6 ms·

Alameda wallets become active days after SBF bail, community mulls foul play

62 points by g42gregory 4y ago

LarryMullins 4y ago
Perhaps a rogue FBI/etc agent is trying to steal it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/dea-agents-charged-stealing-bitcoins-selling-info-silk-road-leaders-n332681 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/dea-agents-charged-st...
- the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
  You would be pretty dumb trying to do that.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    Such is the way with many crimes, yet they still happen. If your model of human behavior assumes rationality and intelligence, then you have a huge blind-spot.
    - sshine 4y ago
      > If your model of human behavior assumes rationality and intelligence, then you have a huge blind-spot. Is stealing irrational and/or unintelligent? I'd rather say: If your model of human behavior assumes agreeableness, cooperation and risk-minimization, then you have a huge blind-spot.
      - lazide 4y ago
        Stealing when it’s extremely likely you’ll be caught in short order is irrational and unintelligent. And happens all the time.
      - LarryMullins 4y ago
        I concede that it's technically possible there is some circumstance here that could make it rational. But speaking generally,a solidly middle class federal employee, with a comfortable pension ahead of him, stealing crypto from the federal government? That's stupid. If this is what happened (again), he'll almost certainly be caught, or spend the rest of his life on the run. We're not talking about a starving man stealing a loaf of bread. That would be a rational theft.
  - bbbbb5 4y ago
    How come? Assuming multiple people have had access to the keys, it's hardly a given that you'd be caught. Just use Tails or similar to transfer the money to a wallet you control, and don't touch it until many years later when you've moved to another country. The $ figure where it starts to make sense for a FBI agent to flee to China or Russia probably isn't all that high. You could even pick from a much longer list of countries if you were patient enough to wait until you gain citizenship, many countries won't extradite their nationals.
  - throw_a_grenade 4y ago
    Coincidentally, police have max IQ over which they don't hire. In other words, you need to be at least $X dumb to join the police.
    - sshine 4y ago
      That's not true. It's just that the police does not generally pay well, so if you're smart, you often have more profitable options. So usually the smart people in the police have other reasons to be there than money, and the dumb people may not have better options.
      - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
        As a general statement it is not true. That is, not every police force in the US (or the world) does this. However, it is absolutely true of some police forces. The often cited example is the 2nd circuit appeals court case Robert Jordan vs City of New London, where the police department successfully defended a hard cutoff maximum IQ test score.
        tptacek 4y ago
        This is a case from 1996, in which a group of towns created a pool of candidates for a bunch of different jobs based on a civil service exam that included the Wonderlic test, and then assigned ranges of scores to different jobs. A survey done shortly after the appeals case, at a police management training course (at the University of Louisville), found that actual police, with experience ranging from 7-33 years, overwhelmingly disagreed with the premise of that scoring system. It seems likely that the New London situation was anomalous.
        sshine 4y ago
        Thank you for clarifying. That is absolutely mind-boggling.
encryptluks2 4y ago
The guy had a lot of politicians in his pocket. I don't think he'll face any serious consequences, especially if the money is going to pay some of them off.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  The only thing SBF has going for him is that he is young so he wont be geriatric when he gets out of prison.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    Perhaps; but he (is accused of) doing more than one crime, with maximum penalties for one (money laundering) being 20 and another (securities fraud) being 25, so he may indeed leave prison geriatric: https://youtu.be/6cw6BnNugHc https://youtu.be/6cw6BnNugHc (Transcript says these details are about 22:30 into the video)
    - nickthegreek 4y ago
      They will serve them concurrently. I’d be surprised if he gets 20. Something in the 11-15 range sound probable.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  People were saying with absolute confidence that SBF wouldn’t be arrested, right up until the moment he was arrested, at which point they immediately pivoted to this new argument, without ever admitting they were wrong. I wish one of you would actually place money on this bet, so I could bet against you and win some easy cash.
  - TechBro8615 4y ago
    He was arrested the day he was scheduled to testify to the House. I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing justice until he's actually in jail.
spritefs 4y ago
Question: why do people keep coins in exchange wallets when you could just keep them in personal wallets and not have to worry about losing them? What's the appeal?
- Fatnino 4y ago
  They want the coins nearer to the exchange so they can be traded on short notice without incurring miners fees.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  Transaction fees. If you traded for USD to BTC to USD under normal circumstances, you've got: 1. Alice wants to buy something from Bob. 2. Alice buys BTC for USD, incurring one TX fee. 3. Alice pays BTC / mining costs to transfer BTC to Bob, a 2nd TX Fee. 4. Bob transfers BTC to an exchange for USD, a 3rd Tx fee. ------------ Now lets say everything were centralized. 1. Alice opens an account at FTX. She buys "virtual BTC" (just an account at FTX, not a real wallet transaction). 2. Alice transfers money to Bob, possibly through FTX. 3. Bob sells this "virtual BTC" back for dollars. 4. Note that unlike the first example, this transaction is instantaneous. The first example requires waiting for confirmation at each transaction. Confirmations nominally happen every 10 minutes, but there have been times when the wait has been days (remember when Steam adopted BTC and the network couldn't handle the load? I remember) FTX can charge a transaction fee at #1 and #3, and still the whole process will be cheaper than the 3x transaction fees incurred over decentralized methodologies. Of course, when FTX collapses, everybody's money is gone.
  - spritefs 4y ago
    considering recent bad press the cost of the additional transaction fee seems like very cheap insurance
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      The cost of a transaction fee varies from anywhere from $1 to $50 depending on network conditions, and those transactions can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 days to complete. People don't like "market rates" for transactions that change day by day, hour by hour. People also don't like their transactions getting stuck in the queue for days-and-days on end, possibly causing commerce issues. ------- Or as people used to say about a year or two ago. BTC is no longer about transactions, its now about store of value. Except now we've lost the store of value story, since BTC declined by 60%+ (on top of inflation). So BTC ain't that either.
engineer_22 4y ago
Maybe new management is moving to liquidate?
- milchek 4y ago
  Doubt they would be using mixers to do so, and the new CEO who is administrator of the bankruptcy has stated all actions will be transparent etc, I think they would’ve announced it? Keeping it simple, seems like SBF is doing this now he has access again.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Incipient 4y ago
If administrators have been appointed, shouldn't they have secured all funds in new wallets?

