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Ask HN: If Bitcoins are traceable, can't we trace and find Bitcoin thieves?
Assuming thieves want to profit from their stolen Bitcoins, doesn't the Bitcoin traceability property mean it's possible to track the Bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox, for instance, and any related transactions?
- dfc 13y agoYes. Just drop the criminal transaction ID into blockchain.info. Do you know which transaction represents the theft?
- patmcc 13y agoYes, except there are ways to launder bitcoins. Put them through a tumbler, use them to buy something, gamble with them and withdraw later, put them in a wallet service and transfer them around (wallets may move bitcoins around, they're probably not wherever they were originally sent), etc. You can definitely see the first step, but after that it's tricky.
- panabee 13y agothanks for clarifying!
- natdempk 13y agoYou can at first, but Bitcoin mixers make it unlikely. If you take stolen coins, throw them into a pool with other coins, make a lot of transactions within that pool and with other addresses, and generate a bunch of new addresses with new balances its hard to say what belongs to who. See http://www.bitcoinfog.com/ http://www.bitcoinfog.com/ for an example of one such service.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gesman 13y agoMixers works well with small "typical" amounts. When 200,000 bitcoins are stolen - mixers are useless to hide them. Theoretically it is possible to track down criminal if physical product stores would cooperate in that. If criminal buys something to be shipped to certain address - backtracing logic could be utilized to detect that money are coming from stolen source. This does not guarantee that actual thief is spending bitcoins but possibility is there. I expect some API "bitcoin theft detection" sevices will start popping up.
- brudgers 13y agoWhat does it mean to claim a bitcoin is stolen? It's not a claim based on the blockchains but on something else. It becomes a matter of proof based on something like server logs and testimony of individuals. Is it even a criminal matter or simply a contractual dispute over ownership of some assets? Suppose there is a judgement. Who enforces it and how? A judge can't undo the block chain. Who is going to testify that they received the stolen bitcoin? Surely not one or the other side in a Silk Road transaction. Getting away with stuff is what makes bitcoin useful.