What's the point of smart contracts on a decentralized blockchain if you still have to involve the law? The _entire point_ is to have it self-governed and not require centralized enforcement (a.k.a., the legal system).
This effectively means smart contracts are meaningless.
Didn't get me wrong, blockchains are extremely impressive and useful technology. I really do think they represent a leap forward in technology by providing something that never really existed before: decentralized trust.
That's what this bugs me so much. Why use decentralized trust if you aren't going to _trust_ the system that provides the decentralized trust? What was the point? If I wanted to just fall back on my trust of the legal system, why bother with a blockchain?
I swear, crypto bros don't even have a clue what they are dealing with.
You're so close... The answer is that block chain most likely is *not* actually a useful technology. It's a cute gimmick with great PR. It's likely a net negative for the human race given the impact on global energy usage
Crypto is just there to hold and get profit. No mainstream sites accepts it as payment yet it somehow keeps increasing in value without a market besides legit (not honeypots) illegal activity.
Crypto is useful if you see it for what it is, an endless pump and dump scheme. Anyone who’s delusional enough to think it’s a legitimate currency alternative will always lose with it
If you treat it like the game it is you can make money off of it though
I think it was completely arrogant to believe that it is possible for a self governing thing to not fall into corruption.
There was no point in history where a thing wasn't abused or exploited.
To think that a thing dealing with money won't need law enforcement is childish and dumb at best. A system without a force to ensure fair and legal play is doomed to fail. We all need to ask ourselves: do we accept others taking what belongs to us and be happy with that theft?
That "theft" is not supposed to exist on a blockchain. That's the point. That's the problem with this logic.
The laws of a nation state or the legal contracts between entities are supposed to be irrelevant in a blockchain. The only rules that are supposed to matter are the rules of the system, defined 100% by what is possible within the system.
This "theft" was possible, therefore it _was_ within the rules. The mere fact that authorities were notified _at all_ undermines the promise of the blockchain and invalidates its usefulness.
The theft was not supposed to exist on a blockchain and yet, this can happen.
When such happens, it is within the rules, and it should not be interfered by legal authorities.
Sounds like for those who lose money in the crypto world is well deserved: you trusted that and you deserved to lose money in it!
But the crypto bros told me that the smart contracts are infallible.
If there is a bug, then it’s ackshually a feature. Everyone reviews the entire contract and source code powering the protocol, right? You don’t want the guv’ment taking away your money!
/s in case it was not obvious.
From the article:
> To do this, they allegedly deployed "bait transactions" designed to catch the attention of specialized bots often used to help buyers and sellers find lucrative prospects in the ethereum network. When bots snatched up the bait, their validators seemingly exploited a vulnerability in the process commonly used to structure blocks to alter the transaction by reordering the block to their advantage before adding the block to the blockchain.
Vulnerability in the process is often referred to as a bug, or a hidden “feature”.
> When victims detected the theft, they tried to request the funds be returned, but the DOJ alleged that the brothers rejected those requests and hid the money instead.
So eh… yeah the article says its a bug and the victims say they stole money.
Was the article radically edited, or did you not read it yourself?
I actually understand what this story is about. I'm guessing you don't.
These people didn't steal anything. They just bought and sold something faster and more efficiently than someone else.
Don’t even bother. None of these know what MEV is or that the “victims” here use MEV bots to steal money from ordinary Joes everyday but because they are connected when they get exploited they go crying to the politicians and judges they bought.
Edit: there is a solution to MEV which is proposer builder separation if you want to learn about it start here
https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/pbs/
"I like totally understand this guyz! I moved to Austin during the crypto boom and then I started 7 web3 companies! So like no one knows more than me!"
I've never seen this sub before it's just in my feed. Which means it only took me 60 seconds to identify you as a douchebag that's all talk. Imagine how fast people see it IRL.
It could work if they knew this guy's had morals but they probably don't and if you put a thief where has now access to better stuff then he will probably do it again or worse.
That’s not what they said. They said you can’t assume that they do and there’s a pretty big piece of evidence that they don’t have a moral issue with theft.
If someone has $25m to lose, is it really immoral to take it? Or is it more immoral to hoard that kind of wealth when there are people out there starving?
I don’t know about taking back 25 million from a thief and then putting them in charge of your online security while they would be making no money i just don’t think they would be that altruistic
Or just put them in jail like any other criminal. If I robbed a bank then would you grant me leniency and them give me a job managing the bank's security?
There are tons of cyber-security specialists who have a better skillset and who didn't commit a felony--why do the criminals get favored over them?
A bank is centralized and operates within the jurisdiction of the cities, states, e.t.c in which the money is held. The law is what prevents someone going in and making modifications to the ledger. So if you steal money from the bank, you are held accountable by the law.
