Topic: What happens to banned addresses? (Read 387 times)

That's not what he meant, ban address is an address that's been tagged as criminals or hackers address and many are tracking the address and once any other address share from the tagged address they will seize your fund once you try to sell on any centralized exchange, this is how many hackers are left with tagged BTC address and even if they move the fund, any next address that receives from the hackers address will also be tagged.

To cut the story short, Meaning you end up with useless Bitcoin.

Thank you for all your answers. What I've noticed is that in the end, in the threads whose questions may seem simple to some, we learn a lot of things we wouldn't have thought of initially. The levels of knowledge of the contributors are so different on the forum that it really helps to understand the issues.

You're right, for the most part, police around the world don't focus very much on "minor" offenses, and as a result, these often may not even be reported. However, if someone has lost a few satoshi from their address, then in the crypto world, as in some other digital cases, the number of those who have been subjected to the same attack can make the crime quite "big". Of course, I agree with you that we would like even more successful solving of crimes, but the trail of digital crimes is cooling down more slowly, and there are chances that the crimes of past years will still be solved.

Any BTC address can be funded, and funds from any BTC address can be spent by whosoever can prove ownership, through the private keys. This is what you must know, every other custodial terms like: banned address, tainted coins, blacklisted address, etc are not a part of the BTC protocol or network; they are terms used by centralized exchanges and pro censorship governments, and the only way they can seize your coins is if you lose control of it by sending it into a centralized exchange or cusodial service.

BTC is a p2p network, and if you exchange your coins that way, through p2p exchanges like Bisq or Agoradesk, your funds are unlikely to get seized or confiscated like in centralized exchanges and services.

What the hell are you even saying here? It sounds like you have almost no clue even how the simplest part of BTC works.

Bitcoin isn’t decentralized due to existence of private keys, you can stay out of third parties and custody without running your own node and wallets can both receive and spend as long as somebody still has ownership(seed or private keys) - there’s no way a wallet can be banned entirely off the blockchain. If you can’t spend balance anymore due to a centralized exchange seizing your coins, the exchange can still spend because they have ownership. Be even the most hated address on the blockchain - you’ll still be able to spend because of the lack of censorship.

Even though I am not technical in Bitcoin and wallet development,  I think not all wallets are bannable because I still believe that if you hold your Bitcoin in a personal wallet with you holding the private keys to that wallet,  only you have control over that wallet and that is why bitcoin is highly decentralized,  but then also u don't know if there are other ways by which the address could be ban but in the general context I believe the only way your wallet could get banned is through your usage of centralized exchange but as long as your bitcoin holding are all held in your control and for high security, you can run your nods so that you hold your bitcoin all in your custody without third-party interferences.


That is why there is a need to try as much as possible to avoid using centralized Bitcoin wallets because that is the easiest way to allow third-party control over your Bitcoin holding. if a wallet is banned it then means it won't be useable at any point and also knowing fully well that the asset therein but inherent and incoming transactions are all frozen,  the wallet may remain active on the blockchain which then means that the wallet can receive bitcoin but may not be able to send out.

Cryptocurrency and bitcoin particular is a decentralized wallet so it is not possible to ban or block the address and that is why State Governments could not do anything to that effect. All what they can do is to stop transaction of cryptocurrencies in their public offices such as: banks, schools, hospital etc. These are some of the places cryptocurrency transaction can be banned base on it that they want to regulate the transaction process or just planning to stop the transaction or cryptocurrency in their territory. And I don't think there is specific way bitcoin address can be banned. But exchange platforms can blacklist and frozen their bitcoin address in their platform and because exchange is a centralized system but the ones that decentralized can not frozen and blacklist your address because nobody is there to do that and everything there is decentralized.q

Yes scammers address functions because only them have control over it and nobody can do anything about it. Do not forget that this is blockchain and it is decentralized void of any external authority wanting to control it for you as you alone have sole authority over it unlike the centralised banking system where your bank account can be freezed at any point in time by government or other agencies because they have access to it and can call you at anytime since they know your identity.

In as much as blockchain is decentralized, CEX does not and cannot do anything unless the government through the court calls them to do their biddings. The CEX too sometimes monitor blacklisted wallets so as not to get involved with it In anyway so because that alone would call the attention of the government to them that is why they have mechanism in place to detect such wallet addresses already blacklisted for immediate forfeiture of funds transferred to their platform if the government comes knocking at their door they will have what to present to them and the identity of the account holder.

