Topic: Fork The Blockchain And Block The Seized FBI Coins. - page 2. (Read 13501 times)

I'm sorry that you said that rather than listing some steps to legally protect against totalitarianism (perhaps because there are none, otherwise there would be no 'total' in the word).

It would be bad PR for the bitcoin community to fork the chain and block the fbi coins from being used.

Wait. You're saying if the FBI dumps those millions of Botcoins on the market, the value of Bitcoin will plummet? GREAT! That means I can buy more BTC with USD when it crashes, and work towards my goal of owning 10BTC by the end of 2014.

This could be a good thing

In Russia, block forks you!!!!

I'm sorry to hear that.

Not sure which steps can truly protect against the totalitarians' boot stamping on the face of the world, forever.


They see value in showing innocents that if we even dare to think any association with liberty is free, we are sorely mistaken.

Well wouldn't the FBI/Government flooding the coins back into the market, admit that they see value in the coin?

It is the job of the individual to protect themselves from everyone. Bitcoin, as a tool, truly shines at this task, but it's up to the individual to take the appropriate steps.

It is not the job of the escrow provider to ensure that they are not guilty by association. It is the job of the government to not hold people guilty by association, and not block factual findings of innocence.

inb4 escrow.com is shut down and all innocent funds seized because of guilt by association.

It is the job of the escrow provider to protect your bitcoins.  If they didn't do that sufficiently well, then your complaint is with the escrow provider.  You should be more careful in the future who you trust to hold bitcoins in escrow for you.

All bitcoins (along with anything else) were seized.  Those that someone has made a claim on, i.e. Ulbricht, are held pending investigation.  Those unclaimed are being auctioned.

These aren't the coins held in escrow (or not yet withdrawn) for legal things you sold you're looking for... /waveshand

I may have missunderstood what you said.  You said:


I assumed when you said "They took ownership of coins of the one guy who willingly gave up his wallet" you meant the larger amount given up by DPR and when you said "the other bitcoins were confiscated and are still there pending investigation" you meant the BTC confiscated from the silk road web site/server.  In that case you appear to say that the coins that were confiscated from the site/server can not be sold yet because they are "still there pending investigation".

The opposite is true.  The coins confiscated from the server have been cleared to be auctioned.  The BTC handed over by DPR cannot be auctioned off yet because he has a claim of ownership which has yet to be decided by the courts.

How is that opposite? I said FBI legally (by court ruling) controls some part of the coins and the other part is still under instigation so they can't touch it...

Almost exactly the opposite of what you said is true:

The two addresses in question are the two addresses that are owned by and set up by the FBI.  As they found BTC they transferred them to these two addresses that they control.  I do not know exactly how they found/got the BTC to transfer them, but the fact remains that they control the two addresses:

https://blockchain.info/address/1F1tAaz5x1HUXrCNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX

about $24 million from the Silk Road web site/server.

https://blockchain.info/address/1FfmbHfnpaZjKFvyi1okTjJJusN455paPH

about $120 million from DPR himself.

They have permission from the courts to auction off the smaller amount - the amount they took from the silk road server.  The larger amount is tied up because DPR has claimed ownership of them.

In this case, the FBI only took bitcoins from Silk Road and from the individual(s) that were operating the marketplace.

It is not the fault of the FBI, that you chose to donate your bitcoins to Silk Road.

If you do not have the private key, then you do not have the bitcoins.  You donated your bitcoins to Silk Road when you sent them to a Silk Road bitcoin address.  You did so in exchange for a promise from Silk Road that they would: give you back the same amount of bitcoins when you request them, or would use them to make payment for something in their market if you ask them to.

The FBI did not steal your bitcoins, they confiscated the bitcoins that you foolishly donated to Silk Road.

FBI didn't steal coins. They took ownership of coins of the one guy who willingly gave up his wallet, the other bitcoins were confiscated and are still there pending investigation.

Don't throw the word "steal" around without knowing facts.

Silk road was a marketplace, yes, it was used to sell/buy drugs also. But this doesn't make those who used to sell and buy other legit things criminals. They got their bitcoins stolen. FBI STOLE bitcoins. It was their job as law enforcement agency to investigate and catch the drug dealers, not to behave like gangsters and just grab the whole bunch of coins.

They didnt 'steal' the coins -_-

Just like you wouldnt say the feds stole cash they found in a drug dealer's house.

And let them do what they want with them.

And as has been pointed out, to make a totally new block chain with 1 block containing everything but the FBI's coins is a hard fork of bitcoin creating an alt-coin that happens to be based on a snapshot of the bitcoin blockchain at one point in time.  You can call it a new blockchain if you want, but then it is a new blockchain based on the bitcoin blockchain which is a hard fork.

By the way, I think this is a great idea.  More power to people who want to experiment and see where the experiments go.  That is what is great about open source, you don't have to sit around debating something, you just have to go and make the changes and put them out there and see who adopts it.  It is the perfect way to test ideas and let people vote with their money to see what they prefer.  And it will put an end to the endless debates (well, probably not) from people who want to remove fungibility from bitcoin, so PLEASE go for it!   (And go for the forks for ID-coin, inflation-coin, not-fairly-distributed-coin, use-a-'useful'-POW-function-coin, etc are great ideas too so we can see how they all flourish...or not).

Anyway, I am really excited to see it!  I'd still like to know when this will launch.  By the way, I'll be happy to sell my coins in this new alt-coin to those who believe that bitcoin should not be fungible once people are buying non-fungible-fork-coin.