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Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power

Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news? It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys".

nathias 5y ago
how has anything changed in this sense? The owners of bitcoins are always whoever has the crypto keys, that isn't an imperative it's just a fact, now the fed has the keys.
gruez 5y ago
Seems like a win to me. The government had to physically go to their house and arrest them to get to their funds, whereas normally all they had to do was call up their bank and had their money frozen. Not to mention, this threat could have been easily mitigated by keeping your funds in a multsig wallet, with the keys distributed in multiple redundant locations.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Also crypto people have a problem with central banks manipulating currency by printing more etc. Having stolen coins recovered seems like an OK thing.
  - harambae 5y ago
    The classic libertarian adage is that a government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have. Some corollary would apply here. (it's not that anyone particularly loves letting criminals off the hook, it's granting that ability is a slippery slope)
- panarky 5y ago
  It's similar to privacy and surveillance. To secretly monitor a single individual's communications, law enforcement should have to get probable cause, present their case to a judge and obtain a court order. Dragnet surveillance of all communications all the time is a Very Bad Thing. Financial surveillance and seizure is currently at the Very Bad Thing stage and bitcoin helps move us back toward a better balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of the state.
  - 908087 5y ago
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Not to mention, this threat could have been easily mitigated by keeping your funds in a multsig wallet, with the keys distributed in multiple redundant locations. And if you're released from prison and recover your Bitcoin, you will be arrested again for contempt of court or a similar charge.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Why anyone would use BTC and not some privacy coin for this kind of scenario escapes me.
    - robbedpeter 5y ago
      Because they stole bitcoin. Good luck finding a non institutional buyer for tainted bitcoins when you're dealing in billions usd. Everyone shuffling bits at that level is going to play by the rules and cover their ass. Even large criminal exchanges will avoid stolen bitcoin in any sort of volume because it means instant scrutiny.
      - polynomial 5y ago
        Even large criminal exchanges outside of US jurisdiction? (ie, Russia, China, etc.)
    - bastawhiz 5y ago
      Is it practical to convert literal billions of dollars between currencies? And even if you did, wouldn't liquidating it so you can actually spend it on things in the real world prove to be almost impossible? Billions of dollars worth of currency is more than I'd expect most privacy coins to deal with over the course of months.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - PKop 5y ago
        But in this case, accessing the billions in BTC was impossible too, so for all intents and purposes, that number wasn't real, since it wasn't usable. The question is perhaps what is the most one can use and how to do it. Privacy coins probably play a part in this equation. You maybe could slowly, and methodically convert it out of the privacy coin into a spendable form when needed.
- axiosgunnar 5y ago
  > The government had to physically go to their house and arrest them to get to their funds Would be the same with cash
kelseyfrog 5y ago
As a crypto unbeliever I hate this too. Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property. It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers. Do we have this concept for other things? yes. But I'd rather like to contract the space of property rather than expand it.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers. Do we have this concept for other things? Intellectual property has been a thing for a long, long time. You don't literally need to have a physical thing somewhere for laws to apply.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    Thank you. My yes (which was left off of the quote for some reason) includes intellectual property. I, like many people, are aware of the concept of intangible property. Dollars in my bank account are another example of intangible property. I'm curious why you included a statement about IP existing for a long time. Is there something about the duration of existence that makes something important? Descriptive statements are notoriously difficult to transform into normative statements.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property People standing ready to buy legitimizes crypto as property. I don't love crypto. But prohibition has never worked as intended.