[lesuorac]

Sure but a court can order you to do a future transaction that effectively reverses the original. (Akin to how almost every single reversed transaction _actually_ works).

And if you refuse, they can order your local (or not so local) PD to jail you until you comply.

Blockchain still exists in the real world with its very real rules.

[lottin]

Well, of course... but if they're relying on court orders how is exactly blockchain technology helping in this process?

[lesuorac]

Because bitcoin's is on a very public blockchain so one can easily lookup what wallets received the transfers, notice that they belong to an exchange, court order that exchange to freeze/transfer the coins.

If it was done with wire transfers and etc they'd have to do many requests to learn what transfers existed while with bitcoin all transactions are public so its just faster. Imagine having to walk down to the local PD every time to approve your web search vs just doing them without that.

[lottin]

I think the problem is that knowing the wallets that have received transfers isn't enough. They also need to identify the parties that control the wallets. As far as I know blockchains don't do KYC, so I'm having a hard time believing that blockchains make the process of recovering stolen funds any easier or indeed faster, quite the contrary.

[lesuorac]

The blockchain itself doesn't do KYC; many individuals/companies interacting with the blockchain do.

Sure, for some transfers just knowing the wallets won't tell you who it is. The problem (for criminals) is that often they ultimately transfer the money to an exchange and that wallet is known. This is where the blockchain ends up coming in clutch. If you did a wire transfer of money to say Wells Fargo; the USG is going to have no idea it happened so they can't even think of freezing the money. However, each of yours (and everybody else's) bitcoin transfers are recorded to a public ledger so the second they notice a series of transactions starting from the theft to a known wallet they can immediately request the money to be frozen.

At this point USG can require the exchange to return the stolen money as well as whatever information they have on the account holder.

---

Can one steal bitcoins and get away with it? Yes!

Its just that the public ledger is not your friend in this instances and you'll need to account for it while this fact is not the case with many non-bitcoin thefts. If you commit wire fraud and then cash it out into physically currency and then re-deposit that currency into several banks there is no public way to link those two actions. (Privately one could track the serial numbers; but again private not public).