Bitcoin

[forbidden]

my thought is that maybe he (or someone) managed to get a message out to all the existing silkroad users wishing to preserve their account credit telling them to funnel it all to one location?

then the FBI scooped that shit up. interested to see what other people think. in any case this guy had probably better get used to bubba's company :/

i was always really apprehensive about finding my way to the silk road/spending money there, but now that i know it was legit i wish i would have bought some really obscure hallucinogenics for future use

[Genevieve]

Could also be a lie to help the FBI's public image and credibility and scare people off Bitcoin.

Not saying that that's the case, but doesn't the FBI like to gloat in how it catches its bad guys? It's a fishy story anyway but who knows.

[wub]

my thought is that maybe he (or someone) managed to get a message out to all the existing silkroad users wishing to preserve their account credit telling them to funnel it all to one location?

then the FBI scooped that shit up. interested to see what other people think. in any case this guy had probably better get used to bubba's company :/

Or the FBI offered him a deal if he got them Bitcoin funds in exchange for avoiding Bubba altogether.

[forbidden]

possible. i don't think they'd just be bought off that easily. if i was in charge of this i would make an absolute example of this dude to hopefully discourage the hydra head of new silk roads that will no doubt appear over the course of the next year.

[nowaysj]

All options are on the table for this one.

[alphacat]

Virtual asset seizure... Next thing you know they'll be jackin' your gold in Sim City.

[nowaysj]

In 2007 I interviewed with the IRS. I had written and published about virtual properties and they were very interested in the taxation of virtual property.

[hugh]

how can you seize something virtual?
Can't it just be replaced with something instantly that retains the original value?

[Genevieve]

If they did 'seize' it, then it must be on the physical drive that contains the wallet?

[Phigure]

my thought is that maybe he (or someone) managed to get a message out to all the existing silkroad users wishing to preserve their account credit telling them to funnel it all to one location?

not really how it works. the funds in question were in a central wallet controlled by the silk road itself, users had no access to it aside from when they could log into the site and authorize transactions of their share of that wallet with their PIN. with the site down, you can't do that.

look up sheepmarketplace and blackmarket reloaded btw

how can you seize something virtual?
Can't it just be replaced with something instantly that retains the original value?

that's the whole point of bitcoin. they're cryptographically secured so that you can't just create them out of thin air.

If they did 'seize' it, then it must be on the physical drive that contains the wallet?

bingo. the coins don't necessarily exist on the drive since they're distributed on the network, but the wallet and the private key that gives access to the wallet were probably hidden in some way on the drive, but apparently not well enough.

he does have another estimated 110,000 coins ($20 million) that they haven't gotten access to yet though...


i think the most interesting thing about this is that the seizure makes the US government one of the world's largest holders of bitcoin in the world. on top of that, they've said that they plan on selling the coins (asset forfeiture is where law enforcement gets a huge amount of their income from...). when they flood the market, it'll temporarily crash the price, but overall it'll grant a ton of legitimacy to bitcoin, since the US government itself has participated in the sale of bitcoins. definitely a good thing in the long run

[Electric_Head]

A Chinese Bitcoin exchange has vanished without trace, taking more than $4 million of the virtual currency with it and leaving profit-hungry investors out of pocket.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/52155 ... -coins.htm

GBL, the Chinese Bitcoin exchange was launched in May 2013 and putatively based in Hong Kong, despite its servers being registered in Beijing.

However GBL's Hong Kong offices do not exist. GBL mysteriously disappeared in early November taking an estimated $4.1m (£2.6m) of Bitcoins with it.

GBL attracted nearly 1,000 investors during its short life. They were hoping to realise the kind of financial gain experienced by a Norwegian man, who recently traded in his Bitcoins for enough money to buy an apartment - from an original investment of just £15, made in 2009. Bitcoin's value has surged from $140 to more than $350 per coin in recent months.

[nowaysj]

[alphacat]

Enter the scamfoolery!

The whole concept of fiat currency always seemed a little weird to me - this just heightens the weirdness.

[hugh]

how do you steal that which has no form?

[alphacat]

how do you steal that which has no form?

EXACTLY. Not only lacking material backing like gold - it lacks even the force of national or transnational entities to back it up. It is an arbitrary, consensual idea... nothing more.

Just like the market itself.


(braces for Genevieve.)

[nowaysj]

how do you steal that which has no form?

Almost all of the money supply is entirely virtual, as is.

I assure you that shit is heavily stolen. See 2008 till now.

[Genevieve]

I don't respond to people's comments on the market more often than I do tbh. Because I know that no one actually wants to understand my beliefs here >.>

I'll just say that...

it lacks even the force of national or transnational entities to back it up. It is an arbitrary, consensual idea... nothing more.

Just like the market itself.

..is exactly why I don't believe in regulated markets. >.>

PS. Bitcoin isn't fiat.

PPS. If you hate fiat currency, you may want to switch to the libertarian team because Hayek won a nobel prize for his work criticizing fiat currency and its roles in the boom and bust cycles. In fact, if it wasn't for Ron Paul, no one would be talking about it today. Contrary to for example, Karl Marx, who was a big proponent of it

[magma]

Not wanting to get into the Libertarian aspects too much, how is Bitcoin NOT a fiat currency?

'm no expert (it's 12 years since I properly studied Economics) but almost all currencies in use today are fiat currencies, surely? A pound coin means nothing if it's not backed by the British government... same for Dollars, Rupees and Sheckles the world over! Bitcoins don't even "exist" or have any value outside of currency... you certainly can't melt one down and make a pendant of the same value...

[Genevieve]

A fiat currency is one that is issued by a state or central bank and is declared legal tender by law.

Bitcoin is neither. It's similar in that it's value isn't tied to a commodity. Originally, our money was practically a receipt that says you have so and so much of a commodity (gold) in your bank account, and rather than trade the commodity, people would trade the receipts.

In that respect, bitcoin's far from perfect since its value isn't grounded in a relatively stable commodity. But since only a limited amount can be issued by code, it's closer to that than the endless printing press of the federal reserve or European central bank. The reason it's digital is because that makes it harder (not impossible) to be regulated by the government, since governments have made it illegal for people to create their own currencies in 'the real world'.

Bitcoin should be viewed as more of a loophole in legal tender laws.

One approach to fiat currency is that it's currency with no objective value; that's from a more socialist perspective. But nothing has objective value, so it's kind of moot.

[alphacat]

I would argue that BC is fiat, although in a somewhat broader, less traditional sense. It is arbitrary & consensus-based and its value exists by decree, basically. The legalistic requirement of issuance by a bank or sovereignty is a technicality that's becoming less relevant to emerging financial strangeness.

The value of gold is not arbitrary: besides its physical properties, which are useful in electronics and engineering - every chip in your computer is wired up with gold, for example - it is also durable and doesn't corrode, the supply is scarce but more or less steady, and there's a long running track record reinforcing its value (or the cultural perception thereof some like Von Mises would argue. Or aesthetics, etc... where's LD when you need her?)

Anyway, BC is totally atypical to all forms of currency in that it lacks national or corporate sponsorship AND is based on cryptographic schemas to "create" value. And yet... people are choosing to believe in it, as the growing value attests to. It's a viral idea that nobody seems to grasp the workings of 100% but are willing to invest time and non-monetary resources in. It's a ghost that wants to take on flesh and become ever more real, but - to what end? Nobody can say. At least I can't.

But as it stands right now, there's nothing like the guns that a nation can employ at worst measure to counter devaluation, or the transnational lawyers a bank can deploy to hound and bankrupt someone who defrauds them. When push comes to shove, in a worst case global scenario it would seem BC would wither and blow away.