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Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

I thought it was a neat write up and example that illustrates an important use of BTC. A method of transferring wealth at ultra low cost. Maybe it'll help some understand better how BTC works.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Interesting piece:

"Crypto Whale Abruptly Drains Wallet, Moving $615,000,000 in Bitcoin in Single Transaction for a fee of about $3.00"

https://dailyhodl.com/2021/01/19/cr...ypto sleuths are tracking a,a fee of about $3.
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0.00008320 BTC seems like a pretty stingy fee compared to the current average. I wonder how long it took for the whale to get his first confirmation.

ETA this seems like a reasonable fee a week ago. On block 666216 there were 2643 transactions and the total fees collected was 1.28898737 BTC. That makes an average fee per transaction of 0.000048378 BTC.

https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/block/666216
 
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psionl0 said:
0.00008320 BTC seems like a pretty stingy fee compared to the current average. I wonder how long it took for the whale to get his first confirmation.

ETA this seems like a reasonable fee a week ago. On block 666216 there were 2643 transactions and the total fees collected was 1.28898737 BTC. That makes an average fee per transaction of 0.000048378 BTC.

https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/block/666216
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Yep, that transaction was on the 16th.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
I thought it was a neat write up and example that illustrates an important use of BTC. A method of transferring wealth at ultra low cost. Maybe it'll help some understand better how BTC works.
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AKA tax evasion and/or money laundering.
 
lomiller said:
AKA tax evasion and/or money laundering.
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Not at all. It's a transfer of wealth.

In the US, when those coins are converted into a physical currency, (cashed out) that's when Uncle Sam gets his share. Getting an account to do so is no different than applying for a bank account. The current "Know your customer" stuff takes care of illicit activities like money laundering by identifying the person converting their BTC to USD. Not only is the person identified, their bank account and amount transferred is as well. One thing's for certain, when you convert BTC to USD Uncle Sam WILL GET his money.

Otherwise, the BTC is still an unrealized investment gain with no tax due.

I suppose if you were to transfer BTC to a Country that offers private banking transactions and cash out there you could get away with money laundering, but that's nothing new and certainly not limited to BTC.

And as a hypothetical, if you were to purchase bullion with BTC, there must be a shipping address to go with those purchase records, then you have to sell it. If I was going to set up some sort of illegal activity that I didn't want traced back to me I'd use cash, US dollars, like everyone else does. BTC leaves too many trails getting in and out.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Not at all. It's a transfer of wealth.

In the US, when those coins are converted into a physical currency, (cashed out) that's when Uncle Sam gets his share. Getting an account to do so is no different than applying for a bank account. The current "Know your customer" stuff takes care of illicit activities like money laundering by identifying the person converting their BTC to USD. Not only is the person identified, their bank account and amount transferred is as well. One thing's for certain, when you convert BTC to USD Uncle Sam WILL GET his money.

Otherwise, the BTC is still an unrealized investment gain with no tax due.

I suppose if you were to transfer BTC to a Country that offers private banking transactions and cash out there you could get away with money laundering, but that's nothing new and certainly not limited to BTC.

And as a hypothetical, if you were to purchase bullion with BTC, there must be a shipping address to go with those purchase records, then you have to sell it. If I was going to set up some sort of illegal activity that I didn't want traced back to me I'd use cash, US dollars, like everyone else does. BTC leaves too many trails getting in and out.
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In the story we are discussing over $600 million in Bitcoin were exchanged for something. Probabaly money. Even if it were traded for something capital gains tax likely should have applied. It's HIGHLY likely that this was a case of tax evasion, and may have been done for money laundering reasons as well.
 
lomiller said:
In the story we are discussing over $600 million in Bitcoin were exchanged for something. Probabaly money. Even if it were traded for something capital gains tax likely should have applied. It's HIGHLY likely that this was a case of tax evasion, and may have been done for money laundering reasons as well.
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It's not uncommon for someone that's holding BTC to make transfers to a new wallet address without any exchange of ownership of said BTC.

