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Silk Road Bitcoins worth $1B transferred after seven years
- Scoundreller 6y ago> Simply guessing the private key of a bitcoin wallet is functionally impossible Well, a private key is only as good as your (P)RNG.
- Consultant32452 6y agoFor $1 Billion I can generate a LOT of random numbers.
- gruez 6y agobut nowhere near 2^160[1] random numbers. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction#Pay-to-PubkeyHash https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction#Pay-to-PubkeyHash
- harrisonjackson 6y agoYou can't win if you don't play. Could get it right on the first go!
- stOneskull 6y agohow sweet that would be
- twinkletwinkle_ 6y agoBetter off just playing Powerball. Order of 1 in 109
- bottled_poe 6y agoPut it this way: you could spend $1B on energy costs testing random numbers and still have practically 0% chance of hitting the right number.
- xtracto 6y agoYeah, I also have https://privatekeys.pw/bitcoin/random https://privatekeys.pw/bitcoin/random. as my homepage. Every day I reload it a couple of times... it's like playing a [very shitty] lottery every day.
- stOneskull 6y agoi think if there's a hit, the site owner would take it and just show you another zero
- Scoundreller 6y ago> They were clearly biding their time and waiting for a busy news day in order to do this without it getting too much attention. Nooooo, they were Biden their time! Good choice of day though. Who would have expected this level of chaos.
- mrlala 6y ago>Who would have expected this level of chaos. Anyone who has been breathing for the past four years..
- Scoundreller 6y agoGiven that these were worth $350k at the time 8+ years ago, my guess is on a vendor that got out of prison and was carefully planning for a day to move it around.
- bromonkey 6y agoHard to get out of jail when you're serving a double life sentence...
- Scoundreller 6y agoThe operator didn’t stash every Bitcoin that came in. A few vendors here or there may have withdrawn their funds. These were withdrawn from the main account, but who knows who owns it.
- trhway 6y agomay be the transfer of that $1B is exactly the way out of jail. Giving that the fed agents in the case so easily succumbed to the sub-$1M temptation, one can only imagine what $1B can buy you there.
- agotterer 6y agoWhy couldn’t this be the government transferring to another wallet?
- appleflaxen 6y agoit can
- screaminghawk 6y agoIt can, why would they though?
- shoshino 6y agoTo be certain that they are the only entity that controls the coins.
- wmf 6y agoThe US government sold their Silk Road BTC long ago. I don't know why they'd hold onto any for this long.
- lawn 6y agoThe title is a bit misleading as we don't know if the coins have changed hands. They probably just transferred them to a new address that they also control.
- Scoundreller 6y agoAnd now we have to watch the Bitcoin Cash and other forks too.
- kylebenzle 6y agoArguably (by me) Bitcoin Cash is MUCH closer to "Bitcoin" than the current "BTC" chain. Bitcoin Cash coins were moved too though. It will be VERY interesting to see if they try and use Cash Fusion to effectively mix the coins on the BCH chain though.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jbverschoor 6y agoCan just be keyrotation
- gruez 6y agobut why would you need to rotate a cold wallet (presumably) key? Key rotating makes sense for your password or tls keys, because they're used on a regular basis on networked computers that can possibly be compromised. But if the private key is stored on an airgapped computer (or paper wallet) there would be no advantage. If anything pulling the computer out to do the signing presents more danger because there's opportunity for your house to be raided (by police or rival criminals) while you're doing the signing.
- whyrusleeping 6y agoSomeone might want to take more precautions generating keys for $1 billion vs $1 million. I'm betting this person (or persons) generated keys in a more secure manner (potentially a sharded key, or using hardware wallets) than the original keys, which may have been generated on a non-airgapped device.
- Element_ 6y agoIf you had access to this wallet how would you actually convert that many bitcoins to hard currency anonymously?
- neom 6y agoVery very very very very slowly using a series of off-shore bank accounts.
- kache_ 6y agomonero
- sbierwagen 6y agoYou couldn't. An easy guess is that every bitcoin mixer is compromised. You could maybe withdraw $100 at a time from bitcoin ATMs, until KYC/AML forces ATM operators to maintain a coin/address blacklist.
- gruez 6y ago>An easy guess is that every bitcoin mixer is compromised there are trustless mixer networks[1]. The bigger problem is that you're going to run out of liquidity. You preferably want to exchange 1B of "dirty" bitcoin for 1B of "clean" bitcoin, not tumble the 1B of bitcoin and get back the same dirty coins. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin
- gmadsen 6y agoexchanging to Monaro solves this problem.
- square90 6y agoWith $1B you could start your own mixers and hire people to run them. Or even start your own exchange.
- zucker42 6y agoAnyone you'd hire would be risking breaking the law in the U.S. or some other country, plus you'd have no legal protection if they decided to screw you over.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoUlbricht is paying off Trump for clemency. Sounds crazy, but anything is believable right now.
- tofuahdude 6y agoOf all the conspiracy theories this is the most hilarious
- patriksvensson 6y agoThe wallet address is: 1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx More information on the wallet found here: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbhx https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRy...
- m1sta_ 6y agoElection timing?/
- Scoundreller 6y agoSome speculate that it was a good day to get diluted in the news. I’d say they were right.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- quickthrower2 6y agoYou can't fool HN though!
- globular-toast 6y agoHN will forget this tomorrow when the Github CEO does something again.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoPales in comparison to money laundering with US real estate. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kleptocracy-came-to-america/580471/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kle...
