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Comment by Jd | Hacker News Reader

I know Virgil. I was at the lunch in Palo Alto where he suggested "GAS" should be the name of the internal accounting unit for smart contracts. As with many of the early Ethereum adopters he was quite gifted, a bit eccentric, and leaned a bit in an ideological direction.

Offhand I can't see any reason why he would go out of his way to N. Koreans advice on how to evade sanctions, so I will look forward to some statement on his part. 20 years is a long time.

I know he was working for the Ethereum foundation recently but doubt that the foundation would go out of the way to anger the US government (although they reportedly have a lot of Chinese government involvement).

Here is his twitter: https://twitter.com/virgilgr?lang=en

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There's virtually no chance that he'll serve anything resembling 20 years, despite the almost theatrical stupidity of the crime he has allegedly committed. The DOJ ignores the sentencing rules in these press releases. Google [whale sushi sentence] for details.

Espionage cases are traditionally resolved with harsh penalties and no reductions for good behavior. The government wants a clear message sent to anyone else thinking of doing similar things.

The only way you can get off is if your trial would reveal sources and methods the government doesn't want to disclose.

First off, this isn't an espionage case.

Second, you can simply read the sentencing guidelines, which will include the statute he's charged under, and see how the sentence is actually computed. We don't have to try to reason to it from first principles.

It is 63-78 months for first offense, 46-57 if you plead guilty.

So still kinda long 5 years.

that assumes that his talk constituted a financial transaction. it's not clear that this is the case. if he was paid to speak, then it does seem plausible, but that doesn't seem to be disclosed in the press release. if he went for free (and, one would assume, would have needed to pay for the ordinary admission fee), then it's possible to consider it as non-commercial, so that would be only 15-21 months.

edit (can't reply yet): I arrived at this number by searching for USC and U.S.C in the press release, then googling IEEPA, finding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom..., then finding 50 U.S.C. § 1701, then going to https://guidelines.ussc.gov/si, putting in 50 U.S.C. § 1705, figuring §2M5.1 is relevant, then putting 14 in https://guidelines.ussc.gov/grc.

I didn't look that carefully, but I don't see the set of guideline rules that get you down to 15-21; how'd you get there?

The same reason anyone does something obviously reprehensible: A briefcase full of cash.

Or, considering this guy is said to be pretty eccentric, just for the sake of it. Working against the system. Being rebellious. Just the faint idea of having a global impact on the distribution of power. Similar reasons, aside from money, drove people like Karl Koch to do what they did.

I’ll go with the follow-the-money argument. It is almost always the correct answer.

Maybe not here. Ideology and thrill are canonically right up there with money as reasons people engage in espionage.

He's accused of trading while under economic sanctions. Not espionage.

Yes this argument explains why the military-industrial complex and war media constantly bombard us with the constant message of, "FEAR! KILL! FEAR! KILL!" They gotta send the kids to college, you know. Remember the Maine.

  and leaned a bit in an ideological direction

Which direction is that?

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