
The Man Who Solved Bitcoin’s Most Notorious Heist - relham
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-who-solved-bitcoins-most-notorious-heist-1533917805
======
neonate
[http://archive.is/EZNQ7](http://archive.is/EZNQ7)

~~~
timc3
Thanks. Was worth the read.

------
knorker
Moral of the story: No, people do NOT want the government out of their way.
Turns out that even bitcoin fanbois DO want rule of law, and law enforcement.

The reason money works the way it does is that it's almost entirely logically
derived from hard requirements from everyone. Not that "the man" is trying to
oppress you.

~~~
plankers
As a "bitcoin fanboi," I never claimed to not want the rule of law. I just
don't want some unaccountable third party mucking about with the monetary
policy of the currency I'm using. If anything, I'd like _more_ rule of law
when it comes to holding central banks accountable when they fuck up.

~~~
kevingadd
How do you avoid unaccountable third parties in a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin?
Isn't policy currently being set, in practice, by a mix of the major miners
(many behind the Chinese Great Firewall) and core developers, none of whom
were elected or are accountable to you in any way? Hell, one of the people
with influence over Bitcoin is just some rando who started a popular forum.

~~~
plankers
Being able to review the code yourself is helpful, and being able to
contribute to the code yourself is even better. It may not be perfect, but
it's certainly a step up from bankers setting policy in their ivory towers, in
my opinion. Changes to the bitcoin source code, as a rule, only happen when
the development community has reached a reasonable consensus after public
discussion. Then it's left to miners to implement this "policy" by running the
software that developers release.

Granted, not all bitcoin clients are run in this fashion, but you mention the
core developers, who are held accountable to the community by their
reputations. There's something greatly liberating about being able to talk to
the policy setters on IRC and have them treat you like any other person,
rather than part of the rabble.

------
barking
The guy goes on holiday from Russia to Greece and then after being arrested
and extradition sought to the USA he's suddenly also wanted back in Russia on
a minor charge.

How suspicious is that?

~~~
krn
As someone who was born in Soviet Union, I am not surprised at all. A former
world super-power will do whatever in can to prevent its citizen from getting
into the hands of USA authorities. Especially, if the citizen in question has
been working for Russian mafia, which has been known to have close ties to
country's government officials. It's very likely he would be released soon
after reaching Russia and then killed by something staged as a suicide,
because the risk of him opening his mouth is too high.

------
theautist
Anyone knows what happened with the stolen coins?

------
56chan4
There appears to be nothing drawing attention to the fact Mt Gox was
originally a US football trading card platform which had little of the
expected security features seen or required of many financial exchanges, so Mt
Gox was a hack waiting to happen. As to whether the Russian was fitted up by
others to serve an agenda remains to be seen.

~~~
loeber
> a US football trading card platform

No, it was a _Magic the Gathering_ trading card platform. That's literally
what the name stands for: Magic the Gathering Online eXchange. MtGox.

~~~
vignesh_m
Wow TIL

