[acdha]

New style seems more like they hold your devices until someone can crack them and/or keep you in jail without access until you hand over the keys, which a judge agrees to because there’s no other way to freeze your accounts. Meanwhile, the prosecutor is going to use not following existing financial disclosure/access laws as proof that you must be doing something really bad – and since those assets are off limits, you’re relying on an overworked public defender.

[abecedarius]

I'm thinking this is mainly an issue for the kind of people who store offshore wealth already (like the Russians this topic started with). Apparently there are trillions of dollars kept that way. They're generally not the sort who get stuck with public defenders, and my point is that cryptocurrencies could make that wealth of the wealthy even harder to confiscate.

(Yes, I did use you in the example instead -- a distracting choice, sorry.)

[htormey]

Devils advocate: That assumes they know about all of your wallets? It would be relatively easy to hand over one but keep another they don't know about right?

[acdha]

How did anything get into those wallets in the first place? If it involved any legitimate business or a known address, they know you had something and will follow up.

If it’s totally off the books, you need to flee to a few countries with lax banking laws before accessing it because you’ll have to explain either the income or non-trivial purchases (“how does a guy reporting $100k salary buy a $500k house in cash?” is the kind of thing which routinely catches small scale crooks).

Do any of that wrong, well, you probably lied to a federal agent and can face severe penalties for that alone.

[htormey]

Again, playing devils advocate, but plenty of cash heavy small businesses (bars, restaurants, laundry services) keep things off the books to avoid taxes and get away with it. So why would this be any different with crypto?

Instead of a shoebox or an off-site safe you would just use a wallet and deposit crypto into that. The crypto could be purchased using something like localmonero or anonymously deposited by a friend who you give cash to.

Crypto currencies like monero have built in privacy so it’s possible to have anonymous transactions where it’s hard for police to trace the origins:

https://www.monero.how/why-monero-vs-bitcoin

It’s also possible to obtain monero without going through a bank or showing identification (as mentioned above):

https://localmonero.co

Now I’m sure some people will be caught doing stuff like this in the same way that some people get caught today avoiding paying taxes. My point is that it’s possible to do and it’s likely going to get easier to do.

The big change with crypto is that it makes it much easier to do the above and move it across borders. It will be interesting to see how governments try to restrict this.

[Frogolocalypse]

> How did anything get into those wallets in the first place?

I think you misunderstand the nature of freedom and rights. I don't have to explain what I did with my money. I have the presumption of innocence. You don't get to trawl through my financial records looking for a crime. You have to have probable cause that I have committed a crime, and then seek supporting evidence for it.

I think it's funny that the country with the first and second amendment is the one that has, for decades, pushed the restriction of rights in money. Americans seem to have forgotten what a right even is. With the first amendment, people aren't legally 'allowed' to say what they want. The government doesn't have the right to stop you saying what you want. With the second amendment, people aren't legally 'allowed' to have guns. The government doesn't have the right to take them away from you. For too long the surveillance state has crept in, and now there are people that believe that you have to prove your innocence. Incorrect. You have to prove I have a case to answer, and I get to protect myself from self-incrimination, and you have to prove that case beyond reasonable doubt.

That is what is so insidious about civil asset forfeiture. It is civil. Instead of proving beyond reasonable doubt that you have committed a crime, all they have to prove is the balance of probabilities. You are treated like a criminal, but it isn't you who is the criminal, it is your assets. When they don't know your assets, nor have access to your assets, because they can't just confiscate the cash out of your car, your house, or your bank, you are protecting yourself.

Law, meet bitcoin.

[acdha]

> I don't have to explain what I did with my money. I have the presumption of innocence. You don't get to trawl through my financial records looking for a crime

Do you think you have to pay taxes? If so, the government needs the authority to confirm that transactions are properly accounted for.

[Frogolocalypse]

> Do you think you have to pay taxes?

Of course.

> the government needs the authority to confirm that transactions are properly accounted for.

Ludicrously false. You clearly have no idea how the law works. You must think you live in a police state. In spite of what you might think, if you live in a western democracy, you don't. You fill in your little boxes on the form and you pay your taxes. You may be asked to justify the numbers in the boxes.

You seem to have a bizarre belief that something illegal or wrong is occuring. You realize you're not a slave, right? You realize you have rights, right? You know what a right is, right? You realize the law is a list of things you can't do, not a permission list of what you can do, right?

[dang]

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html