62 points by g42gregory 4y ago

Perhaps a rogue FBI/etc agent is trying to steal it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/dea-agents-charged-stealing-bitcoins-selling-info-silk-road-leaders-n332681 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/dea-agents-charged-st...

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
You would be pretty dumb trying to do that.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  Such is the way with many crimes, yet they still happen. If your model of human behavior assumes rationality and intelligence, then you have a huge blind-spot.
  - sshine 4y ago
    > If your model of human behavior assumes rationality and intelligence, then you have a huge blind-spot. Is stealing irrational and/or unintelligent? I'd rather say: If your model of human behavior assumes agreeableness, cooperation and risk-minimization, then you have a huge blind-spot.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Stealing when it’s extremely likely you’ll be caught in short order is irrational and unintelligent. And happens all the time.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      I concede that it's technically possible there is some circumstance here that could make it rational. But speaking generally,a solidly middle class federal employee, with a comfortable pension ahead of him, stealing crypto from the federal government? That's stupid. If this is what happened (again), he'll almost certainly be caught, or spend the rest of his life on the run. We're not talking about a starving man stealing a loaf of bread. That would be a rational theft.
- bbbbb5 4y ago
  How come? Assuming multiple people have had access to the keys, it's hardly a given that you'd be caught. Just use Tails or similar to transfer the money to a wallet you control, and don't touch it until many years later when you've moved to another country. The $ figure where it starts to make sense for a FBI agent to flee to China or Russia probably isn't all that high. You could even pick from a much longer list of countries if you were patient enough to wait until you gain citizenship, many countries won't extradite their nationals.
- throw_a_grenade 4y ago
  Coincidentally, police have max IQ over which they don't hire. In other words, you need to be at least $X dumb to join the police.
  - sshine 4y ago
    That's not true. It's just that the police does not generally pay well, so if you're smart, you often have more profitable options. So usually the smart people in the police have other reasons to be there than money, and the dumb people may not have better options.
    - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
      As a general statement it is not true. That is, not every police force in the US (or the world) does this. However, it is absolutely true of some police forces. The often cited example is the 2nd circuit appeals court case Robert Jordan vs City of New London, where the police department successfully defended a hard cutoff maximum IQ test score.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        This is a case from 1996, in which a group of towns created a pool of candidates for a bunch of different jobs based on a civil service exam that included the Wonderlic test, and then assigned ranges of scores to different jobs. A survey done shortly after the appeals case, at a police management training course (at the University of Louisville), found that actual police, with experience ranging from 7-33 years, overwhelmingly disagreed with the premise of that scoring system. It seems likely that the New London situation was anomalous.
      - sshine 4y ago
        Thank you for clarifying. That is absolutely mind-boggling.

