a lot of effort and the law enforcement authorities won't be interested unless some high profile narcotic or terrorist linkage is there.

We have to admit that someone could pull off a scam on the back of crypto, say Monero, but at the same time we should talk about the good things that crypto enables us to have and to do.

[Botnake]

How can this actually affect the crypto market?

There's none, we have some bad and good news, it's normal.
It's the lack of regulation that makes people suffer but bitcoin will stay and will remain a potential coin good for investment.

If one is careful with browsing online and protects his/her computer or any private data, this kind of "Sextortion" will never happen.

it could happen using fiat too, so there's no big difference.

[dezoel]

Sometimes these sexual extortionists don’t have anything about you, it’s just threats. That’s why you shouldn’t be replying any email that you know nothing about. If an email is coming an unknown sender it’s very best that you don’t reply such mails. And this is another reason why we should mind the kind life we live and avoid sending out images that we shouldn’t.

But like I said, when you get such mails from these sexual extortionists, it’s best not to reply , you can report to the police station and a lawyer. Like I said, most of these extortionists don’t have anything on you, they are just threatening you, and if you engage them, it gets worse.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Sometimes these sexual extortionists don’t have anything about you, it’s just threats. That’s why you shouldn’t be replying any email that you know nothing about. If an email is coming an unknown sender it’s very best that you don’t reply such mails. And this is another reason why we should mind the kind life we live and avoid sending out images that we shouldn’t.

But like I said, when you get such mails from these sexual extortionists, it’s best not to reply , you can report to the police station and a lawyer. Like I said, most of these extortionists don’t have anything on you, they are just threatening you, and if you engage them, it gets worse.

The problem is that in most cases these people have access to your intimate pictures or videos. If you ignore their emails and calls, then in all probability they will upload these videos to porn sites or social media and in turn this can cause great harm to yourself and those who are close to you. In such instances, it should be dealt intelligently. Contacting the cops is definitely the best option, but this can create issues for certain people (for example those who are involved in extra-marital affairs). 

[temple]

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

And that's why Chainalysis is trying to take over the space of forensic blockchain analysis. I have nothing against using their methods to catch criminals and whatnot, but it appears that some of their 'investigations' aren't really connected into some criminal activities. They literally peer into any transaction that they find interesting and connect all the dots, somehow lessening the anonymity of those people involved in the said transaction. Police intelligence divisions aren't really well versed in the said area just yet, but contracting Chainalysis and other blockchain analysis companies for forensic analyses of crimes involving cryptocurrencies isn't really good either.

But if you use a coin switching service that doesn't require KYC and you switch into Monero and from the provided address send it to another Monero address, it's over. There is no single way in the world to trace down transactions on the Monero blockchain, at least not from what we know to date.

If the criminal goes through Binance it might be easier, but still there will TOR and / or VPN involved. You just can't stop these coin switching services because they can be founded anywhere in the world. If you can't shut the website down, how are you going to stop it? Surely the risk is with the attacker that the person running the switching service steals the funds, but the attacker just goes step by step, doesn't send 4000 BTC. If they do it right, no way you catch them. That's why it's more effective to force people to prove where the money comes from if they ever cash out. I am not saying that is the solution to the problem, I am just saying that KYC won't stop (s)extortion at all.

[slaman29]

Can we also make the difference between Bitcoin actually being the bad guy here?

Sextortion cases themselves I bet if you did a study, Bitcoin (and the same with ransoms) only account for less than 1% of the funds being used. But does it make it better than fiat? Also not. Does it make gold better because maybe no one uses it in sextortion? No:)

[soy1003]

A couple of things regarding dothebeats post.

In this age when every customer is video'd at every Walmart checkout and police simply park a car with license plate reader and video at an exit to film drivers after they've removed their facemasks, anonymity today isn't expected.  It's the world we live in today.

And with bitcoin thieves having stolen over 11.8 btc from me, I don't want crypto currency anonymity.

Sextortion: I had a compromised password.  No cellphone nor camera have been in my bedroom.  I got a one of those sextortion demands.  I ignored it.  They target those with a compromised password not those they've hacked.

soy1003

[Kez1817]

A sextortion victim received a mail to pay $1000 in bitcoin within 48h to address 1GYNGZLEUGkkQjHo19dHDnGE87WsAiGLLB otherwise, a captured intimate video of the victim is sent to all his email contacts. Can the extortionist be tracked down with only knowledge of the Bitcoin address? In this case the wanted person doesn't seem to be the brightest candle on the cake.

A free short analysis with our "Bitcoin privacy check" tool already shows the connection to a Binance client:. For less than $100 a report is available from forensicsone showing that the address sent funds to a binance deposit address.

But the amazing thing is that despite the naive approach, the extortionist was able to collect many millions of $ (more than 4,000 BTC) from thousands of people, even though Binance already demands KYC at 2 BTC and there were hundreds of criminal complaints at the police.

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.

It is possible if he has a back up, I mean, he has a friend or partner that can make a transactions with kyc. Maybe he just use that wallet to claim millions of $ from his victims but he also transfer it to different wallet exchange address and also to his friends.