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    In the context of crypto-as-property constructivism, I'm neither an absolute institutional nor a communal conferralist. Presently, it appears like there is much more communal conferralism constructing crypto as property, I'd like to avoid institutionalization. In practice, this would not look like prohibition, rather the avoidance of extending existing property laws to encompass crypto assets. ie: courts and lawmakers saying, "No we're not going to get involved." Unfortunately, any future crisis where crypto can be blamed is a convenient way to extend to crypto the legal construction of it's status as property. Since you brought up prohibition, I'll take the bait. We already have prohibitive socio-legal constructions which few people use to form the basis of "prohibition has never worked, so we should not prohibit it." Some examples that are socially and legally prohibited are: murder, rape, incest, slavery, torture, buying and selling of children. I'm unsure if you believe that the prohibition of these acts has also never worked as intended and should be left unprohibited.
graderjs 5y ago
Not really. BTC has never been anonymous. Monero is better for privacy
notch656a 5y ago
Bitcoin never claimed it was going to put a magical fence around your house stopping armed agents.
- 8note 5y ago
  properly it claimed to put a fence around you after armed agents have stolen from you to make sure you have no recourse
robgibbons 5y ago
Technically they were charged with conspiring to launder money, completely unrelated to any mention of theft or hacking. From TFA: "Court papers filed against the couple did not accuse them of the hack itself; officials declined to say if the pair are suspected of stealing the money."
- codespin 5y ago
  Interesting point, but if the government considered whoever had control of the coins the rightful owner and not stolen, would it be laundering then? It doesn't sound like a problem of taxes.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    Laundering is any process to legitimize illicit income. It does not matter who owns the coins or other assets in question. What matters is if the coins represent any vehicle of fund transfer that originate from any form of criminal enterprise or other unreported financial activity.
    - acchow 5y ago
      So they could have reported the stolen coins it as income, paid taxes, and they'd be in the clear?
      - dvt 5y ago
        How are you arriving to this conclusion? Paying taxes on illicit income does not make the income non-illicit. It just makes you easier to catch.
        acchow 5y ago
        I was replying under some comment thread about the the government "not legitimizing" bitcoin, and thus not considering "bitcoin theft" to be actual theft. And thus the only crime here being tax evasion.
TTPrograms 5y ago
Obvious no-true-scotsman. Believing that the goal of crypto is to circumvent laws regarding possession and theft is at most a fringe belief. The fact that this is at the top of HN demonstrates how devoid of merit crypto discussion here is.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  Circumventing property law has absolutely been a selling point of crypto, front and center, since its inception. The real no-true-Scotsman is saying, "Those who want an extra-governmental system of property aren't the real crypto fans." Yes, they are. In reality, crypto's true purpose is a moving target, so it can never be criticized because that's not what crypto is really about.
  - repomies69 5y ago
    > In reality, crypto's true purpose is a moving target, so it can never be criticized because that's not what crypto is really about. Bitcoin is a tool. Like hammer or a shotgun. You can use it whatever way you want. There is no centrally defined "purpose".
    - pavlov 5y ago
      This is the Adolf Eichmann defense. Trains are just tools, and he was making them run on time. Any infrastructure has a purpose. It’s fair to ask why Bitcoin exists and whose project it is.
      - lowkey 5y ago
        And it's official, Godwin's Law [0] has reached crypto. The purpose of Bitcoin is of course to support the Nazi cause. What other purpose could it possibly have? /s Hint: Millions of people use Bitcoin as a: - store of value to protect purchasing power over time - inflation hedge to protect savings from the ravages of inflation - a hedge to protect against corrupt governments manipulating currency - protection from negative real interest rates - censorship-resistant payments - anonymous payments with instant finality (Lightning) Money is a tool like any other. Cash, gold, NFTs, Bitcoin, and credit cards can be used for good or evil, lawful or unlawful purposes. The technology isn't inherently moral or immoral. It is just a tool. The "it's really for nazis" argument is particularly weak. The critics must be getting desperate. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
xiphias2 5y ago
Bitcoin is about separating money and state, but having a government is still very important. I'm much more worried about non crypto believers hating crypto believers for getting rich while their life is getting harder because of the inflation central banks are imposing on most people.
im3w1l 5y ago
I have the somewhat contradictory wishes, that good people should be able to hide from crooked cops, but crooked people should not be able to hide from good cops. Making it somewhat difficult, but not impossible to catch criminals seems to strike a balance.