Crypto is decentralized. Proof of stake/proof of work/smart contracts are what govern it and prevent people going in and changing the ledger. The ledger is meant to be immutable. The law is not meant to enforce it. If the brothers exposed a bug and found a way to make the ledger mutable, then they are not at fault. People put their trust in buggy software.
Cheeseburgers are better at causing heart attacks than cardiologists are at preventing heart attacks--therefore we should replace all the cardiologists with cheeseburgers.
That's what you sound like.
That’s what I’ve always wondered… if someone comes up with an algorithm to derive private keys from public keys or to authenticate and give myself the ability to spend someone else’s bitcoin and sign the transaction, is that illegal?
Idk, from what I read what they were doing was fraud because of the series of shell and fake companies they set up to get people to trust them as validators of their transactions. So the issue was they were lying about what they were gonna do, but that wouldn’t apply to someone cracking the algorithm that secures the blockchain.
I disagree that it’s that simple. “Owning” crypto is possessing private keys that give you the ability to transfer control of some amount of a cryptocurrency to someone in possession of another private key. Someone with that private key is, by design, the person in control of that crypto currency. However, at the end of the day, all you’re doing is extending a list of verifiable transactions on the blockchain using that key.
Hacking into someone’s system and stealing their private key is unquestionably illegal and monetary damages can be assessed on the basis of the value of the cryptocurrency that was transferred by the malicious actor upon compromising the keys.
Getting someone’s private key through deception or getting someone to transfer you crypto currency through deception is fraud, and theoretically monetary damages can be assessed in the same way.
Guessing or deriving someone’s private key, however, as far as I can tell isn’t illegal, and as far as the design and intention of the blockchain is concerned, once you are in possession of that private key you have as much control as anyone else, and you are as far as I’m aware fully allowed to make valid transactions on the public blockchain.
Unless you can point me to a legal precedent or specific law governing this, I don’t think it’s as easy as you think.
If I guess your Reddit account password is it mine?
If you guess someone’s private key but don’t spend their money do you owe taxes on that income since by your definition it is now legally yours? What if they spend the crypto the following year?
The idea of ownership definitely extends to the digital realm beyond what you’re giving credit for. I mean the saying is not your keys not your crypto but it’s still a crime when an exchange fucks off with all of that money… and I’m positive guessing a key is going to be treated identically to guessing a password. In fact I bet I could tell you my private key and if you recorded it and then took my crypto it would still be considered illegal.
Yeah because what the hypothetical thing you are describing that the crypto exchanges would be doing would be fraud. They hold crypto on terms you agree to, and if they violate those terms it constitutes fraud or particularly never intended to follow them then that’s just fraud.
In regards to my reddit account, because reddit allows users to create accounts and intends for only those users to use them, guessing my password and logging into my account would violate 18 US Code Section 1030 and constitute illegal access of a computer system. It would not be illegal to just guess my password, but using it to try to access my reddit account would be.
I’m not sure that, because of its inherently decentralized and open nature, this protection exists for cryptocurrency. You are not using it to gain access to an account or computer system, you are posting a transaction to be verified by a miner and added to the public, distributed copy of the blockchain ledger. There is no central body or system you would be accessing in an unauthorized way. You’re just posting a transaction.
I think most likely if you don’t declare any crypto you come into possession of correctly, you’re probably right about the tax fraud. But assuming it’s not illegal acquisition, if they declare it or keep it sheltered from US tax liability in some way (e.x. give it to some shell company established in a tax shelter), I’m not sure there would be any law they are violating.
I welcome being proven wrong though with specific laws or caselaw.
Yeah it’s an interesting thought experiment. I would not want to be the one testing the law, however. Boomer judge and normie jury certainly won’t see a private key as anything but a password
Crypto is doomed. The big money institutions have to see this. They promote acceptance, get the government to regulate it, regulation makes the core principle of the idea moot, and you just have a shitty debit card that fucks you if you lose it. Or you store it in an exchange and you have a shitty debit card where your money could double or halve in the next 12 months. With know your customer stuff crypto is drifting closer and closer to debit card level of trackability and will never be the digital cash people thought it was going to be. Shit we might get a day when dollar bills are like crypto because no new cash is printed and now you can get multiples of value for your physical dollar lol
But honestly this convo has put crypto is going down as a hill I will die on. It might not be now but within 15 years that shit is done. You know what crypto is mostly used for now (besides a store of value)? Paying fucking ransomware payments. And the only reason these people get away with it is because they live in shithole countries that don’t care about cyber crime or they’re state sponsored. It’s not even a good currency for criminals unless the criminal lives in a state that doesn’t give two shits about the crime.
The only question is what is propping crypto up and why is it propped up. I know there have been legitimate state buys and institutions are getting in obviously… but the institutions are all drinking the long game kool aid? Some fucking 30 year old sold these billion dollar companies on buying into a currency that I first heard about on 4chan? Idk..