I have no seen any bitcoin address that is been restricted in exchanges, any address that is been restricted in any exchanges know that the address is under investigation and not all the exchanges will restrict the address, foe me if address is been banned know quite well that theirs a strange force behind it, but to be sincere I have not seen an address that is been ban. But come to think of it, that means if address is been ban that means address will not accept Bitcoin from any one, I need more clarification

There’s no thing such as blacklisted addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain. You can get your coins seized if a third party you’re working with decides to seize them. They’re third parties though, and it usually happens when your coins are in a third party’s custody.

Miners can exempt your address from being included in blocks, but if a miner does it while all the others don’t, it’s worthless. The best thing they can do is just make things slow down for you if they own most of the hashrate.

Don’t worry about banned addresses, this isn’t (shouldn’t) be a thing. Your coins are supposed to be free, and on the BTC blockchain they are. You can continue to do for example Bisq trades using a “blocked” address. You can switch to Monero and back, emptying the address and making it more difficult for third parties to decide who gets the next ban/suspicion.

Don’t fall for this crap, they’re trying their best to add things to BTC that Bitcoin shouldn’t have first of all.

I don't know if I can be as optimistic as you. When I look at the figures for thefts, crimes and other burglaries in France, I get the impression that if the rates of solving "simple" thefts are very low (thefts of cell phones, bicycles etc ...), it's perhaps because the police are concentrating on larger-scale thefts? But is the crypto department big enough for all the crypto scams?



Source : https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5763547?sommaire=5763633

If you follow how various government departments work to solve crimes related to cryptocurrencies, you will see that they are already savvy enough in new technologies not only to catch criminals, but also to seize illegally obtained cryptocurrencies. So the criminals get no more impunity than with other types of fraud.

Crime with cryptocurrencies initially cannot remain only in the blockchain: criminals somehow reach the victim in the real world, and the police catch them in the real world too. And then everything is tracked and proven. Sometimes this takes some time, and then it may seem that the attackers will get away with it, but often this will not be the case.

It's hard to say, but I can think of two main reasons why scammers reuse BTC addresses:

-lack of knowledge and understanding of the subject. Perhaps some people are unaware that reusing their address can harm their privacy and therefore increase the risk of being flagged.

-mixers, some of whom must not give a damn because they mix their coins regularly, thus cutting off any attempt to identify their coins.

It's also likely that some are using static websites for their scams, with their wallet address/QR code not automatically updated after each payment received. This is the case with some of the poorly designed scammer sites you see on the darknet.

Thank you for all your answers, I'm trying to understand.

Some scammers' addresses* continue to "function", i.e. to receive small or large sums of money with total impunity. Other scammers, on the other hand, will be doxxed and arrested after a CEX has given the scammer's informations (KYC).

But if a CEX is not called in by the courts, I have the impression that it won't do anything at all.

I was also thinking about blacklists of ETH addresses (see Tornado cash for example): people who own certain addresses but have done nothing illegal can no longer recover their funds?

* I also wonder why they use the same address for their scams... I guess they're aware of their impunity.

SHORT ANSWER


NO ONE CAN BAN ANY BITCOIN ADDRESS


maybe you are confusing it with tokens ? or some other blockchain ?

True banned address only banned by the "Centralized Exchange".

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as long only you have the private key the bitcoin can still be transact on-chain, and can be used on Decentralized Exchange. Mayeb you can unban by using mixing services like mixy hehehe

tho I know that some companies like Circle can ban your address in this case USDC

BLOCKED ADDRESSES & FORFEITED FUNDS
Circle reserves the right to “block” certain USDC addresses and, if such addresses are Circle custodied addresses, freeze associated USDC (temporarily or permanently) that it determines, in its sole discretion, may be associated with illegal activity or activity that otherwise violates these Terms (“Blocked Addresses”). In the event that you send USDC to a Blocked Address, or receive USDC from a Blocked Address, Circle may freeze such USDC and take steps to terminate your USDC Account. In certain circumstances, Circle may deem it necessary to report such suspected illegal activity to applicable law enforcement agencies and you may forfeit any rights associated with your USDC, including the ability to redeem USDC for USD. Circle may also be required to freeze USDC and/or surrender associated USD held in Segregated Accounts in the event it receives a legal order from a valid government authority requiring it to do so. - https://www.circle.com/en/legal/usdc-terms#:~:text=In%20the%20event%20that%20you,to%20terminate%20your%20USDC%20Account.

meaning you will not ever gonna redeem it unless you know how to mix it to smart contract who can mix without knowing by USDC team CMIIW

Well this question is very pertinent and coming from an established member here but I think a banned and blacklisted accounts are dealt with in  different ways just as a poster replied here.