lhorie 5y ago
What is a "true crypto believer" anyways? As a matter of practicality, everyone that interacts with financial assets of any sort are bound to laws imposed by some government. Equating "whoever has the keys" to ownership feels more or less equivalent to saying "finders keepers" is a valid justification for taking possession of a physical leather wallet. Or "We broke up, but I fed the dog, so it's mine". Or whatever. A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what.
- akersten 5y ago
  > A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what. I think you've answered your own question - a true crypto believer does not agree with that. If the smart contract says the Ethereum is mine because you wrote it poorly and I called the transfer money function in the right way ("exploited it"), a true believer would say "yep, it's yours."
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    But that's not the way real contracts work. Contracts are an agreement between parties. If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.
    - akersten 5y ago
      I think Ethereum is silly too. But you have to realize that their argument is "we'll make our own contracts, and what the computer says is the absolute truth - no judges or kings." In that world, there is no such thing as stealing. If the crypto transfered, it was allowed to transfer by the contract. The part that "true believers" are meant to hate is that now, someone on one side of the contract is grasping back to Money 1.0 concepts of conceptual ownership and meeting-of-the-minds type contracts. This enforcement action shows that the government thinks of Ethereum et al in this way too. And therefore the crypto paradise dream is dead.
    - 5y ago
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". I really don't understand these arguments. The law still applies whether or not you use cryptocurrency. Using cryptocurrency doesn't free someone from the consequences of their actions. Illegal acts are still illegal acts.
- systemsignal 5y ago
  What makes hacking illegal? What if they acquired the Bitcoin without using illegal means Probably not possible in this case, but in DeFi where everything is ruled by smart contracts, what would make executing behavior allowed by those contracts illegal.
  - mtoner23 5y ago
    US Law makes hacking illegal
  - 323 5y ago
    Whatever a judge decides is illegal is illegal.
  - sincerely 5y ago
    > What makes hacking illegal? https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    Laws of USA and pretty much every other country reject the notion that "everything is ruled by smart contracts" and assert that legally, as far as their jurisdiction reaches, their law is the deciding factor. Contracts have their basis in contract law. You certainly can write a paper contract which "allows" some illegal behavior, and executing such a contract would be illegal, no matter what the contract says. The same applies for a "smart" contract.
- initplus 5y ago
throw8383833jj 5y ago
no. this is quite bullish for bitcoin. they're showing that bitcoin can't be used for criminal activity, whatever the government decides that should be (usually in favor of the general public). this helps to legitimize bitcoin. Protecting consumers of bitcoin is bullish for bitcoin. helping to prevent fraud in bitcoin is also bullish for bitcoin. All these things increase confidence in bitcoin as a legitimate way of storing wealth.
- boc 5y ago
  It sounds like all the good things for bitcoin here are coming from the power of the central authority to provide confidence, legitimacy, protection, and legal recourse. So why on earth is that a good thing for an asset which is all about the power of decentralized systems?
  - make_it_sure 5y ago
    You nailed it!
  - BLKNSLVR 5y ago
    That feels like it's an easy answer: Human society, for a number of years now, has been governed by central authorities that define the rules in which society has to live. Bitcoin cannot and does not take part in dictating how society is to function, Bitcoin is put forward as an alternative currency that cannot be quantitavely eased / printed and gifted to society's largest entities as reward for criminal behaviours that endangered the very society that the central authorities are meant to be acting in protection of. Central authority is a basic requirement of society. Bitcoin is an alternative currency. Recognition by the central authority of society is a legitimisation of Bitcoin in its position as an alternative currency. I don't (sort of I do actually) understand Bitcoin being seen as a replacement for all centralisation / government. Bitcoin has never attempted to make legislation. Currency only (and that's shrunk to 'store of value'). DAO's on the other hand... maybe.
    - boc 5y ago