Nothing in the chain analytics suggests these transactions were in any way illegal activities. If we're going to speculate it's just as likely the large transfers were broken up going to a new account opened somewhere and the smaller transactions to the other addresses could have simply been business expenses for things like monthly payroll etc.....
 
a_unique_person said:
From a technology point of view it's failure. In the 21st century it can take days to do a simple transaction.
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Assuming you set an average confirmaron fee it takes minutes to get the first confirmation and maybe an hour to have it fully confirmed.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Nothing in the chain analytics suggests these transactions were in any way illegal activities.
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Of course you can't. This is because bitcoin was designed to prevent you from knowing who sent money to whome. The reason WHY it gets used for criminal activities.
 
lomiller said:
Of course you can't. This is because bitcoin was designed to prevent you from knowing who sent money to whome. The reason WHY it gets used for criminal activities.
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If it is your claim that NO bitcoin transactions are legitimate then the onus is on you to prove it. Your idle speculation is worthless.
 
lomiller said:
Of course you can't. This is because bitcoin was designed to prevent you from knowing who sent money to whome. The reason WHY it gets used for criminal activities.
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I think you must be thinking of privacy coins like Monero. Their transactions can be secretive and likely untraceable.

In contrast, BTC transactions are viewable on the blockchain and therefore traceable. While there is no name listed for who the BTC goes to or from, the transaction and wallet ID is 100% traceable to the end user when conversion to physical currency or goods takes place.

Meaning at some point the end user will convert it into physical currency or goods, all of which leave traceable transactions to identify them. Otherwise the end user only has numbers on a computer to look at with no financial gain at all. It would be sad to know you're an unrealized multi-millionaire that doesn't have enough cash to pay the monthly utility bills....
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
I think you must be thinking of privacy coins like Monero. Their transactions can be secretive and likely untraceable.

In contrast, BTC transactions are viewable on the blockchain and therefore traceable. While there is no name listed for who the BTC goes to or from, the transaction and wallet ID is 100% traceable to the end user when conversion to physical currency or goods takes place.
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If there is no name attached it's not traceable.
 
lomiller said:
So you admit that I did not in fact say:
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You can't hide behind weasel words. The first and only thought you had about this transaction was ILLEGAL.

lomiller said:
If you think it's funny then by all means explain to us how authorities can trace who transferred money to whome without know the owner of the wallet?
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There is no need to ask me. ChrisBFRPKY has done a good job of explaining how transactions can be tracked. If you think that he is too biased then you could always check out the technical web sites.
 
psionl0 said:
You can't hide behind weasel words. The first and only thought you had about this transaction was ILLEGAL.


There is no need to ask me. ChrisBFRPKY has done a good job of explaining how transactions can be tracked. If you think that he is too biased then you could always check out the technical web sites.
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You constructed a stawman, got called out on it and are now

psionl0 said:
There is no need to ask me.
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Yes there is. You responded I asked you to justify your response. I'm not surprise that you can't, in fact I knew you couldn't.

psionl0 said:
ChrisBFRPKY has done a good job of explaining how transactions can be tracked.
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ChrisBFRPKY failed for the reasons I already pointed out.
 
lomiller said:
If there is no name attached it's not traceable.
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I get that you are hard focused on one specific point as the foundation for your objection. This is a sound tactic of debate and I applaud the effort.

However there is an important detail required for this method to come to fruition. Using the specific argument that "the traceable BTC transaction does not include the person's name(s) therefore you cannot know who they are". would have to mean that the FBI or other law enforcement agencies are limited to tracing a name only within the transaction. There is the flaw in your position.

Let's look at it this way, if I were to join your objection on this point about the name not being listed and further add that an IP address does not list the user's name either. See where I'm going?

Now I can surmise you're likely thinking about VPN software right? Exactly, but that's not the point I'm trying to clarify. My point to address your objection is that Law Enforcement is not deterred by the missing name from the BTC transactions when they trace them, the name will eventually be revealed and the transactions on the blockchain are used as evidence of criminal activity for prosecution.
 
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