encryptluks2 4y ago

The guy had a lot of politicians in his pocket. I don't think he'll face any serious consequences, especially if the money is going to pay some of them off.

nickthegreek 4y ago
The only thing SBF has going for him is that he is young so he wont be geriatric when he gets out of prison.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Perhaps; but he (is accused of) doing more than one crime, with maximum penalties for one (money laundering) being 20 and another (securities fraud) being 25, so he may indeed leave prison geriatric: https://youtu.be/6cw6BnNugHc https://youtu.be/6cw6BnNugHc (Transcript says these details are about 22:30 into the video)
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    They will serve them concurrently. I’d be surprised if he gets 20. Something in the 11-15 range sound probable.
Analemma_ 4y ago
People were saying with absolute confidence that SBF wouldn’t be arrested, right up until the moment he was arrested, at which point they immediately pivoted to this new argument, without ever admitting they were wrong. I wish one of you would actually place money on this bet, so I could bet against you and win some easy cash.
- TechBro8615 4y ago
  He was arrested the day he was scheduled to testify to the House. I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing justice until he's actually in jail.

spritefs 4y ago

Question: why do people keep coins in exchange wallets when you could just keep them in personal wallets and not have to worry about losing them? What's the appeal?

Fatnino 4y ago
They want the coins nearer to the exchange so they can be traded on short notice without incurring miners fees.
dragontamer 4y ago
Transaction fees. If you traded for USD to BTC to USD under normal circumstances, you've got: 1. Alice wants to buy something from Bob. 2. Alice buys BTC for USD, incurring one TX fee. 3. Alice pays BTC / mining costs to transfer BTC to Bob, a 2nd TX Fee. 4. Bob transfers BTC to an exchange for USD, a 3rd Tx fee. ------------ Now lets say everything were centralized. 1. Alice opens an account at FTX. She buys "virtual BTC" (just an account at FTX, not a real wallet transaction). 2. Alice transfers money to Bob, possibly through FTX. 3. Bob sells this "virtual BTC" back for dollars. 4. Note that unlike the first example, this transaction is instantaneous. The first example requires waiting for confirmation at each transaction. Confirmations nominally happen every 10 minutes, but there have been times when the wait has been days (remember when Steam adopted BTC and the network couldn't handle the load? I remember) FTX can charge a transaction fee at #1 and #3, and still the whole process will be cheaper than the 3x transaction fees incurred over decentralized methodologies. Of course, when FTX collapses, everybody's money is gone.
- spritefs 4y ago
  considering recent bad press the cost of the additional transaction fee seems like very cheap insurance
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    The cost of a transaction fee varies from anywhere from $1 to $50 depending on network conditions, and those transactions can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 days to complete. People don't like "market rates" for transactions that change day by day, hour by hour. People also don't like their transactions getting stuck in the queue for days-and-days on end, possibly causing commerce issues. ------- Or as people used to say about a year or two ago. BTC is no longer about transactions, its now about store of value. Except now we've lost the store of value story, since BTC declined by 60%+ (on top of inflation). So BTC ain't that either.

engineer_22 4y ago

Maybe new management is moving to liquidate?

milchek 4y ago
Doubt they would be using mixers to do so, and the new CEO who is administrator of the bankruptcy has stated all actions will be transparent etc, I think they would’ve announced it? Keeping it simple, seems like SBF is doing this now he has access again.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Incipient 4y ago

If administrators have been appointed, shouldn't they have secured all funds in new wallets?