      People get way too hung up on the concept of "hard" currency. It really takes some study of economic and financial history to understand that currency is just a means to an end, and that hoping for some immutable piece of value in your personal vault isn't what powers our world. Money is far more abstract than anything in the crypto world, and that's why it's not a good long-term bet. I'd encourage you to read an excellent primer on the subject: The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. Money is a social construct, not anything tangible. You can create money from leaves you rake in your yard, and organize your neighborhood around how many leaves you have. You can all agree that the giant stone at the bottom of the bay belongs to the unfortunate sailor who lost it, and therefore he's still wealthy even though he can't get his giant stone back (true story). You can agree that the people who are oldest in society deserve the most access to credit, and give them services accordingly. Basic point here is that wealth is derived from society creating connections and performing services for each other, not from holding currency. Currency is simply the oil in the machinery which helps facilitate these connections. It has no intrinsic value, and the easier it flows, the faster the engine can run. That's why the Fed conducts QE and money printing - it's about the economy, not the currency. Inflation is a side-effect but it's often preferable to loss of real assets and jobs and lives.
algorade 5y ago
The cryptographic keys were stored on a cloud storage device. Law enforcement agencies gained access to these keys while executing a search warrant and used them move the funds. So by this logic, the government is now the rightful owner of these funds.
- brewdad 5y ago
  Correct. This is why crypto, at least in its current form, must fail. In the crypto world possession is 10/10ths of the law.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tenuousemphasis 5y ago
    Is the same not true for physical cash, gold, or bearer bonds?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - astrange 5y ago
    Except for when someone hacks your NFT away and the community still considers it yours.
vmception 5y ago
True crypto believers look at the court case to see what parts of the system need to be made more resilient, if any. Here its poor OPSEC, no improvement is necessary.
peter303 5y ago
Plus the first money line on the IRS 1040 this year asks if you made any crypto transaction. IRS found a golden goose.
conductr 5y ago
“True crypto believers” seems like a loaded phrase these days because I feel like most crypto believers are riding it’s wave to legitimacy. And things like this push it further towards that goal. I don’t see how anyone could really still believe in the original ideals behind Bitcoin. They made something but not what they wanted.
- make_it_sure 5y ago
  Most crypto believers, believe in crypto because they have money invested on it and want to get rich. If you remove that variable of getting rich, very very few remain.
  - tradertef 5y ago
    I mostly agree. But those very very few are the ones who made Bitcoin what it is and they are very influential.
    - conductr 5y ago
      That was the early in the pumping phase when they had to build a cult around it
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
I'm confused. The government got the money back with perfectly legitimate transaction(s) which they signed with those very private keys. If the rule is "whoever has the private keys is the owner", the the government was playing by the rules. What crypto believers should really hate is the fact that with a warrant, the government can potentially get at your private keys. That'd be an interesting problem for crypto to try to solve
toss1 5y ago
>>which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". So, crypto believers should be just fine with this. They used to have the keys. Now the US Govt has the keys. The one who has the keys has the power. All is good
vageli 5y ago
The ledger says whomever holds the keys owns the coins. The government now holds the keys. How is this something against the crypto ethos?
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
I'll put myself at least partially in the "true crypto believers" group, but I think this is good news. Stolen X is 'bad', bringing the people who stole X to justice is good. This is where I may only be a 'partial' member: My feeling is that Bitcoin (not all cryptocurrencies) was about removing Fed/Gov control of the currency. It takes no position against law enforcement of direct currency theft - outside of what could be construed as the theft of currency value by quantitative easing / gifting bailout money to banks, etc. Bitcoin, specifically, has always had a public ledger too, so start-to-finish transaction tracking is part and parcel.
antocv 5y ago
"Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news?" I for one am very sad about this news but much more sad about the reaction of "crypto OGs"
wesleywt 5y ago
Should the anti-cryto haters hate this news. It means a big point of it being a haven for criminals is now moot.
koonsolo 5y ago
> which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". This is still true, no? Now the government has the keys, so they own it. It's clear that you can't be sloppy with your keys, because "whoever has the cryptographic keys". If they used a brainwallet (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet), the gov wouldn't have taken those keys.

