Topic: USA blacklists 2 bitcoin addresses, threatens with secondary sanctions! - page 2. (Read 563 times)

is this a joke?
it is funny on different levels though. obviously you can't "blacklist an address". it just created an additional cost for the owner to move the coins through a mixer and be done with it. but that is the obvious part. the funny thing is about the exchanges accepting the coins coming from these addresses which other users are discussing. what they are forgetting is that exchanges under US jurisdiction don't allow anyone from Iran to sign up in their exchange so it doesn't matter if they blacklist them or not. not to mention that they don't sign up there either because why would they? they can't deposit/withdraw fiat and there are other places where they can trade.

in any case i guess US dudes need some beginners training on what bitcoin is and how it works

legally #116
in short
if an exchange sees a btc deposit that under 50% DIRECT taint of coins from those addresses. green flag
if an exchange sees a btc deposit that has 50% taint of coins from those addresses. RED FLAG
if the exchange has information that the person depositing is not the criminal attached to the taint. green flag
if the exchange has information that the person depositing is the criminal attached to the taint. RED flag
if the exchange customer is not the criminal attached to the taint and shows no relationship to the criminal. green flag
if the exchange customer is not the criminal attached to the taint and shows relationship to the criminal. RED flag

if there are any red flags then freeze account
else if 3 green flags (under 50%, customer is not the direct criminal, customer has no direct relationship to criminal) dont block

The Treasury Department published the addresses because they're putting the compliance burden on Bitcoin services like exchanges. Legally, exchanges need to block and confiscate related funds and notify OFAC. I don't think they intend to publish every address that funds move through:

What the hell are you talking about, what are you referring to with REE?

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I dont understand what is the big deal here, this is a milestone in sorts. Is there something new regards that cryptos are used to bypass sanctions? Which is the single worst properties of cryptos, unfortunately.

The Miners are the one that insert the transactions into the blockchain,
if a user sent to one of those blacklisted address, all that would happen is it would never arrive and timeout after 72 hours,
giving access back to the original sender. However multiple attempt by that sender , would probably get their address blacklisted too.

Monero won't protect anyone, as even through hidden , it's transactions are still stored on a public blockchain.
Eventually it code will be cracked and all transaction lay bare for the world to see, or the use of it will be outlawed completely as it fails to comply with AML Laws.
https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/941591/Monero-price-ban-cryptocurrency-clampdown-bad-for-investor-crypto-market
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@anonymint/is-monero-s-or-all-anonymity-broken
https://blockchainreporter.net/2018/11/05/taiwan-bans-anonymous-use-of-crypto-platforms-transactions/

The Public Relations spin will be these btc address belong to Terrorists and organized crime,
as such they will receive no public support against the blacklist, and many holier than thou people will hail it as a moral victory against evil.  
Funny thing is censorship itself is usually the act of evil people.


 

what its not saying is the 2 exchanges and the 2 randsomware people knew of each other and the exchangers knew they were funding ransomware and didnt report it
they were running an illegal exchange

the 2 published addresses are just posting proof that funds looped through the exchange that originated from the ransomware
to show proof of a financial relationship. but an actual AML crime is about knowing the PEOPLE receiving the funds and exchanging the fiat knew of the crime and still funded the criminals without reporting the criminals.

imagine detroit. street dealing fiat. imagine a dealer walked into walmart to buy gum.. walmart CEO is not liable because although fiat can be traced through its cashiers draw, there also needs to be proof that walmart knew their customer was a drug dealer and helped the drug dealer process a transaction.

what the treasury is not saying but the law requires is that an exchange could end up in trouble if it can be proven that there is a joint relationship and knowledge of a crime. and that the ones knowingly trading with criminals didnt report it. and that they were operating as a money business without a money business licence

its not a blanket ban that anyone touching funds with taint of criminal proceeds. otherwise walmart managers in detroit would get arrested for simply accepting cash payments

This is the beginning of their btc address blacklist of censorship,

Any US Miner or non-US Miner that they can inflict monetary or criminal damages too,
that includes a transaction to or from the above address will face monetary or criminal penalties as a result.
At 1st they post these warnings , after about a year where their is continued ignoring of the warnings,
they will go after the miners that included the transactions in the blockchain.

The Swedish banks cowered to the US Gov. regulations, it is most amusing ,
that you think a few guys running ASICS warehouse sponsored by VCs, have a moral virtue, their only obligation is to their own greed, unfortunately.
PoW always Centralized and as such , this control becomes possible over time.

Since BTC allows the miners to choose which transactions to process, it gives them a weakness that the US Gov. plans to exploit.
Coins that include all transactions in linear order, without choosing , would at least have a leg to stand on in court, btc does not.

