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US Wants To Keep 127,000 BTC In Largest Forfeiture in History www.therage.co/us-btc-forfeiture/

530 sats \ 11 comments \ @0xbitcoiner 7h bitcoin

The lack of advocacy for the funds to be returned to victims displays the perverse incentives birthed by the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken control over approximately 127,000 BTC belonging to Chen Zhi, also known as “Vincent,” the founder and chairman of Prince Holding Group (Prince Group), a multinational business conglomerate based in Cambodia, who has been charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for directing Prince Group’s operation of forced-labor scam compounds across Cambodia.

Zhi held individuals "against their will in the compounds engaged in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, known as 'pig butchering' scams," the DOJ writes, "that stole billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world. The defendant is at large."

...read more at therage.co

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75 sats \ 1 reply \ @cointastical 4h

Has there been info as to how the USG gained physical (or whatever you want to call it) control of the coins?

This ...

Other criminal proceeds included the Defendant Cryptocurrency, which was stored in unhosted cryptocurrency wallets whose private keys the defendant personally held. The defendant maintained diagrams recording the process by which some of the Defendant Cryptocurrency was laundered.

... is quite ambiguous.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 4h

That's a good question, I've asked myself the same thing. I don't think that info's been made public, so it's all just speculation right now.

I watched a video yesterday by an Brazilian YouTuber who's into info security and he's a Bitcoiner. He was saying it might have been an exploit using an old, known vulnerability in the primary key generation where the entropy was low, apparently only like 32 bits.

I can't explain it properly either, but it seems like they managed to figure out what software was used to generate that wallet's private key, and then they just did a brute force to find the actual key.

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @ssaurel 7h

The real question is: why is America still limiting itself to accumulating Bitcoin through seizures rather than following a real Bitcoin accumulation program as was advertised?

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @fourrules 6h

Because they want bitcoin to support the dollar, not the other way around.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryptopizzaparty 6h

Because it's easier to steal within a legal framework than to spend. Also, this current administration is a penny-pinching operation.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 7h

If they just keep the seized coins and don't dump them, that's already huge.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 5h

perverse incentives birthed by the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

I mean... before they would just sell the bitcoin.

The state:

Don't Steal. The state hates competition

There's a critical step most people never take. Realizing the system itself is a bigger issue than the current man in power.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 5h

Yes, the state is a very large machine led by one person each term, but many others live at its expense, and that is the real problem, which is difficult to solve. In Portugal there is a popular saying regarding thieves: 'A thief who steals from a thief has 100 years of pardon.' It rhymes in Portuguese, Ahahahh.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ken 34m

Oh whoops, didn't realize this was already posted!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner OP 20m

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @035736735e 3h outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.