Account banned or blacklisted can still transact as long as it is still onchain. As a single owned wallet it can transact with other wallets but if it transact with a CEX wallet there is every tendencies that whatever comes from the wallet would be flagged and get frozen because CEX have the mechanism to do such task.

I was so confused after reading what is being asked in the OP. Honestly, it never occurred to me that there would be any concept like banning the Bitcoin addresses. The only thing that came to my mind first is, what about decentralization then? Who is going to ban my address in an environment which is completely decentralized and runs on the public ledger? So the public? How?

Thank God, there is no such thing as banning the address. As far as the above answer is concerned I am now putting my all trust in decentralization one more time. (kidding, I never lost the trust)

However, it's good to know that this can be done in the shitcoins. They anyway deserve it considering the fact that they are platforms where scammers bloom and make thousands of dollars with scamming. More happy to know Bitcoin address is perfectly integrative.

Simple answer is, they can make transactions using the block chain technology because AFAIK, they are only labeled as black listed or summers or involved in fraudulent activities by Authorities but they can not stop them to make transactions.

I think if they will make transactions to another wallet that wallet will also be labeled as fraudulent one. This raised a question that what if they send small money to other normal legal users? I think we should ban incoming transactions from those users.

There have been many announcements made by authorities about blacklisting many addresses and you can check the transaction details of those addresses to verify either those addresses are making any transactions or not.

• US Treasury Blacklists Several More Bitcoin Addresses Allegedly Tied to Iran Ransomware Attacks

Actually, if you're using personal wallet you can transfer Btc to any other addresses even though you're using a blacklisted address. I didn't see feature from a personal wallet to be locked automatically if you deposit Btc you get from hacking or fraudulent activities. But if you're going to exchange it, especially in CEX, if there's something suspicious to your deposit address, your account will be freeze then they will check your account and your address very well before they will unfreeze your account. Even if the address you're using is tainted, there's a high chance your account will be freeze. That's why good people always use mixers just to make sure their address is clean.

AFAIK, no one can ban addresses but with exchanges, they can blacklist a bitcoin address or any address from other cryptos. They're doing that to control those stolen funds that's reported to them. That's part of their cooperation to whoever is reporting incidents like hacking to them.
That's gonna give the hacker a hard time if the address used for hacking is alerted to the exchanges. And if the hacker has already deposited using that blacklisted address, the fund will be on the custody of the exchange and the hacker won't be able to withdraw it.

I hope you haven't come across anyone telling you they can exchange 1000$ worth of Bitcoin for 100$, those Bitcoins are flagged address Bitcoin, don't ever exchange any money for such Bitcoin because this sounds like you have an offer, maybe im too jumpy, if that's the case please just overlook.

I said this base on past experience, and later I found out that the Bitcoin was actually set of stolen Bitcoin, I nearly fell for the trap and it could ruined me because the offer was so tempting but too good to be good is what saved me.

Just saying, if that's not what's happening please accept my apologies.

The one who adds the address to the block is miners, and therefore, unless all mining pools block your address, do not be afraid of this problem, and if that happens, all you have to do is buy many miners, mine a block, and then add your transaction in this block.

It is difficult to find a global consensus on a particular issue, and therefore it is not difficult for all mining pools to agree to ban an address, but the government that blocked your address can track your transactions and prevent you from depositing to centralized platforms or freeze your funds once deposited.

Blacklisted coins or banned addresses generally can't use a wide variety of services, or will be flagged if they ever touch an exchange or centralized service...leading to whatever consequence comes with the coins.

It doesn't mean the coins are worthless, it just means that there is very little chance that they can be used for anything, and that there is a lot of risk associated with sending them to people or platforms.

Technically, you should still be able to move them from wallet to wallet.

With Bitcoin, you can't really ban an address, fortunately. However, an address can be flagged by private companies or governments. For example, BTC you send to a CEX or a regulated platform can be frozen or seized, if they come from a BTC address flagged by Chainanalysis for example, or by a government.

This is what could happen if you have BTC coming from certain mixing platforms, or a wallet from a dark net marketplace etc...

There are also platforms where people can report BTC addresses of criminals, or scammers, if you want to look at an example of that you can look here : https://www.chainabuse.com/reports

You are absolutely right, ban addresses or blacklisted addresses are something you don't want to get involved with, it means that there is a red alarm on the address and any funds leaving that address is illegal, so all other centralized exchanges or platforms will sit on the assets if you send to their platform, they will seize it and you ain't getting it back.