nathias 5y ago

how has anything changed in this sense? The owners of bitcoins are always whoever has the crypto keys, that isn't an imperative it's just a fact, now the fed has the keys.

gruez 5y ago

Seems like a win to me. The government had to physically go to their house and arrest them to get to their funds, whereas normally all they had to do was call up their bank and had their money frozen. Not to mention, this threat could have been easily mitigated by keeping your funds in a multsig wallet, with the keys distributed in multiple redundant locations.

sschueller 5y ago
Also crypto people have a problem with central banks manipulating currency by printing more etc. Having stolen coins recovered seems like an OK thing.
- harambae 5y ago
  The classic libertarian adage is that a government powerful enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take everything you have. Some corollary would apply here. (it's not that anyone particularly loves letting criminals off the hook, it's granting that ability is a slippery slope)
panarky 5y ago
It's similar to privacy and surveillance. To secretly monitor a single individual's communications, law enforcement should have to get probable cause, present their case to a judge and obtain a court order. Dragnet surveillance of all communications all the time is a Very Bad Thing. Financial surveillance and seizure is currently at the Very Bad Thing stage and bitcoin helps move us back toward a better balance between the rights of the individual and the interests of the state.
- 908087 5y ago
mschuster91 5y ago
> Not to mention, this threat could have been easily mitigated by keeping your funds in a multsig wallet, with the keys distributed in multiple redundant locations. And if you're released from prison and recover your Bitcoin, you will be arrested again for contempt of court or a similar charge.
- notch656a 5y ago
  Why anyone would use BTC and not some privacy coin for this kind of scenario escapes me.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    Because they stole bitcoin. Good luck finding a non institutional buyer for tainted bitcoins when you're dealing in billions usd. Everyone shuffling bits at that level is going to play by the rules and cover their ass. Even large criminal exchanges will avoid stolen bitcoin in any sort of volume because it means instant scrutiny.
    - polynomial 5y ago
      Even large criminal exchanges outside of US jurisdiction? (ie, Russia, China, etc.)
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    Is it practical to convert literal billions of dollars between currencies? And even if you did, wouldn't liquidating it so you can actually spend it on things in the real world prove to be almost impossible? Billions of dollars worth of currency is more than I'd expect most privacy coins to deal with over the course of months.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - PKop 5y ago
      But in this case, accessing the billions in BTC was impossible too, so for all intents and purposes, that number wasn't real, since it wasn't usable. The question is perhaps what is the most one can use and how to do it. Privacy coins probably play a part in this equation. You maybe could slowly, and methodically convert it out of the privacy coin into a spendable form when needed.
axiosgunnar 5y ago
> The government had to physically go to their house and arrest them to get to their funds Would be the same with cash

kelseyfrog 5y ago

As a crypto unbeliever I hate this too. Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property. It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers. Do we have this concept for other things? yes. But I'd rather like to contract the space of property rather than expand it.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It expands the definition of property by institutionally conferring the status of "owned" to a functional configuration of bits distributed over thousands of computers. Do we have this concept for other things? Intellectual property has been a thing for a long, long time. You don't literally need to have a physical thing somewhere for laws to apply.
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  Thank you. My yes (which was left off of the quote for some reason) includes intellectual property. I, like many people, are aware of the concept of intangible property. Dollars in my bank account are another example of intangible property. I'm curious why you included a statement about IP existing for a long time. Is there something about the duration of existence that makes something important? Descriptive statements are notoriously difficult to transform into normative statements.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Legal enforcement legitimizes crypto as property People standing ready to buy legitimizes crypto as property. I don't love crypto. But prohibition has never worked as intended.
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  In the context of crypto-as-property constructivism, I'm neither an absolute institutional nor a communal conferralist. Presently, it appears like there is much more communal conferralism constructing crypto as property, I'd like to avoid institutionalization. In practice, this would not look like prohibition, rather the avoidance of extending existing property laws to encompass crypto assets. ie: courts and lawmakers saying, "No we're not going to get involved." Unfortunately, any future crisis where crypto can be blamed is a convenient way to extend to crypto the legal construction of it's status as property. Since you brought up prohibition, I'll take the bait. We already have prohibitive socio-legal constructions which few people use to form the basis of "prohibition has never worked, so we should not prohibit it." Some examples that are socially and legally prohibited are: murder, rape, incest, slavery, torture, buying and selling of children. I'm unsure if you believe that the prohibition of these acts has also never worked as intended and should be left unprohibited.

graderjs 5y ago

Not really. BTC has never been anonymous. Monero is better for privacy

notch656a 5y ago

Bitcoin never claimed it was going to put a magical fence around your house stopping armed agents.

