

Anatomy of a $40M+ Bitcoin heist - jrecursive
http://thinkdifferent.ly/stuff/sheep-bitcoin/

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alanctgardner2
Does anyone gain anything from these graph visualisations? The first few times
I saw one I was impressed, but this one is so huge and nondescript, I think
it's impossible to take much away from it. They're kind of like info graphics;
you see a few that make sense, but many more are just jumping on the
bandwagon.

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Estragon
I see no interesting features in this visualization. What part am I supposed
to be looking at?

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ChuckMcM
So the '324 is FBI on phone handset' comment, is this the FBI transferring
$40M from Silk Road wallets to some other wallet? Or is it something else?

Also one wonders what is done with the 'evidence' after the case. I could
imagine the FBI simply deleting the wallets but does anyone know their actual
policy?

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Tuna-Fish
> I could imagine the FBI simply deleting the wallets but does anyone know
> their actual policy?

In the US, law enforcement gets to keep a portion of whatever they seize. You
can bet your ass they will not destroy millions worth of assets -- entire
departments will get bonuses for years for this.

Law requires them to liquidate the assets through auctions, they cannot simply
sell them at an exchange, or set a price for them and sell them at that price.
There are plenty of companies that specialize in organizing such events.

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wmf
An exchange is an auction, but I'm sure there's some regulatory capture here
that won't allow the government to use any existing exchange. There may be a
business opportunity here.

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sp332
"Regulatory capture" means the regulators are working with the regulated
organization instead of controlling it.

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wmf
Yes, that's what I meant. I suspect some government contractors have convinced
the government that everything (e.g. selling seized property) needs to be done
by specialized government contractors rather than normal businesses or by the
government itself.

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elif
At first I imagined a prosecutor frustratedly trying to convince a judge of
the validity of an audit trail like this... but in reality it would probably
just come down to an expert witness testifying that it is valid.

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minimax
One great thing about bit coin is that all the metadata is available to
everyone. You would be hard pressed to make a fancy chart like this with fiat
currency.

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krisdol
just a minor nitpick, but bitcoin is also fiat currency.

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quotha
By that, do you mean that bitcoin does not have any intrinsic value?

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praxeologist
Nothing has intrinsic value.

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aeturnum
I think most people would argue that items with uses other than exchange
medium generally have some intrinsic value. A dollar has no intrinsic value,
but a dollar bill can be used as kindling. Even if no one values it, you can
drink water, etc.

~~~
praxeologist
Dollar bills have some [quite limited IMO] utility like the paper being burned
as kindling or, "Oh, aren't these neat scraps of paper".

Utility != intrinsic value. Nothing has intrinsic value.

~~~
adriand
> Nothing has intrinsic value.

I think what you are actually saying is that "intrinsic value" is actually
meaningless.

If "intrinsic value" is actually a meaningful statement about something (even
if you believe that nothing has that quality), then I think we can indeed find
things that have it, which disproves your statement in the first place.

The first definition of "value" that I found is "the regard that something is
held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something." Note that
this is by definition subjective - i.e. "value" is a perceived quality. More
specifically, it is a quality perceived by humans.

Therefore I propose a definition of "intrinsic value": something that all
entities to whom "value" has meaning universally believe has that quality. For
example, oxygen.

One could argue that there are entities to whom "value" is meaningful but that
do not value either of those things, such as aliens who do not need either
substance. However, since we are not aware of any such entities, it doesn't
prove this wrong.

On the other hand, I suppose a person who is deliberately trying to asphyxiate
themselves may not value oxygen after all. Perhaps this disproves my own
point...

Either way, it's an interesting debate.

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praxeologist
>I think what you are actually saying is that "intrinsic value" is actually
meaningless.

No, I mean exactly what I said. Nothing has intrinsic value, ever.

>Therefore I propose a definition of "intrinsic value": something that all
entities to whom "value" has meaning universally believe has that quality. For
example, oxygen.

If I already have many lifetimes' worth of oxygen for my breathing apparatus,
I might have no interest in and place no value upon your stock of oxygen.

Maybe the beings in question are some sort of alien life form that live in
volcanos and breathe nitrous oxide. The type of error you are making is
similar to calling air "superabundant" and then conflating that with
"unlimited".

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adriand
> If I already have many lifetimes' worth of oxygen for my breathing
> apparatus, I might have no interest in and place no value upon your stock of
> oxygen.

And yet, clearly you value oxygen enough to stock up many lifetime's worth of
it - a testament to its intrinsic value.

> Maybe the beings in question are some sort of alien life form that live in
> volcanos and breathe nitrous oxide.

You have no evidence that such beings exist, however - so this is purely
hypothetical.

On giving this more thought, however, perhaps objects or substances are too
simple to consider from the perspective of intrinsic value. So how about
something completely different, such as wisdom? Does wisdom have intrinsic
value?

Those who do not value it are not wise, and are therefore not qualified to
judge whether or not it has intrinsic value...

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praxeologist
I stocked up on oxygen in the first place because I had an end—sustaining my
own life—and the means for this was, in part, supplying myself with oxygen.
Oxygen only ever was considered valuable because of my purposeful human
action. It was never valuable "just because" as the concept of "intrinsic
value" implies.

You seem to be partially accepting my argument that "intrinsic value" doesn't
exist but trying to win by redefining "things having intrinsic value" as
"things necessary to sustain human life". Okay, things that humans need to
survive are "intrinsically valuable" to that end but that isn't what we're
talking about.

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yardie
Interesting. What's $40MM in bitcoin?

I ask because most of these articles are trying to shock you with the exchange
value rather than the BTC value.

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ceejayoz
How is it any different from "one ton of gold" versus "$40 million in gold"?
Surely the latter provides more useful information to the general public?

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kelnos
Gold is generally less volatile, so saying "$40mm in gold" would likely have
some lasting significance. But in a month, that $40mm in Bitcoin could be
worth $20mm or $60mm or something else entirely. Giving the actual value in
BTC would let us know how much exactly.

