8 ms·

As someone who knows very little about the blockchain, I was wondering if the Bitcoins are "known"? Like, they have a hash or something? Can't they be then blac

As someone who knows very little about the blockchain, I was wondering if the Bitcoins are "known"? Like, they have a hash or something? Can't they be then blacklisted from use somehow? I thought the whole point of the blockchain was that all the transactions were all known?

jbtule 9y ago
You'd need consensus of the miners to do so.
- tooop 9y ago
  Nothing to do with miners. It is all about exchanges.
  - ht85 9y ago
    Miners would be the correct level for such a thing. By blocking a specific address, it would effectively freeze all the funds held by it, preventing them from being transferred to anyone, including exchanges.
- sf_rob 9y ago
  This happened with Ethereum early on. It's the cause of the Ethereum Classic fork since many oppose violating immutability. In addition, my understanding is that many cash exchanges will not accept funds that have previously been identified in major hacks because they could be forced to return the funds to their rightful owners in addition to the cost of compliance with law enforcement. There are "privacy"-focused cryptocurrencies that do not have this characteristic, the most well known of which is Monero. [I am not an expert, just a casual news consumer of the space]
giancarlostoro 9y ago
Knowing their history is good against faking the coins aka counterfeiting. If someone steals $50,000 from your bank account you may or may not ever see it again. Bitcoin will help you track it down to wherever it ends up, unlike your bank.
- tooop 9y ago
  You can't fake (counterfeit) bitcoin...
  - giancarlostoro 9y ago
    That is what I just said.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
larkeith 9y ago
They are known, but the point of a decentralized blockchain is that there is no central authority to 'blacklist' them. Furthermore, there are methods by which bitcoins can be anonymized once obtained: look up 'bitcoin tumbler'.
cal5k 9y ago
Yes... all of the addresses involved should be known and can be blacklisted by major exchanges. Still - the question is why was it even possible for a "hack" to score so much cryptocurrency? This is a legendary score on par with Mt Gox... they should be holding all currency not required for immediate trading liquidity in cold storage and rebalancing as needed.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Uh. Wasn't the whole goddamn point of blockchains "censorship resistance"? Now people are saying that we can just ban transactions from certain addresses?
  - cal5k 9y ago
    You can't ban them, but you could put together a "blacklist" on tokens from a particular origin that exchanges could agree to honour. It wouldn't stop anyone from trying to sell their coins in other ways.
    - emiliobumachar 9y ago
      That's basically forming a government. Who decides what goes in the list? Who ensures they'll keep honest? Who watches the watchers? What recourse does a user have against arbitrary measures?
      - cal5k 9y ago
        A government? It's a list. Until it collects taxes, has a monopoly on violence and provides basic services, a list is just... a list.
        fooker 9y ago
        I just had a LISPy epiphany here! All that you mention are ultimately lists.
stale2002 9y ago
It is very difficult to blacklist coins with the current culture of Bitcoin. If 1 person refuses to accept the coins, there are thousands and thousands of others who knowingly WILL. And an even larger group of people who aren't even going to be aware of your blacklist and will do so unknowingly. In order to blacklist coins, it is not enough to just blacklist the 1 address. You have to black everyone who accepts those coins, and everyone who accepts coins from the people who accepted them and so on. And at that point you have blacklisted the entire network.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
wampwamp 9y ago
Yes, bitcoin transactions are 'known' and are represented by a unique hash; however, It's impossible to 'reject' an incoming bitcoin transaction. Miners can implement custom software that can exclude blacklisted transactions from their list of mineable transactions, but requiring all miners to blacklist an address or transaction would require a hard fork.
siberianbear 9y ago
How would you get everyone to agree on the blacklisting? How would be enforced? What if some clients accept nodes containing 'blacklisted' addresses, and some don't? When if then a client that 'blacklists' addresses sees a block that contains a transaction whose inputs are 99% 'legit' coins and 1% 'blacklisted' coins? Should it honor it? What you're really proposing is a hard fork, which is a morass of problems. And why should everyone suffer all this grief just because the security team on one exchange in Japan is staffed with people who don't know what they are doing?
ReverseCold 9y ago
The accounts on the NEM network (XEM was stolen, not Bitcoin) can be marked with a non-transferable asset. That was just automated and all known hacker addresses are now tainted.
- larkeith 9y ago
  Interesting - I'm unfamiliar with XEM, I presume the non-transferable mosaic (that were used to mark the accounts to which the stolen funds were transferred) is signed in some manner such that a copy couldn't be spoofed onto an arbitrary account?
  - ReverseCold 9y ago
    Mosaics are a core feature of the platform. Think of it like an ERC20 token, but the creator of the token can impose fees (among other features). The fees are set to another token that the hacker doesn't/can't own - as such the account is stuck owning the asset.
    - xorcist 9y ago
      So in a sense you never truly own your XEM tokens? The creator can change the rules ex post facto.
      - ReverseCold 9y ago
        That's configurable. There's tokens where you want it to be centralized and able to change post creation (mutable) and then immutable ones. Companies using NEM really like the mutable ones.
    - AlexCoventry 9y ago
      Is there a roadmap for weaning XEM off this centralized governance structure?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

jbtule 9y ago

You'd need consensus of the miners to do so.