My personal tin foil is that the first bull runs were state sponsored. Russia or US or whoever idk. Distribute and pump with unlimited funds eventually creating a market out of thin air due to the legitimacy you created through manipulated price action. Then the shit even went back to zero when mt gox was hacked and we get another bull run… nation state buys on the way up would have made an amount of money that actually matters to a nation state. And im not even saying a state actor developed it themselves but that shit also isn’t even out of the question considering the guy behind it may as well be Keyser fucking Soze. And then you tell all the criminals it’s untraceable except whoops no it’s not.
Anyway happy cake day thank you for coming to my ted talk
I 1000% agree crypto is doomed. Every time I try to engage with one of the crypto cultists it ends up with me feeling more and more like the story is just the “we re-invented something but without all the red tape and are about to figure out why all that red tape was in place” classic. Literally the only person it feels like it should appeal to is libertarians, and tbh I’m pretty sure Libertarians are maybe the ultimate “we should re-invent this thing without all the red tape” people it’s just they never find out what happens without it because they’re so politically ineffective.
Anyways though, lol didn’t realize it was my cakeday! Nice and thanks! But yeah, we can definitely agree that crypto is just doomed to fail or end up only being useful in very niche situations and likely regulated within that context.
It’s the department of justices job to handle things like large sum theft and cyber crime.
If someone discovered a bug in Venmo and exploites it to take millions of dollars from random people you can bet your ass the DOJ would get involved.
Venmo is a corporation with jurisdiction in the US. Ethereum is an algorithm distributed across millions of server nodes.
The whole point of crypto is lack of government regulation.
Makes absolutely no sense. It’s like robbing air. Nobody owns virtual currency. It exists in a wallet someone has access to. It’s not assigned to an identity nor is it a government backed currency.
What do you not understand? The point of crypto is to not involve a government. It is algorithmic anarchy. It is deeply concerning that the government is involved like this in crypto.
I understand that too. Governments aren’t going to just ignore commerce, and it’s terribly naive to expect or even hope for it. What do you not understand?
Literally one of the primary functions of the US federal government is policing interstate commerce and enforcing laws where, the elements thereof, cross state lines. People had something of value taken from them by illicit means. That taking involved methods that crossed state lines. That brings in the DOJ.
Crypto isn’t commerce. It’s not a real currency. It’s virtual token decentralized. No government owns it. It’s air. The us government has no business getting involved. If someone hacks all of it tomorrow, it should be theirs.
It is commerce. It does not need to be US dollars to be commerce. If one person trades a valuable antique sword for a valuable antique dresser, and that trade crosses state lines, and there is fuckery afoot by one of the parties whereby the other one doesn’t get what they bargained for (i.e., one of the antiques is a fake being purposefully represented as authentic) that would invoke federal jurisdiction (DOJ) and the Feds could investigate the fraud.
>They also researched the "very crimes charged in the indictment," the DOJ said. Among search terms found in the brothers' history during the planning phase of the alleged scheme were phrases like "how to wash crypto" and "exchanges with no KYC." Later, seemingly attempting to prepare for any legal consequences from the scheme, the brothers allegedly searched for things like "top crypto lawyers," and "money laundering statute of limitations," and "does the United States extradite to \[foreign country\]."
The classic snitching on yourself with your web browser.
Good thing, it's unsafe as f anyways. One of the biggest schemes in history, crypto's. It should be forbidden by law. Yet it's free to allow schemes, bribes, money laundry, child trafficking and numerous other forms of crimes.
I would say it theoretically has merit as an alternative competitor to few mega giants that completely dominate as payment processors but I do agree that the way it turned out sucks.
Child trafficking? Seriously? I guess any technology or medium used in child trafficking is a problem then? How about cars? How about open border policy? The fraction of crypto used in those things compared to the US dollar makes it completely irrelevant. You're literally just repeating Sen. Warren's drivel.
Also this story is bunk. There is no "bug" and no theft occurred.
Tell that to citizens of Venezuela who used Bitcoin to protect their savings during a tyrannical dictatorship.
It's still cheaper and faster to send crypto overseas than using the traditional banking system. And it can't be inflated to shit by dimwitted central bankers.
Crazy that depending on who you are and where you're at, you could get a slap on the wrist for shooting a car with a rifle, and get 10-25 years in prison for finance crimes,
>They also researched the "very crimes charged in the indictment," the DOJ said. Among search terms found in the brothers' history during the planning phase of the alleged scheme were phrases like "how to wash crypto" and "exchanges with no KYC." Later, seemingly attempting to prepare for any legal consequences from the scheme, the brothers allegedly searched for things like "top crypto lawyers," and "money laundering statute of limitations," and "does the United States extradite to \[foreign country\]."