Bitcoin is decentralized like you said, but if you stole the Bitcoin and it's known by the authority that the Bitcoin is not rightfully yours your address will be painted red (ban or blacklisted) and all those places where you can sell your bitcoin will be alerted, once you send the Bitcoin to their own Bitcoin address you are caught already, maybe you already passed KYc on the exchange? Then your identity is compromised.

Just sit down and have some tea, patiently wait for your arrest.

If the BTC-network is decentralized, then how do you imagine that some bitcoin address would be banned? Who will do it? Nobody. No one can ban any address in the BTC-network. This is the peculiarity of bitcoin, which is called decentralization, expressed in the fact that there is no supervisory authority that regulates and is able to ban.

No one has the right to prohibit sending or receiving btc, even if this address is blacklisted. The essence of the black list is that on third-party resources, a hypothetical address will have a label (for example, about offenses, like stolen btc), which will limit the ability to exchange or sell these btc on some resources, like exchangers. But this does not mean that the money on this address will be 100% blocked and can't be transferred. On BTC-network itself, there is no way to leave unfavorable tags, which allows you to still use that hypothetical address, even if it is blacklisted.

When the address gets blacklisted or banned, all the coins associated with it get the status of being "tainted" or "dirty": these are terms chain analysis companies came up with to harm Bitcoin's fungibility and try to prevent people from freely transacting on the censorship-resistant network. Chain analysis firms keep track of such addresses and may deem anyone connected to these addresses a potential criminal or a person helping to facilitate illegal activity. As one of the Samourai wallet developers once said, these companies themselves created a problem of "tainted" coins and now are making a good buck offering and selling "solutions" for this nonsense. On the protocol level, nothing changes really: if you are not dealing with so-called "OFAC-compliant" miners, your transaction gets broadcast, shared between, and verified by full nodes, validated, and included into a block by economically-rational miners. In a decentralized network such as Bitcoin, it is absolutely legal to move coins to which you have a corresponding private key.

Tether company has frozen 895 USDT addresses which hold 468,614,574 USDT
Banned addresses from Dune Analytics.

Tether Froze $300K of Stablecoin Hacked After Victims Left Wallet Keys in Evernote

Smart contracts are weapons of companies and can be forced to execute governmental requests like fund recovery from hacks or sanctions. Tether has their guide to create support tickets if your wallets are hacked.

With BTC and ETH even it banned you can always move your coins. However depending on what you did most likely wherever you send it, it’ll set off alerts and it might flagged as a deposit.

With erc20 tokens like USDT it’s different. Those can get banned and you won’t be able to move the actual tokens. Tether did this a few times with any funds which were from hacked sources. It gets frozen pretty much.

You have not cleared the question because it seems that there is no Banned Addresses in crypto so what is the true question here?
Maybe you are. Pointing in different thing but have not cleared it here.
So please edit the post for clarity .

Banned or blacklisted addresses are for altcoins with smart contracts like Tether stablecoin USDT. With their centralized smart contracts, they can ban an address, burn the token in that address.

You can not ban a Bitcoin address because anyone has its private key will always be able to move it to a new address or sweep it. It is a power of Bitcoin because it is decentralized, no censorship. You can not have no censorship with altcoins, smart contracts.

Stablecoins and Blacklists
Tether USDT banned addresses are 895 addresses so far.
PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets

There's no such thing as a banned address. A govt could say so and so address is banned and force companies in that country to put it on a blacklist like exchanges refusing to allow bitcoin from that address to be transferred to them, but you can't outright ban an address because bitcoin operates in a decentralized manner.

Please refer to me where do you read about banned or blacklisted address?

AFAIK there's no such banned or blacklisted address, but only burn address. Burn address is an address where no one has the private key, so it's mean no one can move the coins, not the coins can't be moved.

If there's such program or system to not allow any address to move or spend the coins, it's mean Bitcoin isn't decentralized anymore.

At legalized exchange a bitcoin address can be banned and then the exchange will stop any utxo on that address not to be moved out. But on a regular wallet even if the address is blacklisted say by the government I doubt they can be able to stop it from transferring those funds. This tainted funds can only be confiscated by the government legalized exchanges and it would stop it from been exchanged to either fiat currency but for non legalized or private address it can actually be transferred.

As a newbie to my own understanding You cannot transfer and sell the token or coin, becoming a honeypot. Usually, scammers often blacklist wallet addresses that hold large amounts of tokens or coins (whales) so its act like all run in normally, you can’t even run your satioshi it has  already been from performing any transaction in it

I have to say that there are still a lot of things I don't quite understand, although I try to read as much as I can.

For example, I don't understand what happens when an address is banned or blacklisted. Can't you move btc? Can't you do anything with satoshis on that address?

Thank you