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If this was an actual transfer of ownership of Bitcoin at all near that value, this would trigger money-transfer reporting requirements under the laws of most c
by tokenadult 13y ago
If this was an actual transfer of ownership of Bitcoin at all near that value, this would trigger money-transfer reporting requirements under the laws of most countries,[1] especially if this was an international transfer of ownership. I see that all the other comments here are speculating about what exactly happened here, and one astute comment before this one pointed out that the actual owner of the Bitcoin may still be the same individual person both before and after this blockchain transfer. It will be interesting to see how the regulatory environment keeps up with the implementation of Bitcoin, which so far is a very tiny percentage of the world economy.
There were also statements in some previous comments that this transfer was made for free. It is true enough that a Bitcoin transfer doesn't inherently incur a processing charge from a merchant payment processor, but as merchants learned back in the Middle Ages when charging interest was formally illegal, the price of a transaction can hide financing and processing costs. We don't know what was agreed with whom by whom to make this transfer happen. The transfer may have occurred at a higher than list price for something that was bought, to make up for the ongoing inconvenience of receiving a payment using the new Bitcoin payment mechanism.
[1] One example, among many: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/remittances-transfer-rule-amendment-to-regulation-e/ http://www.consumerfinance.gov/remittances-transfer-rule-ame...
- rainmaking 13y agoGiven the transfer of ownership could just as well have occurred by transferring the private key of the address, these requirements are going to get pretty hard to enforce.
- ikawe 13y agoI think that scenario is pretty unlikely for large exchanges. If someone gave me a copy of a private key, corresponding to some bitcoins, I wouldn't consider it payment, as they still have the private key as well (meaning they could still spend the bitcoins at any time). It's more like a "shared account" at that point.
- daemonize 13y agoNot if the private key is stored in a secure hardware token.
- Tortoise 13y agoCan you tell the difference between a secure hardware token and a fake secure hardware token? I suppose if you try to extract the secret key and the token destroys it, it's pretty secure. Of course, you just lost all your money. I can't think of a non-destructive test.
- donaldc 13y agoWould you be willing to bet $147M that someone hadn't figured out a way around that hardware security? I wouldn't..
- bigiain 13y agoHow does the key get into the token, and how do you know there wasn't a copy made before that?
- Beltiras 13y agoSIM card f.ex.
- pantaril 13y agoFor example Trezor hardware wallet ( http://www.bitcointrezor.com/ http://www.bitcointrezor.com/ ) generates its private key when it is first initialized. This way, the key never exists outside of the wallet.
- bigiain 13y agoNot sure that solves he upthread probem. If I give you a Treznor hardware wallet containing a private key to $150million worth of bitcoins - would you trust me not to have anther copy of that key? Or would you transfer them immediately to a wallet with a private key I could never possibly have known?
- andrewflnr 13y agoI'm not sure I see where you're going by mentioning reporting requirements. Isn't the point of Bitcoin that those kind of laws are unenforceable?
- nl 13y agoIsn't the point of Bitcoin that those kind of laws are unenforceable? As Silk Road (and hundreds of years of cash-based money transfers) shows, the fact that BTC is hard to trace hardly makes laws unenforceable.
- carbocation 13y agoBecause bitcoin offers a public ledger, isn't it fair to say that it could actually be used to implement more perfect taxation?
- bunderbunder 13y agoIt might be harder for authorities to monitor bitcoin transactions. But, as the very fact that this HN article exists illustrates, the blockchain is a public record that's available for anyone to monitor, analyze, cross-reference with other sources of data, etc. Particularly for large movements like this, I'm inclined to say that it would be downright foolhardy to assume that BTC transactions are anonymous.
- aagha 13y agoIt might be foolhardy to assume that BTC transactions are anonymous, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be EXTREMELY EXTREMELY EXTREMELY difficult to figure out who was involved.
- betterunix 13y agoWhen it is such a large amount of money, it is not all that difficult. Just look for the guy who is $147M richer. In other words, the only way you get to have the money is if you never spend it, except in minuscule amounts.
- downandout 13y agoIf this were a transfer of ownership, it would trigger the reporting requirements of any country that has reporting laws. The odds are overwhelming that it is not a transfer of ownership, but if it is, here are some guesses: 1) The feds have finally cracked wallet(s) used by Silk Road, or he managed to give his keys to someone (he had a bail hearing today - it's an odd coincidence); 2) Drug cartels are now accepting BTC for major payments; or 3) Macau-based junket operators, that provide casino credit to Chinese gamblers because they cannot easily move money out of China, have begun accepting it for payment. Personally, I think it was just one of the exchanges moving some money internally.