https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54833130
https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/05/justice-department-silk-road-billion-bitcoin/
https://news.bitcoin.com/us-seizes-undetected-silk-road-bitcoins-billion/
In what is one of the most bearish things I've ever read during extreme times of the bull, the US government has stolen one billion dollars worth of Bitcoin (70000 BTC) from "Individual X".
Apparently, Citizen X stole the money from Silk Road back in the day and the government figured it out and got their greedy little mitts on it.
Normally when the government confiscates drug-money it is in the form of USD (or at least another fiat). Money confiscated in this way is no big deal. The powers that be could spend it, destroy it, print more, whatever. That's just the nature of fiat.
However, this is Bitcoin we are talking about here. Why does the dirty government think they can just swoop in and claim 70000 BTC and call it their own? The government has a monopoly on drug money? Any illicit gains made by others automatically belong to the government and that's that? Seriously, think about it, because it's total bullshit logic.
If anything that money should simply be destroyed by sending it to a wallet that no one holds the keys too (example: Bitcoin wallet 12345678901234567890123456789012). Instead, one of these days these greedy little goblins are going to dump that Bitcoin on the market and just pocket it for themselves like they earned it. I call foul.
Literally no one seems to be coming to the obvious conclusion here. The precedence is very upsetting. Why isn't the government releasing this person's identity? Because they made a deal to get away scot-free and it's only going to cost them a billion dollars. The IRS doesn't want us to know who the person is because the deal they gave them was complete immunity in exchange for one billion dollars. This is organized crime at it's finest. This is extortion.
This reminds me of the pallets of gold America stole from ISIS. "Leave the gold or we'll kill you all." Really? Why are we negotiating with terrorists? Answer: because it's easy and clean with zero collateral damage. Give us the money or die... might as well be our national anthem.
It's a good deal for both sides, because obviously someone with the skills to steal from Silk Road is probably already a billionaire from other assets (or at least a multi-millionaire). I'm sure they didn't even really mind all that much losing a billion dollars... it's not like that money would have been easy to spend anyway. In fact that's probably how they got caught in the first place. They spent 100 BTC out of the 70k... oops! You done got caught, dummy!
At first when I heard about this story from other people I was like, "Wow, criminals need to learn how to secure their Bitcoin better." But now I realize the Bitcoin was fully secured and the government probably had no way to access it without the consent of Citizen X. Give us the money or we'll throw you in a torture chamber for all time. Gee, let me think. Here you go.
Make sure your crypto is secure so that you have leverage when you get kidnapped by criminals. Why is the government entitled to money stolen from drug dealers? Because they said so, and you don't enjoy being waterboarded. End Transmission.