8note 5y ago
properly it claimed to put a fence around you after armed agents have stolen from you to make sure you have no recourse

robgibbons 5y ago

Technically they were charged with conspiring to launder money, completely unrelated to any mention of theft or hacking. From TFA: "Court papers filed against the couple did not accuse them of the hack itself; officials declined to say if the pair are suspected of stealing the money."

codespin 5y ago
Interesting point, but if the government considered whoever had control of the coins the rightful owner and not stolen, would it be laundering then? It doesn't sound like a problem of taxes.
- austincheney 5y ago
  Laundering is any process to legitimize illicit income. It does not matter who owns the coins or other assets in question. What matters is if the coins represent any vehicle of fund transfer that originate from any form of criminal enterprise or other unreported financial activity.
  - acchow 5y ago
    So they could have reported the stolen coins it as income, paid taxes, and they'd be in the clear?
    - dvt 5y ago
      How are you arriving to this conclusion? Paying taxes on illicit income does not make the income non-illicit. It just makes you easier to catch.
      - acchow 5y ago
        I was replying under some comment thread about the the government "not legitimizing" bitcoin, and thus not considering "bitcoin theft" to be actual theft. And thus the only crime here being tax evasion.

TTPrograms 5y ago

Obvious no-true-scotsman. Believing that the goal of crypto is to circumvent laws regarding possession and theft is at most a fringe belief. The fact that this is at the top of HN demonstrates how devoid of merit crypto discussion here is.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SantalBlush 5y ago
Circumventing property law has absolutely been a selling point of crypto, front and center, since its inception. The real no-true-Scotsman is saying, "Those who want an extra-governmental system of property aren't the real crypto fans." Yes, they are. In reality, crypto's true purpose is a moving target, so it can never be criticized because that's not what crypto is really about.
- repomies69 5y ago
  > In reality, crypto's true purpose is a moving target, so it can never be criticized because that's not what crypto is really about. Bitcoin is a tool. Like hammer or a shotgun. You can use it whatever way you want. There is no centrally defined "purpose".
  - pavlov 5y ago
    This is the Adolf Eichmann defense. Trains are just tools, and he was making them run on time. Any infrastructure has a purpose. It’s fair to ask why Bitcoin exists and whose project it is.
    - lowkey 5y ago
      And it's official, Godwin's Law [0] has reached crypto. The purpose of Bitcoin is of course to support the Nazi cause. What other purpose could it possibly have? /s Hint: Millions of people use Bitcoin as a: - store of value to protect purchasing power over time - inflation hedge to protect savings from the ravages of inflation - a hedge to protect against corrupt governments manipulating currency - protection from negative real interest rates - censorship-resistant payments - anonymous payments with instant finality (Lightning) Money is a tool like any other. Cash, gold, NFTs, Bitcoin, and credit cards can be used for good or evil, lawful or unlawful purposes. The technology isn't inherently moral or immoral. It is just a tool. The "it's really for nazis" argument is particularly weak. The critics must be getting desperate. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

xiphias2 5y ago

Bitcoin is about separating money and state, but having a government is still very important. I'm much more worried about non crypto believers hating crypto believers for getting rich while their life is getting harder because of the inflation central banks are imposing on most people.

im3w1l 5y ago

I have the somewhat contradictory wishes, that good people should be able to hide from crooked cops, but crooked people should not be able to hide from good cops. Making it somewhat difficult, but not impossible to catch criminals seems to strike a balance.

lhorie 5y ago

What is a "true crypto believer" anyways? As a matter of practicality, everyone that interacts with financial assets of any sort are bound to laws imposed by some government. Equating "whoever has the keys" to ownership feels more or less equivalent to saying "finders keepers" is a valid justification for taking possession of a physical leather wallet. Or "We broke up, but I fed the dog, so it's mine". Or whatever. A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what.

