

Mt. Gox's Bitcoins are being sold on Bitstamp? - Andrew_Quentin
http://pastebin.com/c2qWB3nU

======
nwh
Bear in mind that the connection between these addresses is tenuous at best.
There's very little to suggest that the same person owns all of these
transactions. The paths are fairly convoluted, it could be a normal user or a
mixer or an internal wallet. You'd never know by design.

As I've mentioned before, this sort of thing is usually correct in that same
way a broken clock is.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I hope you'd agree with "Jed McCaleb once controlled the donation address
1EuMa4dhfCK8ikgQ4emB7geSBgWK2cEdBG."

While it's unclear precisely how that donation address is related to all of
this, I assume that people traced money flowing out of it and into an Mt. Gox
cold storage wallet, thus establishing that the person who controlled the
donation address was involved with the people who control the cold storage
addresses.

If so, then it's hard to see how to disagree with "If the Bitstamp address
1PAzo was funded with coins deposited by Jed McCaleb or one of his associates,
and simultaneously two Mt. Gox cold storage wallets were depleted, and the
chain of withdraws eventually lead from the cold storage wallets to 1PAzo,
then it's extremely likely that Jed or an Mt. Gox owner is trading Mt. Gox
cold storage coins on Bitstamp."

It sounds like you're worried that a chain of transfers doesn't prove
ownership. For example, someone could randomly send all their bitcoin to
someone else for no reason. But in practice, the only reason to give large
amounts of BTC to someone else is either because you're buying something from
them, repaying a debt, or you're cooperating with them. Regardless of which of
those it turns out to be, the Mt. Gox cold storage wallets are the property of
the Mt. Gox customers. Using them to buy something or repay a debt would be
fraud. Transferring them to an associate with the intent of laundering them
via Bitstamp would also be illegal, of course.

I can't think of any other explanations for why the BTC would change ownership
except perhaps that they were stolen yet again. But theft can be ruled out if
the identity of the Bitstamp account turns out to be a cohort of Mt. Gox.

(You mentioned that it could be a mixer, but that can be ruled out in this
case because it'd make no sense for Mt. Gox to launder bitcoins and then
deposit them into a bistamp account that has someone's real-world identity
attached to it. Also, when bitcoins are being mixed using a mixer, it
transfers the coins in a pretty distinctive way that indicates a mixer is
being used, such as by randomizing the BTC amounts rather than always
transferring e.g. 150BTC or 50BTC or some other nice-for-humans value. I
assume that if a mixer is being used here, it'd be possible to show that the
transfers are behaving in a way consistent with a particular bitcoin mixer
implementation.)

Since there are no plausible explanations about how the bitcoins might change
ownership, why would it be unreasonable to proceed with the assumption that
the ownership hasn't changed, unless proven otherwise?

~~~
nwh
Bear in mind that this is the same sort of analysis that attributed large
amounts of the initially mined coins to "Satoshi", when they were in fact core
developer Gregory Maxwell's. There's a lot of room for error, especially when
the email in question has an address in between with no attributable person
behind it.

~~~
maaku
> Bear in mind that this is the same sort of analysis that attributed large
> amounts of the initially mined coins to "Satoshi", when they were in fact
> core developer Gregory Maxwell's.

Citation or redaction, please.

If Gregory Maxwell owns a life-changing sum of early bitcoins, it is certainly
news to me. If he does not, then you are making claims that could endanger the
life and well being of someone who has worked very hard in service of the
bitcoin community.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Anecdotally, I think I remember that incident, but unfortunately I don't
remember precisely where I heard it.

There have been a lot of very-wrong analyses of the blockchain which have
gotten people riled up about one thing or another and then turned out to be
bogus. The whole process has sometimes shown unsettling parallels with
numerology. It's good that nwh is reminding everyone to try to be as skeptical
as possible.

