Tales from the cryptocurrency: Investors may lose $190m after 30-yo founder dies of Crohn's Disease without revealing password

[Nice Guy Eddie 13269]

2 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

137 million dollars can buy off a lot of Indian authorities, I'm sure. 

The operation was clearly a racket anyway. If they had actually wanted to be stewards of client owned assets, they wouldn't have kept the only copies of their cold wallets on a single point of failure like a laptop. Laptops break all the time. 

A cold wallet should be printed out on paper to ensure that the private keys are kept offline.  From my understanding some of the larger exchanges print the keys but then physically separate an individual key into multiple storage locations so that even one security breach wouldn't allow a theft.  

I read that recently many wallets were created, each with exactly 8000 bitcoins or ~$32M each. It's surmised that this was most likely Coinbase, Genesis, Binance, etc moving coins into cold wallets. Or perhaps they were all being stolen.  Who knows.

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13269]

1 hour ago, SquishMitten said:

Seems like that story overlooks a pretty big point. Regardless of whether he faked his death or not, the money is missing not locked away where it can’t be accessed. They can’t tell where it was moved to? Wouldn’t you at least be able to see the next wallet/whatever it was moved to and try to track it that way? You could put a lot of resources into that task if there’s $190 mil at the end

The authorities/auditors/exchange only have to publicly report what wallet(s) they used to hold their bitcoins. Then its only a matter of seconds or minutes to figure out where the coins went in terms of the wallets. At a minimum you can determine if the coins have ever moved to wallet to be converted to fiat. 

Stealing or embezzling bitcoin is one thing. Actually converting it to fiat currency isn't as easy, especially large amounts. If you have to find someone that will convert them for you, which puts the theft potentially on the new person's shoulders.

EDIT: TJ is right that exchanging to the very private cryptos, would make it easier to hide future transactions. But like with any very large theft, usually the problem is that the thief can't easy launder the money and/or keep quiet.

Edited March 11, 2019 by Nice Guy Eddie

[tokamak 6321]

Now wait a damn minute guys. It says right there in the article that Indian authorities gave his wife a death certificate. Who could argue with that?

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

I know I would definitely put my affairs in order 12 days before I faked my own death.  He probably died of fake cancer.  The money is in the wreath fund.

[Fuck Tim Beck 3778]

Has anyone checked the 30th floor of Nakatomi Plaza? 

[Guest Lobo]

Yeah, I can’t belive the OCC isn’t totally cool with undermining the world’s reserve currency. 

[Beau Vine 53625]

31 minutes ago, tjhooker said:

No, because he is on a beach earning 20%

I was told that he is laying pipe.

[Parliament 13979]

1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

I was told that he is laying pipe.

Why not both.