Comment by olalonde

Comment by olalonde 3 days ago

8 replies

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What I described is actually extremely mundane. Maybe you started with Bitcoin Core and later switched to a lighter SPV wallet like Electrum when the blockchain got too big. Maybe you bought a hardware wallet and moved your BTC offline. Maybe you sent some to Binance to invest in Ethereum at some point. There are countless reasons to shuffle BTC around - and countless reasons why you couldn't prove your full transaction history dating back to 2012 - none of which involve any crimes.

vkou 3 days ago

Has anyone ever been convicted for doing a few on-exchange trades and conversions? You should be keeping your receipts for tax purposes, it's on you to provide them up to a statue of limitations.

Or is this just a theoretical concern for anyone who isn't laundering Bitcoin stolen through ransomware or from exchanges?

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  • fragmede 2 days ago

    Chris Borden went to prison for Bitcoin related financial malfeasance.

    https://youtu.be/cuIRvn89988

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    • vkou 2 days ago

      Was he actively involved in money laundering, theft, fraud, or tax evasion?

      Did the jury have reasonable grounds for voting to convict?

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      • fragmede 2 days ago

        He sold Bitcoin without doing KYC and went to prison for operating an exchange. He sold Bitcoin to someone he knew was somehow involved with cocaine. I don't know how morally wrong what he did was, but legally it sent him to prison.

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        • vkou a day ago

          This seems to be... WAI. And not just a guy getting punished for doing a few perfectly legal trades. It's hard to do all of the above by accident.

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  • olalonde 3 days ago

    You missed the point. The point was that there are many ordinary and mundane reasons why you wouldn't be able to prove the full chain of custody for the BTC you acquired in 2012. It would be a real practical concern if you are a law-abiding person. If you're a criminal, it's not much of a concern since laundering money is relatively easy.

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    • XorNot 3 days ago

      Yes but the claim is those are hard to track details, and then what's described is a timeline of consistent interaction with the money which you're now planning to claim you have no knowledge of.

      And some of those interactions are taxable events - e.g. if you are exchanging out of cryptocurrency denominations, then by US tax law as a US citizen that was a taxable event.

      [1] https://www.blockpit.io/tax-guides/crypto-tax-usa

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