It'll be interesting to see whether the evidence turns out to match the story.

~~~
maaku
The only incident I can think of was a paper by Adi Shamir and Dorit Ron
claiming Satoshi had a connection to Silk Road, and the actual owner of the
coins (Dustin Trammell) came forward and demonstrated that (a) the coins were
his and (b) the transaction was with MtGox not Silk Road. Gregory Maxwell was
not involved in any way:

[http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-
satoshi/](http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-satoshi/)

I know of no other incident involving mis-identification of Satoshi's stash.

------
jackgavigan
Bitstamp is domiciled in the UK.
[https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/](https://www.bitstamp.net/about_us/)

UK law prohibits handling stolen goods.
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/22](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/22)

~~~
runeks
The question, as _msantos_ points out, is whether bitcoins are money or goods.
If they are money, then handling stolen bitcoins are not illegal, and the
rightful owner of them doesn't even have the support of the legal system to
get them back:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet)

I would argue that bitcoins are money, and not goods. Goods have use value,
bitcoins do not - they only have exchange value. They have no use in and of
themselves.

TL;DR: Even if you can prove that someone else holds a dollar bill that was
stolen from you at some point, you do not necessarily have the right to get it
back.

~~~
fabulist
I agree, but people have found some pretty creative "use values" for bitcoins:

[http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-
photo...](http://www.righto.com/2014/02/ascii-bernanke-wikileaks-
photographs.html)

tl;dr by sending bitcoins to an fake address, you can use put an ASCII Ben
Bernanke in the Blockchain.

~~~
runeks
I wouldn't say that is related to bitcoins (the currency). They've just put
data into the blockchain. The tokens you and I trade as money (bitcoins) don't
get a use value because someone has put ASCII art into the blockchain.

~~~
fabulist
I'd argue differently because the bitcoins are destroyed in the process. In my
view, they become the ASCII art. But I suppose it could just as easily be said
that you purchased ASCII art hosting from the blockchain.

~~~
runeks
I see your point. I guess I just think it's insufficient that it has _some_
use value, for it to be called a good instead of money. My point is that they
are _mainly_ (almost entirely) money.

I mean, US dollar bills can also be stacked together and lit on fire, thereby
having use value as firewood, or you can write notes on them, making them a
notepad, but they are still money because their exchange value completely
dwarfs their tiny use value (if one can quantify such things).

I'd argue bitcoin falls into the same category.

------
msantos
I wonder if this is true (March 20, 2014):

" _is #bitstamp about to become another #mtgox ? Uk trader seeks high court
injunction to cease Uk trading operations_ "
[https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446638248761503744](https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446638248761503744)

" _#bitstamp getting sued for $1.2m Uk trader seeks freezing of assets in high
court action. #bitstamp not processing withdrawls._ "
[https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446637903721287680](https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/446637903721287680)

~~~
zby
There is no thread at
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=85.0)
about that - so I guess it is just a manipulation attempt.

------
DigitalSea
Seems like people are clutching at straws here. We shouldn't go making fact-
less accusations that the coins are being sold when we technically don't have
any proof, the link is very weak at best. Given Mt Gox's collapse and
surprising lack of security or due-care, it wouldn't surprise me if it were
true, but there is a massive if there.

------
tinco
This seems a bit silly. Why is this made public? If this was a private
conversation then they could set a trap. Now whoever is making these
transactions will simply stop and wait for a new opportunity.

~~~
danielweber
The blockchain is public information.

~~~
mbreese
That's not the question... the question was why put this on pastebin and have
it posted to HN. If this was communicated in a more private manner, you could
have actually done something with the information, such as find the people who
are moving these coins.

Now, if there is anything nefarious going on, the parties responsible probably
know that others are watching.

~~~
dreen
If he figured it out, so can anyone else. Disclosing the find levels the
playing field for any eventuality.

------
cordite
Why is Bitcoin getting so many features on HN?

~~~
pistle
Because a not-insignificant-enough number of "smart" hacker news folks got
very burned by a get rich quick scheme and they won't let it go.

Snake oil and charlatans? There's an app for that.

The cognitive dissonance is maddening. Something so esoteric and technical,
which required great intelligence to even use, let alone build the cottage
industry around... continues to make these intelligent young, white,
libertarians look like simple con targets.

The shovel and panning sellers made loads (mining rigs and exchanges).
Everyone else who hasn't exited is holding the bag.

If you lived through the dotcom bubble, this is a repeat in slowreck motion.
People will lose 95-100% of their investments until the rest freak out and
bolt.

Very smart, young, white guys built up expensive trading stations and lost
their shirt daytrading on dotcoms. It's like buying a mining... nevermind -
nobody's listening.

