Feds take down BTC-e (Bitcoin's largest exchange)

[2bitmarksman]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

So finding the culprits behind wannacry won't be a problem then?

 

EDIT: and all the sellers on silkroad?

If there is any link to the address used for payment and their real ID? Yes (i.e. silkroad address transaction to an exchange address they own, which has their identity on file). Unless they remain completely off the grid and trade their BTC for fiat currency in person and do it that way (sketchy as shit but these are criminals) then it would be much harder.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, 2bitmarksman said:

If there is any link to the address used for payment and their real ID? Yes (i.e. silkroad address transaction to an exchange address they own, which has their identity on file). Unless they remain completely off the grid and trade their BTC for fiat currency in person and do it that way (sketchy as shit but these are criminals) then it would be much harder.

it's alright, it was more or less a rhetorical question.  The discussion was getting confusing for other reasons.

[System Error Message]

it sounds like you guys didnt read the bitcoin whitepaper. There are a few major points why bitcoin was introduced and it has nothing to do with criminal use.

-Bitcoin like gold has a hard limit. There are only a limited number of bitcoins that can be mined and a static growth

- not tied to any government or agency. Unlike currency which is backed by trust. So not influenced by economy

- anonymous, hard to trace transactions and who owns the money

 

Essentially crypto currency is a return to the past of when currency was backed by gold and when we had no central banks or currency but using modern technology so it cant be taken over by any single person. This is because its proven that modern currencies have so many flaws and failures as shown by many economical problems.

 

The point of this article isnt about bitcoin, but rather the feds arresting some guy who kept his criminal spoils in bitcoins.

[Taf the Ghost]

So BTC-e was pretty much a legitimate front for backside criminal operations. Interesting.

[System Error Message]

1 minute ago, Taf the Ghost said:

So BTC-e was pretty much a legitimate front for backside criminal operations. Interesting.

could say the same about swiss banks in the past

[mr moose]

38 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

it sounds like you guys didnt read the bitcoin whitepaper. There are a few major points why bitcoin was introduced and it has nothing to do with criminal use.

-Bitcoin like gold has a hard limit. There are only a limited number of bitcoins that can be mined and a static growth

- not tied to any government or agency. Unlike currency which is backed by trust. So not influenced by economy

- anonymous, hard to trace transactions and who owns the money

 

Essentially crypto currency is a return to the past of when currency was backed by gold and when we had no central banks or currency but using modern technology so it cant be taken over by any single person. This is because its proven that modern currencies have so many flaws and failures as shown by many economical problems.

 

The point of this article isnt about bitcoin, but rather the feds arresting some guy who kept his criminal spoils in bitcoins.

no one said bitcoin was invented for criminal use.

[System Error Message]

Just now, mr moose said:

no one said bitcoin was invented for criminal use.

i know but many here are talking about bitcoin and not the guy who was arrested

[SynapseBreak]

2 hours ago, System Error Message said:

 

- anonymous, hard to trace transactions and who owns the money

 

Not to be a butt, but to pick apart your reply. The Bitcoin blockchain is completely public, transactions and subsequently amounts of bitcoins are easily traceable. They're not anonymous in the slightest. But otherwise, your post was pretty on point.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, System Error Message said:

i know but many here are talking about bitcoin and not the guy who was arrested

 

Because the topic is about a man who stole bitcoin and was a criminal.  Makes sense to me.

[H0R53]

11 hours ago, mr moose said:

Just another case of the world going pear shaped because technology is advancing faster than society can evolve to properly implement. 

The Brotherhood of Steel would love you.

 

On another note:

 

Finally.

 

You know why I'm relieved? Because the fucking miners for Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. ruined the GPU market. That's why.

 

So why not arrest the people who participated in those crimes? Guilty by association.

[System Error Message]

2 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

The Brotherhood of Steel would love you.

 

On another note:

 

Finally.

 

You know why I'm relieved? Because the fucking miners for Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. ruined the GPU market. That's why.

 

So why not arrest the people who participated in those crimes? Guilty by association.

Thats the equivalent of arresting the banks who laundered or stored the spoils for criminals. It was plenty in the past.

Mining should be done using fpgas and custim asic instead, Its the fastest and most power efficient way to mine.

[ionbasa]

16 hours ago, System Error Message said:

it sounds like you guys didnt read the bitcoin whitepaper. There are a few major points why bitcoin was introduced and it has nothing to do with criminal use.