[soy1003]

The US shutdown BTC-e in Bulgaria because they refused to comply with proof of identity FINCEN requirements and bitcoin laundering.  Vinnik was arrested in Greece by the Greeks with US authorities but held that his Russian Orthodox faith was essentially the same as Greek Orthodox and so shouldn't be held in US jails.  Don't know why, the Russian Orthodox church has a huge estate on Long Island Sound near where I lived and a church in a town a little ways away.  So, the Greeks sent him to France where he is awaiting trial.  

I went off the subject a bit but what I started to ask is why doesn't FINCEN play wack-a-mole with every exchange accepting bitcoin ransoms or extortions if they can't provide individual identification of the perps.  Or is it a case that Russia won't comply with FINCEN requirements?  What's the answer?  Maybe break up the internet the way the EU is banning flights to Russia and Belarus while they support Alexander Lukashenko?  Heck many of my missing ~11.8 btc might be in Russia if reports Vinnik had a boss there who may now have much of the MtGox stolen btc as well as btc stolen from other exchanges over the years are true.

soy1003

[7788bitcoin]

I went off the subject a bit but what I started to ask is why doesn't FINCEN play wack-a-mole with every exchange accepting bitcoin ransoms or extortions if they can't provide individual identification of the perps.  Or is it a case that Russia won't comply with FINCEN requirements?  

The reason majority of the exchanges are complying with mandatory KYC is simply because they do not want to get into trouble as the authorities will mark them as aiding money laundering if they are not able to provide the necessary documents of individual wallet holders.

What's the answer?  Maybe break up the internet the way the EU is banning flights to Russia and Belarus while they support Alexander Lukashenko?  Heck many of my missing ~11.8 btc might be in Russia if reports Vinnik had a boss there who may now have much of the MtGox stolen btc as well as btc stolen from other exchanges over the years.

So you did loose your coins during the MtGox hack and it was a disaster for everyone involved in Bitcoin during that time period and hopefully we will be able to track them down even if it takes another decade  .

[BTCtester.com]

But if you use a coin switching service that doesn't require KYC and you switch into Monero and from the provided address send it to another Monero address, it's over. There is no single way in the world to trace down transactions on the Monero blockchain, at least not from what we know to date.

No. While you're right that highly sophisticated transaction and mixing protocols like Monero or (Coinjoin..)mixers cannot be traced directly it can be done in the most cases indirectly. Successful scammers have to manage earlier or later a high number of addresses. E.g. if someone is doing 500 transactions and is only once or twice co-spending the wrong coins (e.g. unmixed with mixed or monero-forth-back-exchanged coins) then the house of cards collapses often.

I was able to link for this reason more than 20% of a Wasabi mixing transaction outputs to their inputs. If you think 20% is not so much then this was the success rate per single transaction. If people are doing hundreds of transactions then only a low % of scammers are able to stay untraceable over time. The scammer ripping off 307 BTC from Exmo exchange in December moved the coins for obfuscation reasons more than 300 times before he did a mistake by co-spending it with other coins. All the 300 transactions were finally a waste of time and fees.

The scammers human brain thinks two or three steps deep but the analytics software goes much deeper. E.g. scammers which move the coins in long transaction chains use manually chosen transaction amounts. They have other patterns then natural transaction chains where A is trading with B and B is buying something for crypto from C.

[Cryptoking1205]

How can this actually affect the crypto market?

It won't lol

[Chato1977]

I think the Police worldwide are not really super advance to track the slander. Wallet address can simply be track once the owner is just like us a simple person. But it the owner is knowledgeable in crypto and know deeper than the Police. They cannot track and couldn't give justice to the victim. I hope one day there will have full protection not just for them but also for us who experienced hundreds of scams.

Remember that Most of the chance wallet owner are anonymous until time comes of they need to withdraw .  meaning the funds may sit on the wallets for those long time and just wait for a chance to segregate the funds little by little.

[soy1003]

[quote author=BTCtester.com link=topic=5339093.msg57060985#msg57060985 date=162161978

I conclude that our police simply do not have enough experts to follow up on something like this.
[/quote]

And where an exchange touted that the bitcoins deposited in their exchange couldn't be traced, that created a disincentive for authorities to effectively recover stolen bitcoins.  Like the move to defund the police over perceived racial bias.

soy1003

[temple]

But if you use a coin switching service that doesn't require KYC and you switch into Monero and from the provided address send it to another Monero address, it's over. There is no single way in the world to trace down transactions on the Monero blockchain, at least not from what we know to date.

No. While you're right that highly sophisticated transaction and mixing protocols like Monero or (Coinjoin..)mixers cannot be traced directly it can be done in the most cases indirectly. Successful scammers have to manage earlier or later a high number of addresses. E.g. if someone is doing 500 transactions and is only once or twice co-spending the wrong coins (e.g. unmixed with mixed or monero-forth-back-exchanged coins) then the house of cards collapses often.

I was able to link for this reason more than 20% of a Wasabi mixing transaction outputs to their inputs. If you think 20% is not so much then this was the success rate per single transaction. If people are doing hundreds of transactions then only a low % of scammers are able to stay untraceable over time. The scammer ripping off 307 BTC from Exmo exchange in December moved the coins for obfuscation reasons more than 300 times before he did a mistake by co-spending it with other coins. All the 300 transactions were finally a waste of time and fees.