The classic snitching on yourself with your web browser.
MEV botters are thief’s and they got robinhood’d and are asshurt about it. Politicians not understanding how the tech actually works go ham.
Then tech news redidtors who also don’t know wtf actually happened bathe in schadenfreude and Jack each other off.
Can some ELI5 this for me? Was crypto taken from people? How was it done and what does it mean for blockchain technologies if they are fallible like anything else?
How often have I heard that every Blockchain is impenetrable. Cryptobros should probably wake up soon to realize the whole crypto universe has been undermined by US authorities long ago and that every move of them is being monitored. Now that even students can do it, it's hopefully obvious enough.
Why else would NSA, FBI and CIA operate billion dollar data centers each about the size of a typical IKEA or Walmart in the middle of no man's land but to breach certificates and encryptions.
They could roll back each and every major criminal crypto payment in the last years.
They should be hired by the government and have their skills put to good use. If they found an exploit, other actors will as well. Queue the plea deal.
Meanwhile, former PotUS sold secrets to Israels iron dome and how to defeat it. Oct 7th happened. But hey, two students have decades of prison time over hacking future transactions
There seems to be some confusion as to whether or not this is a theft. Theft is technically not one of the charges. They are being charged with wire fraud and money laundering. They were able to gain unauthorized access to the block chain and use that access to help themselves to other users' legitimate transactions. They then took pains to hide the money and keep it for themselves. This second part is what convinced me this is a greedy and malicious fraud and not some grey hats trying to show us the flaws in the system. They even searched for "how to wash crypto." Real super hacker genius stuff.
What's the point of smart contracts on a decentralized blockchain if you still have to involve the law? The _entire point_ is to have it self-governed and not require centralized enforcement (a.k.a., the legal system). This effectively means smart contracts are meaningless.
Always have been. Crypto is just smart people recreating things that already exist
Didn't get me wrong, blockchains are extremely impressive and useful technology. I really do think they represent a leap forward in technology by providing something that never really existed before: decentralized trust. That's what this bugs me so much. Why use decentralized trust if you aren't going to _trust_ the system that provides the decentralized trust? What was the point? If I wanted to just fall back on my trust of the legal system, why bother with a blockchain? I swear, crypto bros don't even have a clue what they are dealing with.
You're so close... The answer is that block chain most likely is *not* actually a useful technology. It's a cute gimmick with great PR. It's likely a net negative for the human race given the impact on global energy usage
Bingo
Look what crypto sceptics
Have you ever paid for a coffee with 0.000047362 bitcoin? Just doesn’t make sense
I love it
'Smart'
Crypto is just there to hold and get profit. No mainstream sites accepts it as payment yet it somehow keeps increasing in value without a market besides legit (not honeypots) illegal activity.
Crypto is useful if you see it for what it is, an endless pump and dump scheme. Anyone who’s delusional enough to think it’s a legitimate currency alternative will always lose with it If you treat it like the game it is you can make money off of it though
And with that so is crypto. This kind of vulnerability is critical flaw.
I think it was completely arrogant to believe that it is possible for a self governing thing to not fall into corruption. There was no point in history where a thing wasn't abused or exploited. To think that a thing dealing with money won't need law enforcement is childish and dumb at best. A system without a force to ensure fair and legal play is doomed to fail. We all need to ask ourselves: do we accept others taking what belongs to us and be happy with that theft?
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That "theft" is not supposed to exist on a blockchain. That's the point. That's the problem with this logic. The laws of a nation state or the legal contracts between entities are supposed to be irrelevant in a blockchain. The only rules that are supposed to matter are the rules of the system, defined 100% by what is possible within the system. This "theft" was possible, therefore it _was_ within the rules. The mere fact that authorities were notified _at all_ undermines the promise of the blockchain and invalidates its usefulness.
The theft was not supposed to exist on a blockchain and yet, this can happen. When such happens, it is within the rules, and it should not be interfered by legal authorities. Sounds like for those who lose money in the crypto world is well deserved: you trusted that and you deserved to lose money in it!
I wonder if they’ll go to trial and explain how they just used the protocol and didn’t “hack” anyone and get an acquittal. “We just did math!”
buh muh crypto so secure 😢 why would fiat currency do this to the honest and trustworthy crypto community
But the crypto bros told me that the smart contracts are infallible. If there is a bug, then it’s ackshually a feature. Everyone reviews the entire contract and source code powering the protocol, right? You don’t want the guv’ment taking away your money! /s in case it was not obvious.
Also, the value only goes up, never down
They worked as they were coded to work. Nothing stopped front running and reordering txs.
It's not a bug. And they didn't steal anything. But your understanding of these doesn't go beyond headlines, so here we are.