- arcticbull 6y agoReal estate is designed for people to live in. Money laundering through real estate is ancillary -- a bug -- and attempts are made to stop it. Regularly. Up to and including Vancouver instituting a 15% tax on foreign buyers and New Zealand banning non-residents from buying real estate. Cryptocurrency is designed specifically, by virtue of its decentralized and trustless nature, to facilitate money laundering. It was a design goal. This is what it's for. That and of course, collecting the proceeds of ransomware. Another way of describing 'money laundering' is transferring value, without the permission of a centralized government authority, with the intent to conceal the source of funds (hey it's your money right?). That it has yet to achieve the same scale is not relevant. All sorts of illegal activities aren't done at scale, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be policed. Otherwise you'll be pointing to the small scale right up until the moment it's not small anymore, and then it's too late.
- vmception 6y agoDespite you being incorrect, its not even worth debating because the common denominator is that it looks like the state should just quit using public resources on trying to whitelist transactions since that seems to be the real waste, and find a new tool to curb whatever activity they were actually trying to stop.
- arcticbull 6y agoWrong in what way? I made three fairly factual statements. 1. Houses are meant for you to live in. Not super contentious I wager. 2. Trustless and decentralized means you can transfer value without the permission of a centralized authority. I believe that's frequently touted. 3. Money laundering is transferring money without the permission of a centralized authority with the intent to conceal the original source of funds.
- 1996 6y agoSome people are richer than you. New at 11.
- ur-whale 6y agotxid or it didn't happen [EDIT1]: Looks like this one: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/3f036ff88bb851b57a1e28780dbce35a6457a8b57995c095b55b3b0cf48ba9fd?_search=homepage&_type=transaction https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/3f036ff88bb851b57... [EDIT2]: and since these coins existed pre BCH fork, it's worth looking at the BCH coins ... TL;DR: they have moved as well: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/transaction/00082718d96fd32f96482a7b1e73639fe7b91e83f5ce4361b5467e3049801fab#o=3 https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/transaction/00082718d96f...
- Scoundreller 6y agoBut but but, what about the Bitcoin Gold???
- jonas21 6y agoThey appear to have been quite thorough: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20gold/tx/9ac265c90b7d5bb44d38f632100543ae06decc321d4026411aaaa36d431b1f17 https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20gold/tx/9ac265c90b7d5bb4...
- Scoundreller 6y agoIf it got sent to a marketplace/exchange, I wonder how many confirmations an exchange would wait for to sign-off that they can't be double spent.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 6y ago> “Either way, the funds are now on the move, and whoever now controls the bitcoins may want to cash them out,” Robinson said. As for whether it was an insider or a hacker, his guess it’s as likely either way. “I’d say I’m 50/50 right now, perhaps leaning towards a Silk Roader. They were clearly biding their time and waiting for a busy news day in order to do this without it getting too much attention.” Busy news day... which means... today?
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoYes. The US elections make it a busy news day.
- TuringNYC 6y agoWhat is the significance of the seven years specifically? Is there a statute of limitations?
- URSpider94 6y agoJust that it’s a long time for a billion dollars to sit around.
- dzmien 6y agoMaybe the private keys were behind an encryption scheme that took roughly seven years to be cracked with brute force. I can't say I envy the owner(s) of these coins. Maybe a billion dollars worth of closely watched bitcoins it is a good problem though. Who knows? I certainly don't.
- mekster 6y agoHow envious could one be if one can't easily liquidate the said funds?
- tyingq 6y agoCould be a SilkRoad vendor just getting out of prison.
- koreanguy 6y agothey cant cash out, they had to update into new chain. they got nowhere to cash out. every exchange knows this block. even if they have trillions, they cant cash it out because its so large. to many eyes. and bitcoin is not anonymous
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoHow would one even "cash out" $1B? The more likely scenario is they eat away at it slowly over the next 40 years.
- koreanguy 6y agothey face 40 years of verification on every transection, its a waiting game. pretty sure they want to cash out fully at first sight when time allows it.
- kylebenzle 6y agoFor coins on the BCH chain he has Cash Fusion. A pretty great way to mix the coins.
- koreanguy 6y agofinancial conduct authority, will go after fusion and make them pay. this is the chains problem. every exchange to scared to accept that block.
- ponker 6y agoI can’t get over the idea that the HODL gang thinks that cryptocurrency=freedom when everyone can see the global transaction log.
- xxxxxxxx 6y agoIt's permissionless, as in no reporting transactions over $10k to the government, no ID checks to create an account, no names and addresses in the "global transaction log" etc. That sounds a lot like freedom to me.
- ponker 6y agoTo me, privacy is an essential component of freedom, and the government and banking system knowing everything about my transactions is not as bad as everyone knowing something about my transactions.
- gorgoiler 6y agoWhat happens to the price of bitcoin when you try to sell $1B worth? The first few buyers might be paying the asking price, but presumably the order book has offers to buy at considerably less than today’s $/BTC? Are there any markets out there that quote the price of stocks in terms of the total (average? median?) value of currently placed orders?
- pfundstein 6y agoObviously you don't dump it all on the order books at once.
- smoyer 6y agoDidn't Ross Ulbricht claim he was no longer "The Dread Pirate Roberts".
- ToFab123 6y agoDid silkroad get replaced by other services or did that entire marked fade away when they turned off the light?
- realce 6y agoReplaced by many, many, many other services. The marketplace is still healthy today.
- ur-whale 6y agoUpdate: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.368440/gov.uscourts.cand.368440.1.0.pdf https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.368440...