Topic: Are the stolen bitcoins currently being sold on mtgox? (Read 4915 times)

Hmm...perhaps..I've still got a glimmer of hope somewhere deep within the recesses of my distraught soul.

I have no idea what they'll do with it, but I believe I made the statement somewhere that I would let them have a portion of the funds if they are kind enough to refund me. This way I don't have to get the law involved and they don't have to go to jail. I'd be willing to literally pay for my mistake. But  I dunno I don't have much faith in this scenario ever playing out.

I didnt want to post this until later and in the other thread, but the cats out of the bag. If any of these stolen (supposedly) bitcoins hits any of the exchanges there will be a bank account associated with withdrawaler's exchange account. Lets hope for allinvain that an account has been associated with the mtgox account via Dwolla or what ever. But I doubt this has occured yet. Sense exchanges wants to maintain their legal reputation with governments  they will comply with authorities requests regarding the laundering actions of moving the bitcoins on the exchange to another btc address. If merchants accept these btc and ship an item they will have a physical address. If something is shipped to someone and they keep the item they might be charged with receiving stolen goods.

So what does this leave? As I see it the deep underground is the only places to spend these btc. If these btc were really stolen they are basically worthless because the chain will lead back to the theif. Moving the btc between addresses is not affective laundering. There would need to be a way to move the btc into another wallet using a third parties address. Then again, I think the 'middleman' would comply with requests from athorities if they are a service provider or even if that service is a gambling site. The operators of SilkRoad will understand my meaning soon ehough.

Oh my god, you're right - if we're not careful, people might come to a rational decision that the risk of getting all their Bitcoins stolen is too high and not use them! We must stop all discussion of this at once!

Let's face it, anyone that can't understand the difference between an issue with bitcoin and an issue with users protecting their computer's security isn't going to be able to protect themselves any better than allinvain did, so it's entirely reasonable for them to conclude that Bitcoin is too risky for them. Why should someone store their money in a way that requires difficult-to-follow precautions lest it gets stolen from them through means that they don't understand which make it impossible to recover?

I wish the whole heist story would die in a goddamned fire already.

You realize the longer we keep it alive, the media echo chamber won't let go of the fact that someone got robbed? Even if it has nothing to do with bitcoin, and primarily with how people keep themselves secure -- it will become pretty hard to convince normal people otherwise.

Let this friggin' thing die already. The coins aren't coming back.

But even if there was a judge, you couldn't prove anything.

And even if the judge was robbed, too, it only proofs his own case and not the others, and without prove there can be no conviction in a just trial.



It's sad, when a guilty criminal cannot be convicted because of lack of evidence. But the other possible error, a convicted innocent, is way worse. It would mean a unjust corruption of the whole system, a perfect disaster which must not be tolerated.

Because i was one of the people that got robbed...

I don't.



1. it doesnt matter whether I care or not. a bitcoin -> USD withdrawal isnt anonymous, pretending otherwise because you want it to be is stupid.

2. I never said Mt. Gox should reveal the identity to all. I said the victim might have the justice system make Mt. Gox reveal the identity if he can provide enough evidence and the thieve isnt clever enough to hide his tracks.

this will happen at some point, be it because of stolen bitcoins or because of some illegal purchase / money transfer.
Mt. Gox even said publicly they want to run a legitimate and legal business and work with the authorities.

So you're perfectly fine it being anonymous when you personally want to use it buy drugs or child pornography or any other nasty and illegal shit you care to name, but when you have even the vaguest suspicions that someone's money might have at one point been stolen they should have their money stripped from them and their identity revealed to all?

for whatever reason you think bitcoin was created, people now have massive economic interest in it and are going to try to protect it, whatever it takes - including breaking a thieve's anonymity.

pretending bitcoin is anonymous because it was intended to be anonymous - give or take $500,000 - is the dumbest fucking position _I_ have ever heard.

uh, no, that's not really true. Mt Gox can do whatever they want and then people will choose to use it as an exchange or not. I for one think there will be a huge demand for highly strict and regulated exchanges and looser ones, same as any business. For instance, a bitcoin poker site opens that is under strict voluntary regulations, has strict player funds segregation policies, is transparent about ownership interests, etc etc and another one opens that offers none of those. You think the voluntarily regulated one is going "against bitcoin rules"?

People are going to be willing to pay all sorts of premiums for security. Some of those might involve voluntarily giving up privacy, etc etc

You can find out who it was, but you will never prove whether he actually stole the coins or the (maybe pretending) victim sent them to him willingly.

Hey um just so you know, lack of regulation and anonymousness are what bitcoin is built on. Trying to get mtgox to regulate the market because you don't like what someones doing is the dumbest fucking idea I've ever heard.

This would probably look like what we're seeing on mt gox - if someone is willing to take a loss laundering by both buying and selling rather large volumes of BTC, they would end up buying high and selling low, stabilizing the exchange rate as a side effect. Or am I missing something?

Of course, whether the sum in question would be enough to hold the rates this long, even if sold back and forth, is a good question. Does anyone have a summary handy of how much of the allegedly stolen 25,000 BTC has been transferred to mt gox?

if the thieve is smart this will never happen. he can sell and buy them using multiple anonymous Gox accounts and in the end his withdrawal can not be differentiated from a miner/trader because it isnt the same BTCs anymore.
but then again, thieves make mistakes.

I don't think gox should block the trades, but if reasonable evidence can be given that they are in fact stolen he should hand over the bank account details when they are withdrawn.

How do you know the coins were really robbed? I actually believe that they were robbed but how can you be sure so as to try to organize a blockade on somones money?

I think from the blockchain it very much looks like they are sold, but there are also still large amounts unspent so it is doubtful this is limiting the price at 20.
but other amounts are split up in very arbitrary and sometimes very small amounts.

considering there is almost no bitcoin economy, either this is done by an exchange or the thief deliberately tries to make it look like an exchange.


if I was the victim I would provide Mt. Gox with a list of addresses and ask them to save the identity of outgoing transfers with these. so once the victim has provided proof to the police these can be obtained.
this has nothing to do with "killing freedom".

I think you should read his post. He didn't say anything that resembles what you are talking about.

Basically he's asking if a bunch of coins are being used to stabilize the exchange rate. He's also asking if it is the allegedly stolen coins specifically.

To answer the OP, I don't think 25,000 coins could stabilize the price for this long.

We can 'easily' track stolen coins thru the blockchain, they have been trying hard to split up the money many times.
MtGox could know which coins are stolen but i doubt they would block any exchange with them, after all they profit from the exchange.

Many of the coins are still accounted for in large numbers (at least yesterday)

Thats no ones cocern. If you're going to say someone can't use their money how they like because you think it's stolen, you may as well go back to using government issued, tracable, fiat money.

Stop trying to kill freedom.