Does anyone gain anything from these graph visualisations? The first few times I saw one I was impressed, but this one is so huge and nondescript, I think it's impossible to take much away from it. They're kind of like info graphics; you see a few that make sense, but many more are just jumping on the bandwagon.
So the '324 is FBI on phone handset' comment, is this the FBI transferring $40M from Silk Road wallets to some other wallet? Or is it something else?
Also one wonders what is done with the 'evidence' after the case. I could imagine the FBI simply deleting the wallets but does anyone know their actual policy?
> I could imagine the FBI simply deleting the wallets but does anyone know their actual policy?
In the US, law enforcement gets to keep a portion of whatever they seize. You can bet your ass they will not destroy millions worth of assets -- entire departments will get bonuses for years for this.
Law requires them to liquidate the assets through auctions, they cannot simply sell them at an exchange, or set a price for them and sell them at that price. There are plenty of companies that specialize in organizing such events.
An exchange is an auction, but I'm sure there's some regulatory capture here that won't allow the government to use any existing exchange. There may be a business opportunity here.
Yes, that's what I meant. I suspect some government contractors have convinced the government that everything (e.g. selling seized property) needs to be done by specialized government contractors rather than normal businesses or by the government itself.
Except that it's not $150 million of seized assets, it's a bunch of electronic money that could or would at one point potentially sell for approximately $150 million if there were enough buyers for the offered digital product.
What does the FBI or other agencies do with intercepted drug money and criminal possessions? Drugs get destroyed, that much I know, but not sure about the other stuff.
Like other seized assets they will get repurposed for other investigations. When the feds seize a boat, car, or home they either sell them or use them for operations, undercover and the like.[0]
I imagine the btc will be saved until the case is closed then try to be used for other investigations, I don't think the feds would try converting and selling it.
Why not convert it and sell it? Spending BTC doesn't destroy any evidence, you'll still have a record of the original BTC to trace. I imagine there is some legal procedure to go through before they can dispose of the assets, but I can't imagine them simply shredding the keys.
In typical cases, money is sent to the U.S Marshalls, and then disposed of according to a judge's instructions. In this case, the FBI can't easily redeem the seized BTC for USD, so it will likely stay in evidence.
If the FBI deleted the wallets, I could imagine someone privately keeping a copy of the crucial key digits. A nice little retirement nest egg for 30 years time, once this incident has been forgotten. If the bitcoins have been officially deleted, it seems reasonable that the government bureaucracy would then cease to be interested in them.
At first I imagined a prosecutor frustratedly trying to convince a judge of the validity of an audit trail like this... but in reality it would probably just come down to an expert witness testifying that it is valid.
One great thing about bit coin is that all the metadata is available to everyone. You would be hard pressed to make a fancy chart like this with fiat currency.
> just a minor nitpick, but bitcoin is also fiat currency.
Bitcoin is not "fiat currency" by the most common definition(currency whose value is supported by the mandate -- or "fiat" -- of a government for its use in certain domains, but which is neither a directly-useful commodity on its own nor backed by a promise of exchange for a commodity.)
Bitcoin is "fiat currency" by another broader definition ("currency that is neither a generally-useful commodity on its own nor backed by a promise of exchange for a commodity"), which has historically largely been equivalent to the more common definition, because prior to Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies, no one was using unbacked currency that weren't supported by government fiat.
Its probably better to use a different term for the broader definition, since there is no fiat necessarily involved, there are meaningful differences between unbacked currencies supported by government fiat and those that aren't, and there are now meaningful examples of unbacked currencies without the support of a government fiat.
I understand the idea of everything having subjective value but I believe people actually mean 'utility' when they claim bitcoin has no 'intrinsic value.'
In response to this, I think of the service provided by bitpay.com. They offer merchants the ability to accept payment in dollars (or many other currencies) on their website/app and receive the payments in dollars (or other currency). There is a middle step where bitcoins are bought and sold. There are some benefits to the merchant as versus 'traditional' online payment methods ie. better security and "cash-like" online purchases. It is abstract, but I believe that this example illustrates utility that bitcoins (or other crypto-currencies) provide.
I think most people would argue that items with uses other than exchange medium generally have some intrinsic value. A dollar has no intrinsic value, but a dollar bill can be used as kindling. Even if no one values it, you can drink water, etc.
That sounds nice but holds no water. I mean, what sort of monster could not value human life? Please, pay strict attention to what I am saying about what really having "intrinsic value" means.
Gold is generally less volatile, so saying "$40mm in gold" would likely have some lasting significance. But in a month, that $40mm in Bitcoin could be worth $20mm or $60mm or something else entirely. Giving the actual value in BTC would let us know how much exactly.
96000 btc i believe was the figure being thrown around however I also saw 39000 btc at the every early stages and that is much closer to the $40million estimate given in OP.