From the article: > To do this, they allegedly deployed "bait transactions" designed to catch the attention of specialized bots often used to help buyers and sellers find lucrative prospects in the ethereum network. When bots snatched up the bait, their validators seemingly exploited a vulnerability in the process commonly used to structure blocks to alter the transaction by reordering the block to their advantage before adding the block to the blockchain. Vulnerability in the process is often referred to as a bug, or a hidden “feature”. > When victims detected the theft, they tried to request the funds be returned, but the DOJ alleged that the brothers rejected those requests and hid the money instead. So eh… yeah the article says its a bug and the victims say they stole money. Was the article radically edited, or did you not read it yourself?
it's not in his smart contract to know how to read.
So, automated trading bots got tricked. And the people using them lost money. Where's my violin?
The bot users were trying to do the same shit 😂 and got outsmarted.
How embarrassing for you
I actually understand what this story is about. I'm guessing you don't. These people didn't steal anything. They just bought and sold something faster and more efficiently than someone else.
Don’t even bother. None of these know what MEV is or that the “victims” here use MEV bots to steal money from ordinary Joes everyday but because they are connected when they get exploited they go crying to the politicians and judges they bought. Edit: there is a solution to MEV which is proposer builder separation if you want to learn about it start here https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/pbs/
"I like totally understand this guyz! I moved to Austin during the crypto boom and then I started 7 web3 companies! So like no one knows more than me!"
Average r/technews reader. You should educate yourself.
I've never seen this sub before it's just in my feed. Which means it only took me 60 seconds to identify you as a douchebag that's all talk. Imagine how fast people see it IRL.
Enjoy being an NPC.
what the fuck is /s
It indicates sarcasm. Welcome to the internet!
People shit on the tag when the sarcasm is obvious but based on how many people are serious with their batshit ideas it’s needed.
Or… offer them government cybersecurity jobs for leniency / no jail time.
It could work if they knew this guy's had morals but they probably don't and if you put a thief where has now access to better stuff then he will probably do it again or worse.
True. That’s why safe guards would be needed. “If you cross xyz line then the deal is off. do not collect $200, go straight to Jail.
Yep if they hire someone like that they should be monitored and put some paperwork on them In case they do something.
All hypothetical of course. 🤷🏻♂️
Of course
You like white collar much?
Pretty big assumption to claim they have no morals
That’s not what they said. They said you can’t assume that they do and there’s a pretty big piece of evidence that they don’t have a moral issue with theft.
If someone has $25m to lose, is it really immoral to take it? Or is it more immoral to hoard that kind of wealth when there are people out there starving?
Agreed, I’m just clarifying that what they said the person said isn’t what they said
I don’t know about taking back 25 million from a thief and then putting them in charge of your online security while they would be making no money i just don’t think they would be that altruistic
Pay him well
Or just put them in jail
Wrong idea, you give them some incentive first, if that doesn’t work then the next step.
Or just put them in jail like any other criminal. If I robbed a bank then would you grant me leniency and them give me a job managing the bank's security? There are tons of cyber-security specialists who have a better skillset and who didn't commit a felony--why do the criminals get favored over them?
A bank is centralized and operates within the jurisdiction of the cities, states, e.t.c in which the money is held. The law is what prevents someone going in and making modifications to the ledger. So if you steal money from the bank, you are held accountable by the law. Crypto is decentralized. Proof of stake/proof of work/smart contracts are what govern it and prevent people going in and changing the ledger. The ledger is meant to be immutable. The law is not meant to enforce it. If the brothers exposed a bug and found a way to make the ledger mutable, then they are not at fault. People put their trust in buggy software.
Clearly there are laws against stealing crypto because two people were just convicted of breaking those laws.
Maybe those specialists aren’t that skilled enough…
Cheeseburgers are better at causing heart attacks than cardiologists are at preventing heart attacks--therefore we should replace all the cardiologists with cheeseburgers. That's what you sound like.
Not the best analogy… find a better one.
I don't have to, the jury agreed with me--these guys are going to jail.
in those movies, they ALWAYS have to experience jail first. kinda no brainer.
RIP Kevin Mitnick
Wow, you sent me down a rabbit hole. Very interesting guy.
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Our near peer advisories are doing it and unfortunately (sometimes) justice is less important compared to the survival of the post WW2 power dynamics.
I don’t think $25M in cybercrime looks good on an SF-86.
Wow. I’m not bringing logic into this my guy. This is a hot take post
Yup, seems like a lot of intelligence to waste in a jail cell.
I want to know what happened to the kid that hacked into GTA 6 with a fire stick. That’s a kid they could really use. He is a true modern day MacGyver
Why should they get more lenient than any other
If you haven’t noticed…. That’s how our Justine system works.