~~~
venus
This is an excessively cynical, misanthropic view of events. I know a lot of
people who could be described as "long bitcoin" and while there's no doubt a
few opportunistic types, most are genuinely excited and actively involved in
something they truly believe in.

Your bitter prognostications about "young white libertarians" says more about
you than anything else, IMO. And invoking the dot com bubble doesn't help your
point - the internet was, indeed, the next big thing, but the bubble was
misinformed and 10 years too early. Long term, though, "dot com" was and is
real, and many are hoping and working towards cryptocurrencies travelling the
same path.

~~~
clef
Sometimes I still can't get my head around how something that isn't real is
worth anything... Argh, I must be too old to understand now :) I was closely
involved in a startup in the first bubble, I remember the hopes and dreams and
hype and VCs throwing tons of money to invest into ludicrous stuff,and coffee
machines so big and expensive... It looks all the same now, the rich want to
get richer and call it "innovation" (I saw a prototype of something huge that
was "invented in the 90's by some young fellows, unfortunately it was too
early, way too early...and saw it again "invented" by someone else many years
later and called "Facebook") and the young programmers (they're called hackers
now I believe) were just happy to code and get their pat on the back, feeling
special,with stock option promises (I was one of them, I must be an old hacker
now :) ... So many smart people working super hard( although pizza and wine at
midnight was cool)...

Do you feel special and useful guys? Or does it take $19B to be real special?

But still, HN kicks ass no matter what :)

------
atmosx
Did this guy leave an email, bitmessage address or anything???? How is Nejc
suppose to reply?

~~~
nwh
Its a "public" copy of the message, it's been no doubt emailed to the person
in question as well. Posting it here, on reddit and on bitcointalk is just the
author being pushy.

~~~
atmosx
Oh, didn't get that, you're right.

------
jrlocke
What if there was a way to tag bitcoins as stolen and declare them null and
void? Would this not disincentivize thieves? Could we prevent abuse of such a
system?

~~~
atmosx
It's a very interesting development as it shows that _stolen bitcoins can be
tracked indefinitely_ unlike FIAT.

Now, what you propose though, is against the _freedom_ bitcoins is assumed to
stand for (on the ethics side).

On the technical side that's very possible, as of today, if everyone _plays
along_ and I mean literally _everyone_ , especially mixers.

How could one track down bitcoins flushed into public mixers? I guess they
could do this as well, if the BTC were tagged and thus _refused_ by the mixers
or even worst _hold captives_ and resend them to original issuer. However, you
only need 1 TOR hosted mixer to lose track of the wallets.

On the other side imagine the practical chaos: I make a _huge_ transaction of
non-tangible goods in a situation where you can't prove that the
service/product was delivered. Then I just tag these bitcoin that once
belonged to my wallet as _stolen_ if the other party doesn't give them back
:-) you see where this is going right? :-)

~~~
gutnor
> unlike FIAT.

Actually, unlike any commodity or any currency with a physical representation.
What makes other currency not traceable is the notes and coins, not the fact
that they are fiat or not.

side note: has "fiat" now become synonymous with non-crypto currency the same
way hacker has become a swear word ?

~~~
Klinky
Yes fiat has become a word of derision amongst the cryptocoin community,
completely ignoring the fact that cryptocoins are essentially a form of fiat
currency. Many crypto fans sidestep the fact that cryptos also don't have
intrinsic value, and the networks aren't as a decentralized as one would
think(handfuls of devs, early adopters, and pool and exchange operators hold a
large sway over the networks and future of the coins).

------
falconfunction
So are bitcoins going to have a modifiable value based on being tainted?

~~~
yetfeo
blockchain.info has a method of tainting and tracking coins:

[https://blockchain.info/tags?form_type=1](https://blockchain.info/tags?form_type=1)

Taint is viewable using "Related tags" and "Taint Analysis" on address pages.

~~~
nwh
It's widely regarded as complete bullshit and can be fooled by almost anybody
who cares to.

