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OT question: is there no way to flag that bitcoin address in any way (so it gets locked / they cannot withdraw anything)?
by philfrasty 10y ago
OT question: is there no way to flag that bitcoin address in any way (so it gets locked / they cannot withdraw anything)?
- cookiecaper 10y agoCorrect, there is no coordinated way to do that right now. Because the blockchain is public, we can tell if coins came from a known bad address or not, but there's no central repository that lists bad actors afaik and the reference client at least doesn't support refusing to trade coins that are "tainted" by a certain address. I imagine the Bitcoin community would be pretty resistant to attempts to establish something like that, since a lot of the bitcoin ethos is based in distrust for centralized authorities.
- bendoernberg 10y agoThe original purpose of Bitcoin was to create digital cash. It is possible to track the transaction history of funds in a bitcoin address, but there is currently no central authority who can blacklist/lock addresses, and most of the major participants in the bitcoin system (users, miners, exchange operators, darknet drug markets) are not interested in changing that.