-Bitcoin like gold has a hard limit. There are only a limited number of bitcoins that can be mined and a static growth

- not tied to any government or agency. Unlike currency which is backed by trust. So not influenced by economy

- anonymous, hard to trace transactions and who owns the money

 

Essentially crypto currency is a return to the past of when currency was backed by gold and when we had no central banks or currency but using modern technology so it cant be taken over by any single person. This is because its proven that modern currencies have so many flaws and failures as shown by many economical problems.

 

The point of this article isnt about bitcoin, but rather the feds arresting some guy who kept his criminal spoils in bitcoins.

Right, most of the posts to which you are referring to never claim Bitcoin was intended to be used maliciously or to help criminals. Rather, that more criminals are using bitcoin to make it potentially harder to track or identify them (key work potentially). Secondly, there's been a correlation to more cybercriminals using cryptocurrencies to con or force victims out of their money. Note: this does not imply a direct causation between the two, but rather, a correlation (statistically more criminal activity happens with cryptocurrency, we can't for certain say why or how, hence: Correlation does not imply causation).

 

Yes, Cryptocurrency has its legitimate uses, a buddy and I invested in BTC infancy and cashed out legally and reported it as capital gain. There's nothing wrong with legitimate use or investment.

[bcredeur97]

Guess I'll say it since im over it...

 

I used BTC-e. I trusted them more than all of the other exchanges; and I have used them for many years. I mostly trade with a just a little bit of money for fun; and just to learn. I had about $500 in btc-e when "it happened".

 

I would buy my coins in coinbase. But I never wanted to deal with their high fees so I would always transfer to btc-e. Not like i put money in very often... of that $500; about $300 of it was all profit money from the $200 i put in a couple of years ago..

 

Coinbase was simply my entry/exit out of bitcoin. btc-e was where I traded. I hope what they said on bitcointalk about Alexander not even being apart of them is true and they are given what they have back and we can continue like none of this ever happened. 

But i'm fully expecting to never see my $500 ever again. 

 

it seems the feds made the exchange look like a criminal organization... it was just an exchange.. they just weren't following all of the US-specific rules for exchanges (they didn't really have to you couldn't even get USD in there from America lol... only bitcoins which had to be purchased elsewhere). while certainly criminals *could* use it; I don't think that was that big of a thing on there? but I guess I'm a bit confused; and i'll be interested to see it all play out. 

Oh well...  At least I have a couple of years of experience solo trading now. though it was only every now and then. really should of made way more than I did. But live and learn!

[AnonymousGuy]

16 hours ago, System Error Message said:

Essentially crypto currency is a return to the past of when currency was backed by gold and when we had no central banks or currency but using modern technology so it cant be taken over by any single person. This is because its proven that modern currencies have so many flaws and failures as shown by many economical problems.

Cryptocurrency has nothing backing it at all besides the electricity it took to generate it.  Gold at least has some use as a noble metal, rarity in obtaining it, aesthetic value, etc.  I see the "well paper money is just paper" a lot re: CC's but paper money has government force behind it.

 

I get triggered by people suggesting CC's are some type of ideal currency.  They're dog shit.  No better than a dictator in a third world shithole printing money. 

[System Error Message]

11 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Cryptocurrency has nothing backing it at all besides the electricity it took to generate it.  Gold at least has some use as a noble metal, rarity in obtaining it, aesthetic value, etc.  I see the "well paper money is just paper" a lot re: CC's but paper money has government force behind it.

 

I get triggered by people suggesting CC's are some type of ideal currency.  They're dog shit.  No better than a dictator in a third world shithole printing money. 

i know, thats exactly what i was saying. bitcoin was introduced because of the weakness of modern currency backed by central banks and faith compared to the old gold standard that had something real for the currency to be backed by.

 

This topic is filled with too many who just dont understand . I dont mean to be offensive but just too many dumb posters.

-The criminal stole bitcoins, he stored his spoils from various criminals sources in his bitcoin exchange. Bitcoin being traceable helps to know whos bitcoins it was. We should be talking about the criminal and how he stole the bitcoins, not about how robust bitcoins are or how legitimate or illegitimate bitcoins are

-Bitcoin being the new gold replacement is what many prefer to use for transactions. It has lower overhead than paypal, and unlike gold can be transferred online and unlike national currencies is backed by a good system. Has nothing to do with bitcoin being illegal, legal, or criminal related (though governments dont like people using it as they cant tax it).