tooop 9y ago
Nothing to do with miners. It is all about exchanges.
- ht85 9y ago
  Miners would be the correct level for such a thing. By blocking a specific address, it would effectively freeze all the funds held by it, preventing them from being transferred to anyone, including exchanges.
sf_rob 9y ago
This happened with Ethereum early on. It's the cause of the Ethereum Classic fork since many oppose violating immutability. In addition, my understanding is that many cash exchanges will not accept funds that have previously been identified in major hacks because they could be forced to return the funds to their rightful owners in addition to the cost of compliance with law enforcement. There are "privacy"-focused cryptocurrencies that do not have this characteristic, the most well known of which is Monero. [I am not an expert, just a casual news consumer of the space]

giancarlostoro 9y ago

Knowing their history is good against faking the coins aka counterfeiting. If someone steals $50,000 from your bank account you may or may not ever see it again. Bitcoin will help you track it down to wherever it ends up, unlike your bank.

tooop 9y ago
You can't fake (counterfeit) bitcoin...
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  That is what I just said.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

larkeith 9y ago

They are known, but the point of a decentralized blockchain is that there is no central authority to 'blacklist' them. Furthermore, there are methods by which bitcoins can be anonymized once obtained: look up 'bitcoin tumbler'.

cal5k 9y ago

Yes... all of the addresses involved should be known and can be blacklisted by major exchanges. Still - the question is why was it even possible for a "hack" to score so much cryptocurrency? This is a legendary score on par with Mt Gox... they should be holding all currency not required for immediate trading liquidity in cold storage and rebalancing as needed.

UncleMeat 9y ago
Uh. Wasn't the whole goddamn point of blockchains "censorship resistance"? Now people are saying that we can just ban transactions from certain addresses?
- cal5k 9y ago
  You can't ban them, but you could put together a "blacklist" on tokens from a particular origin that exchanges could agree to honour. It wouldn't stop anyone from trying to sell their coins in other ways.
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    That's basically forming a government. Who decides what goes in the list? Who ensures they'll keep honest? Who watches the watchers? What recourse does a user have against arbitrary measures?
    - cal5k 9y ago
      A government? It's a list. Until it collects taxes, has a monopoly on violence and provides basic services, a list is just... a list.
      - fooker 9y ago
        I just had a LISPy epiphany here! All that you mention are ultimately lists.

stale2002 9y ago

It is very difficult to blacklist coins with the current culture of Bitcoin. If 1 person refuses to accept the coins, there are thousands and thousands of others who knowingly WILL. And an even larger group of people who aren't even going to be aware of your blacklist and will do so unknowingly. In order to blacklist coins, it is not enough to just blacklist the 1 address. You have to black everyone who accepts those coins, and everyone who accepts coins from the people who accepted them and so on. And at that point you have blacklisted the entire network.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

wampwamp 9y ago

Yes, bitcoin transactions are 'known' and are represented by a unique hash; however, It's impossible to 'reject' an incoming bitcoin transaction. Miners can implement custom software that can exclude blacklisted transactions from their list of mineable transactions, but requiring all miners to blacklist an address or transaction would require a hard fork.

siberianbear 9y ago

How would you get everyone to agree on the blacklisting? How would be enforced? What if some clients accept nodes containing 'blacklisted' addresses, and some don't? When if then a client that 'blacklists' addresses sees a block that contains a transaction whose inputs are 99% 'legit' coins and 1% 'blacklisted' coins? Should it honor it? What you're really proposing is a hard fork, which is a morass of problems. And why should everyone suffer all this grief just because the security team on one exchange in Japan is staffed with people who don't know what they are doing?

ReverseCold 9y ago

The accounts on the NEM network (XEM was stolen, not Bitcoin) can be marked with a non-transferable asset. That was just automated and all known hacker addresses are now tainted.

larkeith 9y ago
Interesting - I'm unfamiliar with XEM, I presume the non-transferable mosaic (that were used to mark the accounts to which the stolen funds were transferred) is signed in some manner such that a copy couldn't be spoofed onto an arbitrary account?
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  Mosaics are a core feature of the platform. Think of it like an ERC20 token, but the creator of the token can impose fees (among other features). The fees are set to another token that the hacker doesn't/can't own - as such the account is stuck owning the asset.
  - xorcist 9y ago
    So in a sense you never truly own your XEM tokens? The creator can change the rules ex post facto.
    - ReverseCold 9y ago
      That's configurable. There's tokens where you want it to be centralized and able to change post creation (mutable) and then immutable ones. Companies using NEM really like the mutable ones.
  - AlexCoventry 9y ago
    Is there a roadmap for weaning XEM off this centralized governance structure?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]