FBI struggles to seize 600,000 Bitcoins
 

This is brilliant

LINK

The FBI has found that seizing an anonymous decentralised peer-to-peer currency was trickier than it seemed, following the Bureau?s bust of the international drugs marketplace, Silk Road.

When Ross Ulbricht, known as Dread Pirate Roberts to users of the site, was arrested last week, the FBI seized 26,000 Bitcoins belonging to Silk Road customers. But it also attempted, unsuccessfully, to claim the nearly 600,000 - thought to be worth around $80m - which Ulbricht himself is thought to be holding.

Bitcoin is a digital currency based on a methods of cryptography similar to those used to protect confidential emails. Due to its decentralised nature ? the currency does not rely on any centralised agency to process payments, instead relying on work done by users? computers ? it is popular for a number of fringe-legal and illegal uses. One of those uses was Silk Road, where Bitcoin was required for all transactions.

In order to transfer Bitcoins out of a ?wallet?, the name for the digital file which contains the encrypted information necessary to spend the currency, users need to know that wallet?s password or ?private key?.

According to Forbes? Kashmir Hill, that hurdle is causing the FBI difficulty.

?The FBI has not been able to get to Ulbricht?s personal Bitcoin yet,? wrote Hill. An FBI spokesperson said to Hill that the ?$80m worth? that Ulbricht had ?was held separately and is encrypted?. At current exchange rates, that represents slightly more than 5% of all bitcoins in circulation.

Even if the FBI is not able to transfer the money, now that Ulbricht is in captivity and most of his possessions have been seized, the funds are likely to stay where they are. A few high-security ways of storing bitcoins, such as a "brainwallet", a way of converting a bitcoin address into an easy-to-remember phrase, could still bypass their authority, but there is no indication at present that Ulbricht has used them.

To me this is a perfect example of how greed is the thing that brings down most criminal enterprises.

The 26,000 bitcoins that they were able to get is about 3 million dollars worth. If he really had about $80 million more stashed away why is he still running an illegal website. You could cash that in and go live on some tropical island in pure luxury for the rest of your life.

That desire to have more will bite you in the ass more times than not.

There's a little glimpse into the future right there: "Brainwallet"

He had all that and then hired a hit man to kill a rouge employee (allegedly) - dude lost a lot of his fan base right there trying to kill one of his bros.

He wasn't doing it just for the money

You might want to read up more about that and no the UC was not evening pretending to be a "rouge employee"

if you dont have the key your fuck :1orglaugh just like e gold was

Is there any reason to believe that other than he was accused of it?

Did they show up with an armored truck to take them away? lol

Staying in America with that website was pure stupidity.

What was his other reason?

Btw, that rogue employee tried to extort him for $500k which is pretty lame and fucked up too, just a little fyi. Imo that rogue employee dude is a piece of shit and BOD anyways :thumbsup

I'd be interested to know what the FBI intend to do with them if they ever do crack it.

cash em in, business as usual :2 cents::thumbsup

yeah and at the same moment you try to cashout such numbers BC drop to shit

untrue
I cashed some out and got the $137 rate :thumbsup

I'm mining brain bits right now, I'm not going to be left out !

They will never get those, which is good as it would go to fund false flag terrorism. The FBI's specialty.

You cant just cash out 80 million worth of coins you would crash the bitcoin market on top of raise a HUGE red flag. There's way more to it than just "oh he should have cashed out"

:2 cents:

Yeah, but if people actually thought that way they would stop before they even got
close to a million dollars.

FBI seizing (trying) monopoly money gives one more legitimacy and weight to this currency. The more they try to do this the better off bitcoin will be.

Most people don't do things "just for money." We all think they do, but they don't. Think about yourself. Do you do things just because of the money? Doubtful. Money may be an underlying factor, but that's not why you may do X or Y.

There are tens of thousands, probably even hundreds of thousands, of people in the world that have more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime. Yet they still get up every morning and go to work. It's not for the money.

the fbi funds outside terrorism now?

why not say the park rangers do that? you'd be just as accurate... moron

He seems not smiling here:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...b-460x276.jpeg

Certainly. I understand that. There are many millionaires, hell even billionaires, that get up every day and put in a long day at work. For them the money is now a secondary reward. They want more success and they want their business to be bigger and bigger. At its core most of it is greed of one sort or another. Whether that greed is wanting more money or more fame or for your company to own a larger percentage of the market. Of course there are some people who just enjoy the work

But there is a big difference between running a legal business and striving to make it bigger and bigger and running a business that is illegal and can land you in jail.

Great domain name

Sure, but you could cash them out over time. He wouldn't need all $80 million up front, he could cash in a few million worth then some months later cash in more etc.

what makes them think he has 600k bitcoins? if they know how many he has, then they should have the tranasction data. otherwise, they're guessing, going on hearsay, etc. but unless they find the lotto ticket with the #s, how much ever he has won't be easy at all to snag.

heck, those 600k bitcoins could be 600k separate tranasactions! hah.

You can tell how many bitcoins someone has you lookup the block chain or look in the wallet files but what they dont have is the password to transfer or move the coins.

if they found his wallet. if this guy had an online wallet with 600k bitcoins though, wow.

however many he had, they were acquired via multiple transactions, 600k seems to me would be a lot of separate transactions to find on the chain and who knows how many various ways he got his, he could have been mining as well.
he could have people give him bitcoins irl via the passcode written on a piece of paper. lose that paper and coins are gone.

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

Ego :2 cents:

http://neutrongroup.cachefly.net/wss...reakingbad.jpg

Like the FBI would give 2 fucks. They would stick the whole lot into their xmas party kitty.10% could be from silk road sales and the other 90% from other means, it wou;dn't make any difference.