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by Petersipoi 1315 days ago
Are you suggesting that the Bahamas infiltrated FTX with guns and took their keys?
3 comments

No, they're suggesting that SBF is in their jurisdiction, which gives them substantial "do what we say, or else" power.
We could call that problem something fancy like the Byzantine General Problem and try and figure out ways to solve it mathematically.
It's the $5 wrench problem and unless you find a way to land adamantium bones, I suspect math won't help.
>Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts.

It's a solved problem, and has been since the first bitcoin paper. That no one read that and just heard "magic internet gold I can get rich from" is their problem and not mine.

You don't get rich quick off the bitcoin protocol however so we have people run places like FTX: centralize and get the big bucks because they provide convenience. Then act surprised when it goes tits up like every other centralized system.

Same thing with people not encrypting their emails or not using tor as a bridge to the internet. In short: if you're the type of person who doesn't have their own key, yeah, prepare to get wrenched. The rest of us can manage our exposure quite easily.

> > Hur hur, street smarts better than smart smarts.

I never said that, all I said was that this is not the BGP problem, it's the $5 wrench problem.

And it's not a solved problem, governments seize crypto all the time and people get tortured for their keys regularly. Just a few days ago the US picked up 50,000BTC.

All of crypto is a get rich quick scheme, but people want their winnings denominated in fiat which is why exchanges exist. It's hard to reconcile "best performing asset in history!!" with "you can't get rich off bitcoin."

> In short: if you're the type of person who doesn't have their own key, yeah, prepare to get wrenched. The rest of us can manage our exposure quite easily.

You have this completely reversed. If you're the type of person who does have their own keys prepare to get wrenched.

>Every criminal we have caught was stupid, ergo all criminals are stupid.

Sure thing bud.

OK so not actually guns but "government" then. Not as dramatic though.

OP is likely the same kind of person who calls taxes "theft" for rhetorical purposes.

How do you think governments force people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do?
Using people. Governments have been powerful far longer than guns have existed.
> using people

You mean violence. Physical force. In that context, the means is irrelevant and pedantic.

So why specify guns?

Especially when they're so rarely used in situations like this.

What do you think they were using before guns? Hint: it's whatever weapons were commonplace at the time.
And what do said people threaten to use to maintain that control?
Ants. Ants that bite people buried in sand up to the neck. These Bahamian islanders aren't playing games.
What are the people holding if you resist with enough strength?
no "government" is possible without mononpoly on violence.
It probably looks like someone showing up with a court order, but government agents with the right to use violence to enforce court orders is a large portion of what gives such orders teeth.

Of course, violence isn't the only sort of coercion... but it's part of it.

No. They just told FTX to transfer the money, and FTX complied.