akersten 5y ago
> A person can believe whatever they want, but when push comes to shove, it's a country's court of law that ultimately determines who legally owns what. I think you've answered your own question - a true crypto believer does not agree with that. If the smart contract says the Ethereum is mine because you wrote it poorly and I called the transfer money function in the right way ("exploited it"), a true believer would say "yep, it's yours."
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  But that's not the way real contracts work. Contracts are an agreement between parties. If there is later a disagreement about what was agreed to, a judge sorts it out.
  - akersten 5y ago
    I think Ethereum is silly too. But you have to realize that their argument is "we'll make our own contracts, and what the computer says is the absolute truth - no judges or kings." In that world, there is no such thing as stealing. If the crypto transfered, it was allowed to transfer by the contract. The part that "true believers" are meant to hate is that now, someone on one side of the contract is grasping back to Money 1.0 concepts of conceptual ownership and meeting-of-the-minds type contracts. This enforcement action shows that the government thinks of Ethereum et al in this way too. And therefore the crypto paradise dream is dead.
  - 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> It's the government trying to enforce their opinion of who should own those Bitcoins, thereby taking power away from the owner that the network has decided on, which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". I really don't understand these arguments. The law still applies whether or not you use cryptocurrency. Using cryptocurrency doesn't free someone from the consequences of their actions. Illegal acts are still illegal acts.

systemsignal 5y ago
What makes hacking illegal? What if they acquired the Bitcoin without using illegal means Probably not possible in this case, but in DeFi where everything is ruled by smart contracts, what would make executing behavior allowed by those contracts illegal.
- mtoner23 5y ago
  US Law makes hacking illegal
- 323 5y ago
  Whatever a judge decides is illegal is illegal.
- sincerely 5y ago
  > What makes hacking illegal? https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
- PeterisP 5y ago
  Laws of USA and pretty much every other country reject the notion that "everything is ruled by smart contracts" and assert that legally, as far as their jurisdiction reaches, their law is the deciding factor. Contracts have their basis in contract law. You certainly can write a paper contract which "allows" some illegal behavior, and executing such a contract would be illegal, no matter what the contract says. The same applies for a "smart" contract.
initplus 5y ago

throw8383833jj 5y ago

no. this is quite bullish for bitcoin. they're showing that bitcoin can't be used for criminal activity, whatever the government decides that should be (usually in favor of the general public). this helps to legitimize bitcoin. Protecting consumers of bitcoin is bullish for bitcoin. helping to prevent fraud in bitcoin is also bullish for bitcoin. All these things increase confidence in bitcoin as a legitimate way of storing wealth.

boc 5y ago
It sounds like all the good things for bitcoin here are coming from the power of the central authority to provide confidence, legitimacy, protection, and legal recourse. So why on earth is that a good thing for an asset which is all about the power of decentralized systems?
- make_it_sure 5y ago
  You nailed it!
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  That feels like it's an easy answer: Human society, for a number of years now, has been governed by central authorities that define the rules in which society has to live. Bitcoin cannot and does not take part in dictating how society is to function, Bitcoin is put forward as an alternative currency that cannot be quantitavely eased / printed and gifted to society's largest entities as reward for criminal behaviours that endangered the very society that the central authorities are meant to be acting in protection of. Central authority is a basic requirement of society. Bitcoin is an alternative currency. Recognition by the central authority of society is a legitimisation of Bitcoin in its position as an alternative currency. I don't (sort of I do actually) understand Bitcoin being seen as a replacement for all centralisation / government. Bitcoin has never attempted to make legislation. Currency only (and that's shrunk to 'store of value'). DAO's on the other hand... maybe.
  - boc 5y ago
    People get way too hung up on the concept of "hard" currency. It really takes some study of economic and financial history to understand that currency is just a means to an end, and that hoping for some immutable piece of value in your personal vault isn't what powers our world. Money is far more abstract than anything in the crypto world, and that's why it's not a good long-term bet. I'd encourage you to read an excellent primer on the subject: The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson. Money is a social construct, not anything tangible. You can create money from leaves you rake in your yard, and organize your neighborhood around how many leaves you have. You can all agree that the giant stone at the bottom of the bay belongs to the unfortunate sailor who lost it, and therefore he's still wealthy even though he can't get his giant stone back (true story). You can agree that the people who are oldest in society deserve the most access to credit, and give them services accordingly. Basic point here is that wealth is derived from society creating connections and performing services for each other, not from holding currency. Currency is simply the oil in the machinery which helps facilitate these connections. It has no intrinsic value, and the easier it flows, the faster the engine can run. That's why the Fed conducts QE and money printing - it's about the economy, not the currency. Inflation is a side-effect but it's often preferable to loss of real assets and jobs and lives.