So what happens after wards, is miners that refuse to obey the new address blacklist that is updated by the World Governments,
will have their power cut off, and face legal problems, where as the ones that obey the new address black list will be granted easier access to electricity.

People that had the virtue & moral backbone to resist this type of censorship have already been pushed out of the btc mining due to excessive input costs, years ago. Now all you have is businessmen that want to get along to keep the money flowing in.

 

FYI:
Just because you not a US miner, does not mean you are safe,
many other countries will join the US in this crackdown, just so they can include address they want blocked in the blacklist.

If you check the statement made by them, they are saying:
It is obvious that they are faking the whole ransomware story. The addresses are used  by ordinary people as deposit like cold wallets or something. They have bought bitcoin from many sources and "some of which" are tracked down to "ransomware derived" btc. The important missing part is the way they have spotted the two Iranian citizens. My guess: the victims have used centralized exchanges like normal naive bitcoiners not like pros or smart people who are aware of their situation being an Iranian under prosecution by a hostile enemy because of their nationality.

So, what's the deal? The fools in the US treasury have spotted two rich but naive Iranians and by fooling people about ransomware thing which is totally fake, are trying to do something about it or at least show something about it.

But I maintain that it is a declaration of war against bitcoin, because they can simply use it as an excuse to prosecute every individual/exchange/... they wish to by pretending to be following related addresses. But who is not related?

They are also making excuses to encourage (actually escalate) censorship and discrimination against Iranian citizens in bitcoin ecosystem. It is an attack against bitcoin too questioning its anti-censorship features.

To me it only proves how robust Bitcoin is. They managed to track and blacklist 2 addresses and there was a number of agents working on the case. This much effort and money spent to deal with 2 addresses, while somebody could make a new one and move the coins within minutes. And look how they're bragging about it like it's some kind of a great achievement.

Both of addressed stored over 6000 Bitcoin
149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C
1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V

But it's happened in 2017 when ransomware attacked in few countries. Every deposit transaction is small but withdrawn was big.
Hacker is a iranian or USA citizen?

Well, I disagree that this is a declaration of war against bitcoin. I don't think the US federal agency would've made such a statement without having strong grounds to do so. Even though bitcoin transactions don't contain any information about the ownership of accounts, these Iranians could've written their addresses to some people of something like that. They could expose their wallets is all I'm saying. If they caught people who hacked someone's computer and asked for money to return the access to files to those people - I think they fully deserve to be deprived of those bitcoins they got from their business and this has nothing to do with hating cryptos. If these people, however, never knew who they were transacting with and what they were helping to do, then it is unfair.

I don't really understand why the USA is trying so hard to act as the global police on these sort of things when in fact, they just wanted control and that's pretty much it. Also, the plan to blacklist addresses is just out of this world; it will never work since mixers and other methods to obfuscate taints and trails are already existing. I doubt that they will even pursue this as hard as they can since it will be a dire effort no matter how hard they follow the taint. Somehow, they will have to ban a huge number of addresses should the guys owning the said coins wanted to play some sort of game or to just hide their tracks completely.

This is already very serious. The United States once again speak negatively about cryptocurrencies. I think that special services need to deal with Iranian subjects and not to touch Bitcoin in this case

We are doomed............. NOT!

They have to, eventually, Trump got so many "talented" people around him.

This information really affects the Crypto community. The fact that significant nations around the world have declared the imposition of sanctions and bans on Bitcoin will make all markets fall further. I'm petrified that things will get worse as the market becomes more and more boring.

Exactly!
It was actually tried once in the past with stolen coins. It ended up with many innocent people having "blacklisted" coins and exchanges blocking them.
It ended quickly when it just did not work.

If you have 1000BTC and receive 0.01 blaclisted BTC, and consolidate your inputs, then your whole 1000.001 BTC wallet has to be blacklisted. Soon the whole network has to be "blaklisted" and then what.

Also. If you move your coins to new address (without using mixers) it could mean that you moved them to a new address of yours OR that you sold them to a new owner. When tracking coins you can newer be 100% certain if/when ownership has changed.

I agree with you and do not understand how you can block anything in the blockchain, in my opinion it is a decentralized system.

I was wondered about the ability of governments to track and stop transactions in cryptocurrencies.

What happens next is probably a scenario that will track all the coins in those addresses and then freeze them once it reaches a central platform or freeze the money of whoever makes exchanges with those addresses "This will involve mixing services" and thus become coins with the inability to spend .

In my view, Bitcoin is designed to conduct transactions without the need for banks or any credible third party, governments freeze or enact laws to protect their people. "Now you look at it from the point of view of the Iranians, not the Americans" does not interfere with transactions without the need for a third party.
If you want to fully decentralize, use cryptos designed for privacy.

"Blocked" probably meaning that the government contacted multiple exchanges to not receive any bitcoin from that specific address. It's definitely not going to be effective for long though.