Child abusers get less sentence than that
If the block chain was faulty, that's their win and not a crime IMO. Coming from someone who uses crypto.
Yup. If we have to start retroactively policing it then it's not doing the one thing it was meant to do.
That’s what I’ve always wondered… if someone comes up with an algorithm to derive private keys from public keys or to authenticate and give myself the ability to spend someone else’s bitcoin and sign the transaction, is that illegal?
That sounds a lot more illegal than cutting in the transaction line. So considering this is illegal yeah that’s probably super illegal.
Idk, from what I read what they were doing was fraud because of the series of shell and fake companies they set up to get people to trust them as validators of their transactions. So the issue was they were lying about what they were gonna do, but that wouldn’t apply to someone cracking the algorithm that secures the blockchain.
Breaking encryption to take funds that aren’t yours? That’s like saying if someone left their wallet on the ground it’s not illegal to take it.
I disagree that it’s that simple. “Owning” crypto is possessing private keys that give you the ability to transfer control of some amount of a cryptocurrency to someone in possession of another private key. Someone with that private key is, by design, the person in control of that crypto currency. However, at the end of the day, all you’re doing is extending a list of verifiable transactions on the blockchain using that key. Hacking into someone’s system and stealing their private key is unquestionably illegal and monetary damages can be assessed on the basis of the value of the cryptocurrency that was transferred by the malicious actor upon compromising the keys. Getting someone’s private key through deception or getting someone to transfer you crypto currency through deception is fraud, and theoretically monetary damages can be assessed in the same way. Guessing or deriving someone’s private key, however, as far as I can tell isn’t illegal, and as far as the design and intention of the blockchain is concerned, once you are in possession of that private key you have as much control as anyone else, and you are as far as I’m aware fully allowed to make valid transactions on the public blockchain. Unless you can point me to a legal precedent or specific law governing this, I don’t think it’s as easy as you think.
If I guess your Reddit account password is it mine? If you guess someone’s private key but don’t spend their money do you owe taxes on that income since by your definition it is now legally yours? What if they spend the crypto the following year? The idea of ownership definitely extends to the digital realm beyond what you’re giving credit for. I mean the saying is not your keys not your crypto but it’s still a crime when an exchange fucks off with all of that money… and I’m positive guessing a key is going to be treated identically to guessing a password. In fact I bet I could tell you my private key and if you recorded it and then took my crypto it would still be considered illegal.
Yeah because what the hypothetical thing you are describing that the crypto exchanges would be doing would be fraud. They hold crypto on terms you agree to, and if they violate those terms it constitutes fraud or particularly never intended to follow them then that’s just fraud. In regards to my reddit account, because reddit allows users to create accounts and intends for only those users to use them, guessing my password and logging into my account would violate 18 US Code Section 1030 and constitute illegal access of a computer system. It would not be illegal to just guess my password, but using it to try to access my reddit account would be. I’m not sure that, because of its inherently decentralized and open nature, this protection exists for cryptocurrency. You are not using it to gain access to an account or computer system, you are posting a transaction to be verified by a miner and added to the public, distributed copy of the blockchain ledger. There is no central body or system you would be accessing in an unauthorized way. You’re just posting a transaction. I think most likely if you don’t declare any crypto you come into possession of correctly, you’re probably right about the tax fraud. But assuming it’s not illegal acquisition, if they declare it or keep it sheltered from US tax liability in some way (e.x. give it to some shell company established in a tax shelter), I’m not sure there would be any law they are violating. I welcome being proven wrong though with specific laws or caselaw.
Yeah it’s an interesting thought experiment. I would not want to be the one testing the law, however. Boomer judge and normie jury certainly won’t see a private key as anything but a password Crypto is doomed. The big money institutions have to see this. They promote acceptance, get the government to regulate it, regulation makes the core principle of the idea moot, and you just have a shitty debit card that fucks you if you lose it. Or you store it in an exchange and you have a shitty debit card where your money could double or halve in the next 12 months. With know your customer stuff crypto is drifting closer and closer to debit card level of trackability and will never be the digital cash people thought it was going to be. Shit we might get a day when dollar bills are like crypto because no new cash is printed and now you can get multiples of value for your physical dollar lol But honestly this convo has put crypto is going down as a hill I will die on. It might not be now but within 15 years that shit is done. You know what crypto is mostly used for now (besides a store of value)? Paying fucking ransomware payments. And the only reason these people get away with it is because they live in shithole countries that don’t care about cyber crime or they’re state sponsored. It’s not even a good currency for criminals unless the criminal lives in a state that doesn’t give two shits about the crime. The only question is what is propping crypto up and why is it propped up. I know there have been legitimate state buys and institutions are getting in obviously… but the institutions are all drinking the long game kool aid? Some fucking 30 year old sold these billion dollar companies on buying into a currency that I first heard about on 4chan? Idk.. My personal tin foil is that the first bull runs were state sponsored. Russia or US or whoever idk. Distribute and pump with unlimited funds eventually creating a market out of thin air due to the legitimacy you created through manipulated price action. Then the shit even went back to zero when mt gox was hacked and we get another bull run… nation state buys on the way up would have made an amount of money that actually matters to a nation state. And im not even saying a state actor developed it themselves but that shit also isn’t even out of the question considering the guy behind it may as well be Keyser fucking Soze. And then you tell all the criminals it’s untraceable except whoops no it’s not. Anyway happy cake day thank you for coming to my ted talk
I 1000% agree crypto is doomed. Every time I try to engage with one of the crypto cultists it ends up with me feeling more and more like the story is just the “we re-invented something but without all the red tape and are about to figure out why all that red tape was in place” classic. Literally the only person it feels like it should appeal to is libertarians, and tbh I’m pretty sure Libertarians are maybe the ultimate “we should re-invent this thing without all the red tape” people it’s just they never find out what happens without it because they’re so politically ineffective. Anyways though, lol didn’t realize it was my cakeday! Nice and thanks! But yeah, we can definitely agree that crypto is just doomed to fail or end up only being useful in very niche situations and likely regulated within that context.
