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Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by 0x0 on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @07:48PM (#12214337)
That's a sizeable chunk of the 21m BTC total that can ever be in existence...!

Are the destination wallet addresses for the heist visible in any block chain explorers? Would it even be possible to mix those coins or will they be impossible to spend as tainted?

Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by cloudjacker on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @12:42AM (#12215632)
yeah sure it is possible to spend that amount of tainted coins, and yes everyone knows where they are.

you can't send the tainted coins to an exchange or a bank, because they risk getting seized and your identity compromised

you can give someone the private key on a flash drive for goods, services, or an army.

you can move varying amounts to different addresses each for a different flash drive, to exchange for goods, services, or an army.

physical transfers wouldn't show up on the blockchain.

you can also mix them over time for whatever amount you need. $50,000 a day wouldn't be impractical.

and you can also build up your own bitcoin infrastructure yourself, start another bitcoin casino and all the players get paid out in your otherwise tainted coins

do an ICO for a new project and fund it with all your tainted coins, and others. most crowdsales - like Ethereum's - have one or two large investors amongst the little amounts everyone else contributes.

honestly all the transparency perks of the blockchain is just to rosy it up to regulators. but it undermines any and every capital control in existence.

Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by hyh1048576 on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @09:58AM (#12217922)
That's a very nice remark by someone who clearly have a deep understanding of the BTC ecosystem.

(no sarcasm here, I totally agree that's what the ecosystem is like.)

> you can give someone the private key on a flash drive for goods, services, or an army.

But for this part, what if the one who gives out the private key moves the coins later? That's not a finalized transaction at all if both side have the private key.

Re:BitFinex down due to Bitcoin security breach - 120k BTC s... by cloudjacker on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @10:14AM (#12218011)
Yes that is a problem and it does involve trust.

Conceptually It can be alleviated with having the coins in multisig address where a third party creates one of the signing keys and the original thief retained one, and ideally the second recipient also had a third signing key. Still have the problem of getting the third signing key generated in a way that required no trust, in advance