Linus heavily implied that he had an "in" at a senior level that could make an investigation happen and get the funds frozen before they were moved. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have that level of power.

The destination of a fraudulent wire will be known, but that money is practically unrecoverable if it takes another hop or gets withdrawn.

That only worked because the funds didn’t bounce somewhere else first. Wire transfers are final.

The wire transfer transaction may be final, but that’s not the end of the story. A court can subsequently compel the receiving bank or party to send the funds back to the sender.

That’s true, but depending on the path, funds might end up in various jurisdictions, complicating the recovery story.

The same thing applies to crypto.

Do you always know who you’re trading with in crypto? How do you identify the counterparty to make the demand from? This isn’t a problem with ordinary transactions, where the two parties have regulated organizations making the trade on their respective behalf. Even in stock trades, where the counterparties are anonymous, there is a mechanism for reversing trades because the system was designed for it.

Until the two banks agree that it isn't. Errors happen all the time.

https://bam.kalzumeus.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/

“The finality of wires is path dependent” is a statement that I would agree with.