algorade 5y ago

The cryptographic keys were stored on a cloud storage device. Law enforcement agencies gained access to these keys while executing a search warrant and used them move the funds. So by this logic, the government is now the rightful owner of these funds.

brewdad 5y ago
Correct. This is why crypto, at least in its current form, must fail. In the crypto world possession is 10/10ths of the law.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  Is the same not true for physical cash, gold, or bearer bonds?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- astrange 5y ago
  Except for when someone hacks your NFT away and the community still considers it yours.

vmception 5y ago

True crypto believers look at the court case to see what parts of the system need to be made more resilient, if any. Here its poor OPSEC, no improvement is necessary.

peter303 5y ago

Plus the first money line on the IRS 1040 this year asks if you made any crypto transaction. IRS found a golden goose.

conductr 5y ago

“True crypto believers” seems like a loaded phrase these days because I feel like most crypto believers are riding it’s wave to legitimacy. And things like this push it further towards that goal. I don’t see how anyone could really still believe in the original ideals behind Bitcoin. They made something but not what they wanted.

make_it_sure 5y ago
Most crypto believers, believe in crypto because they have money invested on it and want to get rich. If you remove that variable of getting rich, very very few remain.
- tradertef 5y ago
  I mostly agree. But those very very few are the ones who made Bitcoin what it is and they are very influential.
  - conductr 5y ago
    That was the early in the pumping phase when they had to build a cult around it

deleted 5y ago

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bobbylarrybobby 5y ago

I'm confused. The government got the money back with perfectly legitimate transaction(s) which they signed with those very private keys. If the rule is "whoever has the private keys is the owner", the the government was playing by the rules. What crypto believers should really hate is the fact that with a warrant, the government can potentially get at your private keys. That'd be an interesting problem for crypto to try to solve

toss1 5y ago

>>which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". So, crypto believers should be just fine with this. They used to have the keys. Now the US Govt has the keys. The one who has the keys has the power. All is good

vageli 5y ago

The ledger says whomever holds the keys owns the coins. The government now holds the keys. How is this something against the crypto ethos?

BLKNSLVR 5y ago

I'll put myself at least partially in the "true crypto believers" group, but I think this is good news. Stolen X is 'bad', bringing the people who stole X to justice is good. This is where I may only be a 'partial' member: My feeling is that Bitcoin (not all cryptocurrencies) was about removing Fed/Gov control of the currency. It takes no position against law enforcement of direct currency theft - outside of what could be construed as the theft of currency value by quantitative easing / gifting bailout money to banks, etc. Bitcoin, specifically, has always had a public ledger too, so start-to-finish transaction tracking is part and parcel.

antocv 5y ago

"Shouldn't all true crypto believers hate this news?" I for one am very sad about this news but much more sad about the reaction of "crypto OGs"

wesleywt 5y ago

Should the anti-cryto haters hate this news. It means a big point of it being a haven for criminals is now moot.

koonsolo 5y ago

> which would be "whoever has the cryptographic keys". This is still true, no? Now the government has the keys, so they own it. It's clear that you can't be sloppy with your keys, because "whoever has the cryptographic keys". If they used a brainwallet (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet), the gov wouldn't have taken those keys.