-Crytocurrency has the math/algorithm used to back it and not electricity. It relies on the fact that there are many people mining/hosting.  Unlike modern currency which is backed by how much you trust it and that it can be created out of thin air, cryptocurrency adjusts and has a hard limit (similar to gold) in which you cant mine more than there is.

- bitcoin transactions can be traced but the people can be anonymous

- humans are bad by nature. so everything invented tends to find a way into mal-intent.

Please read the bitcoin whitepaper to understand more. Its only 8 pages, it'd at least make you smarter about currencies. crypto currency is a replacement to the old reliable gold standard.

 

So to be honest and offensive, too many who posted here are dumb. Always do your research, i do always, as without that media bias and misrepresentation does stem from this as well (not solely).

 

So if you really cant understand what i am saying you either dont know english or is just dumb.

 

[CostcoSamples]

Anyone else catch the subtle propaganda from The Verge?  "This week, one of Bitcoin’s largest and most notorious coin exchanges was brought down by law enforcement"  

 

In other words, we can all rest easy now that the government has protected us from the evil Bitcoin monsters.

[ionbasa]

23 hours ago, bcredeur97 said:

Guess I'll say it since im over it...

 

I used BTC-e. I trusted them more than all of the other exchanges; and I have used them for many years. I mostly trade with a just a little bit of money for fun; and just to learn. I had about $500 in btc-e when "it happened".

 

I would buy my coins in coinbase. But I never wanted to deal with their high fees so I would always transfer to btc-e. Not like i put money in very often... of that $500; about $300 of it was all profit money from the $200 i put in a couple of years ago..

 

Coinbase was simply my entry/exit out of bitcoin. btc-e was where I traded. I hope what they said on bitcointalk about Alexander not even being apart of them is true and they are given what they have back and we can continue like none of this ever happened. 

But i'm fully expecting to never see my $500 ever again. 

 

it seems the feds made the exchange look like a criminal organization... it was just an exchange.. they just weren't following all of the US-specific rules for exchanges (they didn't really have to you couldn't even get USD in there from America lol... only bitcoins which had to be purchased elsewhere). while certainly criminals *could* use it; I don't think that was that big of a thing on there? but I guess I'm a bit confused; and i'll be interested to see it all play out. 

Oh well...  At least I have a couple of years of experience solo trading now. though it was only every now and then. really should of made way more than I did. But live and learn!

That really sucks that you had money in BTC-e when it got taken down. I had a mini scare myself when Mt.Gox got hacked. Luckily, I had no coins or cash on Mt.Gox at the time, so it didn't affect me too much.

 

I also didn't have anything in BTC-e when it got taken down, but keep us updated with what happens. I'm sceptical about them giving people their coins back, but I guess it's not impossible.

[mr moose]

12 hours ago, System Error Message said:

-The criminal stole bitcoins, he stored his spoils from various criminals sources in his bitcoin exchange. Bitcoin being traceable helps to know whos bitcoins it was. We should be talking about the criminal and how he stole the bitcoins, not about how robust bitcoins are or how legitimate or illegitimate bitcoins are

 

Aren't we allowed to talk about bitcoins and how they are used in society?  Does it make us "dumb" to do so?  You do realise that many international professionals who are very well upto date on how bitcoin works agree that it is the very nature of bitcoin that is making it attractive to criminals, particularly for ransom payments.   Especially given the article is about bitcoin and criminal activity it seems quite within realms of logical conversation.

 

12 hours ago, System Error Message said:

 

So if you really cant understand what i am saying you either dont know english or is just dumb.

 

 

If you really feel the need to insult people, especially when the only thing that has happened here is you have either not understood what hey are talking about or you have a different opinion, and then go on to accuse them of not knowing English,  then you should at least use a spell checker and learn grammar.  Don't has an apostrophe, English has a capital E and it should be "are dumb" not "is just dumd"

 

 

[System Error Message]

16 hours ago, mr moose said:

Aren't we allowed to talk about bitcoins and how they are used in society?  Does it make us "dumb" to do so?  You do realise that many international professionals who are very well upto date on how bitcoin works agree that it is the very nature of bitcoin that is making it attractive to criminals, particularly for ransom payments.   Especially given the article is about bitcoin and criminal activity it seems quite within realms of logical conversation.