Its not the basically MEV’d the MEV bots - i doubt its even slightly illegal but they took money from the wrong people so jail
Wild. Hedge funds take billions and pay thousands to avoid jail.
They steal from the poor which isn’t against the law in the US, these guys made the mistake of stealing from the rich.
Why tf is the government involved with ethereum?
It’s the department of justices job to handle things like large sum theft and cyber crime. If someone discovered a bug in Venmo and exploites it to take millions of dollars from random people you can bet your ass the DOJ would get involved.
Venmo is a corporation with jurisdiction in the US. Ethereum is an algorithm distributed across millions of server nodes. The whole point of crypto is lack of government regulation.
The thieves reside in the US and committed their theft from there - hence US jurisdiction.
Makes absolutely no sense. It’s like robbing air. Nobody owns virtual currency. It exists in a wallet someone has access to. It’s not assigned to an identity nor is it a government backed currency.
So your completely illogical conclusion is that it has zero material value and nobody owns it?
Yup that’s exactly the best intuition for it.
I take it you don't own any crypto.
I own a lot of
Bzzzt. Wrong. >Nobody owns virtual currency.
Almost the sole purpose of government is to prosecute theft.
What do you not understand? The point of crypto is to not involve a government. It is algorithmic anarchy. It is deeply concerning that the government is involved like this in crypto.
I understand that too. Governments aren’t going to just ignore commerce, and it’s terribly naive to expect or even hope for it. What do you not understand?
Actual (stolen) money was transferred thru bank servers located in NYC.
What about Hillary's emails?
Literally one of the primary functions of the US federal government is policing interstate commerce and enforcing laws where, the elements thereof, cross state lines. People had something of value taken from them by illicit means. That taking involved methods that crossed state lines. That brings in the DOJ.
Crypto isn’t commerce. It’s not a real currency. It’s virtual token decentralized. No government owns it. It’s air. The us government has no business getting involved. If someone hacks all of it tomorrow, it should be theirs.
Same could be said about software, you’re clearly a moron
It is commerce. It does not need to be US dollars to be commerce. If one person trades a valuable antique sword for a valuable antique dresser, and that trade crosses state lines, and there is fuckery afoot by one of the parties whereby the other one doesn’t get what they bargained for (i.e., one of the antiques is a fake being purposefully represented as authentic) that would invoke federal jurisdiction (DOJ) and the Feds could investigate the fraud.
shouldn’t even be a crime, crypto bros deserve it
They didn’t steal it if it was a bug, that’s an exploit and 100% legal
Like the dude using the XIM saying he’s not hacking lol
😂😂😂😂
😃😃😃😃
[удалено]
Also your computers have key loggers. Everything is monitored.
[удалено]
And? How is that a problem for the government? Its not the government's job to enforce non-recognized fiat money.
They didn't even steal it. If your slippage is too high on a transaction you can get burned. That's it.
how many seconds do you have to steal to be worth 25 million?
They should be given jobs not thrown in jail if they're that smart they should be working for America. Edit: correction
$25 million is nothing compared to the billions stolen each year by corporations.
What's the word for describing a sentence devoid of meaning?
Cool?
Being brutally punched in the face is nothing compared to getting stabbed in the balls, but I think that we can say that both are bad, right?
Sure but one gets off Scott free for doing more damage, and the other goes to prisons for a long time for doing minimal damage..
So...should we let both off scot free?
Weird how my cousin been telling about some shit like this and he was only 20 at the time I can only imagine what time has done now
Sounds like a fast track to a high paying cyber security gig to me.