The scammers human brain thinks two or three steps deep but the analytics software goes much deeper. E.g. scammers which move the coins in long transaction chains use manually chosen transaction amounts. They have other patterns then natural transaction chains where A is trading with B and B is buying something for crypto from C.

I see what you are saying and I know that companies like Chainalysis can go far beyond what many people think. But if you get your money into Monero and you send it a few steps ahead, maybe just divide it into a couple smaller transactions onto various Monero addresses, how are you going to identify the scammer? Isn't then the only way to crack Monero itself? I see why Bitcoin is relatively easy to trace even when mixers are used, but for as long as you are careful with hiding your IP and you are not unlucky using an infected TOR node, there is no way to really find you before any exit. Am I wrong?

[uneng]

Sometimes these sexual extortionists don’t have anything about you, it’s just threats. That’s why you shouldn’t be replying any email that you know nothing about. If an email is coming an unknown sender it’s very best that you don’t reply such mails. And this is another reason why we should mind the kind life we live and avoid sending out images that we shouldn’t.

But like I said, when you get such mails from these sexual extortionists, it’s best not to reply , you can report to the police station and a lawyer. Like I said, most of these extortionists don’t have anything on you, they are just threatening you, and if you engage them, it gets worse.

Yes, it's indeed the best to do. However, the point is that although the threats are false, since there isn't any recorded content, it's a fact scammers use something many people really do in secret, being even considered common behavior among internet male users. Maybe the victims have families and feel really embarrassed when confronted with such threats that they don't think twice before sending the money to the scammers, also because they don't want too much attention that will be inevitably caused when calling the police or involving the law towards a sensible subject like this.

[lepbagong]

Yes, it's indeed the best to do. However, the point is that although the threats are false, since there isn't any recorded content, it's a fact scammers use something many people really do in secret, being even considered common behavior among internet male users. Maybe the victims have families and feel really embarrassed when confronted with such threats that they don't think twice before sending the money to the scammers, also because they don't want too much attention that will be inevitably caused when calling the police or involving the law towards a sensible subject like this.

when it involves our family that happened because of humiliation, of course everyone can't think long and can make mistakes that can't be controlled because they have been carried away with emotions that they actually made so that fraudsters can make us unable to think clearly

it will apply to anyone if they experience something like this, and it is very humane, especially if it involves the security forces where in some countries the laziest to deal with the security forces, because it does not solve problems but creates new problems, they understand the situation so they can commit fraud freely .

[BTCtester.com]

I see what you are saying and I know that companies like Chainalysis can go far beyond what many people think. But if you get your money into Monero and you send it a few steps ahead, maybe just divide it into a couple smaller transactions onto various Monero addresses, how are you going to identify the scammer? Isn't then the only way to crack Monero itself? I see why Bitcoin is relatively easy to trace even when mixers are used, but for as long as you are careful with hiding your IP and you are not unlucky using an infected TOR node, there is no way to really find you before any exit. Am I wrong?

If you have bitcoin on 10 addresses and you go with 6 of them into Monero with own Bitcoin and own Monero node via a decentral exchange and obfuscated IP and if you later on avoid co-spending any monero-ed address with one of the other 4 (including their children, grand children etc) then it's really difficult to trace you. But the weak point is that humans get lazy over time and the chance isn't low that you co-spend the wrong coins and then the obfuscations were a waste of time ....

[temple]

I see what you are saying and I know that companies like Chainalysis can go far beyond what many people think. But if you get your money into Monero and you send it a few steps ahead, maybe just divide it into a couple smaller transactions onto various Monero addresses, how are you going to identify the scammer? Isn't then the only way to crack Monero itself? I see why Bitcoin is relatively easy to trace even when mixers are used, but for as long as you are careful with hiding your IP and you are not unlucky using an infected TOR node, there is no way to really find you before any exit. Am I wrong?

If you have bitcoin on 10 addresses and you go with 6 of them into Monero with own Bitcoin and own Monero node via a decentral exchange and obfuscated IP and if you later on avoid co-spending any monero-ed address with one of the other 4 (including their children, grand children etc) then it's really difficult to trace you. But the weak point is that humans get lazy over time and the chance isn't low that you co-spend the wrong coins and then the obfuscations were a waste of time ....

Yes thank you for clarifying. I know laziness is what catches them in the end and that laziness is almost an exaggeration because staying anonymous is hard work. Lots of work documenting the different paths your coins took in order to exactly avoid what you said regarding children, grand children etc. Making a mistake is not always the result of laziness, it may simply become overwhelming at some point realistically speaking.

Or are you deeply into protocol and analytical stuff or just a hobby?

[BTCtester.com]

Making a mistake is not always the result of laziness, it may simply become overwhelming at some point realistically speaking.

Or are you deeply into protocol and analytical stuff or just a hobby?

Yes, only once of 500 times at 3am in the night a little mistake and the privacy is weakened.
It started as a hobby but in the meantime I do it professional.