 

 

If you really feel the need to insult people, especially when the only thing that has happened here is you have either not understood what hey are talking about or you have a different opinion, and then go on to accuse them of not knowing English,  then you should at least use a spell checker and learn grammar.  Don't has an apostrophe, English has a capital E and it should be "are dumb" not "is just dumd"

 

 

theres nothing wrong discussing about bitcoin, but not the bitcoin is used much by criminals thing.

 

The other bit is that some like anonymousguy says that crypto currency has nothing to back it, when it is backed by the algorithm it was designed with to emulate the gold standard before or some other sort of set rules and economics through some math. So theres been a lot of misunderstanding between what people are saying to each other in this thread and too many misconceptions without doing any basic reading first which i find is starting to allow the media to easily write biased stories that people would believe (the article first mentioned in the thread isnt what i mean, just the trend of misconceptions and misunderstandings leaving many to believing false or biased news elsewhere).

[Jito463]

13 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

anonymousguy says that crypto currency has nothing to back it, when it is backed by the algorithm it was designed with to emulate the gold standard

It has nothing physical to back it.  Is that more to your liking?  It's literally nothing but 0's and 1's, which could be wiped out in a heartbeat with the right virus.

[suicidalfranco]

14 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

It has nothing physical to back it.  Is that more to your liking?  It's literally nothing but 0's and 1's, which could be wiped out in a heartbeat with the right virus.

same with state money today

[Jito463]

30 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

same with state money today

Yes and no.  While there is no standard behind our currency today (at least in the US), it does have the backing of our economy.  So there is still a physical backing of the dollar, even without the gold standard.  Personally, I'd love to see us at least use silver for our standard, but that's not up to me.

 

BTC, on the other hand, has literally nothing physical behind it.  It was created from nothing, and is backed by the same.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, System Error Message said:

theres nothing wrong discussing about bitcoin, but not the bitcoin is used much by criminals thing.

 

The other bit is that some like anonymousguy says that crypto currency has nothing to back it, when it is backed by the algorithm it was designed with to emulate the gold standard before or some other sort of set rules and economics through some math. So theres been a lot of misunderstanding between what people are saying to each other in this thread and too many misconceptions without doing any basic reading first which i find is starting to allow the media to easily write biased stories that people would believe (the article first mentioned in the thread isnt what i mean, just the trend of misconceptions and misunderstandings leaving many to believing false or biased news elsewhere).

 

But it is used by criminals and this topic is about a criminal who stole bitcoin.  What your effectively asking for is us to only talk about the aspects of the topic you agree with and ignore everything else.

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

same with state money today

 

I'd agree for the most part, except if a mass virus wiped out all records from the reserve bank and/or major investment banks, the federal reserve still has gold and enough printed money to run on until the crisis is sorted (it won't be smooth or perfect but it will prevent a depression/worsening of the economy).  Bitcoin has no back up. There is no bitcash and exchanges do no have anything physical like gold to resort to.  Investing in bitcoin is a bit like investing in foreign currency.   

 

 

[System Error Message]

what i mean is that unlike national currencies, crypto currencies are better backed than national currencies. Gold can still be changed through nuclear reactions but with chemical reactions is reversible. So even physical isnt immune either. Ofcourse to wipe out crypto currency you'd need a massive EMP bomb with planetary effect but a massive virus wont wipe offline copies.

 

So to completely eliminate either you need something significant, but to eradicate a national currency involves people making the wrong decisions with their currency.

[suicidalfranco]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

But it is used by criminals and this topic is about a criminal who stole bitcoin.  What your effectively asking for is us to only talk about the aspects of the topic you agree with and ignore everything else.

 

I'd agree for the most part, except if a mass virus wiped out all records from the reserve bank and/or major investment banks, the federal reserve still has gold and enough printed money to run on until the crisis is sorted (it won't be smooth or perfect but it will prevent a depression/worsening of the economy).  Bitcoin has no back up. There is no bitcash and exchanges do no have anything physical like gold to resort to.  Investing in bitcoin is a bit like investing in foreign currency.   

 

 

and bitcoin has a backup: it's decentralized nature is that backup

for a virus to harm the btc network it would need to attack all nodes of the network at the same time. For an hacker to take down/manipulate the he would need to have at his disposal at least 51% of the total hashinìg rate just to be able to counterfeit records of the blockchain.