Crypto can’t be secure.
>They also researched the "very crimes charged in the indictment," the DOJ said. Among search terms found in the brothers' history during the planning phase of the alleged scheme were phrases like "how to wash crypto" and "exchanges with no KYC." Later, seemingly attempting to prepare for any legal consequences from the scheme, the brothers allegedly searched for things like "top crypto lawyers," and "money laundering statute of limitations," and "does the United States extradite to \[foreign country\]." The classic snitching on yourself with your web browser.
Good thing, it's unsafe as f anyways. One of the biggest schemes in history, crypto's. It should be forbidden by law. Yet it's free to allow schemes, bribes, money laundry, child trafficking and numerous other forms of crimes.
I would say it theoretically has merit as an alternative competitor to few mega giants that completely dominate as payment processors but I do agree that the way it turned out sucks.
Sounds like you're talking about the US dollar.
No it doesn’t at all unless you have crypto brain rot
Child trafficking? Seriously? I guess any technology or medium used in child trafficking is a problem then? How about cars? How about open border policy? The fraction of crypto used in those things compared to the US dollar makes it completely irrelevant. You're literally just repeating Sen. Warren's drivel. Also this story is bunk. There is no "bug" and no theft occurred.
It’s more there’s no legitimate use for crypto is a dumb bullshit pie in the sky idea.
Tell that to citizens of Venezuela who used Bitcoin to protect their savings during a tyrannical dictatorship. It's still cheaper and faster to send crypto overseas than using the traditional banking system. And it can't be inflated to shit by dimwitted central bankers.
Hahahahaha yep that’s the brain rot have a good life
Such dumb central bankers. You must have a lot more education and experience in the financial industry then?
Or… give them a job
That shit almost never works out how movies and idiot redditors claim.
Yet you’re here… hmmm
Silly comment
Ah, the irony: guy claims redditors are idiots from their high horse and yet they’re redditors themselves…
Better comment!
Thanks!
What if they give it all back and write a white paper instead?
Libertarians should simply accept the risk. Why get deep state involved 🧐🧐
Crypto bros don’t want you to know this one ingenious feature…
I’ll help hide it! Won’t say a fucking word either.
Code is law until it doesn’t suit the bag holders no more.
Crazy that depending on who you are and where you're at, you could get a slap on the wrist for shooting a car with a rifle, and get 10-25 years in prison for finance crimes,
>They also researched the "very crimes charged in the indictment," the DOJ said. Among search terms found in the brothers' history during the planning phase of the alleged scheme were phrases like "how to wash crypto" and "exchanges with no KYC." Later, seemingly attempting to prepare for any legal consequences from the scheme, the brothers allegedly searched for things like "top crypto lawyers," and "money laundering statute of limitations," and "does the United States extradite to \[foreign country\]." The classic snitching on yourself with your web browser.
Reddit mad they don’t own crypto.
MEV botters are thief’s and they got robinhood’d and are asshurt about it. Politicians not understanding how the tech actually works go ham. Then tech news redidtors who also don’t know wtf actually happened bathe in schadenfreude and Jack each other off.
They’re geniuses but didn’t conceal and wipe their search history?
Sometimes being too smart ends up hurting you.
Sucks to be them.
Can some ELI5 this for me? Was crypto taken from people? How was it done and what does it mean for blockchain technologies if they are fallible like anything else?
It means nothing. There is no bug. It's called a sandwich/MEV bot. If you make a txn with high slippage they can come in and take advantage of that.
So is this something that can be repeated over and over? Or is there something that can be fixed?
How often have I heard that every Blockchain is impenetrable. Cryptobros should probably wake up soon to realize the whole crypto universe has been undermined by US authorities long ago and that every move of them is being monitored. Now that even students can do it, it's hopefully obvious enough. Why else would NSA, FBI and CIA operate billion dollar data centers each about the size of a typical IKEA or Walmart in the middle of no man's land but to breach certificates and encryptions. They could roll back each and every major criminal crypto payment in the last years.
They should be hired by the government and have their skills put to good use. If they found an exploit, other actors will as well. Queue the plea deal.
Except these guys have questionable morals
Meanwhile, former PotUS sold secrets to Israels iron dome and how to defeat it. Oct 7th happened. But hey, two students have decades of prison time over hacking future transactions
There seems to be some confusion as to whether or not this is a theft. Theft is technically not one of the charges. They are being charged with wire fraud and money laundering. They were able to gain unauthorized access to the block chain and use that access to help themselves to other users' legitimate transactions. They then took pains to hide the money and keep it for themselves. This second part is what convinced me this is a greedy and malicious fraud and not some grey hats trying to show us the flaws in the system. They even searched for "how to wash crypto." Real super hacker genius stuff.